DREADNOUGHT 2165 by A.D. Bloom Page A

the pulses of
gravity that switched on and off ten-thousand times a second. It
wasn't good for him, but he imagined the Squidies would probably
kill him long before his plane did. Besides, without the
pulse-pinch to throw artificial gravity, the inertial g-forces of
exo-atmospheric fighter combat would turn him to a wet,
densely-packed mass of cells and bone chips.
    Paladin, Dirty, and Holdout stayed
close on his wing as he rocketed towards Tipperary with two more flights of Lancers
behind him. The spindly, completely unarmored breaching ship with
her 375-meter 'wheel and axle' hull looked as if a single burst
from even the smallest of alien particle streams could rip her
apart.
    *****
    After Hardway turned to come between the fragile
breaching ship and the destroyers making to intercept her, Dana
looked up from the NAV console to see the carrier's railgun
batteries already pointing at the alien warships that hung up over
the starboard bow.
    The Squidies tried for a longshot. The
alien gunners on all three destroyers reached out for the breaching
ship, but Tipperary was
well-outside effective range. If she flew any path but a straight
line, they were just too far away to hit her.
    The breaching ship slid to Hardway's port side and maintained
as much distance between her and the Squidies as she could. Any
closer, Dana thought, and those beams might catch them no matter
how the pilot of that fragile ship jinked it around.
    "The alien destroyers have
accelerated," Bolo said. "They're trying to do an end run around us
and intercept Tipperary ."
     
    Cozen thumbed the fire control comms. "All
railgun batteries, target the closest enemy destroyer and knock it
the hell out of my sky."

 
    Chapter
Seven
     
    Jordo spun his Bitzer 151 on its jets
to get a good view of the Squidies as Hardway fired. The railguns' osmium-tungsten
sabot compressed to hyper-density under nearly 80,000 gees of force
before they ripped out of the barrel at over 1/4 the speed of
light.
    Hardway's main batteries holed the lightly armored, alien destroyer
right through. The exit wounds sprayed hot metal and gas out into
the vacuum. It leaned towards the ringed planet and began its
descent, trailing smoke and fire behind it.
    Tipperary pulled hard to avoid the next alien beams that reached for
her, and Hardway's guns put
rounds through the second destroyer trying to cut off the breaching
ship's escape.
    The third Squidy didn't fire on Tipperary first. It reached out
for Hardway and raked its
guns down the carrier's port side, ripping the doors off three
launch bays and gouging a ragged wound down the forward Hab
module's side. The shock traveled down Hardway's spine and shook one module after
another. The carrier's guns
only paused for a second, maybe two, but the third alien destroyer
hunting Tipperary used that
time to change course again.
    Paladin called it out first. "It's
going to get a real shot at our breaching ship !"
    "Flight One on me!" Jordo said.
Paladin and Dirty and Holdout stayed close as he threw his Bitzer
over in a hard turn and flew between the destroyer and the
breaching ship. Jordo dove right at its main guns. The frame of the
Bitzer shook and juddered with the 140mm cannon as Jordo and his
flight forced the alien gunners to direct fire at them instead of the breaching
ship.
    "...ancer ..1.. br... ..ay. Break
away!" Hardway said through
the jamming, but it was too late for that. Lancer Flight One was
already drawing the Squidies fire. The alien guns stabbed past
Jordo's canopy. They sliced across his path, but it felt as if he
saw them coming before the alien gunners fired. He flew down the
particle beams, spiraling around the frustrated Squidies' fire.
Autocannon shells lit up the black as they ripped past Jordo on
either side. Holdout and Paladin and Dirty shot past him doing
barrel rolls, racing him down the beams.
    "Target the guns!" Their shells wouldn't
penetrate the hull of a warship, but when the streams of fire all
walked