Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 71

Kellea realized what she was seeing and hated the fact she'd been right in her prediction. Beyond two fleets of ships, beyond two groups that had hated each other for millennia, she realized she was watching the opening battle in what would be a long and bloody civil war for control of the quadrant. Despite Crisstof’s attempts to train her, she’d never been much of a political strategist or a schemer, preferring instead the honesty of commanding a warship. Since her ascendency to admiral, however, she’d become much more aware of how shortsighted her disinterest had been. If she could see that this was heading for war, then others must have already come to that conclusion long ago.

“Captain Essel, please have the rest of the taskforce join us.” Her voice was calm, but her heart was hammering and her mouth was suddenly dry. “Instruct them to form up on the Defiant, standard spread.”

“Admiral?” Scleesz asked hesitantly.

“A precaution, Councilman,” she assured him. “We must be prepared to defend ourselves depending on who wins this engagement.”

“Of course,” he said, his voice betraying the fact he didn’t believe her at all.

BOOM

“Jason we can’t keep taking hits like this,” Kage warned. “Either end this or get us out of here.”

The Phoenix thundered over the sparsely populated southern hemisphere as the remaining fighters continued to harass her. The ConFed pilots were highly skilled and learned quickly, discovering right away that their main cannons had just a bit more effective range than the gunships aft guns. Now they were rotating positions, letting two drop back to cool their shield emitters while a fresh pair would come forward, absorb the depleted shots from the DL7 while hammering at her aft end with their more powerful cannons.

It was like being chased by a pack of small, stinging gnats, but it was taking its toll. The shield emitters and the generators were being taxed beyond their limits and heat buildup within the ship was becoming a problem. They'd already had to dial back the available power on the main drive as the cooling loops struggled to shed off all the thermal energy the ship was producing so deep within an atmosphere. The result was that, not only did Jason have trouble reaching out and hitting the ships behind him, but he'd also lost his speed advantage. If he didn't think of something soon, it would be 'death from a thousand cuts' and, eventually, all four fighters would swarm and finish them off.

The pursuit from craft that Jason had assumed his ship could crush without breaking a sweat and just showed some glaring holes in their strategy when they'd rebuilt her. Unfortunately, that realization did nothing to help him now.

Boom—BOOM!

"Engine three is losing containment!" Kage called. "Plasma pressures are climbing!" Jason took a cursory look at his engine management panel to know that number three was lost, and just shutting it down wouldn't help.

"Twingo! Jettison Engine Three!"

Even amid the rocking and rolling of the ship straining in the turbulent atmosphere, Jason could feel the explosive charges thumping through his seat as the panels were blown free from the starboard nacelle and two more hard bumps as the cutting charges blew engine three clear of the ship, sending it tumbling into to the slipstream.

To make sure he wasn't dragging the engine behind him, Jason rolled to the left into knife-edge flight and yanked the stick back into his lap. The Phoenix groaned under the g-loading as she veered to port hard, vapor pouring off the upper hull as the she compressed the air. He glanced at the aft view on the center instrument stack long enough to see his jettisoned main engine impact the ground and explode with enough force to send trees, rocks, and earth billowing into the sky. The fighters behind him lost a little ground dodging the debris, but not enough to help him now that he'd just lost a quarter of his engine power.

"They're all closing in now." Kage's voice was oddly subdued. "They know we're about done."

"She's not fucking done yet," Jason snarled. "Cas! Standby, I'm going to put them in range for the forward turrets."

"Standing by, but you'd better hurry," Cas said, its voice coming from the intercom speakers on the bridge.

Jason throttled back just a touch more to let the fighters continue to close, but not telegraph his next move so clumsily that they realized what he was up to. He'd done this once before with the Phoenix, and she never liked it. The last time she'd puked out the entire starboard grav-drive emitter array and left him stranded. The new drive Twingo had installed was much more robust, but it wasn't indestructible.

"Here goes nothing," he said once the fighters had closed and the flankers had moved out to come in at him from both sides. "Tighten your straps, everyone!"

"Oh, shit," Kage muttered and grabbed the crash handles at his station with all four hands.

With a quick break, Jason pulled the main engines to idle, threw the grav-drive to full-reverse bias, and cranked the power to maximum. The results were instantaneous as the full power of the drive reversed directions. He was thrown against his restraints so hard his vision swam, and he had trouble keeping the ship oriented while it decelerated to almost noting in an instant. Through the haze there were muted pops from within the ship and something that sounded like a medium sized explosion, but he still kept the power up.

Cas, immune to the effects of his dangerous and desperate maneuver, was ready when the fighters zipped by. The pilots were good and immediately understood the danger they were in, each electing to go into radical, evasive maneuvers as they overflew the near-stopped gunship at close range. Cas was easily able to target each fighter individually and opened up with the two upper turrets and the chin turret as the big gunship floundered in the air from