Pathways - Jeri Taylor [124]
“Check two.”
“Check three.”
“Check four.”
Charlie, Odile, and Bruno in succession reported that they were now in manual control of their vessels. Tom could see the asteroid field looming ahead, and at its periphery, the intended target, a huge chunk of rock some six kilometers in diameter.
“Target at heading three-four-one mark two-nine-zero.” Again, the others signaled their acknowledgments. “We’ll take an echelon formation for the approach.” In this formation, a part of aerial combat for hundreds of years, the ships deployed in a diagonal behind the leader, each of the following planes stepped slightly down from its predecessor. This allowed all the pilots to observe the target, and the vessel immediately in front.
Trust and cooperation were at the heart of this maneuver. Each pilot kept eyes glued to the ship immediately ahead of him, depending on that vessel for timing. In a well-coordinated run, the lead ship would fire and pull up, the next ship wouldn’t fire until the first ship had pulled away, and so on.
Tom felt energized by the prospect of combat practice. This was where a pilot’s skills were honed; this was where expertise counted. Anyone could pilot a ship intent on exploration and scientific inquiry; it took genuine skill to go up against an experienced adversary. Tom secretly regretted having missed the Cardassian conflict, where he was sure his abilities would have been tested and proven in heroic style. But those hostilities were over. And he wasn’t going to be posted to the Enterprise. He’d likely pull duty on a science vessel and spend his career chasing nothing more exciting than a dust nebula.
So he created a small fantasy, hoping to channel his venomous mood into a diverting exercise. He wasn’t performing a routine maneuver on an asteroid; he was in a strafing run against a Cardassian warship, one that could blast him and his team into bloody bits. They’d have one chance to destroy it, only one, so each part of the maneuver had to be performed with precision timing.
Tom felt his mind focus, like a crystalline lens, and for the first time in days he felt in control of his destiny. Ahead of him lay the dangerous Cardassian warship, coiled like a rattlesnake, ready to annihilate him. He glanced to his left and saw Charlie’s ship, just behind and below him, ready to follow him in.
“Let’s do it,” he said to the comm, and nosed the ship in a dive toward the asteroid/enemy.
In his mind’s eye, he saw the Cardassian ship open fire, hitting his shields, continuing the barrage. He kept his nose down, judging the speed of the target and the angle of his deflection, in order to gauge his one shot. One shot, right at the warp nacelle. This was one Cardassian ship that wouldn’t attack Federation borders again.
Down he plummeted, eyeing the nacelle, waiting until the last possible second so his shot would be as accurate as he could make it, so it would have maximum impact. Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . .
Now! Tom unleashed his phaser volley and then pulled up. Only then did he realize he’d taken the formation too low, held the dive too long, caught up in his fantasy, determined to score against the Cardassian ship. He barely escaped slamming into the asteroid.
Charlie, following him, was doomed. He had only Tom’s example to go by, Tom’s timing determining his own. The margin of error increased with each following vessel, and the precious second that allowed Tom to escape impact was lost to Charlie.
And to Odile, whose ship plunged into the asteroid right behind Charlie’s. Bruno, the final ship, stood some chance of pulling out in time, but was caught in the violence of the antimatter explosions that the other two ships produced, and his ship cartwheeled out of control until