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said.
Maniac gritted his teeth and snorted. "You've got the aim but not the balls.
Hey, Taggart? You're out of time."
As Maniac throttled up and brought the burners on line, his skin crawled as
he thought about being burned alive.
"Todd! Don't do it!" Blair unbuckled his oxygen mask and vigorously shook his
head.
Disregarding the display, Maniac forged on, two guided missiles ready to drop
away from his wings and alter theOlympus 's destiny. He eyed the
supercruiser's aftmost antimatter cannon. The second he saw it flash, he would
thumb off the missiles.
"Listen to me, Todd. We might just die anyway. All we can do is try to outrun
the Kilrathi and tie up as many of their fighters as we can. Didn't you say
that you'd rather be killed by the Kilrathi?"
Clever trick, Blair. Twisting my words. I said I'd rather get killed by the
cats than by our own people, but when I said our own people, I wasn't talking
about Pilgrims. They might as well be the Kilrathi.
"Lieutenant Marshall, I'm locked on to your fighter, as is the cannon above
me," the commodore said. "Even if you get off your missiles before we smoke
you, we'll still have time to take them out. Young man, I want you to take a
deep breath and think ."
"That's all I've been doing. Now I'm going to take a deep breath and act."
Like a pair of yellow eyes fringed in blue, theOlympus 's massive ion engines
swelled into view, with the shimmering dot of the commodore's Rapier swerving
like a pendulum between them.
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"I am right on your six," Blair suddenly said. "Locked on to your stubborn
butt. Let's call this and fight the real enemy."
"Like I thought," Maniac muttered. "I'm alone."
The antimatter cannon flashed.
Maniac flicked his thumb twice on the secondary weapons trigger while using
his free hand to flick aside the safety and punch the ejection button.
Half-muffled explosions ringed the cockpit, and Maniac felt his shoulders slam
toward his chest as the pod's thrusters swept him up and away from the Rapier
Just a few breaths before a gleaming net of antimatter fire devoured the
stubby-winged fighter.
To the stern, a phosphorescent thorn of debris nearly caught Blair's Rapier
before he banked to dodge it.
Maniac fixed his gaze on the antimatter cannon as it swiveled to track him. A
pair of flashes to his four o'clock revealed that the commodore had, in fact,
intercepted the guided missiles.
"I'm wheeling around to get you," Blair said. "I'll tow you back in."
But the commodore apparently had something else in mind. "Stay where you are,
Mr. Blair."
As Maniac stared down the barrels of the antimatter cannon and pried as much
thrust as he could out of the pod's meager engines, putting more distance
between himself and that cannon, he decided what he would do if another flash
came. He armed the self-destruct system, routing control to his stick. One tap
on the primary weapons trigger would end his life and at least he would be the
one to do that, a pilot to the end, not wasted by traitors, his death the
ultimate act of defiance. He jerked away the HUD viewer, unbuckled his mask.
The VDU remained dark. Instruments ticked, beeped, and hummed, and the pod's
thrusters issued their rhythmic bursts. It took but another second for the
moment to unravel the remnants of his nerves. "C'mon? What are you waiting
for? Fire!"
"Brotur Syllian?" Paladin called, using the general frequency for Maniac's
benefit. "Is your cannon locked on to the pod?"
"It is, Brotur. Awaiting your order."
"Release lock. New target: incoming cruiser. Compute firing solution now,"
Paladin said tersely. "Mr. Blair? Take Lieutenant Marshall to theOlympus .
Reload and refuel, then get back in the fight."
"Aye-aye, sir."
"Hey, Blair," Maniac called, having switched to the private channel. "Now
that they've let down their guard, you can make your own run."
"Are you drunk, dense, or deaf? The plan won't work."
"I've revised the plan. It's now about getting Aristee to destroy the ship."
"I know the commodore's working on a better way out of this. I just know it."
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