“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Aside from the Battle of Canaan, Gabriel Whatley had never seen so many enemy craft—and that suited him just fine. What didn’t suit him was how poorly the Greengold’s wing was performing. The pirates had an edge over them, thanks to fielding more heavy fighters than their wing carried. If Whatley could’ve put sixty seconds into observing the battlefield as a whole, he might’ve come up with something approaching a plan. But he was in an all-out furball, with nearly fifty small craft dueling it out in life-and-death struggles. The little situational awareness he had from the HUD told him the enemy was massing its corvettes along with their ace in the hole: the modified bulk hauler. Which means a knockout blow is incoming. Not if I can help it.
A blue icon disappeared from his HUD—another friendly fighter destroyed. Whatley checked his squadron-status view quickly to find it was a Sabre from the Red Tails. Lieutenant Decker. Deciding whoever had killed one of his pilots wasn’t getting away with it, Whatley spent a moment trying to determine which pirate craft had taken him out.
Incoming splatters of plasma fire streaked by Whatley’s cockpit and slammed into the thin shields of his Sabre while the single pirate fighter they’d come from rocketed past him. He rotated his craft to the left, turning into the six o’clock position of the enemy. All right, jackass. Let’s see how you like being on the receiving end. The moment he’d lined up the hostile, Whatley sent the welcoming committee: dozens of neutron-cannon bolts.
Tunnel vision affected the best pilots. In the heat of battle, Whatley only had one thing on his mind, and that was killing the enemy in front of him—a rookie mistake. He’d coached many a youngster on why it was so dangerous. But emotion was powerful, causing even the most rational of combatants to take irrational actions. Whatley overlooked the second pirate craft falling in behind him until the missile-lock-on warning buzzed.
Shit. The enemy in front of him had lost its aft shielding, and Whatley was locked into a nearly perfect guns solution. “Alpha Two, where the hell are you? I’ve got a bandit on my six, and he’s about to light me up.”
“A little busy over here, sir,” Feldstein replied. “Engaging a hostile.”
Whatley bit off a nasty response as he sent another wave of neutron bolts into the back of the enemy while maneuvering to avoid incoming fire from the hostile behind him. I don’t know what Spencer’s rules are, but I expect my wingman to stick to me like glue. “Get your ass over here, Lieutenant.”
Dozens of plasma balls flashed by the canopy as Whatley continued to doggedly engage the fighter to his front, and a final stream of neutron bolts hit one of its exhaust manifolds. A chain reaction ensued, blasting the craft into fine debris. But Whatley had no time to savor the victory, as his HUD flashed a red warning light that he had an inbound heat-seeking missile coming directly toward him.
Flares dropped out of the aft dispenser on Whatley’s fighter as he broke away and hit the afterburner. Come on. Come on, old girl. Don’t let me down now!
The bandit on his tail matched every movement, as did the heat-seeker. Resorting to increasingly wild course changes, Whatley did everything in his power to make the incoming miss, but it wasn’t enough. First the warhead exploded against the shields of his Sabre. The impact pitched his craft to the side, and he struggled to maintain control as energy weapons hit his aft. “Mayday. Mayday. Alpha One declaring an emergency.”
The master alarm sounded. Whatley glanced at the display to see a warning sign from his port engine. It showed two hundred degrees above normal and continued to rise. Is this how I go out? Well, it’s been a damn good run, and at least I got that last bastard. Wrenching the flight stick to the right and pulling up, Whatley went into guns-D, but whoever was flying the hostile craft was good. They kept pace and flung dozens of plasma balls at his Sabre.
The jig was up, and it was only a matter of time. After briefly considering his options, including ejecting, Whatley decided to try a high-risk maneuver of stopping on a dime and forcing the pirate behind him to overshoot. Which, if my engine weren’t heading toward a blowout, wouldn’t be a bad idea. He gave himself a one-in-ten chance of survival.
Whatley’s Sabre suddenly fishtailed wildly to the left side. The onboard computer classified it as a blast wave, and it took him a moment to realize the hostile on his six was gone, and its icon had disappeared. Somebody must’ve taken him out. Damn. That was too close. “Feldstein, nice shooting. I’m still gonna PT your ass when we get back to home plate.”
“Uh, wasn’t me, sir.”
Puzzled, Whatley adjusted his commlink channel to the entire Alpha element. “Whoever got that guy, thanks. I owe you one.”
“Wasn’t me, CAG,” Mateus replied.
“Nor I, sir,” Adeoye said. “Must’ve been someone else.”
Whatley’s hand shook ever so slightly as he gripped the flight stick. He sucked in a breath, knowing how close he’d come to death. Forcing himself to snap out of it, Whatley disengaged the damaged thruster and ensured the automated repair system was functioning.
“Epsilon One to Alpha One. Sorry I cut it so close there, sir.”
Justin Spencer’s voice was instantly recognizable, but Whatley felt dumbfounded to hear it. How’d he get here? Damn, Spencer really does have nine lives.
21
“Spencer, what the hell are you doing here?” Whatley’s voice was shakier than Justin had ever heard out of the bombastic CAG.
“Saving your ass, sir.”
Chuckles from various pilots filled the channel.
When they died out, Justin
