War Against the White Knights Read Online Free PDF

was long gone from Khallini, but his shadow was a difficult one to escape.
    Then his flight commander saved him by leading her six Phantom 4s in a strafing run that weaved in and out of the lumbering enemy attackers faster than his eyes could track.
    For once, Romulus obeyed orders and left his flight to its deadly task. He used the time scanning the area, not trusting his tactical systems to cope with so many enemy objects.
    Beowulf was in high orbit around Khallini, and a safe distance of ten thousand klicks from the vast orbital dockyard and its torus of gun platforms. Safe in navigational terms, but dangerously divided in the tactical situation they found themselves in. The main moon bases, with their missile batteries and X-Boat squadrons, were on the far side of the planet. Only the dockyard with its newly built Phantom 5s were within range to help. Swarms of AI drone craft patrolled the region outside the minefield, but if they were on their way they would take many minutes to get here.
    More of the strange little enemy craft lit up their rockets and announced their presence on the inner rim of the minefield. Romulus itched to close and engage them, but Ormuz had said to wait.
    Her flight gouged great chunks out of the enemy formation with every swipe. A few had gotten through, only to be blown apart by the wall of high energy beams and darts thrown out by Beowulf’s point defenses.
    Romulus’s home was safe for now. But the second wave was coming on fast, and already a third wave was forming up inside the minefield.
    Ormuz’s flight left the few survivors of the enemy first wave for Beowulf to handle and formed up around Romulus. His tactical systems integrated with his comrades’, and an emergency software patch sent from Beowulf enabled his tac-display to cope with the huge enemy numbers and clarify the situation.
    He immediately saw that Wing Commander Dock was sending a squadron of shiny new Phantom 5s over from the dockyard. 102 nd Squadron… good guys.
    Flight-Lieutenant Ormuz saw something quite different. “Wolf Cub, don’t you ever check your equipment?”
    Romulus frowned. Ormuz sounded angry. What was she on about?
    Oh, crap. The integrated tactical net reported operational status of all call signs in the flight. A separate high-priority pane in his display split away and showed his Mustang glowing red. His ammo was very low. Hell, I’m such an idiot. I bet McEwan never made mistakes like this.
    “Stay with us for the next wave, Wolf Cub, then return to Beowulf to rearm.”
    “Roger that.”
    Then the next wave was upon them and the Mustang and Phantoms together skipped and dove around the incoming craft in an intricately choreographed dance of death that ripped the enemy to shreds.
    Romulus was so absorbed by the constant high-speed maneuvering that it took a while to notice that none of the enemy were firing back. Did they even have weapons?
    Help arrived in the form of 102 nd Squadron, and it was one of the Fives that became the first human casualty when it collided with an enemy craft and was instantly vaporized in a vast green-tinged fireball. That was the answer, then. The enemy weren’t using fighter craft; they were flying bombs at Beowulf .
    They were still dealing with the second wave, and the third was already upon them when the Mustang’s reserves of railgun darts were finally exhausted and Romulus ran for Beowulf’s dorsal hangar.
    Once safely inside, the hangar rats tethered the Mustang with speed and skill, opening the hull section just aft of the cockpit and hooking up the ammo resupply tube.
    The hangar crew were fast and robotically efficient, but not fast enough for Romulus. His kept his hands off the flight controls, and without the connection to his war machine, they shook like leaves in a hurricane.
    Then disaster struck. The ammo resupply feed jammed. The crew were well-trained, but not in servicing this museum piece he was flying.
    Damn!
    Janna kept quiet but placed a