Three dots grew to six then ten then fifteen. Justin felt the blood drain from his face. They must have overridden the hangar doors and got them open manually.
He cued the commlink to Whatley’s one-on-one channel. “CAG, orders, sir? They’ve got us outnumbered three to one.”
“Close escort, Spencer. Get your ass over here and protect the shuttles. Don’t try to be a hero. I don’t care how good you are—fifteen to one ain’t survivable odds.”
“Understood, sir,” Justin replied. The commlink cut off, and he rotated his fighter toward the group of three slow-moving shuttles. Beta element had already taken up position around them, while Alpha and Delta elements continued to persecute the previously launched Leaguers.
“Alpha Two, splash one,” Feldstein called.
Justin glanced at his HUD and realized only three enemy craft were remaining in the furball. As he watched, the red dots representing them blinked out. Simultaneously, more dots appeared outside of the station’s hangar. Twenty-eight hostiles? Shit. The Greengold only had eleven Sabres plus his captured—and damaged—fighter on the field. “This is Spencer,” Justin said. “Red Tails, re-form into finger-four formations and tighten up around our Marines.” He forced steel into his voice. “These bastards want at ’em, they’ll have to get through us.”
“You heard your squadron commander,” Whatley rasped.
Typically, a Sabre going full tilt with afterburner would outrun the fastest League craft. But not when they were tethered to fully loaded shuttles. The enemy fighters kept coming. Justin toggled his commlink to Whatley’s private channel. “CAG, I think we should break two elements off and send a full spread of Vultures at our pursuers.”
“Leaving the rest of us to deal with whatever gets through?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I might have to upgrade you from dobber,” Whatley replied with a touch of mirth. “Do it. Take Alpha and Delta.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Justin switched to the Red Tails frequency. “Alpha, Delta elements, break and attack bandits at one-eight-zero, mark positive eight. Follow me in.”
“Affirmative, sir,” Mateus said.
“Wilco, sir,” Feldstein replied.
Other voices sounded off as green lights across Justin’s HUD lit up, indicating the pilots had received and acknowledged his orders. He gripped his flight stick firmly and rotated his craft toward the onrushing blob of enemy fighters. Only three Vultures left. Still thankful for the miracle-working crew chiefs that had jury-rigged CDF munitions for use in the current combat, Justin watched the targeting reticule on the HUD. It turned red, indicating a stable lock. “Theta One, Fox three.”
“Alpha Two, Fox three.”
“Delta One, Fox three.”
All seven Sabres loosed a Vulture each along with a flurry of neutron cannon bolts. The Leaguers responded with a couple dozen of their anti-fighter missiles and massed plasma-cannon fire. Warheads passed each other in the void, while the energy weapons made for an eerie glow in the cockpit canopies on both sides.
Several League fighters ceased to exist as missiles connected. While the superior CDF electronic-warfare systems spoofed many enemy warheads, they didn’t get them all. One Sabre disappeared, and a second took significant damage. It veered out of the fight while automated repair systems went to work.
Justin and the rest of the friendly craft made a high-speed firing pass with their energy weapons, taking out another couple of enemies. Moving at an angle that allowed him to slide behind a Leaguer headed toward the shuttles, he took advantage of their seemingly myopic focus on stopping the captured intelligence from getting back to the Terran Coalition. Justin squeezed the trigger, and dozens of red plasma balls shot away from his fighter. They impacted dead center on his quarry, which exploded in a small orange fireball. “Theta One, splash one. Watch out, Red Tails. They’re trying to punch through us.”
His words were prophetic. As the furball continued, with the superior delta-V and weaponry of the Terrans providing a four-to-one kill ratio, the League forces’ considerable numerical superiority allowed several fighters to squirt through the remaining friendlies. Justin counted at least six that accelerated toward the shuttle group.
“CAG, you’ve got incoming,” he practically shouted.
“I’ve got eyes, Spencer,” Whatley ground out.
All six enemies loosed a wave of missiles that swept through the void ahead of them. While a few were spoofed with chaff deployed by the shuttles, three struck home on the lead transport. On Justin’s HUD, the friendly contact blinked, and the display indicated it had lost shields. Beta element gamely engaged the enemies, but they were down two fighters. Still, another Leaguer bought the farm as his craft exploded. Then another wave of warheads roared away from the League flight.
“This is Sierra Four, declaring an emergency. We won’t survive another missile hit out here. Any friendly fighters, get these bandits off our six!”
Justin didn’t recognize the voice but assumed it belonged to the warrant officer flying the lead Marine shuttle.
“Sierra Four, this is Beta One. I’ve got your back. Turn to heading two-seven-zero, pitch down relative,” Lieutenant Orhan Yavuz said. One of the better pilots in the squadron not assigned to Alpha element, he’d been on the Greengold since the beginning of the war. His Sabre raced on full afterburner, into the path of several of the incoming warheads.
“Yavuz, what the hell are you doing?” Justin demanded. “Jettison your chaff and break off.”
“Negative, sir. The intelligence is too valuable.”
Justin watched his HUD in mute horror as Yavuz’s craft went head-on into two missiles then a third and finally a fourth. The Sabre disintegrated in a short-lived explosion. The pilot didn’t eject, and Justin had precious little time to even consider Yavuz’s death.
Like a machine, he pressed on and obtained a LIDAR lock on the closest League fighter. Justin toggled his missile launchers to double fire. “Theta One, fox three.” Two Vultures—his last two—raced away and slammed into the enemy, destroying the Leaguer. One more down.
“To whoever saved our asses, thanks, and Godspeed, brother,” the unfamiliar shuttle pilot said. “Sierra Four on final approach.”
Red plasma balls filled the void as the remaining Leaguers tried to eliminate the intelligence-carrying transports,
