Peter Telep - Pilgrim stars

Fountains of diaphanous blue energy clouded the center Dralthi's shields. Maniac kept the fire coming and kept hard on the cat's tail until the pilot rolled to port and suddenly dove.

Even as Maniac slammed the stick forward to pursue, his missiles struck the other two Dralthis. The feline fireworks showered overhead as he stayed with the last cat.

"Only two?" Blair teased. "You got rusty lying in that cell."

With a quick snort in reply, Maniac dedicated himself to the last Dralthi's destruction-just to shut up his wingman. The enemy's shields finally dropped for the count, and Maniac let his neutron gun play connect the rivets on virgin plastisteel as the alien transmitted a taunt.

"No honor is greater!" the Kilrathi cried in a poor attempt at standard speech. The thing stared at Maniac with those piss-yellow softballs it called eyes. "You apes will never know such glory! Ahhhhhhh!"

"Got news for you, pal. I'm feeling pretty glorious right now." Maniac grinned as he corkscrewed a path through the fiery garbage. "And that's three, Blair. You were saying something about being rusty?" He turned on a wing, slashing back to regroup.

Meanwhile, the four Broadsword bombers below had come within torpedo range of the lead Fralthi, and while their fighter escorts warded off attacking Dralthi and a few Salthi light fighters that had joined the fray, the bombers each launched a pair of torpedoes at the foundering cruiser. Maniac could not help but watch for a second as the eight projectiles struck in succession, blasting apart the cap ship's port bow, her superstructure, and tearing gaping breeches amidships. Four hundred and seventy-five meters of Kilrathi engineering began to break apart, illu-mined by the flickering light of her explosions. Nutrient gas streamed from at least a dozen ruptures in her hull and formed long, emerald pennons that trailed the devastation. Tattered pieces of plastisteel tumbled and glimmered, and a few of the Rapiers nearby narrowly avoided colliding with some of the larger rubble.

"Maniac? Blair? Get back to the destroyer and lend those escorts a hand," Santyana ordered. "The rest of you stay with the two cruisers. The one to port has ceased fire."

"Jesus," Maniac gasped. "I don't know how Aristee's doing this, but if she can take out a Kilrathi battle group this easily, then how does Confed brass expect to stop her?"

"We haven't taken out this group yet," Santyana reminded. "Move it."

Complying with a burst of thrust, Maniac soared up beside Blair's Rapier. They darted over the two remaining cruisers and dove forty-five degrees toward the Ralari-class destroyer in the rear. The ship's two turreted lasers wreaked equal opportunity destruction and had already crippled three of the seventeen Rapiers escorting the bombers. Another three Rapiers had broken off to tractor in those pilots who had ejected.

Still, the destroyer's lasers weren't the most serious threat.

Her twin-barrel antimatter gun swiveled and tracked the bombers, then belched out a humbling and steady flow that had the entire group suddenly dispersing as salvos ripped through the phantoms of those crafts.

A flash from the radar scope now showed a band of red blips that represented a full squadron of Dralthis coming in from Maniac's six o'clock low. "Multiple hostiles bearing four-two-four by six-one-three. Range: one point five Ks. They'll reach us first, Blair. My little sweetheart AI counts nineteen."

"Reverse course on my mark," Blair said, his masked face abruptly lighting the VDU. "Let's tie 'em up for a while."

"You want to play chicken with nineteen Dralthi? Look, I've noticed that you can't use your 'Pilgrim' call sign here. Makes for a little confusion. But now I'm thinking you deserve mine. No way in hell am I going to play chicken with nineteen Dralthi."

"We'll kill thrusters and hit the brakes about a hundred meters out for a little over and under S and S."

"Now you're talking. But we haven't pulled that one since training. What the hell. I get top, clockwise rotation."

"And I got control. Steady now. Mark!"

They peeled away, with Blair banking to port, Maniac to starboard, and came around to reassume their formation flying abreast. The Dralthi hurtled toward them like a heated braid of silver and tarnished copper that would for a few seconds wholly deceive the casual observer.

"Range: six hundred meters."

"Oh, God," Blair said through an audible shiver. "Back there this seemed like a good idea."

"Hey, I say that myself-usually when I'm climbing out of her bed the next morning and can't remember her name. Range: four hundred meters."

Hungry for their first kill, the cats opened up with wing-mounted laser cannons. Bolts perforated the vacuum around Maniac's Rapier, and a trio spattered across his forward shield and sent shock waves ripping through the ship. He thought better of adjusting course, though. Any change would ruin their ploy.

"About ten seconds now," Blair cried. "Merlin says that the odds of us taking out all nineteen are-"

"Unless he's taking bets, tell the old geezer to shut up."

Maniac fastened his gaze to the nav clock and its pretty green numbers that blithely ticked off the final seconds.

VEGA SECTOR,ROBERT'S QUADRANT,LEAVING ALOYSIUS SYSTEM,CS OLYMPUS,

2654.114,0055HOURS CONFEDERATION STANDARD TIME

Hard brake. Cramp in shoulders. Damned harness. Velocity zero. Holy… They're right on top of us! Maneuvering thrusters: fire. Commence rotation. Neutron cannon engaged…

Maniac had positioned himself about ten meters directly over Blair. They held their coordinates and broke into clockwise and counter-clockwise flat spins, creating deadly girandoles of fire. The tactic, dubbed a "sit-'n'-spin," worked well if you were alone and well away from your comrades since whatever entered your cone of fire would wind up dead meat, whether you wanted it dead meat or not. Not many pilots would attempt a duel spin since one misfire of manuerving jets could result in point-blank friendly fire-certainly no way to get friendly.

But Maniac and Blair had perfected the maneuver. With the tap of a switch, he had turned over maneuvering to Blair as the Dralthi fanned out and climbed, seconds away from swooping down and attacking them from above. Blair rolled both Rapiers onto their sides so that they fired vertically relative to the Dralthi. He continued the roll, adjusting course as necessary and producing gyroscopic inertia and precession, forces that, despite the dampeners, they could not sustain for long without blacking out.

As Maniac tightened his stomach and forced bile back down his throat, he caught the barest glimpse of a Dralthi breaking apart under Blair's fire, then he spotted another disassembling under his own wrath. Red blips on the scope broke off and knifed back toward the bombers and escorts. Just as well. Shadows crept into Maniac's peripheral vision. Time to call it.

"Stalled them as long as we could," Blair said, probably feeling the same effect. "Slowing to break link. Five seconds."

After a slight thump, control returned, and Maniac eased on the throttle, pulling forward and away from Blair's Rapier. He savored the few seconds he had to compose himself, then rolled back to glide over his wingman.

About a quarter klick ahead, the destroyer turned hard to starboard, retreating from the bombers and fighters. A beep from Maniac's radar scope alerted him to the presence of a vessel much larger than a fighter: one of the Fralthi-class cruisers; it too retreated from the Olympus, with a squadron of Pilgrim bombers diving toward its six. Behind it, a portico of sparking rubble forged a gateway back to the Olympus.

So Aristee's people had somehow taken out two of the Fralthi-class cruisers and now had the third cruiser and the destroyer on the run. The dreadnought and superdreadnought kept their distance but continued to follow the Olympus, and Maniac figured that the cruiser and destroyer would regroup with them. He guessed that Aristee didn't have spies aboard the surviving Kil-rathi ships since they continued to rattle off anti-starcraft fire or retain their present headings.