Mira smiled, pride filling her as she watched the crew she could see jump to follow her command. She had no doubt that belowdecks the very same was happening.
“Thirty seconds to drop!”
The men in the hold of the Andros had the supply packets already in place. That had been the easy part. They just loaded them last and put them right on the rails. The hard part had been securing them when orders came down before the engagement and, now, getting them set to launch again.
They professionally ignored the splatters of vomit that decorated the deck and the pallets—not every man and woman on board was made of the sternest of stuff—and trucked everything into place just before they snapped their safety rigs into place.
“Doors opening!”
The whistle and roar of wind tore through the hold as the large doors to the rear of the ship slowly ground open, and they saw for the first time just how far they’d fallen. The ground was whipping past so close in places it almost looked like you could reach out and touch earth.
“Damn. The lady really sliced that one close to the bone.”
“Stand by to drop!”
“Gas”—Mira smiled—“raise the colors.”
“Yes, my lady,” Gaston replied instantly, finally getting an order he was eager to follow.
“Gas …” She paused. “Best add the Scourwind colors to that.”
Gaston nodded. “As you say.”
The projectors set into the rear of the ship exploded to life, and a huge black flag with a crossed blaster and Armati rippled in the wind like one made of real cloth. Below it, the Scourwind colors flew as pallets of food, water, condensers, and other relief supplies were rolled off the rails and out the back of the Andros.
Mira grinned, glancing over her shoulder as her hair blew wildly in the whipping wind. The supplies were dotting out behind them as they rushed over the camp, but she expected the guidance systems would drop them all close enough.
If not, it’s out of my power now, she thought.
The Phoenix was still desperately trying to get turned around fast enough to reacquire contact with the Andros, but they were out of this fight. The Thunderbird looked like it was about to plow into the ground. She couldn’t tell if they’d gotten enough control to make the impact survivable or not. She somewhat hoped they had, but Mira could barely bring herself to care anymore.
Having your own armsmen turn on you, choosing instead to follow a mass murderer, had a way of distancing you from any esprit de corps that may normally have lingered.
“The Elemental is closing fast,” Gaston said.
Mira turned her eyes, spotting the gleaming sails of the approaching destroyer and noting that they were tucked in to the wind as close as she’d ever seen.
“They really want to catch us,” she said, moderately amused.
Gaston snorted. “I wonder why, my lady?”
“No clue. Well, let’s disappoint them,” she said. “Secure the hold; launch the remaining projectors.”
“Yes, my lady!”
The Andros’s parabola had brought them around under the sails that held them aloft, so that they were now actually threatening to outrace their own sails. Since that would mean they’d rapidly lose speed in a situation where Mira really didn’t want to lose speed, she let out a tiny sigh of relief as the reimaging four projectors launched out ahead of them.
With eight sails now in the skies, Mira brought the Andros tight to their leading four, carefully maintaining tautness on the four they were outracing so as to keep the lines from tangling. The ship began to climb again as the winds caught and all eight sails snapped forward with enough force to jerk the Andros hard.
“I see the Bulls, my lady.” Gaston nodded off to the side. “We’ll clear them easily. The Elemental is going to get a piece of our flank, however.”
Mira twisted, mentally calculating the vectors even though she was certain Gaston’s numbers would be better than hers. She swore when her own agreed, then gritted her teeth.
This was going to hurt.
“Clear the sails,” Horace Kim ordered sternly. “I want a clean shot at that bitch.”
A plume of smoke was rising up in the distance from where the Thunderbird had slammed into the ground. He couldn’t spare the time to check on the crew just yet, but what he could do was avenge them. Kim was aware that the Andros had picked up enough speed with her crazy maneuver that she was going to pull away from the squadron, but at the very least he was going to get his licks in.
The big sails of the destroyer angled out, pulling wider and opening up the range on the chase guns. Kim eyeballed the ranges and did vector calculations instinctively. He doubted that they’d be able to drop the Andros, but they could tear a very large hole or two into the smaller ship.
“Fire as we bear,” he ordered. “All guns. No quarter.”
“Aye, skipper. Firing as we bear!”
Big lase charges were slammed home into the blaster cannons, and in a few seconds the Elemental shook as her weapons roared to autofire, spitting beams and plasma across the skies.
The first rounds missed clean, but Mira knew that they’d get within range in short order. She hauled in the lines, tucking the skimmer up behind the sails as tight as she could without dirtying her own wind. She angled the Andros, using the ship to cover its own projectors, intent on avoiding the fate of the Thunderbird.
After that, all she could do was hunker down and wait for the inevitable.
It didn’t take long.
The armor of the Andros rang like a massive bell as the first blast hammered home, vaporizing a chunk of steel and ceramic and ejecting the resulting plasma out into the air. The ship shook a little but remained stable until the next hit. Another deep ring assaulted their ears. Another crater was dug into the heavy armor of the skimmer.
The next three shots hit in rapid succession.
“We’re going to lose parts of the aft cargo hold and quarters at this rate,” Gaston warned.
“Evacuate those areas!”
“Yes, my lady!”
Kim snarled viciously. He had their range now. With a little luck he might even be able to cripple the skimmer.
“Keep firing! Hammer that ship into dust!”
Kim was leaning over the wheel, eagerly watching the lase blasts strike home, when a shadow passed over the flying bridge of the Elemental. He started, looking up and around for the source, and spotted a deep aquamarine sail just as it flashed past.
“Who—?”
He only got the first word of his question out before the deck of the Elemental was torn to shreds by a series of hammer blows that tore through his ceramic armor like an ice pick through cardstock. He ducked low just as the mottled green airframe with a wide grinning mouth painted on the front flashed past.
Kim blinked and shook his head. “Where the hell did a Naga come from? A museum?”
His second crawled over, keeping low as the Naga spun around practically in place. “Museum or not, skipper, he’s packing MACs!”
Kim paled.
Magnetic-accelerated canons (MACs) were antiquated, but they hadn’t been retired for lack of effectiveness. Rather they were too heavy and too expensive to deploy to the legion, and over the years the price of maintaining and arming the weapons had just gone up. But for Kim, the question of where the Naga had come from and how the hell it was loaded with MACs would have to wait.