"She's a fine ship. Good lines, looks like she's built sturdy. And really, I prefer the older ships. They have more character."
She smiled as Mar ran a hand along the wing, in much the same fashion as Mary knew she did. ?Yeah?they have a ?life? to them?one of those things that?s hard to explain to non-pilots.? She chuckled. ?Mar honey, I think we?re going to get along
grea-? She never got a chance to finish, as Walker?s voice cut in over the ship?s intercom.
Code:
[color=orangered]"Alert. Sweet Child of Mine is taking off. Grouping up with the Archer for a rescue mission."[/color]
Mary?s head snapped towards the speaker, then she turned and dashed towards ?Misha?s? cockpit; Mar was already making a b-line for the hanger?s exit.
"Get prepped for launch! Once the Sweet Child of Mine is disembarked, you should go engines-hot and give the Archer some fire support!"
?
Way ahead of ya!? She yelled at the back of the rapidly departing Shree. The tone in Walker?s voice suggested this was an impromptu ?scramble? situation, and not their over-all employer trying to hustle things along. As such, she breezed through a heavily truncated pre-flight, made sure the interior hatch was sealed, then dumped the atmosphere in the hanger by ?snapping? the exterior door open. The moisture in the air flashed into a crystalline fog as it blew out into space, and Mary, hard on her ACS was right behind it.
In her ear, she could hear Mar on comms talking to Traffic Control.
Good luck with flying that pig. She thought. Keying her mike she radioed ?Sweety?. ?Mar, I?m punching out now?sorry?I?ll buy you a drink next time we?re in port.? She was far enough out her thrusters posed no more risk to the freighter, so she jammed the throttles forward. Diving through the traffic around the station, she laughed as she rolled her fighter between two cargo shuttles. Giggling like a mad woman, she listened to the controller go apoplectic trying to yell at her for her flying, and ?Sweety? for the unauthorized small craft launch during undocking. After another moment of that, she swapped to another channel. ?Archer, this Bonny Oh Two..Mary. I?m on your six.?
A query to ?Sweety?s? system gave her the ?Archer?s? sensor profile and transponder code, which she?d keyed into ?Misha? as friendly. Ahead of the attack craft, her sensors had a single light craft running an impressive evasion routine against a swarm of other craft. Curiously the runner was squawking what appeared to be a fairly old TGR diplomatic distress code, only any ship old enough to have one of those could not be pulling the maneuvers this one currently was. That was a question to be answered later; now, apparently, they were going to rescue the ship.
?Archer, you handle the ones closest to ?princess?, I?ve got the trailers.? She?d spotted a second group, under hard burn, that looked like they were trying to get around their intended victim?a standard ploy really when dealing with a fast and evasive target. Rolling towards them, she lit up her ECM, creating a wall of jamming and denying her targets any hint of what was coming.
Amateurs. They should?ve jammed their victim from the get go?then maybe I wouldn?t be here about to fuck up their day.
Amongst pirates it was considered bad form to interfere with another crew?s prize, unless you figured you could get away with it of course, so normally she would?ve simply stayed back on board ?Sweety? and made snide comments about the take down; but now she supposed she was one of the ?good? guys.
Dicky boy better be either coughing up some more credits, or covering my expenditures? She thought as she brought her weapons online.
Four ships had peeled off from the pursuit and were barreling towards the wall of jamming that she was kicking out, and kicking up some jamming of their own. Four on one, they should?ve had the advantage, even if she?s seen through one batch of ECM trickery there were still three others; unfortunately ?Misha?s? VI recognized those ships, and Mary had always made it a point to try and learn as much about her fellow pirates as she could?never know when you may get into a ?disagreement? with another crew. Filter programs and counter-jammers sprang to life and cut the incoming interference significantly.
Practiced fingers flicked toggles and pushed buttons as she keyed her weapons to life. The LiDAR array locked on to the lead two craft and fed target data to her missiles. As soon as she had tone [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk97ZHfOtLI], she fired and juked laterally and ?down? compared to her previous course. Her missiles broke clear of her jammers and the hostiles reacted accordingly, breaking into two, two ship formations?exactly like she was expecting. A programming change into the missile?s detonators caused them to go off almost a hundred kilometers short of their ?standard? intercept profile.
The pair of two kiloton thermonuclear warheads surrounded by multiple rods made of chromium which served as an x-ray gain medium, released x-rays when ?pumped? by incident photons created by the flash of thermonuclear detonation. Each rod functioned as a separate x-ray laser, the ?pumped? chromium emitted a pulse of coherent x-rays, in the direction of the long axis of the rod. The x-ray lasers formed a cone of destruction that tore through most of the attacking craft like a chainsaw. The lead two ships, a pair of Sphere surplused fighters that were older than ?Misha?, died before their pilots realized what exactly was going on; the light-speed beams of x-ray lasers tore through the fragile hulls, turning both ships into little more than expanding clouds of plasma.
The other two were ?coffin crates? like what Mary had been describing to Mar; fast civilian shuttles with weapons strapped to them. Though they were in let capable craft, their pilots reacted a touch faster, and both ships
almost made it clear of the path of the lasers. The last ship took a glancing blow which caused a thruster to explode. He3 fuel fed a roaring plasma fire and caused the little ship to begin to gyrate wildly as centrifugal forces began to tear it apart. The time from launch until the death of the third ship was about a minute. The last ship was pouring on the thrust in an attempt to escape, but Mary was in no mood for that; her blood was up and she was hungry for another kill.
Waste of a missile. She thought as she switched to guns and increased thrust to close the gap. Now she had a solid lock, and the shuttle didn?t have nearly the manoeuvrability to shake her. The computer had a lead indicator to give her an aim point, and her guns swivelled to meet it. The target did its best to duck and weave, but it was all for nought; finally the reticle reached the lean indicator, and she pulled the trigger. There was a soft
?thrum? as the twin autocannons fired, and moments later her zoomed optics saw concussive flashes march across the shuttles hull. She fired a second burst for good measure, but that proved to be unnecessary as a series of secondary explosions tore the shuttle apart. ?Archer, you?re six is clear. I?ll hang back here to keep it that way.?