“Respectfully, sir—”
“That’s a direct order, Lieutenant.” Steel crept into Justin’s voice. “All of you. Now.” Yeah, I do sound like Whatley. Wow.
“Acknowledged, sir.”
A few seconds later, the Boars and Maulers reversed heading and turned toward the Greengold. Thankful that while Green seemed angry, at least she was following orders, Justin turned his attention back to the mass of pirate fighters. He did some quick mental arithmetic and didn’t like the outcome. They’re going to overtake the bombers before they get to the carrier. Justin narrowed his eyes. Not if I can help it.
“Alpha One to Alpha and Charlie elements. There’s no intercept vector left to the pods, but our bombers are about to get it.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t look good,” Feldstein replied. “They’ll get eaten alive by these heavy fighters.”
“Eight against twenty-plus isn’t good odds.” Justin let out a breath. “But if we loose most of our Vultures at max range, I think we can mix it up long enough for Beta and Gamma to get back to home plate along with the pods. I don’t want to order you all to do this.”
“We’re with you, sir,” Feldstein replied immediately.
“Charlie element isn’t pulling out without a fight,” First Lieutenant Hawkins interjected. He led the second group of Sabres.
“Okay, people, let’s do this.” Justin tightened his grip on the flight stick. “Break left, afterburners to maximum.”
The flight of eight fighters broke toward the enemy force like a wave. Their maneuvers compared favorably with the highest trained exhibition squadrons in the CDF, and they were honed by thousands of flight hours working together as a team.
Justin toggled his commlink to guard. “Hadley pods, we’re moving off to engage the rest of the pirates.” Hopefully, they don’t freak out. “Get yourselves landed on the Zvika Greengold. Stay on this frequency and ask the air boss for landing instructions.”
“I understand, CDF.”
Whoever’s flying over there is in shock. Justin could hear it in his voice. He briefly reflected on the fateful day almost a year ago when the war broke out. The day I had to grow up. The knots in his stomach that used to be present before every engagement were gone, replaced by the steel constitution of a battle-hardened veteran.
The range closed rapidly between Alpha element and the enemy. Justin felt eager to just get on with it already. He intended to use similar tactics to those employed by the CAG at the Battle of Sol. “Alpha One to all fighters. I want you to rapidly launch all Vultures the moment we get into range. We’ll see how it develops from there.”
“Wilco, Alpha One,” Feldstein replied.
“Alpha One, fox three,” Justin called out as he pressed the missile-launch button a split second after the lock-on buzzer sounded. It took the flight computer a moment to regain positive lock. “Alpha One, fox three,” Justin said into the commlink again.
In quick succession, four Vultures dropped from his Sabre’s internal stores bay two at a time. All around him, the other friendly fighters launched their own munitions. The battle space came alive with dozens of LIDAR-tracking missiles. Faced with an overwhelming volume of inbound fire, the pirate craft broke off their pursuit of the bombers and focused instead on avoiding the warheads headed straight at them.
While the smaller craft fought it out, Master One had moved away. Justin noted its shields were down, and it appeared to be losing atmosphere or fuel. A pity Gamma didn’t have time to finish the job. Still, the large group of red dots representing almost three dozen enemy fighters and bombers would be more than enough to put the hurt on the Zvika Greengold. Running the math in his head of distance to the hangar bay, the time needed to land, and the bandits' relative speed profiles against Maulers, Justin determined they needed another five minutes. Longest five minutes of our lives.
He cued the commlink. “Alpha One to Alpha and Charlie elements. Form on my starboard wing, line abreast. Follow me in. Do not break off for individual dogfights.”
Acknowledgment lights lit up across Justin’s HUD from each fighter in the Red Tails. He adjusted his heading to put the Sabre on a course cutting through the enemy formation at an angle and redirected aft shield strength forward. “Alpha One to Alpha and Charlie elements. Break now.”
Rolling to his starboard relative position, Justin accelerated to max thrust and engaged his Sabre’s afterburners. Missile alarms sounded, and he triggered the chaff dispenser. Clouds of spoofing material spread out behind the friendly craft, and the formation they maintained maximized the effectiveness of their ECM pods. There were few hits on either side from the LIDAR-trackers.
The group of eight fighters streaked through the void as they entered energy-weapons range, which had been Justin's plan all along. Purple and blue streaks zipped outward from both groups, though the Sabres had more accurate gunnery. Two of the pirate craft didn’t survive the pass, while all of the friendlies did.
“Nice shooting,” Mateus said. “A few more passes like that, and we’ll thin out the herd.”
Left unsaid was that most of Alpha and Charlie elements had shields below thirty-percent strength, and recharging them before another firing pass was impossible. Justin searched his mind, thinking as outside the box as he could. “Okay, next plan.”
“What’s the matter with the old plan?” Adeoye asked.
“Nothing, if we had all day.” Justin adjusted his course back toward the enemy. “Form up, line abreast. This time, we’ll drop our entire complement of heat-seeking missiles, hit the afterburners, and run like hell.”
“That’s nuts, sir,” Feldstein replied.
“You got a better idea? Now’s the time.”
Silence was her reply. Justin squinted at his HUD scanner. The red dots had scattered to some extent, but groups still held unit cohesion. Now would be a good time for our superior training to help out. “Come to heading zero-one-eight, full afterburner.”
The Sabres quickly assumed the directed formation and accelerated through the
