scowl as he noticed that despite all his efforts the rain of shells were getting closer and closer. There was only one thing for it, take the hit. With a curse Marack sent his fighter into a dive, something smashed into his wing but he was too focused on the two Castles to care. One managed to follow him into the dive, the other pulled off to the side. Marack guessed he wanted to get a longer firing run while his companion tied the Sarmatian up. Marack twisted the Sarmatian around and shot towards the Castle that was trying to pull away. The craft seemed to shudder as his rounds hit home, breaking it apart like a child's toy. Marack was already diving again, expecting at least a round or two from the final Castle. It never came.
The last pirate craft was sprinting away from him, heading right for its jump point. It wouldn't help. The Castle could outrun the Sarmatian any day of the week, but not its mass drivers. Marack fired a quick burst at the craft and his hud pointed out the two impact points. He was about to fire again when he heard a emergency transmission that automatically reactivated his comm-link.
“I'm going ok. Cease fire.” The voice was young and panicked and did nothing but widen the grin on Marack's face. He fired again. “No wait. Don't shoot.”
“No.” He snarled back.
“Please-” The sound turned to static as a third volley ripped the craft apart. Marack didn't even watch the crafts destruction, he was already turning back to the freighters, still powering their way to their own jump point. A quick scan showed that Sikes' had dealt with her own two fighters but was tied up by a newly arrived second pair. Marack felt a flash of guilt, if he hadn't been so focused on his own battle he would have spotted them sooner. He knew that he couldn't afford many more mistakes like that. He keyed his commlink on again.
“Freighter Distant Rainbow, this is Vali-2, do you have any more targets?”
“Negative Vali-2, scopes all- wait, wait, incoming, two more targets, transmitting location information now.” The freighter needn't have bothered. The two new craft was larger and slower than the Castles had been and Marack's own sensors had picked them up a fraction of a second before the freighters. The Bastion class bombers were part of the same family as the Castles, rugged and well armed they presented a challenge to any fighter pilot thanks to a rear turret that covered its top hemisphere.
A sweeping arc positioned his craft behind the two bombers as they closed on the freighters. Marack glanced at his readout to see that Sikes had destroyed a third fighter and was now onto her fourth. A quick mental calculation showed that she wouldn't be able to help him out before the bombers were in range of the freighters. He took a deep breath and began his attack run, they would see him coming from a mile off.
The two bombers opened fire simultaneously, white streaks of mass rounds passed within inches of the Sarmatian as Marack struggled to keep the fighter just below the bombers. He could imagine the rear gunners trying to depress their turrets as much as possible and knew what they should be shouting to the pilots. Exactly when he expected them to the bombers began to rotate slowly but mathematics were not on their side. It took a few seconds for them to turn, but only a instant for him to change his vector a few degree's until he was again underneath the bombers. Now it was a game, Marack just had to keep dodging out of the way of the spinning bombers, sliding a few degrees this way and that as he closed the distance.
To buy himself a few more seconds he began firing long before he had closed to effective range. The rounds were technically dangerous at any range but even the bombers were able to dodge out of the way if the distance was too great. Marack swore as the return fire closed in on his ship. It was a race to see who could hit who first.
With a flash one of the engines of the bombers caught a mass driver round and instantly Marack shifted his vector to pour more rounds into the stricken ship. It broke apart slowly, the tough hull holding together even as its main drive went critical and Marack's Sarmatian gave a scream as a round caught its under belly. Marack was already twisting away from any follow up shots but it was no good and a second round sheered off one of the Sarmatians stubby wings and sent his craft spinning out of control.
He silenced the sudden blare of alarms with one hand while bringing the fighter back under control with the other. He didn't even bother to check whether he had a air leak or if his reactor was about to go critical. He was dead no matter what if either occurred. The surviving bomber was almost in range of the freighter now, a mere 15,000 kilometers away. The bomber twisted again to bring its turret to bare but Marack was already firing his one remaining cannon in a wild arc towards it. He caught the bomber dead center, ripping through the rear turret. Holding his breath Marack continued to fire and felt his stomach open into a pit as the bomber released one of its torpedoes.
He focused on the bomber, ripping the craft to shreds and then pulling away to dodge the expanding cloud of wreckage.
“Vali 2 to Distant Rainbow, evasive maneuvers now.” It was a almost pointless order, but if the massive freighter could increase in the time it took for the torpedo to hit by half a second it might be enough. He closed in on the torpedo quickly, struggling to steady his craft enough to hit the tiny target. His targeting computer flicked his retinal to green whenever he was aimed directly at the torpedo but with his craft barely flyable it was never for longer than a few hundredths of second. Marack swore loudly again and grabbed the flight stick as hard as he could. It didn't actually make a difference in anything but his mind. The green light flicked off and on as the torpedo closed to 10,000 kilometers. If he could destroy it before it went live at 5000 he would save the freighter. The Sarmatian itself was less than a thousand behind it when the light finally flickered to green for more than a second, feeling his heart skip a beat Marack fired.
And nothing happened.
His eyes flicked to the damage report readout. The autoloader on his one remaining cannon was wreaked. The rounds he'd used to destroy the bomber had been the last it had managed to load before it had died.
“Damn.” Was all he said when he figured out the only way to stop the torpedo. His hand reached for the ejection handle but stopped short. He didn't have a vacuum suit and that death would be considerably slower. Besides, he still had to aim the fighter and if he ejected then the force of that ejection could well knock the Sarmatian off course by a meter or two. The only thing he could do was concentrate on hitting the torpedo and pray that it didn't arm its warhead before then. He swallowed, cleared his mind of all thoughts and noticed that his hand was no longer shaking. Smiling to himself he aimed the Sarmatian directly at the torpedo.
Two mass driver rounds came out of nowhere and the torpedo vanished in a flash of vaporized metal.
“Rule number one. No glory! That includes martyrdom.” Sikes' voice came from his ear piece a million miles away. Marack just sat there, to stunned to move.
“This is the Distant Rainbow, no further threats detected. Setting course for the jump point. Thank you Vali Squadron.”
“Marack, are you still there?” He shook his head and with all his mental fortitude inched the Sarmatian upwards to avoid the freighter. Sweat was pouring down his back and his arms were shaking again. “Marack?”
“Yeah Captain. Still here.” He took a deep breath. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Don't mention it. Let's just get back to Gateway, knowing our luck we'll have to do the whole thing again tomorrow anyway.”
The Sarmatian hit the hanger deck with a dull thud and without waiting for the deck officer to give the all clear Marack popped open the canopy and threw himself out of the cockpit.
“What the hell were you doing out there?” The deck officer said as he stared at the wreaked ship. Marack didn't respond. He tried to push past the man but felt a hand grab hold of his wrist. “Do you know how long it's going to take to get this thing flyable again?”
Marack threw the officer off with a shrug and ignored the shouts that followed. He ignored the stares from the crew as well. The hanger bay didn't have th
at many facilities for pilots and it took a few minutes of storming through corridors for him to reach Vali squadron's billets. Most of the squadron were no where to be seen when he reached the ward room. They were evidently still recovering from last nights celebrations. Samantha Cares, one of the younger recruits, had recovered quicker than the rest and she grinned as he arrived.
“You made it back?” Marack didn't say anything and forced himself not to feel guilty as her face dropped. He ignored her and moved the door of his private room. He forced it open a inch and threw the stolen manual inside. “Marack?”
He continued to ignore her as he moved to the shower block, slamming the door behind him as soon as he had stepped through it. He didn't even take off his jump suit, just turned the shower on full blast and felt the water soak through him. After a minute he found himself sinking to the ground. He was shaking again, the fear had worked its way to his heart now and he could feel it crush him.
“I'm going ok. Cease fire.”
“Go away, you're dead.”
“No wait. Don't shoot.”
“Stop it.”
“Please-”
“I said stop it.”
“You murderer.” Marack drew his knees up to his chest and pushed himself into the corner of the