Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (best books to read in life .txt) 📕

Babcock's Flying Eyes had drawn the assignment of covering the embattled Mjollnir from any attacks that might originate planetside. Sweeping low, they had spotted a tight knot of targets climbing fast from a base on the northern coast of the largest equatorial continent.

Evidently they were the only Cats on the ball today. They were the first on the scene, and Babcock intended to punish them for their efficiency.

"Stay close," she said. The Hornets swept forward in a tight formation, swooping down into the upper fringes of the atmosphere at a speed high enough to cause the shields to flare red from the energy they were absorbing. The targets were rising fast . . .

They erupted into view, two full squadrons of Darket light fighters. Their formation was loose; it looked to Babcock as if each pilot was pushing his craft hard to be the first to reach the battle. Instead, she told herself with a smile, the battle had found them.

"Concentrate your fire!" she ordered. Babcock keyed her comm console to identify her own target to the rest of the squadron, then lined up her shot and opened up. An instant later all ten of her squadron-mates were adding their firepower to her own.

It was risky business, ignoring fifteen fighters to focus on one, and the Cats replied to the Hornets' attack with their own fire. But their coordination was poor, so each Hornet took individual hits that were easily absorbed by shields, while the full power of eleven paired Hornet lasers tore into a single target, ripping through shields and armor and destroying the ship in a moment.

Babcock switched her target and fired again, with the same effect. Then the two groups of fighters flashed past each other.

"Break and attack at will!" she called, cutting the targeting transmission. "Drifter, follow me in!"

But Drifter Conway had picked up a pair of Darkets on his own tail. He tried to reverse course, but the two Kilrathi ships cut loose on him as he turned, and he lost control of his plane. A moment later it exploded.

Babcock bit back an oath and nailed the nearest Darket with a missile. Part of her wanted to mourn the loss of another of her Flying Eyes, but this wasn't the time or place. You pushed the feelings aside and concentrated on the job at hand. The job of killing Cats.

The job went on. Her sensors were picking up a fresh wave of planes rising to intercept them, and they already had plenty off foes to deal with as it was . . .

Vaktoth 505, VF-489 "Black Leopards" High Planetary Orbit, Baka Kar, Baka Kar system 1234 hours (CST)

Laser and missile fire probed outwards from the Kilrathi cruiser, making Lieutenant Commander Ileana Constantine twist and juke her heavy fighter from side to side to avoid the sustained Double-A-S. Around her, four full squadrons of fighters from Mjollnir did the same.

Not all the pilots were as skillful—or as lucky—as she was. Up ahead one of the human Darkets was caught in an energy discharge that consumed the entire craft in an instant, like a moth in a flame, and a pair of Dralthi Fours had already been taken out by defensive missiles. But the attackers plunged ahead, trying to get in close enough to cause the cruiser some serious damage.

Planning for the battle today had posed some serious

logistical problems for the Wing Commander. Once surprise was lost, Mjollnir would become the target of increasing numbers of Cat fighters and bombers, no matter how effectively they managed to block the early response to their raid. Flying the Mjollnir's Kilrathi-built planes too close to the scene of the action was a sure recipe for disaster. In the heat of battle, a pilot, or a point defense emplacement, was apt to focus on the type of craft that came into range without necessarily checking an IFF beacon to decide whose side it might be on. Yet Bondarevsky hadn't been in any position to sacrifice more than half his available birds from the action.

Thus, the dispositions for the various Mjollnir squadrons. Only the bombers, with a tightly defined mission only they could effectively execute, and Bondarevsky's stealth fighters playing a game of harassment in close to the dreadnought, were to be employed in the immediate vicinity of the carrier.

Hornets, Raptors, and Rapiers would be used for the crucial tasks of protecting Mjollnir and interdicting various possible sources of trouble. The rest of the

fighters, the Kilrathi-built planes, had a different mission . . . to strike any capitol ships that hadn't been drawn away from the planet by the threat that had erupted near the jump point, the three ships of the battle group under Admiral Richards.

When the outlines for the mission had been mapped out no one had known how many targets they might have to face. As it turned out, there were three Kilrathi capital ships still in high planetary orbit over Baka Kar. One was the carrier that was reading as seriously damaged and unable to effectively power up. The other two were cruisers.

The four fighter squadrons—one of Darkets, two of Dralthi Fours, and the Vaktoths of the Black Leopards—had received orders to concentrate on the closest cruiser in hopes of neutralizing it before it could intervene in the fighting around the station.

But killing a cruiser was no easy task. As the range dropped, another Darket was caught. This time the cruiser only grazed the starboard side of the craft, but it vaporized one wing and the engine mounted there. The craft went into a spill, until the pilot managed to use maneuvering thrusters to stabilize the little fighter. But he had to drop out of the formation and head for home. It was no use fighting a battle when your whole attention had to be taken up trying to keep to a steady vector.

"By the numbers, boys and girls," Commander Charles Robertson, CO of the Leopards and