The second was that he would finally be free of the Red Corsair!
* * *
"Watch it, Raven Deuce, open up," Caitlin snarled into her radio as Mulligan's Stingraystrayed in close to her fighter. Seeing his fighter jerk ahead as he hit the overthrusters, she dropped back to cover him in case the bandits launched fighters of their own. Spinning asteroids whirled strobelike through sun and shadow, reducing the channel to a surreal tunnel with a firestorm at the far end.
"I'm in!" Mulligan's words echoed through her helmet as he flipped his Stingrayup on its canopy in a tight roll, and made a run on the Lioness.His wing-mounted medium and large lasers flashed out with competing red and green shafts of energy, raking like claws through the armor of the egg-shaped DropShip, then the PPC in the Stingray'snose jolted the larger ship with an azure bolt of artificial lightning.
Caitlin had less than a second to appreciate Mulligan's handiwork before her own attack run started. She dropped her golden crosshairs onto the ship and, immediately got the gold dot in the center, confirming a target lock. She punched her thumb down on the joystick's firing stud, and heat spiked colorfully on her auxiliary monitor. The PPC sent a jagged blue line of lightning into the Lioness.
Hitting the trigger under her index finger, Caitlin next fired both large lasers, pushing her ship's heat higher. The fighter's green beams bracketed the PPC blast and melted away yet more armor on the DropShip's hull.
"Nice shooting, Cait!" Mulligan corkscrewed his fighter down through the death alley between the two DropShips, and she followed in his wake. "Another run?"
"Roger, Raven Two." She remembered Phelan's instructions to the pilots. "Whatever it takes."
* * *
Nelson ran as hard as he could through the corridor, the klaxons harrying him like hunting horns after a fox. I will escape!He threaded his way through the ship, running counter to the ship's rotation. Glancing at letters stenciled on the wall, he knew he was only two segments away from his goal.
Suddenly a huge explosion rocked the Tigress,smashing him against the interior bulkhead. He saw stars when he hit his forehead, then rebounded and sprawled on the deck? Darkness wanted to close around him, but he forced it away. Pushing himself to a sitting position, Nelson felt blood dripping down from the gash on his head, but his adrenaline and sense of urgency blocked any pain.
The Tigresstipped on its axis, pitching the deck up. Nelson, grabbed a structural girder and held on, then pulled himself forward. Sinking to his hands and knees, he scrambled uphill, then somersaulted forward as the ship violently righted itself. A wave of dizziness passed over him, then he regained his feet and started running forward again.
Around the curve of the ship he saw the access hatch to the escape pod. He ran to it and slammed his right palm down on the panel switch to open it. The hatch irised open, revealing the dark interior of the womblike pod.
As he started to step into it, a bandit grabbed the upper part of his left arm and pulled him away. "Where do you think you'regoing?"
Nelson slumped his shoulders in defeat, then balled his maimed fist. He swung it down in a short arc that terminated in the bandit's groin. As the man squealed and bent over, Nelson brought his right knee up. The man's nose shattered in a spray of blood, then he dropped to the deck.
Nelson pulled the pistol from the bandit's holster and pumped two bullets into him. Clutching the gun and scanning the corridor in both directions, he backed into the pod. He used the gun barrel to punch the button that closed the hatch, then he felt his ears pop as the pod pressurized. He reached out with his half-hand and hit the launch sequencer.
"Countdown commencing. Ten, nine, eight . . . ," droned a computer voice.
Nelson heard a thumping on the pod hatch, followed by the sight of a face pressed against the glass. He pointed the gun at it. "Override. Launch immediately."
"Affirmative."
Heavily padded panels slid down over the hatch and the controls. Three small explosions rippled through the pod, then he sank deeply into the padding as one final blast hurled the pod out and away from the Tigress.The rocket motor's roar filled the pod, rattling Nelson's teeth and making his ears ring, but he couldn't have been happier.
I'm free. I can go home again.The pod's viewport pads retracted, giving him a central view of the space battle raging around the DropShips. I can go home again, but only if I survive the attempt to kill the Red Corsair and all her people.
* * *
Caitlin had a bad feeling as Mulligan turned around to make the second run. He pushed his speed for going back, which did not make much sense because the DropShips were coming toward them. She knew Mulligan was addicted to velocity and he obviously thought that the DropShips were not a danger. "Careful, Raven Deuce."
"Roger, Raven Leader. I'm going in."
Despite the excitement in his voice, Caitlin knew Mulligan was being careful and she had come to respect his abilities ever since they'd been paired in the squadron. He brought his ship over and around in a barrel roll that lined him up perfectly on the Tigressand then onto her sister ship.
She smiled and pushed her fighter after him as Mulligan burned in close and skimmed the surface of the Tigress.Their laser and PPC shots burned parallel paths through the ship's armor, and she saw one autocannon turret flame out as their PPC beams met at its location. "Deuce, your nine!"
The escape pod looked like a comet as it streaked up and away from the Tigress.Mulligan rolled down and away from it, but sailed directly into the spreading debris cloud from the autocannon turret they'd taken out. Caitlin saw something hit his Stingray,then he spun away and flashed on toward the Lioness.
For an instant or two as she chased him, Caitlin thought Mulligan was in command and just finishing up his attack run. As she came around onto his aft, however, she saw damage, to his left wing and a jammed vector-thruster. "Clear, Mulligan. You've lost maneuvering on port."
Getting no response, she pushed herself forward just enough to see that his cockpit was gone, then she pulled up and away from the Lioness.She popped up on her left wing, then came down and through in a loop that shifted her perpendicular to her previous course. She let the change stand for three seconds, then rolled up on her right wing and reversed the maneuver to take her in a circular course outside the Lioness'lethal perimeter.
Mulligan's fighter arrowed into the Lionessnear the ion engines, and went from being a small pellet of steel and ceramics to a boiling ball of plasma. At first the bright blossom of fire seemed far too small to have affected the ship, and even the amount of debris that geysered out into space through the hole it left behind hardly seemed fatal. Caitlin shuddered, thinking her friend's death should have counted for more.
Then one of the DropShip's four ion engines winked out, making the Lionessbegin to spin faster and start to wobble in its course. The rotation picked up speed, which smoothed out the course irregularities, but when the directional rockets fired to bring that back under control, the ovoid craft twisted in its axis and the two ends began to circle out of sync with each other.