Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [78]
With another couple of switches flicked, Falco started the powerful engines. The turbines kicked over slowly at first but quickly swelled to a thundering roar. Even with the high RPMs, Jackson was interested to note, there was very little vibration in the tightly constructed machine.
With a little pressure on the stick, Falco eased the jetcar out of the hangar and then quickly bounced it up into the air. Jackson watched only a little nervously as the landing circle dropped away below them. He glanced at the hangar but saw no sign of anyone moving there. The shock of the SEALS’ audacious attack, coupled with the explosive diversion in the base of the big garrison building, had done its work well, he concluded. The enemy soldiers were still concentrating their search on the bottom levels of the massive structure.
The aircraft lurched slightly as Falco moved it into forward flight, and then they were flying away, climbing easily. The massive bulk of the city’s great pyramid—where Zaro’s aircraft with the prisoners aboard had flown—was visible some four klicks away, and the pilot started off on an oblique approach, keeping the huge structure off the port bow. From this close they could see that it bristled with domes and gun batteries; it did not look like an inviting place to fly.
Jackson thumbed his mike. “Anybody hurt back there?” he asked.
“I took a burn down the side from one of those ray guns, LT,” Robinson replied. “But I’ll be okay. Harry’s having a look at me now.”
“Okay, hang tight,” the officer replied.
More of the large white cubes that made up the city rolled past below them. Jackson saw smaller aircars scooting about below and larger aircraft streaming above, mostly following those invisible highways in the sky. He was restless and tense and kept glancing out one window and then the other, certain that things were going too smoothly. It couldn’t last.
And it didn’t. Harris shouted the first warning, his words crackling through the earphones.
“LT! We got bogeys, swarming from twelve o’clock, six o’clock—hell, just about every direction you can fucking imagine!”
The usually unflappable Chief Harris sounded a little tense through the intercom as he spoke from the jetcar’s dome turret.
Jackson could see them through the cockpit windows even as the aircraft lurched to the side. Several aircraft similar to their own vehicle were closing in from above and below. The lieutenant saw the muzzle flashes coming from the forward-trained chain guns as well as the single-barreled cannons on the dorsal turrets.
Their own transport vibrated, and for a moment Jackson thought they’d been hit. Then he realized it was Harris, returning fire with his own turret-mounted gun. Falco put the jetcar into a steep dive, and the gunner’s shots went wide. But the dramatic evasion seemed to take the pursuers by surprise as the other aircraft flew past and then came around only slowly.
The ground was coming up in a rush, and Falco worked the stick like a veteran, pulling them out about fifty meters above the roofs of the massive buildings. He jerked the stick back and forth, violently rocking the flying vehicle, banking hard to go around a tall tower that loomed above the flat tops of the other buildings.
Harris continued to shoot at the targets overhead, and Jackson saw an Eluoi jet dive away, trailing smoke. The enemy wasn’t shooting at them from above, and he guessed it was because they didn’t want to spray their city with explosive rounds. He thanked his stars for that small mercy and held on tightly as Falco dived even lower so that he was almost skimming the tops of a vast bank of buildings.
“Shit, LT, I’m not sure I can hold it!” the pilot snapped, jerking back on the stick. The machine responded instantly, bouncing higher, clearing the buildings by a more comfortable margin. But now there were pursuing aircraft to both sides, all with their turret guns trained on the SEALS. Jackson had to resist the urge to duck as he saw those barrels flashing and