“In that case, Terran, I guess I’ll be doing you a favor.” The harsh chuckle returned. “After all, you God botherers seem to think there’s life after death. You’ll find out shortly.”
Justin’s sensor screen blinked with a new contact. Gotcha. He flipped his Ghost around and accelerated to maximum thrust. “Maybe.” LIDAR tracking missiles were out of the question, but Justin decided to try a heat seeker. Toggling the selector switch to launch two warheads at a time, he calculated the speed of the enemy craft. It’s got to be running on afterburners, because it's moving too fast to be solely ion engines. “Maybe not.”
“Oh, God going to intervene on your behalf, Terran?”
The enemy craft blew by, less than five kilometers away on the Z-axis from Justin’s fighter. “God helps those who help themselves.” He pulled back hard on the flight stick, pushing himself and the Ghost to its limit. The moment the heat-seeker lock-on cone was achieved—thirty degrees from aft—he pressed the launch button. Two Eagles dropped from the internal weapons stores and zoomed away. Justin watched them on his sensor screen. God, if You’re watching out for me, now would be a good time.
One of the downsides to being the CAG of any embarked air wing in the CDF was lack of flying time. For Gabriel Whatley, it had almost led him to reject the post in favor of continuing as a squadron commander three years ago. Now, he only launched in emergencies, which was a blessing and a curse. It guaranteed a target-rich environment where he could take out his frustrations on the enemy, but if he was fighting, the odds weren’t looking good for them to win.
Strapped into a Sabre and rocketing toward the enemy was where he wanted to be, however. Spencer’s not having all the fun for once. He keyed his commlink to the all-pilots channel. “Alpha One to all pilots. Bandits steady at bearing zero-zero-zero, range one thousand kilometers.”
While the Greengold, her battlegroup, and the pirate corvettes slugged it out, the enemy carrier stayed to the rear of the formation. As a result, it had disgorged its craft farther away from the battle than perhaps it could’ve, which was fine by Whatley. All it means to us is we get to fight it out without point defense from either side getting in the way.
The distance steadily closed between the two formations, and Whatley took the time to examine the enemy. There appeared to be twenty-eight of the heavy fighters previously observed along with six to eight bombers. Clustered tightly together, the small pirate craft were so close that sensors had a hard time determining exact numbers.
“Sir, I can tell you from experience we’re outgunned here.”
Whatley recognized the voice of Feldstein, who was using a private commlink channel. He cued his mic. “Do you have an operational suggestion based on previous engagements, Lieutenant?”
“It would be better to engage them within range of the Greengold’s point-defense emplacements, sir.”
“Should we ask them nicely to follow us back, Lieutenant?” Whatley’s voice dripped acid as he spoke.
“Sir—”
“Lieutenant, we’ve got one mission here. Kill these bastards before they get into range of our battlegroup. Period. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That means we’re going to kill them and keep killing them, and when we’ve killed the last one, we’ll blow up their carrier and send them all to hell. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied in a clipped tone.
“Good. Now, get off this channel and do your damn job.” Whatley clicked the commlink off without waiting for a reply and pulled up his internal-stores display.
After quickly confirming Vulture LIDAR-tracking missiles were selected, he switched to dual-launch mode. “Alpha One to all pilots. Stand by for maximum range. Dual-launch mode. Put as many Vultures as you can into the void.” Having read over the after-action reports, he’d already determined the best way to fight that particular enemy was to flood the battlespace with warheads then close in and mix it up.
The tactical network computing system that linked all CDF craft assisted in massed targeting of missiles, ensuring even distribution. Whatley settled into a vector toward one of the closer enemies at the front of the formation, and his LIDAR lock-on tone buzzed. “Alpha One, fox three,” he called as he mashed the launch button.
“Alpha Two, fox three.”
“Beta Four, fox three.”
Other pilots across the wing called out their launches. The void came alive with streaks of ion-engine exhaust as both sides flung dozens of warheads at each other. On Whatley’s HUD, the scanner was so full of red and blue dots that he lost situational awareness.
The missiles passed each other in the inky blackness of space while the ECM systems went to work. Roughly half the warheads were spoofed by advanced electronic countermeasures used by both groups of fighters. Many of the others fell prey to chaff, but more than a few struck home. Two CDF Sabres disappeared, blown apart by concentrated fusion explosions, while three pirate fighters exploded from multiple warhead strikes.
“Alpha One to all pilots. Break, break, break,” Whatley said, his voice tight. “Close in and engage. Weapons free.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Whatley noticed that Adeoye was heading directly for the nearest craft to him. Neutron-cannon bolts and unguided rockets blasted away from his Sabre. For a moment, Whatley thought he was seeing things. Ground-attack rockets? What the hell is he doing? As the warheads struck home, the pirate craft’s deflectors dropped like a stone. In short order, the fighter was a burning wreck that exploded in a bright ball of flame before flickering out as the onboard oxygen supply quickly exhausted itself.
“Alpha Three, splash one.”
“Lieutenant, were you using ground-attack rockets?”
“Yes, sir,” Adeoye replied. “They worked well against League bombers. I thought they’d do the same here.”
“Brilliant.” Whatley was rarely left speechless, but this was one of those times. Spencer’s got some sharp cookies over here.
