War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War by A.D. Bloom Page A

they’d gone beyond the range where the alien gunners would try to hit them.
    The shock of Pooch's own survival flashed through her like a tingle that left her body floating. Her helmet now highlighted the target in wireframe. Matilda Witt’s longboat was between Arbitrage and the small, alien ship, just a few Ks out from the bay now, going so slowly it was almost a stationary target.  
    As they bore down on it with savage war-cries on comms, whomever was at the longboat's helm must have realized it was too late to turn around and make for their bay, but its engines plumed pale and blue and bright as it tried.
    Each of the fighter pilots now bearing down on Matilda Witt's longboat had cursed her at one point or another. They’d all asked for this moment...revenge for using them like fodder...revenge for 75% casualties and all the friends they lost under her command. The only one to shed a tear was Pooch. Inside her flight helmet Hellcat 1-1 cried because she knew if Staas VPs like Witt were dying today, then there wasn’t much chance any of them would make it. She’d known that before. She'd stood tall in the face of it for her pilots' sake. Now, alone in the cockpit, she wept, but her voice never wavered. This command was her pleasure to give. "This is Hellcat 1-1. Open fire. Send that woman to hell."  
    The 151s and the 223s fired from outside what was considered their maximum effective range. Normally the time it took the shells to arrive would be enough for the target to maneuver out of their path. But that was when a single fighter fired its six autocannon. When the forty-one remaining fighters of the Hardway Air Group all opened up together, their combined fire fell across such a wide area, there was literally nowhere for Matilda Witt’s longboat to go to escape the vengeful rain.  
    *****
    SCS Boomslang slipped out the open bay doors of Arbitrage when all eyes were on Witt's longboat and the hail of shells. From inside the stealthed ship's cockpit, Ram witnessed the death of Matilda Witt. Just before the sabot ripped through it and the high-explosive shells blew it apart, she spoke on comms one last time. She said, "I’ll see you all soon." Then, her boat cooked off in a strangely extended flash of uncontrolled fusion.
    The fighters that had ended her then rotated to fire on the alien diplomatic ship next. Its thin beams tried to slice at them, but it didn't stand a chance.
    Some of those fighters should be from the 38th SD, Ram thought. "Special Delivery," he said as they launched warspite torpedoes too close to the enemy hull for its few defensive guns to find them and save it.
    " Now. Get us out of here while they’re all looking the other way," Ram said. "Hit the main engines. "  
    " Lighting ‘em up," Medoc said. "Watch our endo emissions."  
    "Got it."
    The alien ambassadorial ship seemed to shudder as the warheads detonated against its hull. It was small enough to get lost in the detonation flash and when they could see it again, burning fragments were all that remained.
    " Go, go, go!"  
    " Full thrust."  
    Ram thought he had enough of a grip on the handhold, but he was wrong. Boomslang had less inertial negation now than the one test run he’d been on and since he’d only been using one hand to hold on, when the ship blasted out of there towards the fat and bloody gas giant and the aliens' homeworld moon, he was thrown backwards with the Chief. They impacted on the bulkhead together.
    " That was fast." Medoc said before they managed to get up.  
    " What?"  
    Medoc's co-pilot, Max, tapped at his console to project a display over the OMNI NAV set between their seats. The scale of the ships in the projection was minute, but they were big enough to discern the enemy particle streams slicing at UNS and Privateer hulls. "The fleet is outnumbered two to one and the Squidies still have that dreadnought. I saw what that thing can do at Sirius. I saw it slice over twenty ships apart before the rest of