Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (15 page)

“We’ve picked up your transponder, but you’re considerably further out than we anticipated, and we’re taking heavy fire as it is,” Katahl announced over the booming in the background. “It’s gonna take us some time to get to you.”

“Roger that, we’re on our way to your position, but we’ve got a Destroyer and two squadrons inbound as we speak and frankly sir, that’s a lot of firepower for one Mako and an ancillary transport ship.”

“Yeah, about that… what part of ‘inconspicuous’ did you not understand?”

“Sorry sir, but we kinda ran across 276 Auran civilians in need of a lift, and we just didn’t think it neighborly of us to not oblige—if ya know what I mean.”

“276?” Katahl asked in surprise. “The Sygarious colony?”

“Present and accounted for.”

“Nice save, Daredevil.”

“Yeah well, don’t thank us yet. My 13 is good to go for a jump outta here, but the transport’s fuel reserves are just about depleted. I think they’ve got enough to get to you, but the main refueling umbilical was fried when we took the ship, which means they’ll need a manual dump to jump away.”

“Copy that. I’m redirecting part of the fleet to circle in behind the Alystierians’ left flank. That oughta put enough ships between you and them to open a large enough gap for your team to slip through. In the meantime, I’m also dispatching two squadrons and a refueling shuttle to intercept you in transit, but it’s gonna take time for them to get there. You’re pretty far out right now.”

“Understood, sir. We’ll hold out as long as we can. Daredevil out.”

Releasing the flight stick long enough to crack his knuckles and neck—a subconscious tic he sometimes had when trying to relax—Lee returned his attention to the radar, where 10 small blips and one significantly larger one were now under 30 seconds out.

“Alright, folks, look alive,” he ordered. “I’ll do my best to draw as many of the Phantoms away from you as possible, but it’ll be up to Mac, Danny, and Hamish to pick up the slack. Danny and Hamish, you’re holdin’ the biggest guns onboard, and while they won’t be enough to take out the Destroyer, they do pack enough wallop to keep it on its toes. Also, Link’s gonna have his hands full tryin’ to keep that oversized schoolbus out of its sights, so if you get a shot, any shot, take it. Ruah?”

“
Ruah!
”

“Okay, here we go. Contact in five, four, three…”

Like a firecracker hurled into a beehive, the Mako sliced through the heart of the enemy formation, opening fire and destroying two fighters as the others broke hard to avoid being collected in the subsequent explosions. Cognizant of the Mako’s superior speed and agility as the only real asset he had, Lee yanked back on the stick and soared the craft into a near vertical climb, drawing an additional four Phantoms in behind him while the others regrouped for an initial run at the transport. The targeting computer now chirping wildly in his ears, Lee glanced to his right just in time to spot a series of red tracer rounds whistle past his canopy. Spinning the Mako into a tight spiral to compensate, he looped sharply out of the climb and leveled out, allowing the lead pursuer to rocket past his nose. Hearing the steady, unbroken tone of the targeting computer, Lee tapped the trigger and watched as a single Diamondback missile tore through the fighter’s front section, exploding it on impact. Then circling around to square off with the remaining three, he observed as two of them broke off their assault to rejoin the attack on the transport. Meanwhile the stout, armadillo-like Destroyer loomed ominously in the distance, its giant forward cannons poised to strike above its thick, wedge-shaped nose.

“Heads up, Jester!” he barked, rolling away from a heavy volley of railgun fire. “You’ve got two more inbound!”

“
Fantastic!
” the surly voice replied.

As Mac fired away with the transport’s antiquated forward weapons, Hamish and Danny scrambled feverishly from their slider platforms to keep up with the Phantoms that managed to skirt their way through her defenses. All told, they destroyed three of the six targets; though with so much attention being dedicated to the fighters, that had ultimately left them vulnerable to attack from the Destroyer which was now squarely in position to engage.

His pulse racing, Lee lunged forward in his seat.
“Link, incoming! Roll hard to—”

A bone-jarring barrage slammed into the side of the prisoner ship, rocking it hard to port in a debris-scattering plume of orange, and Lee cringed at the sight. Staggering violently, Link pulled back hard on the yoke to keep from capsizing and somehow—in a feat of sheer piloting willpower—he nursed just enough maneuverability out of the wounded ship to avoid a second volley that bristled past its hull.

“
Damn it!
” Link shouted through crackling sparks and exploding instruments.

Still struggling to evade the Phantom behind him, Lee rocketed the Mako back toward the transport and sliced below the vessel’s mangled side where he spotted another fighter and took aim. Purposefully opting for guns this time, he peppered the small ship with a quick burst, causing it to stagger just briefly enough for him to dart over its nose but not enough to avoid collecting the hard charging pursuer behind him. In an instant, both were gone.

“Everybody alright?” Lee asked, scanning his radar to see the final pair of Phantoms circling around the transport’s aft for another run.

“Barely,” Mac grumbled back. “That shot dropped our port-side hull integrity to 36%. We simply
cannot
take any more of those.”

Lee snarled in frustration. “Okay, change of plans. Link, listen up.”

“Kinda got my hands full as it is, boss!”

“I know, but just bear with me. Take whatever you’ve got left in the way of hull plating and focus it on the forward section. Then on my mark, I want you to turn that pile of junk head-on into that Destroyer and unload on that thing with everything you’ve got. Throw rocks at it if you have to!”

“Dude, we’ll be
crushed!
” Link objected.

“If this goes right, you won’t need to hold that position for long.”

“Okay, aside from the whole ‘pure suicide’ aspect of this idea,” said Mac, “what are you gonna do?”

Lee smiled wryly. “The only thing I can, but don’t worry about me… I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh god, I hate it when he says that,” Danny groaned.

“Does this plan involve taking care of those last two Phantoms?” Mac countered, eyeing the pair of fighters as they swooped around the transport’s aft thrusters on a strafing pattern down its starboard side.

“Make that
last Phantom
, singular,” Hamish added proudly as one of them vanished from the display. “And it’s coming up on yar six, Lee.”

“
Link, go
!”

Like clockwork, Lee snatched back on the flight stick, sending his fighter into an all-out climb high above their position; and just as he’d hoped, the final Phantom followed him up. His speed quickly accelerating to maximum burn—he could hear the booming sounds of exploding cannon fire and failing systems in the comm as the two ships below plunged into a brutally intense slugfest with one another. Once achieving the proper altitude he’d need for what he had in mind, and to allow the Destroyer sufficient time to devote its full attention to his friends, he ignited a quick, half-second burst from the Mako’s underbelly thrusters, sending it into an angelic, swanlike freefall backwards. As the stars looped around in the glass ahead, the Destroyer slowly rotated back into distant view and with a forceful hammer of the throttle, Lee re-fired his primary afterburners, powering the ship into a full-on, 180-degree dive straight down.

“C’mon, keep up,” he mumbled as the significantly less nimble Phantom fought frantically to stay behind him. Finally, it did, and with the wings of his Mako swept completely back—its engines at maximum burn—Lee began his count as multiple streaks of bright red began to rain down past his canopy.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”

A minor hit to his right thruster as the controls in his hands rumbled hard.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

Another hit, still no damage as the Destroyer below closed with blinding speed—the Mako’s engines now screaming in the backdrop.

“Five, four, three…”

Locking on to the Destroyer’s bridge, Lee gave a slammed double-tap of the firing button and watched as both of his Devastator missiles careened into the side of the structure whose thick shielding protected it from the blast. Then, utilizing every inch of the Mako’s superior agility, he snatched back on the stick and leveled out over the bow before turning hard to port where he sprinted away with only a singed underbelly for his efforts. The Phantom behind him, however, would not be so fortunate.

“Gotcha…”

In an awesome spectacle of devastation—rivaled only by that of the depot itself—the surface of the once all-powerful Destroyer erupted in a towering inferno, as the sublight force of the colliding fighter ripped through its massive, armor-plated frame.

“
Suck it, bitches
!” Link howled in triumph as the blazing wreckage fell harmlessly away to the open space below.

“Seriously, Lee,” Danny said. “After a ballsy move like that, far be it from me to ever give you crap for your ideas again.”

“Aye, Lee,” Hamish agreed. “Masterfully done!”

“Yeah, well, from where I sit, we got lucky,” Lee responded. “Those old Selmon class Destroyers had a few sweet spots in their armor—that’s why ya don’t see many of ‘em in active service anymore. Were it one of the newer Kenzig class ships, we’d have been seriously screwed, even with a Phantom at full-throttle sublight.”

“Luck or no luck, it still takes grapefruits, bro,” Link exclaimed. “Big, fat, hairy grapefruits, and that’s exactly what you just plopped out on the table, my friend! Besides, give me lucky over good, any day!”

“Not bad,” Mac said, a touch of not-so-subtle smugness in her voice as it dripped over the comm.

“
Not bad
!” Hamish droned. “Let me tell ya something, love. Vanilla ice cream is ‘not bad.’ Mel Gibson’s Scottish accent in
Braveheart
was ‘not bad.’ What just happened? That was bloody incredible!”

“Yeah, well, we can all take turns praising Lee’s heroic exploits in the cockpit some other time,” she deflected. “But the blockade will be in range in less than a minute, and I don’t have to tell everyone, it’s not a pretty sight up there.”

Returning his gaze to the horizon, Lee looked forward to see where the once-distant little light show—with its faint streaks of blue, red, and yellow dancing through the black—had now drawn close enough to showcase the awesome firepower that had spawned it. Watching from afar as the 20-plus cruisers, destroyers, and battleships continued to pound on each other amid swarms of dueling fighters, Lee wondered to himself if this was how war, with all its fearsome violence and grand theater, would look on such a cosmic stage.

“Heads up, Lee,” Mac warned, breaking him from his trance. “We’ve got five—repeat—five enemy squadrons heading straight for us!”

Snapping back to his senses, Lee scrambled to collect himself.

“How we doin’ on ammo, guys?”

“Ammo my ass!” Link protested. “We’re lucky to have frickin’ life support right now!”

“I’ve got 28%,” Hamish offered.

“I’m not much better, Lee,” Danny added.

Lee rubbed his eyes beneath his goggles. “So much for the Destroyer bein’ the final hurdle,” he thought before answering. “Alright, everybody. Just give ‘em hell until you’re out. That’s about all we can do at this point.”

His hands returning to their previous positions around the stick and throttle, Lee reassumed the lead out front of the transport and waited. Slowly, the small gray specs in his canopy grew larger, and hearing the alert system beep furiously in his ears, Lee could soon make out the physical shapes of 25 Alystierian Phantoms—all tightly bunched into formation and heading directly for them.

“Steady…”

Panicking for a brief second, as if being sucker-punched, Lee watched in disbelief when a sudden barrage of missiles shot into view and pelted the lead pack of fighters, exploding them on impact.

“I don’t know about you people, but it’s a little early in the morning for a star-side cruise, isn’t it?” the familiar sly voice said through the comm as three squadrons of Makos blasted over his nose and inserted themselves squarely between Lee’s team and the oncoming Phantoms.

“
Yeah, baby!
Hit Squad in the house!” Link blurted aloud.

“Nice timin,’ Katana,” Lee smiled as Captain Ryan and the rest of the 51
^st
Squadron—or Hit Squad, as they were more commonly known—took charge of the situation alongside two supporting squadrons of SF-11 Threshers.

“Yeah, sorry about the tardiness but honestly, that’s all your fault,” Ryan quipped with his usual sarcasm. “If your team hadn’t decided to turn a simple spec-ops mission into a jailbreak, we’d all be home safe and sound by now, drinking coffee and sampling the subpar morning cuisine of the Praetorian mess hall.”

“I think it’s a good bet they’ll keep a fresh pot on the burner for us, Captain,” Lee chuckled. “Now can we
please
get outta here?”

“Alright, boys and girls, I wanna get home before all the bacon’s eaten, so let’s make a hole and get gone? Ruah?”

“
Ruah!
” proclaimed 20 voices in unison.

As the Auran reinforcements preceded to make quick work of their soon-outnumbered opposition, Ryan and the other four members of the Five-One took up flanking positions alongside Lee and his team as the group slowly navigated their way through the rapidly deteriorating war zone. Once the last of the Alystierian fighters had exploded in front of him—thus clearing the way for their approach into the Praetorian’s enclosed flight deck—Lee leaned back in his chair and let out a heartfelt sigh of prideful relief.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, tossing his goggles on the desk beside him. “How does it feel to have just become the first clan in the world to successfully finish the greatest video game of all time
?
And, oh by the way… with the highest number of confirmed kills in the history of the title?”