Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

to adapt it to her use way back when she’d first sat in a Phoenix seat. Probably a good thing it wasn’t a Wasp; their tactical headgear was custom made for each pilot.

She tore the Velcro strapping open with a ripping sound, removed the strap that held the headset at the bottom of a Human’s head, and relocated it under her jaw. She pulled the eyepiece as far to the side as it would go, and the microphone as far forward as it would reach. It still wasn’t close to the end of her muzzle, forcing her to talk out the side of her mouth, but it was better than roughly the base of her jaw, where a Human might wear it.

“Any day now, little doggo,” Flop said, doing a couple of practice rolls. “Performance is all fucked to hell. Must have lost a couple thrusters, too.”

“Tactical coming up,” she said and flipped a safety before stabbing the “All On” button, bringing the Phoenix tactical board to life. She adjusted the eyepiece and the laser projector aligned, painting a gunsight picture on her cornea. Another good thing, Human and Zuul eyes were nearly identical, with the exception of her better near-IR vision.

The Phoenix was armed with a chin-mounted 30-mm five-barrel chain gun, two enclosed ordnance bays, and a pair of external hard points, which could mount just about everything from stores to bombs. In this case, one held a pod of five multi-role programmable missiles, and the other a variable laser pod. The latter was from their Wasp stores, and not really intended for the Phoenix. She’d have to fire it manually, where on the Wasp it would be mostly automated.

The tactical radar was also independent of the Phoenix’s own radar, but was intended to take data to aid in targeting. She’d be forced to hold it by the hand. She found the joystick and rolled her engagement area to starboard, where the incoming bandits were. The gun and radar followed suit, immediately marking the targets.

“Mark three bandits at zero-eight-nine,” she said. “Range 544 kilometers and closing.”

“They’re practically on top of us,” Flop said. “Must have been skulking in the debris field and went active when I powered up.”

“Engaging,” she said, and targeted with the laser.

“Tough shot at this range,” Flop said. “Sure you don’t want to use the interceptor missiles?”

“Drones are crazy maneuverable,” she explained. “Even at 500 kilometers, the missiles will take half a minute to reach target. They’ll be evading by then.” She painted all three drones and selected target priority, flipped the safety cover off the joystick’s firing button, and stabbed fire.

The laser pod, capable of several uses, ramped up to full power and loosed a stuttering 5-megawatt beam of coherent light. It took 1.8 milliseconds for the laser to reach its target, slicing the first drone neatly in two. It had also taken the engagement radar 3.6 milliseconds to get a clear return on target, and another 1.5 milliseconds for the computer to energize the laser and send it down range. So the total elapsed time from her pressing the fire button to impact was just about 7 milliseconds.

The drones also picked up the radar, identified it as a threat, and began to respond. They weren’t as nimble as a collimated laser, but they did have powerful, though short-lived fusion engines. The logical response was to pour on the coal. The targeted laser knew this as well and compensated. The first drone was, in the terms of a weapons system, an easy kill.

The second stream of laser pulses followed the predicted path of escape for the second designated target drone. It was off by half a meter. The second drone wasn’t cut in half, but one of its carefully balanced spinbooms was sliced off. Under 600 Gs of thrust, and completely unbalanced, the drone ate itself almost instantly.

The third drone was engaged, but now it was off by five meters. The stream of laser pulses passed through empty space. Ripley cursed. She’d known the interceptor missiles could have gotten all three, but it was very unlikely. Most drones were good at evading missiles. That was part of why drones were so expensive. If the drones had known the dropship was there, the Phoenix would never have seen them coming. They would have come in from a light second out, closing at 50 kilometers a second, and killed them in one pass. As close as they were, the advantage was with the dropship. So she’d gone for a couple clean kills where the odds were best.

“Nice,” Flop said. “I would have gone with the missiles.”

“It was a tough call,” she lied. Uncertain of the drone’s ROE, she programmed one of the missiles to intercept. The dropship gave a little shudder as it raced away. The drone poured on the power and did a skew turn away, and the missile was unable to catch up. She shook her head. If the missiles had nuclear warheads, maybe. Oh, well.

“Got the main radar back,” Flop said. “Maneuvering must have shaken something lose.”

Her threat board lit up with two targets. Ripley barked in surprise and spun her view. The headset let her move her weapons and defense targeting without having to turn her head. By the time the gunsight was targeting they’d gone from red to green, tagged as two Wasp class dropships. “We found Starbright!” she cheered. The radio crackled.

“Phoenix 001, this is Wasp 004, check your six, I repeat, check your six!”

“Oh, fuck,” Flop said.

Ripley spun her tactical view as fast as it would move. As soon as it came to the rear, she saw three more drones racing in, roughly paralleling their course. She desperately flipped the controls, changing the laser pod from attack to CID, released the danger-close safety, and stabbed the fire button. At the same instant, needle-fine laser beams raked down the