Lost Galaxy: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) (Complete Series Box Sets), page 23
Bowman couldn’t listen to this. He launched his Assailant and fell in at ZAK’s wingtip whizzing over the destroyer’s surface.
The Pteran Fleet surrounded the giant craft and pounded it with lasers. The enemy ships rotated their guns to trace the fugitives’ escape route. The Reflex hurtled into the cloud of destroyers with Bowman and ZAK hot on its tail.
“Come and get me, you bastards!” Akin bellowed.
“Promise me you’ll never let this woman fly me again after today, Jack,” Lucky complained.
Bowman couldn’t answer. “Lead them away, Akin! Get them to follow you toward Republican space.”
“Where is Republican space? I can’t see anything on this damn sensor grid. The destroyers are too thick.”
“I am transmitting the correct course to your AI,” ZAK told her. “The ship will fly itself. You must concentrate on returning the destroyers’ fire. You must get them to pursue you in a close formation.”
“I don’t have to do anything to get them to pursue me!” she bellowed. “They’re...”
Another smash of lasers cut her off. The next instant, Bowman and ZAK rocketed into the Pteran Fleet, too, and Bowman saw that Akin was right. All the enemy ships targeted the Reflex. They gunned their engines to follow the ship as it fled the stricken destroyer.
“None of the destroyers are attacking us,” Bowman observed.
“They cannot detect that we are not Pteran,” ZAK informed him. “They think we are pursuing the Reflex just as they are.”
“Can’t they overhear our communications?” Akin asked.
“I have cut off all communication between our systems and the destroyers. They will assume that the pheromone disruption destroyed our communication capabilities. They will assume we are Pterans trying to stop the Reflex.”
“That’s good enough for me. Come on.”
Bowman dropped behind the Reflex. He yanked his helm back and forth and did his best to position the Assailant in the destroyers’ path. The destroyers hesitated to shoot when they saw one of their own in the line of fire, but it couldn’t last.
The Reflex zoomed away from the destroyer where it crashed. In a matter of minutes, the three fugitive vessels entered a vast field of asteroids, debris, and floating rock. The Reflex slalomed into the thickest clusters where the destroyers couldn’t follow.
Bowman and ZAK hung close in the Reflex’s wake, but the destroyers didn’t stop there. They flew over the asteroid field and overtook the Reflex on the other side.
Bowman veered around the last few asteroids and his stomach dropped when he spotted the destroyers directly over his head. Their enormous bulging sides blocked his view of the stars beyond. They loomed huge and deadly and they moved incredibly fast for such large spacecraft. They zoomed over his Assailant and dropped on the other side of the asteroid field.
“Look out!” he yelled to Akin. “They’re moving to cut you off.”
Her head swiveled right and left in front of the screen. “They’re everywhere! I can’t get around ‘em.”
“Hold tight! I’m moving in. I’ll cut you a path through them.”
Even as Bowman grabbed the helm and gunned his engines to overtake the Reflex, he wasn’t sure he could do anything to help Akin now. The destroyers dwarfed the Assailants by hundreds of times.
He had to try it. He whizzed around another cluster of boulders and vaulted over the Reflex. These Assailants could move a lot faster than Republican ships. Bowman had to adjust his response time to match the sensitive controls. He dropped in front of the Reflex as all three fugitive spacecraft blasted out of the debris field.
They plummeted toward one of the destroyers as lasers erupted from all sides. Shots smashed Bowman’s Assailant and knocked the Reflex into his port wing. “Get down on the surface!” he called to Akin and ZAK. “Get as close to the destroyer as you can. ZAK! Can you disrupt them?”
“I will only be able to disrupt one at a time. Each destroyer has a different pheromone profile unique to its crew. I must calibrate the Assailant’s weapons to match each one.”
“Do what you can!” Another blistering shower of lasers scattered against his hull and the Reflex reeled off course. “Follow me, Akin! Get behind me and stick close.”
Her countenance hardened and she gritted her teeth fighting the helm. Maro kept sticking his head in front of the screen before he darted away. His expression smoldered with intense concentration, too. Bowman didn’t want to think about what all might be going wrong on the Reflex.
Bowman focused everything on the display in front of him. His gaze darted from one screen to another to keep the destroyer’s surface terrain in sight.
He dropped the Assailant into a narrow passage between towering modules and stacks of containers. The Reflex slotted in behind him, but the ship couldn’t keep up with the Assailant. Bowman had to slow down to keep Akin with him.
The destroyer’s giant lasers pelted into structures on both sides, but they had more trouble hitting the fugitives down here. The Pterans didn’t pound the destroyer’s surface with as many shots. They measured their strikes more carefully and landed fewer of them.
Assailants launched from the destroyer’s platforms. They buzzed overhead and dogged the Reflex from behind, but Bowman and Akin avoided the brunt of their attack by whizzing in and out of different alleys and byways.
“Up ahead!” Bowman called. “Get closer!”
“If I get any closer, I’ll be flying up your ass!”
Bowman riveted his attention on a massive cannon coming up fast. It topped a tall tower and swiveled in all directions shooting at the fugitives using the destroyer as a shield.
“Stay low!” Bowman ordered. “Don’t give the Assailants a target.”
Akin’s eyes snapped over to him. “What are you going to do?”
“As soon as I take out the big gun, you break for the next destroyer. Understand? Leapfrog from one destroyer to the next and stay close to the surface of each one. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”
She opened her mouth to argue. Was she really going to tell him not to throw his life away to get the Reflex back to Republican space?
He hauled his gaze away from her. The cannon swung around and locked on him. The minute he stuck his head out, it would blow it off...or try to.
He took a deep seat and wiped cold sweat off his palm before he consolidated his grip on the helm. He switched on the Assailant’s targeting grid and fixed it on the cannon. This gun was only one of thousands of lasers that the Pterans would aim at him and his friends. Did he really think shooting this one would make any difference?
He exploded out of an alley and rocketed his fighter craft into the air. All the Pteran Assailants converged on him, but that only played into his hands. They broke off chasing the Reflex and he couldn’t even see ZAK’s Assailant anymore. He hoped and prayed she was somewhere on this destroyer preparing to disrupt their pheromone system the way she did before.
Assailants ringed him in laser fire, but he didn’t waste time shooting back. He slammed the throttle to the wall and plunged through them. Their shots crashed into his hull, but they didn’t penetrate it. ZAK must have magnetized his Assailant to compensate for that.
He aimed his craft for the cannon and all the Assailants fell in behind him. They hung on his ass and he deliberately slowed down to let them overtake him. They crowded close and a few dared to jostle him.
He locked his weapons on the cannon and fired, but he missed on purpose. The cannon traced his path and the cruel laser erupted. The beam grazed his starboard flank and ricocheted off. It smashed into an Assailant tailing him and all his pursuers opened fire.
He jumped in fright and took his hands off the controls, but it was already too late. The cannon and all the Assailants fired again. Their shots zinged past Bowman’s ship. Some deflected off his hull and hit each other instead.
The Assailants that managed to dodge the cannon dumped all their shots directly into the big gun. It detonated in a glorious fireball and Bowman’s craft streaked through to the other side. He seized the helm in desperation and slammed it all the way forward to dive for the surface. Then it happened.
The Assailants that survived the explosion banked to follow him. They plummeted...and then five of them peeled hard to both sides. They whirred out of control and three exploded in midair.
The others somersaulted head over heels and collided with towers and containers stacked on the destroyer’s surface. Seven of them spun off in different directions, never to return.
Bowman burst out laughing in relief. “Thanks, ZAK!”
The image flickered and her pointed head appeared in front of him again. “I apologize for taking so long, Lieutenant. I took longer than anticipated to recalibrate the lasers to match the destroyer’s pheromone profile.”
“Can we cut the chatter already?” Akin cut in. “We got company.”
Bowman jerked sideways to see another posse of Assailants charging in from a different destroyer. The giant spacecraft hovered only a few parsecs to port of the destroyer the friends just defeated.
“Get over there!” Bowman ordered. “Get the Reflex down on the surface.”
“You’re insane!” Akin snarled. “The Assailants are coming from that destroyer. They’ll have the home field advantage.”
“Get down there!” Bowman countered. “It’s our only chance to disrupt them.”
Maro muttered something in Akin’s ear and vanished off the screen. She ground her teeth and shook her head, but she followed Bowman’s order.
She wheeled the Reflex to port and launched the ship into the thin strip of space separating the two destroyers. Bowman and ZAK followed her. They left the first destroyer deserted and dead. Nothing moved on its surface. Its vast holds and inner compartments would be silent and deserted now that the Pterans on board no longer manned their stations.
The Reflex dove to the destroyer’s surface and Bowman steered his Assailant to pull the same maneuver when ZAK called out a warning. “Pull out, Lieutenant! We cannot take shelter on this destroyer.”
“Why not? What’s the problem?”
“The Pterans...they have adjusted their defenses. I cannot disrupt their pheromone signals any longer. They have erected biochemical signatures to protect themselves.”
Akin glanced over at Bowman on her screen. Her eyes asked the question she didn’t dare to vocalize aloud. Now what were they going to do? How could they get away from these destroyers without disrupting their pheromone profiles?
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
“Pull out!” Bowman ordered. “Gun it for Republican space. We’ll do what we can to protect your rear.”
“What about you?” Akin asked.
“Don’t worry about me. Just get the Reflex back to the Republic. Nothing else matters.”
She started to say something, but the Assailants stopped her. They dropped to the destroyer’s surface and lasers scattered between the fugitive ships.
“Go!” Bowman ripped his Assailant around and plastered the enemy with as many shots as he could fire. ZAK wheeled to join him, but he couldn’t have that. “You go, too, ZAK. Protect the Reflex.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll draw as many away as I can.”
“That will not work, Lieutenant. We must both work to draw them away from the Reflex.”
Bowman wanted to tell her to get the hell out of here while she had the chance. He wanted to argue with her and point out that the Reflex wouldn’t stand a chance of getting home by itself.
A devastating crash stopped him from saying anything. Assailants surrounded him and he hit the throttle for all he was worth. He zoomed through the horde and took off for the other side of the destroyer.
The Reflex rocketed away at a right angle to the surface. Half the Assailants split off to pursue the ship, but ZAK moved too fast for them. She rotated her Assailant sideways and came streaking back across their noses. She drove into the path of their lasers and zoomed away spitting shots at them as she went.
Her ploy worked and the Assailants whipped around to return fire. They dove forward to run her down and the Reflex got away in the mayhem.
Bowman’s Assailant covered the miles so fast he didn’t see the Reflex get away. He used his old trick of burying himself in the tangled maze of pipes and modules. They gave him a perfect venue to hide from the Assailants, but he didn’t want to hide.
He kept popping up to draw their fire. He shot backward, but he didn’t aim too well. He targeted containers and enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the Assailants detonate in the explosions.
He ran them a good distance away before he expanded his sensor grid to the rest of the battlefield. He almost ducked down for safety again, but he changed strategy in a second when he caught sight of the Reflex.
The ship escaped the destroyer only to run into the rest of the Fleet converging on its location. The ship looked so small and defenseless compared to these enormous battle craft.
Bowman jerked his helm hard to starboard and peeled away from the destroyer. He counted on ZAK being able to disrupt the destroyer’s pheromone profiles. He would have to get creative now that he lost that.
He forgot to signal her that he was leaving. He didn’t see her Assailant anywhere, but with the whole Fleet converging to attack the Reflex, he had to act fast.
He searched the grid for any sign of Republican support, but the forward strike front was still too far away. The Pterans had carried the Reflex and its crew much farther behind the forward strike front than he feared. Could they ever get home?
More Assailants launched from destroyers all around him. They clustered so thickly he couldn’t see any way between them. Destroyers circled the Reflex and cut off its route back to Republican space. How long would it take for their lasers to compensate for ZAK’s adjustments? The Pterans would destroy the Reflex along with Bowman and ZAK’s Assailants.
He cast around for any option. His spirits plummeted to a new low when more destroyers overtook the main Fleet. They floated past his Assailant to form a new strike front heading straight for the Long Lane. Maybe they didn’t need the Reflex to create a pretext anymore. The Pterans would carry out a preemptive strike of their own now that they used the Reflex’s information to make their Assailants invulnerable.
Destroyers surrounded him everywhere he looked. He couldn’t get away from them. He could only stare with this sick feeling gnawing at his guts. Would he and his friends be treated to a ringside seat of the Republic’s ultimate destruction?
Something clicked in his mind and a glimmer of hope flashed before his eyes. He sprang forward and seized the helm. “Follow me! It’s our only chance.”
“What now?” Akin growled. “We’re sunk. The whole Republic is sunk. There are too many destroyers and they’re too far ahead of us. We can never overtake them.”
“That’s right! Come on. Let’s go!”
He shot toward the nearest destroyer. He didn’t care which one it was. Any destroyer would do.
He distinctly heard Maro mutter in Akin’s ear, “He’s gone.”
Akin nodded, but at least she did what he said. She wheeled the Reflex around and the three fugitive ships fell into formation.
Bowman plunged for the surface. He didn’t give a damn what he did or where he did it. All he needed was time.
He dropped into another faceless corridor between containers when the image of ZAK vanished from his controls. A different Pteran face appeared in her place, but this one was only too alive. “What do you hope to accomplish on this destroyer, Lieutenant? You cannot hide here. Our squads will recapture you.”
Bowman actually laughed in Ieko’s face. “I don’t know how you survived the pheromone disruption and I don’t want to know. If you want to recapture me, you better come down to the surface and get me.”
“Are you out of your damn mind?” Akin roared. “What are you trying to do—aggravate her?”
Bowman exploded in laughter. “You don’t know how pleased I am that you’re still alive, Ieko. I can’t wait to teach you a lesson about human nature that you could never learn from all those experiments. Come on down to the surface and you can kill me yourself. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Akin, Maro, and now Van Dyke stared at him through their communications link. Their expressions registered all the fear and horror of realizing that Bowman really had gone around the twist this time.
Ieko’s huge eyes didn’t waver from the screen. “I look forward to ending your miserable life, Lieutenant, but not before you watch your precious Republic burn before our lasers.”
He laughed even louder. Her vendetta against him and the rest of humanity seemed so comic right now. He couldn’t explain even to himself why he found this situation so hilarious. Maybe he spent too much time in her experiments. Maybe he really had lost it completely.
None of that mattered. He wrenched his eyes away from Ieko and steered his Assailant through the destroyer’s many winding intersections and mazes. He couldn’t resist needling Ieko while he searched for a place to land. “Did those lasers hurt you in your command center? I hope you enjoyed holding me by the throat because you’ll never lay a finger on me again.”
She made a hissing noise. “You may delude yourself about that for a few more minutes, Lieutenant. I will remind you of your rash words when I snuff out your life.”
“You’ve said that before, but here I am, still very much alive. How many more times will you try to kill me and fail? Did you get plenty of useful information about humanity during our charming experiments? Did you get enough to annihilate humanity entirely?”
“I learned that your species is pathetically naïve and easily manipulated,” she husked. “I learned that the Pteran race has nothing to fear from the Republic. You care too much for individual recognition and achievement. You care nothing for the collective good. Your species will fall before our might.”
He laughed again, but he only half-listened to her threats. “Maybe the Pteran Fleet will slaughter all the rest of the human colonies in the galaxy after you retake the Long Lane. Maybe you’ll fight your way all the way back to the Earth solar system—all thanks to me.” He giggled uncontrollably. “I’ll be famous as the person who handed humanity to the Pterans on a silver platter.”
