"Thanks, boss. Okay, ladies. I want a tight box at one K out. You know your positions. Make no mistake, they've been trained the same as us and know all the tricks. Exploit their errors. We'll let them beat themselves. They'll probably jam the Claw's long-range scans, so if anyone catches sight of or reads a tube door opening, inform me ASAP."
"Thought she wouldn't target this planet?" Bishop asked.
"We don't think she will. But if Aristee knows she's going to die, she might want to save her homeworld by destroying it," Angel said, emphasizing the irony.
"So let her," Hunter argued. "My universe could use a few less fanatics."
"The Confed recognizes McDaniel as neutral territory and has agreed to come to the aid of her citizens should the Kilrathi or any other hostile force attack," Angel reminded him. "So everybody stow your bigotry and do your jobs. Hunter? Bishop? Line 'em up."
Maniac let his head fall back on the seat. No, he wouldn't wait long for the battle, but he still had to wait to launch with Zarya. He pulled up her private frequency, flashed her a wink with the eye that wasn't covered by his HUD viewer. "Hey, I just wanted to say that you're the best looking wingman I've ever had."
"What about Rosie Forbes?" she challenged, cocking a brow.
He faltered. "She was beautiful. But in a different way."
"What way?"
"Bad timing for this chat, eh?"
"Not at all," she insisted.
"Look, Rosie got smoked, and I really don't want to talk about it-especially now."
"I'm not Rosie."
"Jeez, you had me fooled."
"Do you know what a soft monkey is?"
"Yeah, it's no fun at all."
"Listen, wiseass, when a mother chimp loses one of her babies, sometimes zookeepers give her a chimp doll to help her deal with the grief. It's a very old remedy, but usually very effective. I think you're still grieving. And I'm your soft monkey."
He snorted, then the laughter came out full and hard. "I've heard some pretty wacky stuff, but-"
"You're beyond reproach." The VDU snapped into darkness.
Swearing, Maniac slammed down the reconnect button, and Zarya appeared, gaze averted. "I'm sorry," he said. "I get what you're saying. Call me immature, but the monkey thing sounds funny. Maybe I'm still grieving, on the rebound, whatever. But I like being with you. Can that be enough for now?"
"I guess so. But you won't have me until your head's clear. Until it's right."
His heart sank. A week's worth of fierce wooing to get her into his rack had just gone by the wayside.
"Lieutenants Marshall and Rolitov, flight control. You're clear for launch, copy?" Boss Raznick said, breaking into their private link. Maniac hadn't known the boss could do that; he'd have to be more careful about what he said.
"Copy that, boss," responded Zarya, her tone forceful and all business, ringing quite sexily in Maniac's ears. "Clock stands at ten seconds."
They lined up beside each other, and Maniac flashed her a tentative thumbs up before saluting Deck Boss Peterson. He watched the numbers spin down in his HUD, spotted the green launch light, then slammed the throttles forward. He and Zarya roared through the flight deck and impaled the curtain of sodden energy like the sword whose name their fighters bore. The two Rapiers streaked over the runway that split the Tiger Claw in two. Dark gray bulkheads broken by maintenance planes blurred into dull, watery streaks narrowing toward a disk of stars.
"Attack vector set. Switching to auto for five-second burn to regroup and box," Zarya announced.
"Roger, that. In three, two, one." Maniac kicked in his afterburners while simultaneously engaging the autopilot. The fighter climbed sixty degrees away from the Claw and toward a tableau dominated by McDaniel's World and the three moons.
Were it not for human intervention, Maniac could've mistaken the view for a painting of celestial serenity by that famous Japanese artist whose name continually escaped him. But Rapiers cut viciously across the canvas, long tails of exhaust drawing straight, even lines in an otherwise curved natural environment. At the moment, McDaniel's smallest moon shied behind the planet, only a crescent still visible. The second moon hung to port, a pale white, perfectly shaped orb with a massive crater near its north pole. The target moon, Lyatta, orbited on a steep incline relative to McDaniel's path around its sun, and the moon's many craters afforded the supercruiser's fighters with excellent cover in which to stage an ambush.
"Burn complete," Maniac told Zarya.
"Copy. Going manual to form up."
Directly ahead, the other Rapiers of Black Lion Squadron had already assumed four of the eight distinct positions that comprised the box formation. Four points represented the top of the box and resembled the corners of a square. Another square would sit about twenty meters back, just beyond the forward square's thruster wash. He and Zarya would assume the base angles of the second square, with Angel and Gangsta taking the top. Angel liked the formation since it gave some of them a millisecond or two to jump once the furball hit. The side of the box closest to the incoming fighters would break first, and the other sides would follow in succession.
Breaking a box formation was much easier than, say, a wedge, which gave you fewer vectors along your three and nine o'clock and more opportunities to crash into your neighbors. Better to be blown out of sky by an opponent than make a stupid course correction and buy it. Maniac had known two cadets who had need-lessly lost their lives while breaking from a wedge. He remembered them now as he eased off the throttle and descended into position. He tossed a look at Zarya, but she didn't see him, her gaze sweeping her instruments. He had to hand it to her. When it came to business, she was nothing but.
Two blips lit the bottom of Maniac's radar scope and closed toward the center. The Tempest system immediately IDed them as Angel and Gangsta soaring toward their positions. Maniac glanced up at the belly of Angel's jet as she throttled down to match the squadron's velocity.
"All right, mates. Got some of our spiritual buddies inbound," Hunter reported. "Count nine bandits targeting Lightning's squadron."
"Adjust course to intercept," Angel ordered.
Maniac squinted to his two o'clock, where a bright spattering of thruster lights headed toward the big moon. That would be Lightning's Squadron: twelve Rapiers running escort for the half dozen Broadsword bombers whose blunt noses and boxy wings hinted at their lack of evasion capacity. If Lightning's team could get those bombers in close enough, they could release their massive quartet of over- and underwing antimatter torpedoes. If the Olympus's big guns or fighters failed to intercept just one of those torpedoes, she might suffer a blow serious enough to cost her the entire battle. Captain Amity Aristee obviously knew that, and she would direct most of her fighters to intercept the bomber squadrons, while holding back a squadron or two in reserve for any bombers that penetrated her defenses.
Jinxman's escort team of twenty Rapiers and another six bombers approached the moon from Maniac's five o'clock. They would slip under the satellite and catch the supercruiser from below. But Maniac spotted a pack of thirteen enemy Rapiers buzzing toward them.
The sixteen Rapiers of Sixth Squadron were quick to react and bulleted under Maniac's fighter, in pursuit of the bandits that had tagged Jinxman's people.
Meanwhile, the Exeter-class destroyers Oregon and Mitchell
Hammock assumed flanking positions of the Tiger Claw and lumbered toward the moon on full impulse. At three hundred and sixty meters, they achieved a maximum velocity of one hundred and fifty kilometers per second, respectable for vessels of their size. With bows shaped like narrow isosceles triangles and pairs of short wings that swept back toward their sterns, the destroyers resembled glistening javelins honing themselves on space itself. Their eight turreted meson guns and two dozen torpedo tubes dispelled any. rumors of their weakness. At the right moment, they would come in from three and nine o'clock positions and descend upon the supercruiser in an attempt to cut it off, though they had been wisely instructed to remain behind the ship and outside the five-hundred-meter gravitic cloak created by the Olympus's hopper drive.