One squadron commander finally analyzed the chaotic situation in time to issue new orders just before his own ship vanished in a ball of expanding superhot metal and ceramic fragments. Grig turned the gunstar as two trios of fighters attempted to converge on the interloper from opposing directions, firing blindly at the target with all their weaponry.
The gunstar shuddered briefly under the combined attack but hull integrity was not compromised.
“We’re hit!” Grig announced a moment later. “Engine temperature is climbing, Alex. Drive’s overheating.”
“Evade!” Alex shouted, much as he would have hit the evade button back home.
Grig didn’t need the advice, sent the gunstar looping radically away from both sets of attackers. The blind charge ended in multiple destruction as the wildly aimed weapons of the opposing fighters blasted their opposite numbers.
Three more ships broke away from the milling, confused armada and dove toward the atmosphere below.
“Sector six,” he warned Alex. “Three ships making a surface attack. They’re going after a civilian target.”
“I see them,” Alex said grimly. The gunstar overtook the three fighters and Alex took them out with a single concentrated burst, using the minimum amount of firepower necessary to accomplish the job.
But now a whole series of warning lights glowed brightly on Grig’s console. “Damned engine temperature won’t come down. We need a minute or two so I can cruise powered-down and take the demand off.”
“Take us once around Rylos,” Alex suggested, a conclusion Grig reached independently. The gunstar stayed just above the ionosphere, skimming the outer edge of the Rylan atmosphere as it vanished from the screens of those few Ko-Dan ships alert enough to begin tracking it.
Grig ran the necessary commands through the ship’s system, was rewarded when the warning lights began to wink out, one after the other. With the demand down he was able to rechannel the drive and the affected area returned to normal. More important, it stayed there.
“Engine temperature steady, life support unchanged, weapons systems still operating at full efficiency . . . watch yourself, Alex. We’ll be back in attack range again in a minute or two.”
They raced across the terminator . . . only to have their screens stay blank.
Alex hunted for telltale images, found nothing. “Hey, where’s the armada? They must have run for it.”
“That would not be like the Ko-Dan.” Grig adjusted a control. Immediately both screens filled with ships . . . at the outer limits of detection.
“Uh-oh. They did retreat, but only to reestablish communication with each other and with the flagship.” He paused as several lights winked on. The multiple targets did not attack, but began to encroach slowly on the gunstar’s position. “Englobement,” Grig murmured worriedly.
Alex switched to a sternward view, saw the Ko-Dan in matching formation moving toward them at the same controlled, steady rate.
“What is it? What are they doing?”
“Spherical attack. Englobement. All ships abandon previous formations and assume positions equidistant from one another at a predetermined distance from the target, then reverse course and move in for the kill while the distance between them remains constant and shrinks. It means there’s no way out.”
“‘Can’t we just shoot our way out of the sphere?”
“It’s a thred-level maneuver. One sphere inside a second inside a third. Wherever we’d try to break through we’d run into a second and third line of fighters. They would hold us long enough for the others to collapse around us. We can’t do battle in every direction at once.”
“This wasn’t in the game, Grig!” Alex stammered.
His friend didn’t reply immediately, took a moment to adjust their heading. “The moon of Galan is still within the englobement. If we position ourselves near its surface at least one sector will be protected.”
“Look for another tunnel to hide in!”
“A useless move, Alex. They’d search us out anyway. Besides, Galan’s craters are meteoric in origin, not volcanic like the ones on that asteroid we used for cover. There aren’t likely to be any tunnels.”
“It was just an idea,” Alex mumbled. “I’m a Starfighter, not a geologist.”
“Then get ready, Starfighter,” said Grig grimly, “because we’re going to have to use the blossom.”
“That’s the experimental, untested weapons system you mentioned? You think it’ll work?”
“You have another suggestion?”
“Uh, not at the moment,” Alex confessed as he stared at the slowly shrinking sphere of Ko-Dan ships all around them. “What do I do?”
“You use your same fire controls, only use them fast. Don’t even stop to think. At kill range you’ll have sixty seconds of overfire . . . theoretically. The blossom has never been battle tested, only demonstrated in simulations. Use of it could overload the ship’s drive, and . . .” he hesitated.
“And what?” Alex prompted him. “What are you worrying about now?” Alex was amazed at how matter-of-fact he sounded. “Theoretically we should already be dead.”
“I cannot argue with your logic, but your attitude has turned flippant.”
“Has it?” Alex was feeling euphoric, blindly indifferent to whatever fate the universe had cooked up for him. “The hell with it.” He flipped open the protective plate that arched over the red button controlling the blossom. Not that he felt half as confident as he sounded. A gentle shudder passed through the ship. Opening the plate had activated something, but from his position in the gunnery chair he couldn’t see what. He had the feeling that the contours of the gunstar had been alter ed somehow.
He wiped his palms against plastic, wishing he could free his arms from the control sleeves but not daring to spare the time.
The images forming the deadly spheres on his screen began to close toward one another. The englobement was tightening. A somnolent green dot lay trapped in the center of the screen their own ship.
The first fighters came within range and Alex began firing selectively with standard defensive weaponry. He was precise in his choice of targets, trying to take out ships coming from every direction instead of concentrating on one sector. That would be what they’d be expecting him to do. His football coach had always told him to run the unexpected play, and the same strategy seemed to apply now.
Ko-Dan ships vanished from the screen, obliterated by the gunstar’s superior weaponry and Alex’s methodical aim. The survivors ignored the losses in their midst and closed up in preparation for the final, overwhelming attack.
“Hold them off a little longer.” Grig was fastened to his instrumentation.
Alex continued to fire, spoke without turning from the display screen. “How much longer?”
“Wait ’til they’re well within the blossom’s kill zone. We have to wait, else we may as well give up now.” An explosion rocked the dancing gunstar as Grig fought to confuse the incoming attacks while his area of maneuverability continued to shrink. Soon part of their defensive screen would fail and one shot would get through. That would be enough to destroy them.
“Grig . . . ?”
“Easy, easy.”
“Now?”
“Steady . . . hold on, Alex.”
On the display screens the green dot appeared about to be swallowed by a swarm of red gnats. “Now Grig?” Alex asked anxiously. “Now?”
“Now! Fire!”
Alex’s thumb hit the forbidden button while his other fingers became a blur on the rest of the fire control panel.
The gunstar became a dervish of destructive energy, throwing off energy bolts and heavy particles in all directions. It was as if a small sun had suddenly gone nova in the midst of the incoming Ko-Dan ships. That wash of unbelievable destruction swept them away as though they’d never been, vaporizing all before they had a chance to escape.
Alex kept firing even though his screen was rendered useless by the quantity of energy being dispersed around the gunstar, kept firing until the brief period of usefulness ended. A warning buzzer sounded loud in the cockpit. Lights dimmed, the ship resumed its standard fighting configuration, and space was once again visible outside and on the screens.
The latter were blank save for a single steady green dot hanging lazily in the centers.
“Engines down, power down,” Grig announced, studying his readouts. “Except for life support and communications, we’re dead.”
Exhausted, Alex pulled his arms out of the control sleeves, indulged in the ultimate luxury of wiping his face and rubbing his eyes. He was utterly drained, physically as well as emotionally.
“It doesn’t matter, Grig. We did it. It’s over, and we did it.”
“Yes, we actually did, didn’t we?” He continued to take readings of ship functions. “I’ll attempt to contact Rylos control. They’ll send something up to pick us up and recover the gunstar.” He started to spin his chair.
Near explosions suddenly rocked the ship, stopped as abruptly. Grig hastily swerved back to battle position while Alex thrust his arms back into the fire control sleeves.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know. Did we miss any? I thought we got them all.” He studied his console.