Lase blasts carved out pockmarks in the armor, and fifteen men were killed by direct fire or the spattering molten metal from the armor hits in just the first few seconds.
“Fire! Return fire!” the captain screamed over the sound of the plasma rain tearing into their hull and armor.
“She’s dropping too fast! We can’t get our nose down quick enough!”
He knew that, actually. He was the one struggling with the wheel.
“Kill the forward sails!”
His second hesitated, shooting the captain an incredulous look.
“I said kill the forward sails! Bring our nose down!” he screamed again.
The second slammed his hand down hard, and the Thunderbird’s forward sails vanished into the ether. The ship tilted wildly, pitching men around as they struggled to hold on, and the remaining sails suddenly were forced to take up the stress of the big ship.
They would have adjusted easily enough if a lucky shot from the Andros hadn’t chosen that moment to destroy one of the remaining port-side projectors. As that sail winked out of existence, the Thunderbird keeled to port and began spiraling toward the ground.
“What is that woman doing?”
It wasn’t the first time Brennan had asked that question, and he had a sinking feeling that it would not be the last.
I’m not about to watch the last of my family die in a fiery wreck, spread across twenty square miles …
He contemplated following them, his knuckles itching as he handled the controls, but Kennick half turned and said, “Don’t even think about it, kid. Skipper knows what she’s doing.” He didn’t add the unspoken I hope he heard echo in his mind. “She doesn’t need you getting in the way.”
Brennan ground his teeth but nodded jerkily.
“Clear,” he barked, angry and frustrated.
“I’m keeping an eye on them,” Kennick said. “Watch that other destroyer. We may have to provide cover when the Andros recovers.”
“That ship is not rated for that kind of maneuver,” Brennan gritted through clenched teeth.
He should know. He’d done similar tricks all the time, usually to scare a passenger, but he just did them in a small two-man stunt skimmer and not in a 160-foot-long yacht. He didn’t even want to think about the stress the projector stanchions were going to endure.
“It’s Imperial shipyards construction,” Kennick said diffidently. “They always understate their rating.”
Inside the Andros, Lydia clutched at her mouth and tried very hard to neither scream nor vomit across the entire room.
I hate flying. Why does anyone do this for fun?
Brennan, her idiot brother, had done this to her before. He thought it was great fun, free-falling in a skimmer. His skimmer, however, was a civilian ultralight rated for stunt flying. She doubted very strongly that the Andros was remotely rated for anything like this.
It was all she could do to just clutch herself tightly and try not to turn into a gibbering wreck.
The only reason she wasn’t panicking right then was that she was quite certain if she did, Dusk would completely lose whatever calm the girl had. Disgustingly, Mik was laughing like he was on some amusement ride, but she could see the dark girl’s eyes and knew that she was just looking for a reason to freak out.
Lydia sucked in a breath and willed a sickly smile onto her face, even as her stomach rebelled against her and tried to crawl out her throat.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, yelling. “Brennan was very impressed with the handler on this ship when they landed, remember? And Brennan is the best natural flyer I know. If he says it, it’s true.”
Dusk managed an equally sickly smile and nodded, but clearly she wasn’t feeling up to responding.
That was fine. Lydia didn’t think she could maintain a conversation at the moment either.
“Festering burning skies and seas!” Kim swore violently as he watched the Thunderbird spiral down, even as the Andros plummeted past it, still accelerating dead on for oblivion on the ground below. “Sails to maximum! Tighten us to the wind! All flank ahead!”
The gleaming sails of the Elemental exploded outward as the ship’s projectors were pushed to the max, enlarging coverage to the point where the sails were obscuring some visibility. But the added area increased speed another 10 percent as the lines tightened to bring the destroyer up in behind the light sails to further reduce drag.
Of all the things he’d expected, that was not one of them.
Only a fool and a lunatic would even consider a maneuver like that, he thought grimly, knuckles white as he gripped the wheel.
There was an axiom in the military, one he was intimately familiar with: the greatest armsman in the world didn’t fear the second greatest. He feared the worst, because he couldn’t predict what the damned fool was going to do.
So what in the burning skies do you do when you’re dealing with an incredibly skilled warrior who was entirely happy to throw every single rule right out the port lock?
Kim seethed as he watched the sails of the Thunderbird flicker and form, her captain clearly trying to recover his stricken ship.
Apparently, if you’re not damned lucky, you die.
“New orders to gunners,” he called. “As soon as we’re in range, open fire on the Andros. No quarter.”
“Passing ten thousand feet.”
Gaston sounded calm, but there was an undercurrent of terror in his voice that really made Mira’s day. She was giddily working all the controls and throwing the wheel over as she brought the ship back to an even keel across the beam, still pointed too low for anyone’s comfort.
“Clear,” she acknowledged cheerfully.
A few seconds later, he spoke again. “Approaching five thousand feet.”
“Clear.”
She didn’t have to look at him to know that Gaston was sweating, even in the cold chill of the rushing air. He was secured to his station, as was she and nearly everyone else, so there was nothing he could do but ride it out, and for a man like Gas … like most of those on board, that was the true definition of torture.
“Stand by projectors,” she ordered as they passed five thousand feet.
“Standing by already …”
“Fire.”
The Andros vibrated with the launch of the four projector rockets she’d kept in reserve.
“Brace!” Mira ordered just before they flared to life thousands of feet aboveground.
The silver-white sails snapped into view, catching the wind and yanking hard on the plummeting ship. A groan was heard through the Andros that no one on board had ever heard on a ship before and that none ever wanted to hear again.
They were all slammed down into the deck and against the straps as the Andros’s plummet was suddenly turned into a parabola. Vertical velocity converted to horizontal in a bone jarringly short time, the ship like a pendulum at the end of a very long string.
Mira again hit the blower, leaning into it as she called out orders.
“Cargo crew, stand ready to deliver! Projectors, I need those four reloaded! Now!”