Double Eagle by Dan Abnett Page B

Zero-Two lurched as the twin-linked lascannons in the nose spat off.
    Brilliant daggers of light flew out of her machine, zagging down through the sky towards the bat. Struck, it rolled over and staggered sideways, then started to make white smoke as it curved away, falling, falling.
    “Bag one,” Jagdea snarled into her mask. “Four-One Leader to flight, I have engaged. I repeat, I have engaged.”
    She half-heard a response from Marquall, but the meaning of it was lost as she inverted again, viffing hard to increase her turn rate, her ears popping with hard-G as she sidestepped an incoming Locust. A glimpse. The blinking flashes of the gunports, the blur of mauve wings.
    As she came nose up, throttle out as far as it could go, she saw two Cyclones blunder past, followed by a banking Locust. All three were in view for less than a second.
    None of Umbra Flight were carrying rack weapons on this sortie, certainly nothing guided or air-to-air. Jagdea would have to rely entirely on boresight shooting.
    She pushed the nose over and kicked right rudder, heaving the heavy machine around. The horizon swung madly. A Cyclone went by under her, emitting sporadic brown smoke. The banking Locust had already pulled out of sight, but there was another, scarlet like blood, turning in towards the wounded Enothian machine.
    She made another deep dive, fans shrieking, G pressing the mask into her face and making her see spots. She had the Locust for a moment. Then it viffed sideways on its reactor jets, a non-ballistic wobble to the side, but instinct set her ready to do the same and compensate. It was purely a gut thing that she got it right: the Locust had gone the way she would have done.
    Jagdea punched las-shots at it and hit something, because the slipstream suddenly filled with black smoke and shreds of wing casing. The Locust vanished, then she made it out again as she rolled. It was heading away east. Was it going down or running? There was no way to confirm. The old, foremost rule: don’t stay on a target.
    She came around again and made a shallow climb that slid her between two of the racing Cyclones. Her auspex began bleating. Something had a lock on her. She rolled, craning her head back over her left shoulder, then her right. Where the hell was it? Las-shots scorched past her port side and her machine bucked hard. There were suddenly raking scorch marks on her port wing. She rolled and turned again. Still the lock held. More shots, stitching past on her right now. She dipped her wing and banked out, catching her speed and opening the reactor nozzles so she almost turned end on end.
    The Locust went right by her, overshooting. She saw the bone-white kill marks under its canopy sill.
    Three thousand metres above her, Marquall began his turn, standing on his port wing, gazing down at the spiralling machines through the cloud cover below. Van Tull and Espere matched his turn.
    “Stoop and sting,” Marquall instructed. God-Emperor, but he’d waited his whole life to say that for real.
    “On your lead, Eight,” Van Tull responded calmly.
    “Just say when,” added Espere.
    “My mark… three, two… mark!”
    The three Bolts curved away, speed climbing as they dropped. Intercept dive. Marquall could see Jagdea, and two of the bats. The other machines were local prop-drives. He was coming down on them so very fast…
    Guns! Throne of Earth, he’d almost forgotten to switch live in his excitement. He wrenched back the switch cover. There was a bat, snaking left under his wing. Surely, they’d seen the three Bolts coming down on them? Who cared?
    He had a lock, and he squeezed. His machine rocked as it unloaded. Marquall swore aloud. He’d meant to select autocannon, but the toggle was across on las. He’d sprayed off almost half his battery load in one go and not even hit anything.
    Except… Over there, a Cyclone. Falling, coming apart, weeping flame. Marquall blinked hard, sweat drooling inside his mask. Shit, no! Please