Ghost Squadron by Kevin McLaughlin
Author:Kevin McLaughlin [McLaughlin, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Role of the Hero Publishing Company
Published: 2018-08-23T05:00:00+00:00
Twenty-One
There was a pace, almost a pattern to how the alien fighters moved. Sam couldn’t pick it out in enough detail to explain it, but she could feel it. Like the beat of a drum, their moves felt choreographed. A dance through space. But it was a dance she could predict. When that one went this way, it meant the other would be right there… She fired a burst from her railgun, the rounds stabbing into the ship as it swung directly through her crosshairs. The iron pellets shattered its frame. It trailed fire for a few seconds and then broke apart.
“We’ve got them on the run!” Kel said. “Keep it up.”
Sam chuckled to herself. The fighters weren’t on the run, not really. The alien swarm still outnumbered their fighters by better than two to one, and the human pilots weren’t doing as well as the Ghosts. Sam watched an alien ship do a ten gravity flip and burn to come in behind a human pilot. He saw the danger - Sam watched him try to react, but he wasn’t quick enough and she was too far away to help. He exploded a moment later as the alien’s particle beam cut his Wasp in half.
Her rounds found their home in the killer’s ship just seconds later, but revenge was scant comfort for the man who’d just died. Sam didn’t even know his name - the physical and digital pilots hadn’t mixed as much as she might have liked.
All around her that pattern was being repeated. The aliens could maneuver into tighter turns and accelerate much faster than the humans. Her Ghosts could match them turn for turn and boost for boost, but the humans were limited by their physiology. It was maddening to be so helpless to save them. It was like the aliens had identified there were two types of opponents in the Wasps and were deliberately targeting the more vulnerable ones. But maybe she could turn that around on them.
“CAG, this is Ghost One. I’ve got an idea,” Sam said.
“Go Ghost One.” Kel’s voice sounded tight and strained. She had to be seeing the same thing Sam was. Watching her people die one after another couldn’t have been easy.
Sam picked her ship out of the furball. She had a pair of enemies on her tail. Kel was doing a spiral to avoid their fire, but that wasn’t going to last forever. Where the hell was her wingman? Sam checked her scope - he was already gone. She grimaced and turned her Wasp over into a dive, chasing the alien ships.
“CAG, roll right,” Sam said.
Keladry didn’t respond via radio, but she turned her ship hard over to the right immediately. That gave Sam the opening she needed. Her rounds blasted one of the enemy fighters to bits. The other one veered off, evading her shots. At least Kel was safe for the moment.
“Thanks! What was that idea?” Kel said, laughing.
Sam took the laughter in stride. Sometimes, in the middle
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