"Steve Miller "The Starfighter trap"" - читать интересную книгу автора

"I think not," Dren said. "You're a better dogfighter than I am. Surrender, now."

Shields at 100 percent. Resetting laser recharge to full. I've got a pair of torpedoes loaded. Locking onto Bravo Eight.

"All I need is a split second," Essara said.

Target acquired.

Essara pushed the launch button. Two torpedoes streaked toward Dren.

Dren cursed, and his voice was drowned out by a burst of overlapping signals as Echo Flight's pilots once again began talking over one another. Essara stole a quick glance at her command telemetry display and found that it was still offline. "Ell-one, can you fix my command monitor?"

She looked over her shoulder and, with perverse anticipation, watched the torpedoes streak toward Dren's ship. But then a stream of laser fire poured over her canopy and detonated both torpedoes. Another burst pelted her shields.

Shields at 69 percent and recharging, the droid said. Reducing laser recharge rate to 90 percent.

"How can such tiny fighters carry so much firepower and be so fast?"

If they are droid starfighters, the power that would normally be allocated to life support can go into weapons, and the space reserved for the pilot can be used for weapons or propulsion.

"Those fighters won't stop until all of Echo Flight is dead or disabled," Dren said once the urgent babble from Echo Flight subsided. Dren had confirmed Essara's worst fear. "Check your telemetry if you don't believe me."

"Just tell me why," Essara said as she threw her fighter into an upward corkscrew, hoping to lose her pursuers. She was in serious trouble if she didn't deal with them somehow. Droids never got tired or distracted. She needed to focus all her wits and dismiss the confused, angry thoughts that tumbled through her mind regarding Dren. The anger that had consumed her was starting to give way to fear.

"My employer is dedicated to building a strong planetary defense force in the system he governs," Dren said. "A cutting edge defense force. The Naboo starfighters are the cutting edge he's looking for. All the governor wants are two or three N-1s and a couple of Police Cruisers in working condition so his engineers can build their own version."

"All this just to steal some fighters?!"

"Not just fighters, N-1 fighters. These ships really are greater than the sum of their parts. I told my employer that even if he could convince the Nubians to trade with him, he still wouldn't be able to build fighters that even came close to the Naboo starfighter: unless he had some working ships to study. He thought I might be exaggerating the N-1's capabilities, so he wanted a demonstration. The second carrier launching its fighters was the sign that he liked what he saw."

"Two carriers to capture a pair of N-1s?"

Dren sighed. "No, but he wanted to have numbers so overwhelming that only an idiot would put up a fight."

"I guess I'm an idiot then," Essara said. The fear of the starfighters on her tail was being burned away by anger at herself and hatred for Dren. How could she have read him so wrong? How could she have been so obtuse? How could she have let him into her dreams? Another barrage struck her shields.

Shields at 75 percent and recharging. Laser cannon recharge rate at 85 percent.

"There's no running from them," Essara said. "Load torpedoes. Reduce laser recharge to 20 percent and redirect all power to the forward shields."

The droid squealed with alarm. Essara pushed her throttle to maximum and threw her fighter into an overhead loop.

The tiny fighters slowed as Essara performed a wing-over and put herself directly in one of their paths. Ell-one established a target lock for her. The tiny enemy fighters started to accelerate again, and the lock was again lost as they reached speeds that were beyond the targeting sensor's ability to track them. Essara had expected this, however.

Torpedoes ready. Unable to reacquire target lock.

"I know."

The droid starfighter element jogged to the right. Essara matched the movement, holding the nose-to-nose approach with her chosen target.