Black Sheep by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-15T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty Three

The kill board on the wall had been updated.

The squadron had been zeroed out for the new ship and mission, and of course, I was back on the top of the board with six kills. Everyone else had at least two. The ship was on the bottom as well though, but with twenty one.

Instead of the exuberant pilot’s table I expected, I found a very quiet one. Growly was eating with the marines, and the hoppers and tigers were mixed across several tables.

“Who died?” I asked, as I sat.

A butler put a white wine in front of me immediately, and I almost knocked it over before I saw it. That got a few chuckles going, but the mood didn’t really lift.

“Chancer did,” said Ming.

“Rubbish,” said Swat. “He screwed up, got a bollocking as he should have, and he’ll do better the next time we launch.”

“Exactly,” added Bagin.

“How did he screw up?” asked Dark.

I looked around the table, and they all wanted to know, even the flight leaders. Chancer was looking into his drink, which looked like serious alcohol. The rest had either beer or wine.

“Okay, we’ll make this a teaching moment. He was right to check for more targets. But instead of just attacking something which was out of his weight class, he made no attempt to get permission for it, collect a wingman to help with it, or find out how I’d already done it. Lance could have done all that in the millisecond after Chancer noticed the one remaining intact target, and he could have talked to Zac, and been either told to stand down, or given orders.”

“Ouch,” said Tent.

“What is the safe way to attack a Keerah destroyer?” asked Zag.

“The way I did it was the second preference. Up the rear end is best, because that’s where the lightest armament is. But we don’t want to mess with their engines, because, privateer. The front is second, for almost the same reason. The Keerah build their warships in the old ship of the line mould, so all the heavy weapons fire to the side, not forward like the Imperium favours. Attacking them from the side is not something a single fighter should do alone, even with them being hundred year old hulks.”

No-one said anything this time.

“That last destroyer had a much better crew as well. They fought with better tactics, and they fired off their second missiles a lot faster than I expected. And given their hits on Chancer’s Tempest with both pulses and missiles, my guess is that ship wasn’t as old, and had been upgraded a bit. That’s something we will never know until we go in. Chancer went in like it was a slam dunk. It wasn’t.”

“As I said,” muttered Tent. “Ouch.”

I ignored him.

“Overall, we did really well. We blooded the squadron, and everyone made kills. We’ve got fourteen ships on their way back to the porcupines for sale, so you’ll all have funds for shore leave when we get to the deer’s planet.

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