fuel and shards of shrapnel spouting and spinning off in all directions. At the last instant he launched half a dozen high yield dumb fire missiles. Three of them struck, enough to cause a mass decompression at the rear of the ship and completely destroy their main thrusters. Its turrets stopped rotating, guns stopped firing and lights flickered out as the hulk drifted lopsidedly.
Minh didn't take the time to comment on his first victim of the day but switched his target to the nearest fighter and took note of Joyboy's position. He was firing at a thin, fixed wing fighter with his pulse cannons, cutting across its rear and turning the main body of his vessel to keep making sweeping attempts at hitting the enemy ship. Minh activated his particle acceleration cannons and took careful aim with his 21mm guns. “What's that fighter tracking? Anything?”
“He's trying to lock on to Sprocket,” Slick replied.
Minh's particle cannons finished charging. He rechecked his aim, making sure that he wouldn't overshoot the fixed wing fighter and opened up with everything but his missiles. He directed his fighter into an upward skid as the enemy spun and tried to turn back towards the barrier. After only three seconds of firing the fighter disintegrated. “Watch for an ejection and mark it for rescue,” Minh instructed as he double checked the combat screen.
There was one fighter left and he looked just in time to see Sprocket fire a volley of seeker missiles at it at minimum safe distance. The projectiles crossed the distance between in an instant and the enemy fighter was destroyed in a violent burst of colliding metal and expanding gasses. Sprocket's fighter careened through the better part of the wreckage at high speed, coming out the other side spinning.
“This is Dent! Declaring an emergency and ejecting!” Sprocket's Sensor Interception Officer announced. An explosive plume erupted from the Uriel fighter and a flashing red marker designated Dent's ejection seat for immediate rescue.
“You have him Oz?” Minh asked.
“I'm sending a rescue equipped Uriel now. What about Sprocket?”
Minh verified her status. Her vacsuit had logged devastating crush damage to her head before losing all function. “There's nothing to rescue,” he replied as he forwarded the information and returned his focus to the combat display. There were no targets to monitor but it was better than looking at the cold verification of Sproket's death.
“Roger,” replied Oz stiffly.
“The boarding crews and their escorts are almost here,” Slick reminded.
“All right,” Ronin addressed the rest of his fighter group, “start accelerating in a parallel trajectory and keep up with me. Change of plans, we're checking the field before they arrive. As soon as you hit the obscuring barrier split up.”
Ronin didn't hesitate at the controls, whipping the engine pods and fuselage towards the barrier and firing his thrusters so hard that his starfighter could be seen for thousands of kilometres as a bright flare. As he approached a shadow drifted across their path on the other side of the barrier.
“Obstacle spotted! Reverse thrust!” Slick shouted over his shoulder.
“Too late,” Minh gritted his teeth as he tried to redirect the Uriel fighter into a turn. They careened through the field and saw that a line of old cargo containers had been sent to drift along the inner edge of the barrier and straight into their path. Their fighter collided hard enough to overwhelm the inertial compensator systems and both Ronin and Slick were jostled hard in their seats. Weapons' fire streaked across the cockpit as the small gunship spun wildly, hurtling through a field of darkened, damaged vessels.
“We lost engine three, trying to realign the controls!” Slick announced, near panic.
“Stop! You'll only screw up my interface with the ship! I'll get us out of this,” Minh retorted as he struggled with his hands and feet to compensate for their wild spin and regain control of the fighter. Old reflexes had returned, and he looked into the direction of the spin, watched the orientation of his pod engines and shut down the stationary thrusters built into the fuselage.
A missile warning sounded.
“God dammit!”
“Countermeasures launched!” Slick announced as several high heat, signal emitting decoys were launched from the rear of the vessel.
Minh reduced all the thrust generated by his engine pods to zero, rotated them manually and reactivated them at half power at counter angles to the spin and in under five seconds the fighter was stable.
A missile struck sounding a muffled thud against the craft. “Shields are down!”
Minh nodded and opened the throttle up to full, directing the craft towards the wreck of a massive barge.
The fighter rattled and alarms sounded as impacts pinged and hammered against the hull. “Get our shields back up!” Minh ordered.
“It'll take a few seconds, get us under cover. Joyboy and his SIO are out of the fight, marked for rescue.”
The fighter accelerated towards the drifting barge ahead under the power of their three remaining engine pods. Minh rotated the fuselage and marked the enemy fighter who was flying parallel above them, skidding sideways as he burst at them with his guns. Several more impacts struck their hull, one of the main engines flashed a damage warning.
In one breath Minh verified his target and ensured that his line of fire was clear of allies. In the next he opened fire. The enemy fighter was flying in the open, too eager to take shots at Minh and his copilot. At the last second he tried to thrust for cover. It was too late. The particle weapon and 21mm guns erupted with deadly force, ripping through the simpler, more lightly armoured fixed wing starfighter and tearing it to shreds. As he spun the fuselage back in line with their course he checked the tactical display. They were down to five fighters and the reinforcements were on their way in. “Send a transmission buoy outside the field with a warning, the raiders have stirred up a bunch of wrecks and a few larger meteors.”
“Already programmed, launching.” Slick said as the rear utility launcher, used for countermeasures, mini- probes and small buoys clicked and popped.
“All right, convey orders to our group; take shots at the larger ships whenever they don't have a clear shot at an enemy fighter. They are to use this cover against the enemy as they hunt down fighters and smaller vessels. I'm taking the lead, we're hunting in a pack. Relay those orders to the second fighter group as they make it through the field, the third fighter group is to stay with and cover the Clever Dream and Cold Reaver.”
“Got it, transmitting.”
Minh marked one of the larger, seventy meter ships with several active turrets and entered a formation for the four other fighters in his group to follow. “How is our ship?”
“I'm shutting down main engine two and we've lost a dorsal armour panel completely. Shields are recharged.”
“Better than expected. Get ready to control the belly turret, targets of opportunity. Have fun Slick,” Minh chuckled.
“I was wondering when I'd get a chance,” Slick took aim at a distant corvette class ship and fired as they broke cover momentarily.
Minh's fighter group fell in line behind him and they swerved between several dozen battered cargo containers before breaking into the open, approaching the port side of the seventy meter long ship ahead. The five fighters opened fire as their prey tried to fend them off with four double turrets. One of the weapon emplacements burst apart while a rear compartment decompressed in a rush of gasses, expelling several crew members.
As Minh's group of five fighters crossed above the medium sized ship their fuselages rotated so they could keep the damaged vessel in their sights and continue their relentless attack. Lights flickered through the portholes. “Maintain fire, have your SIO's use the belly turrets to open fire on those approaching fighters. Let's bloody their noses.”
Their reinforcements arrived, emerging through the barrier like a fire storm as they narrowly avoided drifting wreckage and opened fire on any targets of opportunity. “Buster here with 2nd squad. Orders are to pack hunt on smaller vessels and to take shots on larger targets of opportunity,” reported Sonya, one of Minh's squad leaders.
“Welcome to the show Buster! I'm marking a nice, juicy target for you,” Minh said as he marked a one hundred nine meter long, half octagon shaped vessel closing on his fighter group. There were four fighters flying in
