Peter Telep - Pilgrim stars

Maniac wished he could watch her perform the hard ninety-degree turn to make sure that the enemy Rapier overshot her and that she pulled into the requisite one-eighty to lock on and blow his ass back to that higher plane of existence.

But Maniac had his own problems, namely a Pilgrim pilot who bore down on him with wing-mounted laser cannons blazing and neutron gun spinning like a tornado whose eye blinked white lightning every time it fired.

Sick and tired of these aggressive fanatics, Maniac howled a curse to the heavens, slammed down the throttle, and went ballistic, waving on the Gs like an infuriated boxer waves on his opponent. Acceleration dampeners compensated for some of the force, but he had to focus on his breathing and get his blood back into his extremities. Three Gs. Four. Four-point-five. His vision grew dark around the edges. He knew that in a few seconds he would lose consciousness. He slapped back a toggle, stalling both thrusters, then manuevering jets fired as he rolled onto his back to face the oncoming attacker. The Pilgrim apparently had no qualms about playing an old-fashioned game of chicken. He also had no idea of Maniac's experience with the game, though the Pilgrim could consult a few Kilrathi pilots who would spin him quite a tale.

With reckless abandon coursing through his veins, Maniac snap-fired the thrusters and advanced at full tilt with neutron fire pinging off his canopy shield like droplets of neon blue jelly. He thumbed off the safety cover on his secondary weapons button, then closed his left eye, focusing on the targeting reticle as it swam around the Rapier, then blinked red as he got the lock. Even as he fired the Dumbfire missile, the Pilgrim liberated one of his own.

Holding his breath, Maniac rolled ninety degrees, and the enemy missile glanced his port wing but failed to detonate.

The Pilgrim plunged into a seventy-five-degree dive and swept under Maniac's Rapier. Though he had evaded Maniac's missile, the Pilgrim had not evaded the man himself. Not yet. Maniac pulled a hard U-turn and pursued the Rapier, gritting his teeth as it took agonizing seconds for him to fall squarely in on the Pilgrim's six o'clock.

"Maniac? Little help here," Zarya said. Static burst through the audio-video transmission coming from her Rapier as she became a cushion for laser strikes.

That was all it took for Maniac to abandon his pursuit of the Rapier and pull up her position on his tactical display. "I'll be right there. Hard brake 'em if you can."

"Roger that. And hey, that troopship's making its final approach. It'll be aboard the Olympus in a second or two," she said glumly. "Failed that objective."

"Who cares. Worry about that Rapier on your back."

"Believe me. I'm worrying."

"Five seconds 'till I'm in," he reassured her, stealing glances at his tactical and radar displays. Twin flashes scaled the void above as someone, hopefully an enemy, bought the proverbial one-way ticket.

They had rounded the moon and now drew much closer to the supercruiser. Maniac clearly made out her outline against the ruffled sheet of the moon's surface. Her four primary antimatter guns swiveled to follow targets and dispense humbling clouds of anti-starcraft fire. All thirty of her point-defense missile systems launched Dumbfires at those Rapiers operating along the rim of the five-hundred-meter gravitic cloak zone. The Oregon and Mitchell Hammock stood about a quarter kilometer off the super-cruiser's bow and stern respectively, taking light fire from a few Pilgrim Rapiers that strafed their decks. The destroyers hurled anti-cap ship missiles at the supercruiser, but most of them detonated well short of their targets, cut down by the Olympus's unrelenting antimatter guns. Maniac spotted a few missiles getting through, but the carrier's powerful shields and thick armor could withstand the pummeling, at least for a little while.

Jinxman's squadron had yet to near the supercruiser, and three of the Broadswords in his team's escort had been destroyed. Lightning had fared even worse. His group had been thinned out to nine Rapiers and two Broadswords. Both squadrons had encountered ambushes as they had come around the moon, while First and Sixth Squadrons had been diverted into another fray. Yes, the Pilgrims had taken full advantage of those craters, and no, they weren't better shots-but they sure as hell knew how to navigate through furballs, evidenced by the Claw's blistering losses.

"Maniac? Where are you?"

"Look back," he said coolly as he descended from the heavens like a venom-spitting demon whose every sense focused on the Rapier pursuing Zarya. He engaged his electronic counter-measures system to, in theory, jam the bastard's radar. Relying on a reserve that had taken him his entire academy career to forge, Maniac held his fire and narrowed the Pilgrim's lead, positioning himself just three meters above the fighter. Looks good, he told himself, then felt the correct slam as the afterburners kicked in and propelled him directly over the enemy. He thumbed down on his high-hat control and belly-flopped onto the Pilgrim, driving the guy away as his own fighter rocked violently.

And he could have kissed Zarya for taking full advantage of the diversion. She yanked into a one-eighty, pitched down, and got a lock so clean on the Pilgrim that Maniac could almost see the tactical line stretching from her missile station to the Pilgrim's fighter. Her missile flew, curved ever so slightly, then struck the enemy Rapier's rotary neutron gun in a fiery fist of devastation. The starfighter twirled away, leaving behind jagged embers of its cockpit and nose.

"Zarya drops two!"

"With assistance," Maniac quickly added, then began a long, swift turn to port, headed back in her direction. The supercruiser floated below him now, and he spotted the multiple bursts of breaking thrusters.

Another ship boldly violated the five-hundred-meter zone, and Maniac did a double-take as he realized that he hadn't spotted another Pilgrim troopship, but instead Commodore Taggart's merchantman, the Diligent.

"Hey, Maniac? Isn't that the-"

"Yeah. What the hell's going on?" He dialed up Angel's channel. "Ma'am? I'm watching the Diligent make her approach toward the Olympus. They ain't shooting at her, ma'am."

"No, they're not," Angel observed stoically.

"Is Blair aboard that ship?" asked Maniac.

"I believe he is."

"Well, what is this? We sending over negotiators?"

She didn't answer, her attention stolen by her instruments. "Reading gravitic distortion. All ships clear the zone. Repeat! Clear the zone!"

Somewhere out there, far across the cosmos, a deity with a huge dislike for cocky fighter pilots looked down on Maniac's puny Rapier and thought, No, it shouldn't be so easy for this one. He's cheated fate one too many times. Now the bill has come due …

Or at least that's what Maniac thought had happened as one of the Pilgrim Rapiers returning to the supercruiser suddenly blurred by him and fired a missile that struck between his thruster cones and detonated, drop-kicking him down toward the supercruiser amid a shrieking chorus of alarms. "Shit! I just took one up the tailpipe. Got mucho damage. Thruster control is gone. Can't maneuver. I'm falling within the five-hundred-meter zone."

"Pop the top," Zarya cried.

"Lost power to the ejection system," he said, gaze frantically sweeping the right VDU's damage report. "Reactor's offline. Can't even pull the plug on this one."

"I'm coming in to get you," Zarya said.

"Negative. Fall back as ordered."

"No way!"

"Lieutenant Rolitov, you will clear the zone," Angel insisted, cutting into the channel.

"But I can get down there and tractor him in!"

"Don't do it, Zarya," he said softly. "Just go home." He heard her panting into her headset, then a slight whimper escaped her lips. "Oh, God…" The VDU went blank. His radar still operated on emergency reserves, and he watched her break back for the Claw's retreating fighters and bombers. Once her ship reached them, Maniac looked up. Bad idea. The supercruiser's starboard aft quarter rushed toward him.