Chapter 14

The snow on the sensors washed away the sensor locks on the other fighters; I hummed an old tone he had heard on a history holo as he went to the merge. “Nah nah nah nah, no radar lock on, skin and bones” I reached over and flipped the switch to fix the guns in the forward position. The cross hairs stopped searching for a target they would never find then fit into the forward position.

The pirates' earlier formation may have been charitably described as loose now though the best it could be called was ragged, in reality they were just all flying vaguely in the same direction. If the pirates had beam rider missiles this could get dicey. I held my breath as we entered beam rider range. A moment ticked by then another and finally I let out the breath I had been holding. Beam riders were old tech that had gone out about halfway through the old war as their range was much shorter then sensor guided missiles. Still it might be worth it to look back into them if this strategy became more common.

I entered the gun range and was surprised the enemy fighters weren’t jinking or dodging back and forth to throw off my aim. “I guess they had never fought someone using guns before” I mumbled to myself. I lined up on the closest it was a head on pass but I had the elevation and I led the target and gave it a short burst the plasma rounds soared out and struck the enemy fighters shield. The string of fifteen rounds flew forward eight missed three hit the shield collapsing it and the last four plowed through fighter detonating it.

I hit the left rudder hard and rolled to line up on the next fighter. There were no longer rudders on purely space based fighters like betty. Multispheric fighters still had rudders but the pedals still kept the old names. The maneuvering jets set up to take the old style input unless a switch was flipped like it I did now.

Betty continued on its original trajectory as the nose swiveled around a longer burst was required on this one as he had less training in a slide strafe still he got the hit. Rolling back closer to the direction of travel then flipped the switch back to regular flight and began to come around. The entire attack run had only taken thirty seconds in that time he had shot down three fighters and ripped the heart of the enemy formation.

The pirates kept moving forward for another second or two before they reacted like a flock of birds attacked by an Ulandran Condor and scattered in every direction. I picked one and headed his way. checking my display I realized the plasma tank was running low. I had to give a short burst. It was just enough to burst the shield but only caused mild damage to the wing of the fighter.

The one hit combined with the destruction of the others and the inability to strike back must have been too much for the pirate to handle. I watched as the survival pod popped clear of the fighter. I full reversed thrust to have a longer time on target and watched the fighter continued on its way and didn’t scuttle or self detonate. I pinged both the fighter and survival pod with a laser designator built into Betty for beam riders and made sure it recorded the speed and direction of travel for both the survival pod and the now derelict fighter. Hopefully if they were lucky they could recover the derelict after the battle.

I pulled out and waited for the plasma chamber to recharge. I was up to 17% when suddenly the ship shuttered slightly. Suddenly a Pirate fighter zipped past me, laser repeater still blazing. “ Well, it looks like at least one of them still has guns” I said to no one but myself. looking at my shield strength still at 82 % I rolled into a tail chase.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

This guy was better than the others dodging left and right. I tried to stay on his tail. I let off a short burst and he dodged right a few more turns and I got another lined up shot and took it the first round landed then he broke right again. The enemy tried to have me over shoot him. I managed to Yo-Yo in time, lining up for another tail shot.

I was on a clock if the jamming cleared up before I could inflict enough damage then I would be extremely outnumbered. Taking a risk I dropped the shield to ideal in this mode it would only hold off micrometeorite impacts. The power available shrugged back up to 20% aiming slightly right. I fired a burst and the pirate broke right again this time straight into my weapons fire. Three seconds later he burst into a ball of debris. I was so close it bounced off my Idling shields some of the larger chucks got through impacting Betty’s hull.

Rolling out I reset my shield. I was at negative available power with the shield down to 62%. I searched the area and found three fighters staying mostly together heading for the edge of the jamming zone hitting the accelerator I chased after them. I got closer and waited for the plasma charge to trickle back up finally I got a burst off stitching up one of the fighters.

I gave chase as best I could but it quickly became apparent to me they were going to make it to the open area before I got to them. Still if I could get one before their systems cleared up I could probably keep behind the other until my gun recharged. They broke through the edge of the jamming about thirty seconds before I got there. They started to split up and come around to face me and I realized I had over committed and they were likely to get a close range shot at me. I had just flipped to burn hard back into the interference when both fighters exploded.

I rolled back over and finished breaking out of the jamming. “One this is two splash two for a total of four.” Lt. Johnson was letting more he had shot down these two plus two more. I ran a quick count before I called out. “ splash five one dutchmen telemetry incoming, a moment passed “got it bouncing to Paladin” I had popped out with the jamming between me and paladin but Johnson Tacnet served as a relay so I could see what was going on.

The cause of the surprise fighters was now on the screen; it appeared that the prisoner transport had arrived in the system earlier than had been expected. She had quickly surrendered when Paladin put a round across her bow. Paladin had moved alongside and sent a crew aboard. It was a mixed blessing they didn’t have any slaves on board yet and the captain was smart enough not to contest the boarding so after a brief moderately illegal search the Paladin would have to cut them loose since this was technically Theocracy space. The first shuttle had already landed on the station and the marines had begun their assault. I looked down at my fuel status, 14%.

“two this is one I’m RTB for phase two.”Johnson came back “ copy that boss I’ll keep an eye out for the missing fighter.” I paused and ran the math again. “Shouldn’t there be two?” I asked as I vectored towards the Paladin. “ One returned to the station. I'll make sure he doesn’t try to launch again but he was flying like the devil himself was on his ass so maybe he won’t be a problem.”

I acknowledged the message and burned back for the paladin deciding speed over efficiency. I burned hard before flipping and declared that it wasn’t a perfect pattern entry but it was close enough. I brought Betty in for a landing just as we watched the slaver ship go through the gate, eventually he would convince or bribe some interpricing Holy Guard captain to come investigate and we would need to be long gone by then. Betty was lowered into her spot as a group of maintenance personnel ran over to service her.

I climbed out and jogged over to our shuttle. I ran up the ramp and past the volunteer backup boarding team. I made it to the pilot seat and quickly checked my new rifle that had been prestaged here. Then I jumped into the pilot seat and connected my Com.D to the shuttles systems. “ Team leaders, are we ready?” I got four confirmations back from the team leaders saying that each of their five men teams were ready. “Copy all, brake, Flight ops shuttle two ready to launch.” a moment later I got the confirmation and the platform began to rise.