The first Dralthi accelerated toward them, driving at maximum thrust. Over the open radio channel the enemy pilot screamed a challenge. "Die, hairless apes!" translated the communications computer. "Die as you live, without honor or value!"
"I am no ape," Hobbes replied. "I am Ralgha nar Hhallas, and my honor is not to be questioned by a Kilra'hra like you!" Blair's wingman rolled left, opening fire on the Dralthi with blasters and a pair of anti-ship missiles.
The lead Kilrathi fighter dodged and juked, eluding one of the missiles and increasing thrust as it turned onto a new heading angling away from Hobbes. The other missile scored a hit on shields already weakened by blaster fire, raising a cloud of debris amidships as the blast ripped into armor plating.
Blair started to follow his comrade's course, ready to maintain a close formation and keep enemies off Ralgha's back. But he spotted motion on his sensor grid, and swore softly. "Damn it, the other two aren't sticking around to fight," he said.
"Pursue them if you wish, my friend," Hobbes replied grimly. "I wish to finish this one."
He hesitated a moment. Blair was a firm believer in the value of formation fighting and mutual support between wingmen, but the mission profile called for the Terran fighters to eliminate as many opponents as possible once an engagement began. The idea was to sweep each of the suspect areas clean and not to allow escaping Kilrathi to regroup or summon reinforcements to redeem an initial defeat. If those two broke off, there was no telling how many of their friends they would contact.
Blair changed his vector to follow the two ships as they veered toward the shelter of the asteroid he had noted earlier. On their present heading, they would not pass close enough to pose any particular danger to either pursued or pursuer. If they could put the irregular lump of rock and ore between their ships and Blair's Thunderbolt, they might be able to confuse his sensors long enough to make their escape.
On their present course they were opening the range separating them from the first Dralthi, which was running in the opposite direction with Hobbes close on the enemy fighter's tail. That was one less thing to worry about. Apparently the Kilrathi had no great interest in rescuing their comrade.
Blair kept one eye on his fuel gauge and the other on the enemy ships. High-thrust operations burned fuel at a terrible rate, and the last thing he needed now was to use so much of his reserve that he wouldn't be able to make it home. Judging from the heat outputs of the two Dralthi, they were not using their full thrusters. They were probably already low on fuel, nearing the end of an extended patrol. That meant he could still close the gap and engage them . . . .
Then the enemy exhaust plumes started burning hotter. The two craft suddenly began to swing around, their symbols changing quickly on his sensor readouts. They were turning, but not to run. This time they planned to attack.
In the same moment, three more targets appeared on Blair's screens, closing from starboard.
These, too, were Dralthi. Blair cursed. The new arrivals had been lurking in the lee of that asteroid, dangerously close to the huge rock. Evidently the Kilrathi picked up the first patrol flight and realized there would be a follow-up mission, so they organized an ambush. With Hobbes distracted by his one-on-one fight with the original attacker, the enemy squadron could concentrate on knocking Blair out of action while he was still unsupported.
"Hobbes," he said urgently. "Talk to me, buddy. I've got five bandits surrounding me with damn little running room. Break off whatever you're doing and give me an assist."
Blair was already reversing course as one of the Dralthi broke and plunged toward him. His fingers danced over the autopilot keyboard as he programmed the computer to begin random bursts of thrust at odd vectors to keep his opponent from getting a firm lock on the Thunderbolt. Then there was nothing more he could do except wait, jaw clenched, as he watched the Dralthi slowly close in. Soon the enemy pilot would be able to match his vector, and when that happened . . .
He fired his maneuvering jets to execute a tumbling turn just as the Dralthi settled on the Terran fighter's tail. Suddenly, the Kilrathi ship filled his forward viewport, and Blair opened fire with his blasters in a quick succession of shots that burned power too quickly for the weapons generators to respond. His last shot was with a Dart unguided missile, the type pilots referred to as "dumb-fires." But even without a homing system, the missile wasn't likely to miss at this range.
The missile barely left his ship before Blair's fighter was twisting again. He didn't see the missile punch through the weakened shields and detonate over the weakest armor, around the Dralthi's cockpit. But his sensors registered the blast, and Blair felt a momentary thrill as he realized he had scored a kill.
But that still left four-to-one odds.
He did not waste time. The other Kilrathi fighters were still out of range even though they were closing in fast. Blair reignited his afterburners and tried to put some distance between his fighter and the pursuers, but this time it was Blair who was concerned about his fuel supply. The four Dralthi were running flat out, apparently unconcerned about their reserves.
"Talk to me, Hobbes," he said again. "Where the hell are you . . . ?"
His answer was a blood-curdling, triumphant snarl that the computer translator utterly failed to interpret, and for an instant, Blair thought it was Ralgha's opponent proclaiming a triumph. Then he realized it was Hobbes, giving way to his instincts and emotions in the heat of battle and forgetting, for the moment, the thin veneer of Confederation culture that lay over his Kilrathi heritage.
Then his rigid control seemed to clamp down again. "I have dispatched my opponent," he said stiffly, as if the earlier Kilrathi war-call had come from someone else entirely. "I am coming to your support now, my friend."
"Make it soon, tall, dark, and furry," Blair said. "These guys want to put me in a trophy room."
Another Dralthi was approaching, and once again Blair knew he must steer a fine line if he was going to fight. Every time he let himself be drawn into a dogfight, the other Kilrathi ships tightened the range a little bit more. At that rate, he would never be able to win. And sooner or later the odds would tell against him.
This time he didn't wait for the other ship to get so close. Instead, he threw the Thunderbolt into a tight, high-G turn and opened fire as soon as his weapons came to bear. The Dralthi returned fire with a full spread of blaster bolts and missiles, and for all of Blair's attempts at dodging, they racked up three solid hits, scoring away more than half the armor on his port wing.
Blair rolled away from the oncoming fighter, trying to keep his starboard side facing the Dralthi, but the Kilrathi pilot was a veteran who knew how to efficiently maneuver his craft. More blaster shots struck his weakened side in rapid succession, sapping his shields.
But the attack carried the Dralthi past Blair's Thunderbolt, and for a few seconds the advantage went to the Terran. He slapped his weapon selector switch and called up a Javelin heat-seeker. Blair's fingers tightened around his steering yoke as he tried to line up the targeting reticule over the Kilrathi fighter on his HUD display. It was close . . . very close.
The target indicator glowed red, and Blair fired blasters before releasing the missile. The Javelin locked onto the heat emissions from the Dralthi's engines and leapt outward. Seeing his danger, the Kilrathi pilot made a fast turn, attempting to get under the missile's sensor cone to confuse its on-board tracking system. Blair cursed as his board showed the missile losing its lock.
His energy readout showed his guns hadn't finished recycling yet, but Blair took a calculated risk and switched power from the shields to the weaponry systems. Then, determined to keep his fighter in line with the rear of the Dralthi despite its twisting, turning maneuvers, the Terran opened fire again. The blasters tore through the weakened shields, the armor, and the entire rear section of the Dralthi, which erupted in gouts of flame and spinning metal. "Scratch two!" Blair called.