TIET sat in the dusty mold infested cockpit of a relic. The ship was Barudii made, a predecessor of the Viper class aerial fighter. He completed the login of the coordinates that had been transmitted by Emil from the Equinox. He powered up the engines and they gave only a slight choke before coming online fully. Boy, these were well made.
A few ships down, Grod had his fighter's engines warming up and Wynn was outside of his ship tinkering with a regulator. He made a final manual adjustment that set the engine cycle into a nice purr. He looked at Tiet with satisfaction.
A screeching noise could be heard from the hallway near the control booth-the aerogores were coming back to their nest.
"Get in!" Tiet shouted.
Wynn fumbled with the lock on his canopy, it was stuck. Aerogores began to march through the hallway into the chamber. When they saw the aircraft, powered up for flight, they became enraged. Wynn finally got the canopy to open up again as Tiet and Grod began to lift off of the pad.
The aerogores took to the air, sailing over the railing toward the hovering ships. Tiet instinctively went for the guns and set them blazing, rapid fire. Several of the beasts fell out of the sky, chewed to bits by the onslaught of the aerial fighter's guns. Tiet brought the nose of the ship to bear on the hallway's opening in the rock and launched a small rocket into it which shattered the stone to pieces. The entryway was mostly blocked to the others coming back to the nest.
Wynn was airborne and following Grod's fighter out of the underground hangar bay through the cave that had once served as a launch point. The guns of Grod's ship blazed to life, taking out oncoming predators that were returning from the outside. Grod cleared the way and all three aerial fighters shot into the open air above ground.
They were immediately faced with the awesome sight of a Vorn battle cruiser hovering above the grassy plains where their ships had emerged.
"Switch on your sensor cloak!" shouted Wynn through their cockpit speakers.
"What?"
"Lower left on the panel-quickly. I don't think they've spotted us yet."
Tiet obeyed his mentor and tapped the switch that was labeled Sensor Cloak. The indicator lit up green in color.
"What does it do?" Grod asked.
"Just what it says. We're masked from their sensor scans, at least if they're working properly," said Wynn. "Now, we can head toward Sayir and they won't even realize we've been here."
Tiet studied the ship ahead of them. Lucin could be on that ship. Also on his display, was payload information. He was carrying fifty rockets minus the one he had used inside the hangar and one laser guided smart bomb.
"We're not leaving just yet," said Tiet into the cockpit microphone.
"What are you talking about, we have to rendezvous with the others at Sayir," said Wynn.
"And we will. I just want to give them a little present before we bug out," said Tiet. "Are your ships armed?"
"Mine is; I'm in," said Grod quickly, a lust for revenge in his voice.
"Wynn?"
He hesitated. "How do I always get outvoted?"
"Just your luck old friend," said Tiet as he brought his aerial fighter on a course for the Vorn cruiser.
The others fell in line at his wings and armed their weapons.
"If they don't know we're here then they probably don't have their shields up."
"We'll have to hit them with everything at once before they have an opportunity to put them up," said Grod.
The fighters were closing in on the target fast at subsonic speed. They looked like insects swarming a large animal, but their sting would be nastier.
"Let her have it!" shouted Tiet as he triggered every weapon to fire on the hulking cruiser ahead.
The triple volley was heaved away from the fighter group almost simultaneously. The ships shuddered heavily as all weapons released their payload at once. The rockets sailed ahead of them at a slightly faster speed, like a prey outrunning its predator. The group pulled up just in time to clear the hull.
Multiple impacts of the smaller missiles swept across the hull like a swiftly moving rain. The three smart bombs sailed elegantly after, crashing heavily against the armor of the hull. Each one erupted in a devastating display of fire and shrapnel, breeching the ship's exterior hull. The strafed side of the great vessel was a huge patch of fire burning on the hull surface with more damage throughout the lower layers.
Tiet whooped aloud at the impacts, but it was a very small victory. The Vorn cruisers could take much more before being crippled, but at least they had struck back. The trio brought their fighters back around; it was time to head for the rendezvous. From the belly of the vessel, smaller ships were birthed into the air and they quickly set their collective sights upon Tiet and his group.
"Here they come," said Wynn.
"Split up!" shouted Tiet.
The trio rolled away from one another as a group of pods shot through their formation with all guns blazing. The enemy divided up at a three to one ratio.
"We're a little outnumbered," said Wynn as he took evasive maneuvers.
"And your point?" asked Tiet.
"We've got to get to the rendezvous, for one."
"These pods are a bit more maneuverable than our fighters," said Grod as he barely evaded incoming pulse bursts.
"Head away from one another," commanded Wynn.
"Why?"
"An old war maneuver from before you were born," said Wynn.
The trio each put their aerial fighters on a flight path away from the other two and pushed the ships into full throttle. The pods were more maneuverable, but not quite as fast. Each of the old Barudii aerial fighters was trailing three enemy pod fighters as they continued on track away from the area around the Vorn cruiser.
"Now, what?" asked Tiet.
"When we reach a fifty-mile distance from each other, we'll turn back from our course and head for an intersect point."
Grod laughed into his headset. "I think I've heard this in one of your old war stories, Wynn. I never get tired of hearing them."
"And he never gets tired of telling them," added Tiet sarcastically.
"Alright men, on my mark. Three, two, one, and come back on a heading of.0729," commanded Wynn.
The old aerial fighters each pulled a hard turn and came back on their pursuers who had been lagging only slightly. The pod trios split away into their own hard turn maneuvers and came right back into formation as they pursued the Barudii fighters.
"We're coming in fast," said Tiet.
"Use the rockets you have left and lock onto each others pursuing pods," said Wynn. "As we close the distance, everyone turn down and right 30? after we fire rockets at the locked targets. They'll be so preoccupied trying to catch each of us-"
"-that they won't realize they're heading into rockets fired from a different fighter than the one they are pursuing," Tiet finished.
"Exactly."
"Remind me to pay closer attention to his stories, Grod."
The Barudii fighters were closing the distance fast at supersonic speeds, each with a trio of pursuing pods in tow.
"Here we go," warned Grod as he kept an eye on his comrades approaching on his scanner.
"Lock targets and fire on my mark," instructed Wynn.
"I've got mine," said Tiet.
"Me too."
"And three, two, one, fire and turn!" shouted Wynn as he fired his own rockets.
Each fighter loosed its rockets and ducked away according to Wynn's instructions. They crossed the point they would have intersected with the pods in tow, not realizing that they had been locked in as targets of fighters other than the one each pod trio had been following. The rockets plowed head on with each of their intended targets as the Tiet, Wynn and Grod reformed their group.
"Now, let's get out of here and meet the others before we have any more company," said Wynn.
"It's odd that the cruiser is alone out here," said Grod.
"And that they only sent nine pods after us," Tiet added.
"I wonder what has become of the other ships that were said to have been with this one," said Grod.
"I'm sure we'll find out sooner than we want to," said Wynn. "Let's get moving while we can."
The aerial fighter trio adjusted their course and speed and headed away toward the Valley of Sayir.