bunch of flight vectors jumped around in her virtual mindview, showing the flight paths of the Gomers, how they intercepted with Stinky and TigerLady, and where she and Dragon could converge on them and take them out. The red and blue lines twisted around and around each other in a confusing mess that looked like a sky full of multicolored spaghetti. The spaghetti was sinewy and tied up in knots with itself and was damned near indecipherable.
Most of the flight solutions vanished. There were three left that showed where they could get the drop on the enemy fighters if they did it right.
'Okay, Dragon, hold on to your ass and follow me in. Don't underestimate your kinetic energy or we'll overshoot them. We don't want to do that until we've mixed them up. Stay on my wing, but barrel-roll for the shot if you can get it.'
'Roger that, Commander!'
Fish continued to push the throttle forward, but it just wouldn't go any farther. She jinked and juked through the attack pattern that Spike had laid out for her, sticking to it like a magic spell. A couple times it looked like if she stuck with the precalculated spell she'd turn into a frog, a dead bloody one at that, so she made up shit when that happened. She didn't turn into a fairy princess, but in a furball like this one she'd settle for 'boat cute.' If her plan worked, she was sure Stinky and TigerLady would think of her as at least 'boat cute' and likely even queen of the fucking dance.
'I'm locked up!' Stinky shouted. The enemy Gnats had just about managed to drop in directly behind his six and put a bead on him and TigerLady. Seppy tracer rounds plowed through the space all around Stinky's mecha, and a few of them hit the rear portion of his empennage, rocking him pitch forward a bit, but he was lucky. His SIFs and armor plating held, and he managed to keep control of his fighter.
'You two wheel each other, damnit!' she ordered them. The two started barrel rolling in and out and around each other, hoping to confuse the enemy targeting systems. The constant barrel rolls made them look like a big wheel rotating in space out in front of her.
'They're too close, Fish!' TigerLady shouted.
'All right, goddamn it! Pull into the shortest downward bank you can stand,
'Roger that! Banking down!' the two pilots shouted and grunted and cursed and grunted some more.
Stinky's mecha dove into a very tight downward turn. The g- forces on him would push him to the brink of blacking out. Fish had done that maneuver hundreds of times and she knew that about then Stinky's seat would be several inches up his ass and his butt cheeks would be clenched as tight as he could get them. TigerLady, on the other hand, barrel-rolled over and around Stinky's mecha while staying with Stinky's vector. She continued in a wheel about him, and what she did next showed brilliance, superhuman stamina to withstand ungodly g-loads, and balls the size of the Jovian moons. She went to bot mode while keeping the same wheel vector about Stinky's downward roll-out.
'Damnit, TigerLady, what the fuck are you doing!' Dragon shouted.
Fish didn't think that the young pilot could take that kind of pressure for long. One of the enemy Gnats open fired with its cannon, and tracers lanced between Stinky and TigerLady, missing them both. Then another opened fired, but missed again. It was a good thing those Seppy Gomers weren't very good pilots, or things could have been a whole lot worse. As it was, a couple rounds pinged against TigerLady's hull plating, but they were glancing shots, and did little damage. Her bot-mode mecha yawed around to face her pursuers, and she opened fire with both forearm cannons.
'Aarrrrgggh! Guns, guns, guns!' TigerLady shouted. 'Get off my ass, goddamnit!'
'Lookout!' Fish screamed through her bite block as friendly tracer rounds missed the enemy Gnats and flashed just past her cockpit. 'Watch your firing solutions for blue on blue, goddamnit!'
'Fox three!'Dragon yelled.
'Fox three!' Fish followed up. Mecha-to-mecha missiles twisted out from Fish's and Dragon's mechas and both of them hit home on the Seppy Gnats. Two of the enemy fighters exploded almost simultaneously in a combining orange and white plasma ball. There was no
