“I see it, kid. That one’s all yours. Took out your wingman, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send the bastard on to God, and we’ll let Him sort it out.”
Justin rotated his Sabre toward the enemy without replying to Whatley’s instruction. Instead, his mind was laser-focused on the approaching hostile. The missile-lock-on tone buzzed, and he automatically squeezed the trigger, dropping a Vulture active-LIDAR-tracking missile toward the target. The Leaguer fired a similar warhead at him, which he avoided with ease. That League tech doesn’t appear to be as good as ours. Perhaps a technological advantage would help them in the long term. It would do much to explain the number of kills he and the rest of the Zvika Greengold pilots had racked up.
The enemy fighter blew past him as both craft exchanged energy-weapons fire. Without the three wingmen backing the Leaguer up, his movements were less confident and aggressive. The fight quickly turned into a turn-tail chase as they both tried to gain an advantage. Potshots at each other scored few hits, and Justin didn’t have enough time for missile lock-on. I’m still fighting this guy’s war. I need to fight mine. Clarity came to Justin, and he toggled the secondary weapon selector to his heat-seeking warheads. At the same time, he overrode the safety controls and set them to double launch.
Justin whipped through a tight series of scissors moves and borrowed a trick he’d seen Whatley perform in a different combat and slowed dramatically through one turn. The Leaguer overshot on full afterburner, and Justin pressed the missile-launch button. “Alpha Two, fox two.” Twin heat seekers rocketed away from his Sabre and tracked the enemy fighter relentlessly. He took the time to make a transmission on the guard frequency. “Hey, Leaguer. Alpha Mike Foxtrot.” A few seconds later, both missiles hit its shields and detonated. The resulting explosion took the other craft with it. “Alpha One, splash one.” It felt good to erase from existence the person who’d probably killed his friend.
“More heavy bombers inbound,” Whatley rasped. “Alpha, get after ’em. I’m going to assist Beta.”
“Roger, sir.”
“And Spencer… nice shooting. What’d you learn?”
“Don’t allow emotion to overcome good tactical judgment.”
“Ah, lookee here. The kid can learn.”
Justin could almost feel the smirk he was sure was emanating from Whatley’s face. “Occasionally and twice on Sundays.”
“Good hunting, Lieutenant.”
With that, Whatley was off. Justin turned his attention to the inbound flight of League bombers flying directly toward the Zvika Greengold. It surprised him that they weren’t attacking a more capable capital ship, like the Conqueror, but it didn’t matter in the end—only that his element did its job. The squadron information screen on his HUD showed ten green dots and one red one. One was absent. Feldstein and Adeoye’s craft were functioning at one hundred percent—at least according to the integrated sensors. “Alpha One to Alpha Two, come in.”
“This is Alpha Two. Go ahead,” Feldstein replied quickly. “We were worried about you for a minute there, Lieutenant.”
“I was worried about myself.”
“Is Mateus…”
“I don’t know. She said she was ejecting, but it’s so chaotic out here that my sensors didn’t pick up an escape pod.” He hoped against hope that her IFF was malfunctioning but knew it was unlikely. Moreover, he couldn’t spare the brain space to think about it. They had a job to do—stay alive and defeat the enemy. “Form up on me and switch to dumb-fire rockets if you have any left. We’re going bomber hunting.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The intercept vector was a favorable one for Justin’s fellow Alpha element members to catch up to him without staying at maximum afterburner the entire time. He took the time to examine the battlespace and get a feel for the ebb and flow of the fighter combat. Most of the friendly small craft were of the planet-based variety. The only carriers the CDF had in its inventory were the Thane class. While they were all present and accounted for, three hundred sixty fast movers weren’t enough to shift the tide in any meaningful way.
“Everyone lock up a separate bomber,” Justin said. “Take one high-speed firing pass then get behind and terminate these guys.”
“Sir, there’s another flight of fighters headed our way,” Feldstein called. “Four bandits, bearing one-two-eight degrees negative declination.”
“Forget them. Take out the bombers, then we’ll shift targets.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Justin lined up the lead enemy and squeezed his firing trigger the moment it entered maximum range. Return fire in the form of red energy bolts rushed toward him. He added his dumb-fire missiles to the mix. Each hit substantially impacted the bomber’s shields. They failed, and chunks of armor broke off. At the last second, Justin rolled to his left, and his final rocket smacked the enemy craft, causing a chain reaction of several small explosions that blew the bomber apart. Only after the intense glow from the brief fireball had faded did he realize that three anti-ship missiles were headed straight for the Greengold. He briefly considered pursuit but discounted the idea. The carrier’s CIWS systems would have to be up to the task.
“Conn, TAO. We just lost two of our point-defense emplacements, port side.” Bryan turned his head around. “Fifty percent reduction in point-defense effectiveness on that quarter.”
“Communications, have Major Whatley designate one of his squadrons to protect us until repairs can be made,” Tehrani said. She turned toward Wright. “XO, prioritize getting our CIWS emplacements back online. By any means necessary.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Tehrani brushed a wisp of brown hair out of her face and focused on the tactical plot. The blue overhead lighting amplified the screen and made watching it easier. Across the battlespace, the League ships had stopped their advance, except for a few pockets of vessels still moving forward. She assumed they had a rigid command structure that didn’t allow for
