"Brian Daley "Han Solo at Stars' End"" - читать интересную книгу автора

The IRD leader he'd shot at hadn't split-S. The raiders' whole strategy of drawing the defenders out of formation was clear now, too late. The IRD leader had half rolled again, half looped, and come around onto the tail of Hall's wing man. The other IRD, the bait, was already racing on toward the backup ele-ment, Headhunters five and six. One of the IRDs Jessa had faced joined that one in a new two-ship element.
The Espos had counted on the inexperienced outlaw-techs' breaking formation, Han thought. If we'd stayed together we'd have mopped the floor with them. "Jess, damreit, we've been robbed," he called as he came around, but Jessa had her own troubles. Because she and her wing mate had become separated, an IRD had found the opportunity to fasten itself on her tail.
Han saw that his own wing man was in trouble, but just didn't have the speed to intervene. The IRD leader had attached himself to the Headhunter in the kill position, and the lanky young outlaw-tech was pleading, "Help me, somebody! Get him off me!"
Still way out of range, Han fired anyway, hoping to shake up the IRD leader's concentration. But the en-emy was steady and undistracted. He waited until he had the Headhunter perfectly set up and hit the firing button on his control grips in a brief burst. The Z-95 was caught by a yellow-green blast and vanished in a nimbus of white-hot gas and debris.
What Han should have done was draw his remain-ing ships together in a weaving, mutually protective string or circle. But even as he breathed profanities to himself, he cut a course for the victorious IRD, his blood up, caution forgotten, thinking, Nobody gets into me/or a wing man, pal. Nobody.
It came to him that he didn't even know that lanky boy's name.
Jessa's wing man, the Lairarian, shouted, "Scissor tight, Headhunter three! Scissor?
lessa broke right in a flurry of evasive maneuvers while lines of destruction probed for her. She poured on all speed as her wing man came in at a sharp an-gle, decreasing his own velocity so that Jessa and her pursuer came across his vector. The Lairarian settled calmly into the kill position, quickened up, and opened fire.
Lines of red blaster-cannon fire broke from the trailing Headhunter's wings. The raider ship shud-dered as pieces of its fuselage were sheared off. There was an explosion, and the crippled IRD went into a helpless flutter, as ff it were dragging a broken wing. It began its long fall toward the planet, sentenced to death by simple gravity.
Far below, Headhunters five and six, the two broth-ers, had engaged the IRDs that had broken through. Off in the distance Han Solo and the IRD leader swept and wove through the permutations of close combat, making their statements in beams of devastation in red, in green.
But Jessa knew where priorities lay, and Five and Six were her weakest flyers. Even now they were call-ing for help. She and her humanoid wing man closed and sped off to rejoin the fray.
A raider was glued to Headhunter five's tail, chop-ping at it and holding position through all the insane turns and evasions, refusing to be unseated. The outlaw-tech shoved his stick up into the comer for a pushover but was too slow. The IRD's beams sliced through his ship, depressurizing it and severing him at the waist. The IRD turned toward the other brother, Headhunter six, as its companion raced on toward the planet and its outlaw base.
Just then Jessa and her wing man arrived, calling for Headhunter six to come under their cover.
"I can't; I'm latched?' the man answered. The IRD that had remained behind had come out of a smooth barrel roll and attached itself to him. Jessa's wing man threw himself in to help and she came tight behind. The sliding, jockeying string of four ships plunged to-ward the planer's surface.
The IRD made its kill a moment later. Headhunter six split apart in a blossom of fire and wreckage just as its killer came under Jessa's wing man's guns.
The Espo flyer applied more of his ship's amazing speed to improve his lead and came up as if he were going into a loop, making the Lairarian misjudge. The IRD flashed out of the maneuver instead, in a lightning-fast turn, banked, and managed to make a high deflection shot.
The IRD's cannon scored, and her wing man's Headhunter shook as Jessa raised her voice in alarm, sheeting off as quickly as she could. She banked and sensed a shadow near. The IRD swooped past. She swerved and shot at it instinctively. The burst scored, penetrating the IRD's shields. As the IRD dropped away in an emergency power dive, its pilot struggling to adjust his craft's thrust bias and avert disaster, Jessa ignored Han's dictum that she tide her kill. She re-turned to see what she could do for her wing mate.
Exactly nothing. The Lairarian's ship was damaged but not in danger of crashing. He'd put it into a shal-low glide, extending his wings to their fullest. "Can you make it?"
"Yes, Jessa. But at least one of the IRD has gotten through. The other may manage to rejoin him." "Nurse your ship back. I've got to get down there."
"Good hunting, JessaI"
She opened her ship's engines in a power dive. Han found out right away that the IRD leader was a good pilot. He discovered it by nearly getting his easy chair shot out from underneath him.
The Espo flyer was hot, accurate with his weaponry, deft with his maneuvers. He and Hah quickly joined in circling, pouncing, cloverleaf baffle, the upper hand alternating between them. Rolling, leoping, doing their best to turn inside each other's turns, sliding into and out of each other's gunsights over and over, they never let their sticks sit still for an instant.
For the third time Hah shook the IRD off, playing on his Headhunter's greater maneuverability against the IRD's superior speed. He watched the Espo flyer try to pick him up again. "I guess you must be the local champ, huh?" The IRD came at him once more. "Have it your way, bozo. Let's see what you've really got."
He splits down deeper into the planet's atmosphere as the IRE} sprang at his tail, gaining in the descent but unable to hold the Headhunter in his sights. Hah pulled up sharply, twisted his ship into a half loop, flipped over, and went into a diving aileron roll with another loop thrown in, coming out of the combo in the opposite direction.
Cannon blasts streaked by over the canopy bubble, barely missing. Man, this Espo can really latch, Han told himself. But he has a few things left to learn. School ain't over yet.
He rammed the stick into the corner for a pushover and began a power dive. The IRD hung in but couldn't quite draw a bead on him. Han pushed the Headhunter to its limits, ducking and slipping as the Espo pilot raked at him. The snub's engines moaned, and every particle of her vibrated as if desiring to fly apart. Han jostled, watching his Heads-Up Display for the reading he wanted. The IRD's shots ranged closer.
Then he had it. He began pulling out of his dive, nosing up slowly and dreading the shot from behind that would end all his problems and hopes.
But the IRD pilot held off, not wanting to waste the opportunity, waiting for the Headhunter to present a spread-eagled silhouette in his gunsight. Hah thought, Sure, he wants this one to be the perfect kill.
He yanked into a turn as the IRD aligned itself, trading him into it and edging for a lead. Hah cheated the turn tighter, and tighter yet. But the IRD pilot clung doggedly, to end the frustrating chase and prove who was the hotter pilot.
And then Han had the turn tighter than ninety de-grees, the thing he'd been working toward all along. The Espo hadn't paid enough attention to his altime-ter, and now the thicker air was working against the IRD, cutting down on its performance. It couldn't hold a turn this tight.
And just as the IRD broke off its run, Han, with the instincts that had given him a reputation for telep-athy, threw his Headhunter into a vertical reverse-ment. The IRD was close enough now. Hah fired a sustained burst and the IRD became a cloud of light, throwing out glowing motes and bits of wreckage in every direction.
And as the Headhunter zipped past the showering
remains of its opponent, Hah crowed, "Happy gradu-
ation day, suckerl"
The fourth IRD had already made three strafing runs on the outlaw-teeh base. The base's defensive guns couldn't keep up with it; they'd been set up for actions against large ships and mass assault, not agile, low-angle fighter attacks.
The raider had concentrated on fiak suppression for his first runs. Now most of the gun emplacements were silent. Outlaws dead and dying lay in a base where several buildings were already holed or ablaze.
Then Jessa showed up. Maintaining the velocity she'd picked up in her dive, ignoring the fact that the wings might be ripped off her stubborn little Headhunter at any moment, she threw herseft after the IRD just as it came out of its pass. Those people down there were hers, were suffering and perishing because they worked for her. She was absolutely adamant that no more runs would be made at them.
But as she was lining up on the IRD a volley of cannon fire sizzled down from above, nipping at the leading edge of her starboard wing. Another IRD flashed by with speed it had picked up in its own dive:, the ship she had thought to be disabled. Its shots had penetrated her shields and come close to cleaving her wing.
But she held position, determined to get at least one of the raiders before they got her.
Then the second IRD itself became a target. Han had it in his sights for an instant in a side-on, high deflection shot. He jinxed the nose of his ship, laying out sleeper rounds ahead of the Espo, investing in the future. It paid off; the IRD vanished in an outlashing of force and shrapnel.
"You're on the last one, Jessi" he informed her in a crackle of static. "Swat him?
She was lined on the IRD again. She fired, but only her portside cannon worked; the damage to her star-board wing had knocked out its guns. Her target be,. ing slightly off to starboard, she missed.
The IRD began surging ahead, capitalizing on its raw ion power, slipping away to starboard. In another split second it would get away. Jessa snap-rolled, slid-ing to starboard belly-up, and fired again. Her remaining guns reached out with red fingers of de-struction and hit. The IRD flared and flamed, break-ing apart.
"Nice shooting, doll," Han called over the net. Jes-sa's Headhunter continued along, canopy lowermost, not far from the ground. He cut in full power and went after her, saying, "Jess, in aerospace circles, what we call what you are is upside down."
"I can't get back over!" There was desperation in
her tone. "That damage I took must're started a burn-
out creepage. My controls are deadl"
He was about to instruct her to punch out but stopped himself. She was too close to the surface; her ejection seat would never have time to right itself. Her ship was losing altitude rapidly. Only seconds were left.
He swept in and matched speeds with her. "Jess, get ready to go when I give you the word."
She was mystified. What could he mean? She was dead, crashing or ejecting. But she prepared to do as he said. Han eased the wing of his Headhunter under her overturned one. She saw his plan and her breath caught in her throat.