Jack McKinney RoboTech 09 The Final Nightmare

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"Enemy ships spotted at mark seven niner, closing on us fast!"
General quarters sounded, armor-shod feet pounding the deck as men and
women rushed to battle stations. Cannon and missile tubes were run forth from
their turrets as the rust-red, whiskbroom-shaped assault ships of the Robotech
Masters plunged at the relief force.
Fast-moving and mounting formidable firepower, the assault ships dodged
the Terrans' shot patterns and began scoring hits almost immediately. Hulls
were penetrated by fusion-hot lances of energy; there were explosions and
explosive decompression in the breeched warcraft. Southern Cross soldiers died
in flames, in whirlwinds of shrapnel, and in vacuum.
Battlecruiser number three, the Austerlitz, disappeared in a furious
fireball. Other vessels were taking heavy damage. The Terrans had been taken
by surprise, and no one could answer the question, How could this have
happened? How could they have been waiting for us, as if they knew we were
coming?
But the Humans struggled to throw up a screen of AA fire, bring damage
under control, and simultaneously launch mecha of their own. In moments the
A-JACs, rotors folded for space combat, howled forth from the battlecruisers
to engage in battle.
As soon as the A-JACs began their counterattack, the hatches opened in
the sides of the assault ships, and enormous Bioroids rode forth to give
battle on circular antigrav Hovercraft. The Bioroids deployed for the fight,
looking like vaguely human-shaped walking battleships. They swarmed angrily,
outnumbering the Human mecha.
"Air Cavalry One to Lieutenant Crystal," the call came over the command
net. "I'm breaking radio silence to request immediate assistance. We are under
heavy attack and request immediate assistance."
Marie, on the bridge of the destroyer escort Mohi Heath, saw the worried
look on the face of Lieutenant Lucas, the Aircav commander. She opened her
headset mike to transmit. "Roger, Aircav One; we're on our way."
The ships of the patchwork evacuation force went to maximum speed. Marie
threw the headset aside and ran for her own A-JAC, and the rest of her TASC
outfit, the Black Lions, hot-scrambled.
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The Bioroids were enjoying good hunting.
The relief expedition was short on mecha, since so many had been
committed to the first strikeforce and many more had to remain behind to guard
Earth. So, the enemy assault ships stayed back and let the clone-operated
Bioroids ride their Hovercraft, and slaughter the enemy.
The relief force A-JACs and others fought valiantly, but the sheer
unevenness in numbers became apparent at once. Bioroids blazed away with the
weapons mounted in the control stems and platform bows of their Hovercraft,
and with the disc-shaped handguns that were as big as fieldpieces. A-JACs
blazed into explosive death one after another.
Lieutenant Lucas, his unit half gone, was calling to ask permission for
a hasty withdrawal; there was no point in throwing away Earth's valuable
mecha. Then, suddenly, there was a blue Bioroid on his tail, the gun in its
control stem spewing annihilation discs. Lucas only had a split second to
wonder who would take over (his exec being dead already) and to hope that the
strikeforce somehow would survive.
But then the Bioroid disappeared in a flaming ball of gas, and a strange
A-JAC bearing a rampant black lion came zooming past. "Crystal, this is Lucas!
Crystal, is that you?"
"Looks like this time the settlers have come to rescue the cavalry," she
said. She added to her own outfit, "Okay, boys; let's wrassle 'em around
some."
But that was already happening. Marie Crystal's Black Lions had come in
on the enemy's rear flank, undetected, and hurled themselves into the furious
dogfight. They had already changed the odds; within seconds they were turning
the kill ratios around. Before fifteen seconds passed, eight surprised
Bioroids had been shot to fragments or utterly destroyed.
But the enemy seemed determined to stand its ground, as it were, and
fight. The Lions, having been mauled so badly on their first assault only days
before, were more than willing to oblige.
Dogfight? Rat race? Oh, yes! Marie thought. Now you pay! And if somebody [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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