Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 69
"Forgive me, master."
"Of all the things to find funny…"
Mok turned his attention back to the display. The Phoenix had hit Miressa Prime's atmosphere and was no longer on sensors, but the other part of the battle was really heating up. All but one of the Imperial ships was now under power and moving in on the 405th Battlefleet, and the first wave of missiles were already in flight. He held his breath, waiting for the two battleships to come within range of each other and really start slugging it out. The Luex-class was an awesome machine of war, but she was just getting her feet under while the crew scrambled to reverse all the damage done by the ConFed crews while the 405th ship was in peak condition. The Eshquarian crew could very well be flying into a slaughter.
“Are there any Blazing Sun assets in the region we could call in?” Mok asked.
“No, master,” Similan said. “With the recent unrest we’ve pulled most of our operation out of the Pillar Worlds, working through the smaller syndicates instead.”
“Damn.”
24
The Phoenix slammed into the stratosphere of Miressa Prime so hard the sensors were washed out by the plasma generated from the shields hitting the denser air. The ride through the thermosphere had been bumpy and nearly fatal as Jason had to juke around a ship that was running in low orbit without its beacon on, trying to hide from the warships clashing above.
“Nine pursuers are still with us, one of the fighters broke up when it hit the atmosphere,” Doc said. “Shield failure.”
“I got ‘em,” Jason said. “Standby aft cannons, bringing up the mains now.”
The big main engines lit off with a reverberating boom as superheated plasma was fed into the containment chambers and focused out the thrust nozzles to give the big gunship forty-seven million pounds of raw thrust to augment her grav-drive. It was a capability that the Phoenix possessed that most other ships did not, and though they were considered an anachronism, the plasma thrust engines had saved their asses more times than he could count.
“Care to fill me in on your grand strategy?” Kage asked.
“To be honest, I’m just making it up as I go,” Jason said. “Find me a direction that isn’t filled with innocent civilians, if that even exists on this planet.”
“Due south,” Doc answered. “Entire tracts of undeveloped wilderness. This planet was re-terraformed back in—”
“Please shut up,” Jason said calmly as he spun the Phoenix around and pointed her nose to point south. “Deal with enemy fighters first, interesting history factoids after.”
“I… Sorry.”
The first shots from the leading fighters peppered the rear shields as the fighters were able to close the distance at the higher altitudes while Jason changed course abruptly and lost momentum. They were still far enough out that the plasma bolts had expended most of their energy before hitting the shields, but it also meant that Jason had squandered his ship’s hard-fought lead, and if his plan didn’t work, they’d swarm him under. The fighters’ weapons weren’t overly powerful, but they didn’t need to be when they came in relentless waves of incoming fire.
“Missile shot! Veer right!”
“I can’t! I’m at full deflection! Track—” Jason’s words were drowned out as the Phoenix bucked under him and alarms started blaring on the bridge. He blinked in confusion at the fact the fighter had been able to fire a missile within the transition boundary, but he had no time to contemplate it as he fought for control of the gunship. The explosion had slammed into her shields on the upper, aft section and pushed the tail down so violently she was now tumbling through the sky.
“Stabilize, damnit!”
“I’m trying!” Kage shouted, his four hands flying over the controls.
“First two fighters overshot! Three more coming into range!” Doc shouted over the alarms. The nose and tail swapped ends twice more before the computers had enough and the grav-drive asserted control over the tumble…which was exactly what Jason had been trying to avoid. He couldn’t get to the pilot aid override controls before the grav-drive brought things to a screeching halt, practically stopping the big gunship in midair.
“Brace! Brace!” Kage called. More shots hammered into their shields as the trailing three fighters took their free shots on the stationary ship, strafing the dorsal surface with their cannons before overflying. Jason’s teeth slammed together and took a chunk out of the inside of his cheek as the Phoenix rocked under the incoming fire.
It wasn’t a free pass, however, as the Phoenix's automatic systems opened up with point defense fire and plasma bolts from the two forward turrets. The last fighter in line exploded into a brilliant fireball, the second was critically hit and began spiraling towards the surface, and the third took heavy enough hits that it was making a wobbly climb back out of the atmosphere.
Your method of control is simply too inefficient to take on this many targets at one time. You don’t allow the Phoenix to defend herself, instead insisting on controlling every action. You are in the way.
“Either help or shut up, Cas,” Jason grunted.
I believe I can take control of the ship’s fire control system through your neural implant connection. You’ll need Kage to authorize the new bridge connection.
“Kage, Cas is going to take over fire control through my implant,” Jason said as he was still fighting with the Phoenix about who was in control. For the time being, the ship had decided he was simply a voting party in the flight control process, not a dictator in the pilot’s seat. “Make it happen and don’t argue with me about it.”
“Got it.”
“Come on, you stubborn bitch!” Jason shouted, shoving the stick forward and aiming the nose straight down, trying to find some action that she wasn’t going to fight him over. Mercifully,