Free War of Alien Aggression 3 Lancer by A.D. Bloom Page B

launched them would be returning for more ordnance. A few torps in the front of the salvo flared and cooked off. The Squidies were already stabbing them at long range with defensive batteries.
    Far out ahead of Jordo and Snooze and all the Dingoes, through the gas giant's hellish rays, the Squidies' third ship finally showed itself to be not a cruiser, but a carrier when it opened its launch bays. Alien fighters poured out in a crimson blur. "Red bandits," Snooze said. "Looks like...twenty-four of 'em."
    " Hardway AT to all flights. Enemy fighters have been sighted with the cruisers. Lancer 2-1, be advised of bandits' decreasing range and bearing to your position. They're on an intercept course with you and the Dingoes. ETA is less than 2 minutes. Your orders are to ensure the Dingoes engage and then bug out. Acknowledge."
    "Lancer 2-1 to Hardway AT. Wilco, Hardway . Will comply." The pack of Dingoes was about to get chewed to hell and Jordo actually felt bad for them like he was serving them up for the Squidies, but at least if the bandits were occupied with the drones, they wouldn't be killing his Lancers.
    Jordo and Snooze led the Dingoes in and peeled away as the autonomous drones hurled themselves at the alien fighters. " Hardway AT to Lancer 2-1, form up with your squadron."
    "Roger that. Changing vector now." Jordo turned to port, half-rolled and half-looped so he turned 180 degrees. Snooze followed and they laid on the thrust to make sure they got away clean and none of the Squidies overshot the Dingoes for a crack at them. Seconds later, after they were going fast enough to feel safe, Jordo was compelled to rotate his Bitzer on its jets and fly backwards to see the engagement with his own eyes. Snooze was already spinning.
    There were more than five times as many Dingoes as red bandits. Jordo had heard of Squidy pilots taking on enormous numbers of autonomous drones and the red bandits gave him and Snooze a demonstration of just how they did it.
    The Dingoes hit the closest bandits with all their numbers. The drones in front threw themselves at the lead Squidies and the rest of the pack went in with them. Jordo couldn't tell whether it was Dingo following Dingo or whether it was every single drone making its own path for the same target, but that pattern of attack was what the alien pilots exploited.
    The drones flew at the red bandits in a fire-spitting horde, chasing the leading, alien three-plane element as it flew past them, rolling and dodging their fire while it dove and then looped away. The Dingoes in position to fire on the alien fighters that had just taunted them only spat shells briefly because that's when the second element of the red bandits formation opened up with their particle streams from their position behind the first flight. Their shafts came down across the front edge of the Dingoes' pack from above and the aliens drew swaths of bright flashing impacts across a dozen Dingo hulls, gutting them or running them through so the 111s drifted for absent half-seconds before their reactors cooked off in fast flashes.
    It looked like the QF-111s couldn't understand what was happening to them or how they were being outsmarted by the aliens. But Jordo and Snooze could see it. The flight of three Squidies that had just strafed the Dingoes now flew past the front of the pack on the same path as the first element and pulled away, luring the next Dingoes to give chase. And the Dingoes did. They dug in and pursed the bandits with a thousand shells a second and every bit of acceleration they had.
    The fireballs and reactor flashes had barely cleared from the sky when the next flight of red bandits dove in like the one before it and came down on the next dozen Dingoes stabbing at them and holing them through. The Squidy pilots flew their massive, eight-element formation in a roundabout loop, taking turns chewing up the drones and then peeling away as the unwise Dingoes gave chase. They did it again and again. The