Armada by Ernest Cline Page B

vary my ship’s speed and angle of ascent, while I lined up my omnidirectional laser turret’s targeting reticle with a new threat—a train of three Glaives I’d just picked up on my tail, looming on my HUD’s aft display.
    The moment I got a targeting lock on the leader, I thumbed the laser turret’s trigger. The beam only lasted for a split second and it wasn’t visible with the naked eye, but its exact trajectory appeared on my HUD. I watched as it burned through the hull of the Glaive closest to my tail, then continued burning on through the other two Glaives directly behind that one, destroying them in a rapid chain of explosions: Boom! Boom! Ba-Boom!
    I powered down my already overheating laser, then switched back to my plasma cannons, which automatically reoriented my HUD so that it showed what was in front of my ship, instead of the dissipating fireball in its wake. Then I threw the throttle wide open. But as I passed under the Icebreaker and prepared to swing up on its opposite side, two more Glaives reappeared on my tail. They dropped in directly behind me and I started to take heavy fire, knocking my shields down by half and putting even more of a drain on my power cells, which were already dangerously low.
    According to my HUD, the Icebreaker had been firing its melt laser for less than a minute, and the Sobrukai had already destroyed nearly half of our Interceptors. Reinforcements were still pouring out of the Doolittle ’s hangar, but these drones were all piloted by players who had already gotten themselves killed once, and most of them would be destroyed a second time within seconds of rejoining the battle.
    Cruz was right—we weren’t going to be able to hold them off long enough.
    â€œScrew this,” I said. “I’m gonna try and create a diversion.”
    â€œWhere are you going?” Cruz said over the comm. “Protect the Icebreaker, dumb ass!”
    â€œSorry, Cruz!” I said, pushing my throttle forward. “But you’ll never guess who just showed up. Leeeeeeroyyy— ”
    â€œOh, Lightman, don’t you even dare!”
    â€œâ€”mmm-Jenkinsss!”
    I broke formation with the others, leaving the Icebreaker behind as I moved to attack the nearest Dreadnaught. I slammed my throttle forward and crossed in front of it, strafing the turrets spaced along the sphere’s equator, taking out one or two of them.
    â€œGoddammit, Zack!” Cruz shouted. “Every time! Every goddamn time!”
    I grinned and fired my thrusters, putting my fighter into an instantaneous vertical dive, with the intention of slipping under the sphere to strafe its shield. This maneuver cost me nearly a third of my remaining power, because my Interceptor had to momentarily activate its inertia-cancellation field to execute it. But I shook several of the Sobrukai fighters off my tail, because they needed to execute the same move to stay on me, and most of them didn’t have enough power. Instead, they had to fishhook around behind me, then try to get a bead on my Interceptor again—when I was already gone.
    Another swarm of Glaives emerged from the nearby Dreadnaught, all diving at the Icebreaker in a straight line, firing in tandem. I shredded them with a single sustained burst from my sun guns, bringing my Sobrukai kill count up to nine. Not bad, but also not up to my usual standards. My aim was a bit off.
    â€œShit!” I heard Diehl shout over the comm. “I just lost my gorram shields because I’m already out of frakkin’ power!”
    â€œDude,” Cruz said. “You shouldn’t mix swears from different universes.”
    â€œSays who?” Diehl shot back. “Besides, what if BSG and Firefly took place in the same universe ? You ever consider that ?”
    I heard a thunderous series of explosions behind me and swung my head around just in time to see the IDC Doolittle erupt into a huge fireball amidst a