The high-speed elevator carried me to the flight deck, making a quiet rustling sound. The howl of the alarm did not contribute to my mental equilibrium, and the occasional tremors that were felt in the elevator, even through many meters of ground and armor, suggested to me that the base was still holding on only by some miracle. It looked like the protective field hadn't died down completely yet, and the shuddering of the cabin floor was just the vibrations of the warhead explosions that hit the peripheral infrastructure of the lunar base, which was not covered by a defensive field. Otherwise, the elevator wouldn't be going anywhere.
I could only guess what was going on on the surface and in space right now, but there was clearly something bad going on. The elevator came to a halt. It happened much more abruptly than I had expected, and I was literally thrown into the hangar, where my fighter was standing alone. The whole squadron had already gone into battle, and the alarm caught me on the lower deck of the base, which probably saved my life in the end.
I jumped into the cockpit of the fighter and connected up its interface, and then I realized with horror that my comrades were no longer alive. Apparently, they died in the first minutes of the battle, trying to prevent the enemy, who was still unknown to me, from shooting the base with impunity from low orbit. I still couldn't see what was going on in space. The data from the scanners was not coming in, and I was afraid I understood the reason for this phenomenon. When I started the engine, I lifted the fighter above the deck and immediately went into afterburner mode, thus cynically violating all the flight instructions. There were no other machines in the hangar besides mine, and I saw no point in caring about the safety of the base equipment in light of the events taking place.
The deck, walls, and ceiling of the hangar became a blurry shadow to me. The flaps of the outer gate slid open to the sides, and above me opened the blackness of space with bright dots of stars and numerous bursts of rocket and missile explosions.
I barely made it out of the hangar in time. The scanners of the rear hemisphere dispassionately recorded the moment the heavy shell hit the hangar from which my fighter had just escaped. The instruments could no longer see the protective field above the station, so nothing interfered with the projectile, and the hangar turned into the mouth of an erupting volcano.
The full picture of the battle finally appeared before me on the tactical projection in all its ruthlessness. Our moon base was attacked by a rebel cruiser. It was quite unclear to me how this cruiser got here, in this wilderness, since only a few hundred scientists and military in the Sixth Republic knew of our base. But it didn't matter now. The cruiser loomed over the base and struck at its facilities not only with its major caliber guns, but also with its plasma cannons. At least the natives couldn't see the fiery bacchanalia that was going on in their natural satellite since our base was on the back side of the Moon.
The thought came into my head automatically, apparently due to the fact that I had spent the last year on a research station that was observing a new human civilization that we had recently discovered. Given the level of development of the locals, the Central Republican Academy categorically did not welcome any interference in their affairs, and we tried in every way to avoid showing ourselves.
Through the crackle of interference from the cruiser's electronic warfare systems, someone from the base command finally contacted me.
“Seven, can you hear me? This is Colonel Niven.”
“Seven's on the line. I can hear you, but not very well.”
“Make him shift toward the fifth anti-space defense battery. This is the last thing we have left. I need to reduce the flight time. At any cost! I don't know how you're going to do it, but it has to hover right over the launch silos, or it's all for nothing. You got it, Seven?”
“Roger that. I'm on it.”
What an order! How am I going to make a cruiser shift? It's a cruiser, and what am I? A cricket compared to it. Especially since the rebel scanners have already spotted me, and now they will start pounding me with short-range missiles, since they can't reach me with their anti-aircraft guns yet. All I have against them is speed and maneuverability. It's a good thing they didn't bring an aircraft carrier here, then I'd be finished. But my comrades had enough of this cruiser, I remembered, noticing the places where the wreckage of my squadron's vehicles fell to the surface of the moon.
I went back into afterburner mode. I don't care about the overhaul life – it's clear that this fight will probably be the last one. A fighter can only do something to a cruiser by coming in from the stern. The ship's delicate propulsion systems are, of course, covered by armor to the max, but plasma emitters cannot be hidden in an armored cocoon, so I have a slim chance. I don't need to damage the cruiser, I just need to threaten it and make it maneuver in the direction I want it to go.
Our base was dying. It was quite obvious, but Colonel Niven was not considered an experienced officer for nothing, and he knew how to wait patiently, when combat situations demanded it. I imagined him trying not to lose control of the few surviving systems down there on the lower level of the bunker, among the crumbling ceilings, and I increased my speed even though it seemed impossible. This lunar base was, of course, built as a dual-use facility, but it was primarily designed as a research base, not military, so it couldn't withstand cruiser fire for long, I knew that very well.
I think the commander of the cruiser quickly realized that I was going to attack his ship from behind, but it wasn't hard to guess. I went around the enemy in a big arc from the side of the fifth battery, which was still silent and undetectable, which is why it was still intact. The most logical action of the rebel ship, if it ever saw fit to react, would be to reduce the distance between us, and as a result dramatically increase the efficiency of all its anti-aircraft systems. I really hoped that the rebel commander would do that, but he stubbornly continued to fire on the base, not wanting to be distracted by such small things, like my fighter.
I had to provoke the enemy somehow. In principle, there was another way I could have gotten behind the stern of the cruiser, besides the evasive maneuver I was now taking, which would have been even faster, but there was almost no chance of success with that option. If I pressed close to the hull of the enemy ship and flew along it in afterburner mode, the guidance systems simply would not have time to track the fighter, because it would be in their range for too short a time. But to do that I had to break through to the side of the cruiser, and that, in fact, was the main problem. In squadron combat such maneuvers are not uncommon, but there the enemy ship is attacked by dozens of fighters and torpedo bombers at once, and the attention of anti-aircraft assets is distributed among them. Here I was alone, and the entire arsenal of the cruiser's short-range defense would be firing on my fighter, so it wasn't worth trying, but I could demonstrate my intent.
I sent the fighter into a sharp turn, and I approached the cruiser myself. The rebel anti-aircraft gunners, delighted with this gift, greeted me with a concurrent rocket salvo. At this distance, it wasn't very scary yet. The fighter's electronic warfare equipment were sufficiently reliable in suppressing the enemy's homing systems, and the maneuverability of my machine allowed me to dodge from missiles that were not too accurate. Nevertheless, this dance could not last long. I understood that, and the commander of the rebel cruiser understood it, and it more than suited him.
I jerked the fighter a few times chaotically in different directions, simulating panic as another wave of missiles approached, then I turned around again and rushed away from the cruiser, as if in desperation, trying to increase the distance. Sensing an opportunity to quickly solve a small but unpleasant problem, the rebel commander decided not to let me get away from the cruiser, and the warship started heavily following my fighter.
“Seven, you're good,” the communications system carried the Colonel's voice to me, “but it's not enough! Keep dragging it.”
Every second of delay could have been my last. It is one thing to taunt a cruiser by moving on parallel courses and evading its missiles with sharp maneuvers, it is quite another thing to run away from it when it is impossible to jerk sideways without a significant loss of speed. Of course, I should have gone into afterburner mode and quickly moved out of the effective range of enemy anti-aircraft fire, but then the cruiser would stop pursuit and all would be in vain. I gritted my teeth, but I endured it. A hail of projectiles whipped at the fighter's thin armor after a near