START AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST SECTION
Paris-16 had grown from what was originally just an outpost of Fort Wallace into a major city, sprawling rapidly across the basin of an enormous long-extinct volcano, taking advantage of the natural protection it afforded from the constant driving wind.
As the fighters cleared the rim of the city, the red target icon projected by the canopy HUD could be seen at the opposite edge of the shallow crater. The pilots couldn’t see the actual ship, just that glaring icon betraying its position, but it was coming up fast.
Shannon said, “That’s the university.” He was squinting, trying to make visual I.D. The targeting computer had been displaying the smuggler-class ship for some time but visual confirmation was always preferred and often required prior to engagement.
“Tally-ho, one bogie.” Wu’s voice sounded metallic, an effect of hull ionization created by a combination of the laser stealth system and the shield projector.
Then Shannon caught sight of it floating down there like a shard of obsidian. “Tally one, tower. Tally one.”
“Tower, we are ready to hassle,” said Wu, prompting the controller to green-light target engagement as they passed overhead and went out for a long turn.
A dull voice came back with: “Gunships inbound, Monsoon. Do not engage. Just…eh…sit on ‘em.”
Shannon's voice jumped excitedly. “There she goes! There she goes.”
Wu glanced up from the console to see the Recluse’s main thrusters opening up as it went vertical, rolling gracefully, angling slowly into the western horizon as it punched through the cloud ceiling. “Coming around. Single tango climbing at seventy-five degrees.” Wu followed close through the clouds, Shannon in tight off his right wing.
“We’re in hot for AFX Talons,” said Shannon.
Wu could hear the eagerness in Shannon’s voice. He was dripping with it. He wanted to fire those missiles. He wanted this kill so that he could leave the navy and get on with his life. For this transgression, Wu would send Shannon at the bandit, use Shannon to evaluate his prey, let him wear the target’s shields down so that Wu could make the kill.
You are no warrior, young one, and you are unworthy of blood. Up here, the power of men is of no avail. Pazuzu does not favor you and Christ cannot protect you. Foolish trifler. Be grateful if your ship is not torn to pieces by the forces of the cosmos which you neither respect nor understand. Wu breathed deeply. The stars burned in his eyes like diamonds. He felt power seething from his fingertips. “Zu, ku jir tul du ram,” he whispered. “Zu, ku vak am shar.”
“No gunship is going to catch that,” said Shannon, locking his targeting array on the engine signature. He glanced down at the main screen. Interstar had identified the ship as the Recluse. Five systems wanted it for high-value hits on corporate officers and eleven corporations offered bounties on it for piracy. Shannon’s imagination was flooded with the possibilities of corporate endorsements, private donations, military sponsorships. “These guys are terrorists,” he said, a sort of mania pushing into his voice.
“Tower, this is Monsoon,” said Wu. “Bandit one is burning for the black. We are in hot for all weapons systems. Permission to fox the target.”
There was a period of silence. The Recluse was easing down into a forty degree climb now to pick up speed. It was at sixteen thousand and climbing, accelerating, nearing the upper edge of the troposphere. Soon they would be in that transitional region between atmospheric and space flight where most pilots were at their worst.
Finally, the tower responded: “You are clear to fox him, Monsoon.”
Wu said, “Weapons free, Badger. You are alpha on the target.”
—— —— ——
As Shannon worked up on the Recluse, he could see that it was something more than a standard Constellation, a target which would have been no challenge for his Hornet. Shannon could have danced and maneuvered around a stock Connie at will, but with the Recluse at a full burn, he was struggling to keep up. Glancing down at the speed and acceleration readout, he raised an eyebrow. “That thing’s got something extra under the hood.”
“And three times our range.” Wu spoke with complete confidence. “He’ll try to push us into jester-bingo asap.”
"Jester" was code for low fuel, the point at which the tower would advise a fighter to break off pursuit. "Bingo" was the point beyond which return to base would be impossible. A pursuit was normally terminated somewhere between jester and bingo. The Recluse had been on afterburners since they left the university grounds and all three ships were burning fuel voraciously. If the Recluse could survive until the Hornets disengaged, then it could throttle back and find somewhere to refuel.
“Bingo my dingo,” said Shannon, locking the ball turrets into what they called a “7-7,” a standard hornet fixed-firing configuration in which the trajectory of the lasers from the top-mounted ball turret intersected the lasers from the bottom turret at long range. The 7-7 configuration ensured a dense strike-pattern when combined with a fusillade from the nose cannons and the 88s on the wings. Shannon leveled his wings in line with the Recluse for maximum contact and fired a barrage of energy bursts. The Recluse began to roll as soon as Shannon raked the aft hull. Wu joined in from low cover and the Recluse’s rear shields erupted in a dazzling display of blue energy divets.
The Recluse was jinking slightly to make things difficult, but not aggressively, because that would have required it to swerve from its course, undermining its ultimate goal of exceeding the fighters’ fuel range. Every arc in the Recluse’s path would effectively extend the Hornets’ fuel range by incrementally reducing their return distance. Instead, the Recluse kept a straight course, burning at full to maximize acceleration and fuel consumption while rolling constantly to keep the ship profiles out of sync, pitching and yawing to force the fighters to realign if they wanted to maintain a fixed firing pattern—fundamentals of dogfighting established centuries ago in the days of Udet, Richthofen, and Baracca.
Shannon shifted his Hornet, lining up on the sweet spot just below engines two and three and let loose a shower of energy. Just as he was easing off to allow the composite barrels to cool and the graphene coils to recharge, Wu hammered port engines three and four.
Where do they think they’re going? Shannon wondered. Even if the Recluse succeeded in outdistancing them, they’d have to refuel before they could leave the system, but in half an hour the sector would be full of cruisers and scouts with long range scanners and a pretty good idea where to point them. It made no sense. He fired another pattern of energy bursts at the rogue ship and watched the shield readout drop.
They were passing into the mesosphere now, the powdery blue of the stratosphere falling away, disintegrating like the collapsing reality of a waking man’s dream, revealing the yawning maw of deep space. Shannon could feel it. They were still burning at the same rate, but the thrusters had greater and greater effect as the effect of gravity decreased and the grip of atmospheric friction weakened. They were no longer pushing up against a wall, they were going through it, speed increasing geometrically now instead of incrementally.
As the atmosphere fell away, Shannon had to fight to keep the tango boxed in. Maneuvering was taking on another dimension as the property of lift dematerialized and travel was stripped of its linear quality. The Recluse began to flaunt its fuel advantage, executing dorsal and ventral thruster burns. Zero-G jinking required no course deviation, only extra fuel, and the big-bodied smuggler was becoming maddeningly elusive. Shannon was working harder and harder to keep it in the green box.
A completely unrelated factor compounding the problem was that at ever-increasing speeds, the deviation of one degree created much greater drift. At ten times the velocity, defensive jukes were ten times as effective. Position control felt looser and looser as distances and speeds increased. Shannon was now getting only scattered hits instead of solid salvos and the Recluse’s shields were holding up much better than Shannon had expected under the coordinated assault of the two Hornets.
Fuel was dropping fast and Shannon painfully admitted to himself that he would have to fire his first Talon to drop their shields instead of holding it to the end for a sure kill. The Recluse hadn’t fired a shot so far and that was really making a difference in their energy buffer. Shannon punched up the targeting panel for Talon one and waited for the tone. The Recluse jinked as it detected lock but Shannon waited an extra moment to make sure the tone held, then fired.
“Fox one off the rail,” said Shannon, as he watched the missile come free from the wing, the white hot ignition and the building acceleration as it shot forward.
The Recluse’s main engines went dark, and there was a sudden flash from the ventrals as two fusion flares were retro-fired. It was a textbook heater-juke except that the flares didn’t clear the hull and Shannon barked with excitement when he saw the Talon detonate and the shield bar drop. Then his heart sank. Aft shields were still above fifty. Bitterness filled his mouth.
The tower came across the comm. “Monsoon, this is a call-back. Turn and burn.”
Shannon was glowing with adrenaline and the blood was pounding in his ears. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tower, this is Badger. I am alpha on the tango. I show status of nine four zero to jester at current bleed. Repeat, nine plus minutes to jester.”
“Ah…yes Badger. Nine four zero to jester. Disengage and orient to glide path Charlie. Proceed to waypoint Charlie.”
“He’s right in front of me, tower. Confirm that you are reeling us.”
“Wave off tango and return to base, alpha.”
Shannon closed his eyes. “Wilco, tower.” He took one long last look at the Recluse before vectoring off but did a double-take as Wu roared by on the right, maintaining his course, still lined up on the tango.
“Monsoon, Monsoon, we’re gonna have to let that bandit drift. Tower is reeling us in.”
Wu was already fading from view into the black above Shannon. The dial showed him staying with the Recluse.
“Monsoon, this is Badger. Over.”
Dead silence. Then Shannon heard the high-pitched thrub as Wu's guidance systems began to seek a lock on the target.
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