War of Alien Aggression 3 Lancer Read Online Free PDF Page A

things without proper IFF transponders. Listen carefully people. Today, the stupid AIs are smarter than you are. Today, you're going to learn from them . For now, keep your hands off the reins and let the Bitzers do the flying." 
    The lights surrounding the bay's main doors began to flash. When they opened, he could make out Earth, far off, like a shiny blue bead against the starry black.
    "You may notice the large, red button located to the port side of the cockpit." It was the big kind – the kind you hit with a gloved fist and not a single finger. It was made to be found and punched easily when under duress. Burn said, "Under no circumstances are you to push the large, red button."
    "What does it do?"
    "It gets you booted out of here and sent back to prison. That's what it does. Do not push the red button."
    Burn whooped like a banshee cowgirl as she blasted off hard and fast into the black. His F-151 and all the others shot after her. A few of the C-block nuggets cried out in sheer terror as they got pressed back into their flight couches by the gees, but he'd always loved that feeling.
    The pack circled Arbitrage with the AIs inside the Bitzers jockeying and racing each other to be in the front of the formation. He couldn't see the other pilot's faces, but as the pack rounded the bow on the first turn, they weren't screaming over comms anymore.  
    After they pulled through the inertial gees in the bottom of the turn, the 151s dug in and chased Burn's plasma tail hard. Arbitrage's port side whizzed past, and ahead of them, he saw Burn pivot on her maneuvering jets and rotate her Bitzer to face the pack. Just after she passed the ship's bow, the little jets flared on her maneuvering thrusters, and her fighter slid sideways, still facing the rear. As they neared the bow of the ship, too, she came into profile and said, "You nuggets are gonna feel this one." He thought he might have heard her snicker just before she leaned on the rear thrusters hard and blasted herself back down the ship's starboard side. She grunted with the gees and, a couple of seconds later, he felt them himself when the pack of 151s chasing her pulled the same maneuver.  
    The Bitzer's pinch couldn't counter all the inertial gees. The numbers projected in his visor told him what he flew was a twenty-five gee maneuver, but what he felt after the pinch did its trick was just over five gees. That was impressive, but he knew these planes would have to fly a lot harder than this to keep up with the aliens' fighters. That's what the big red button had to be for. He was sure of it. 

 
    Chapter Six
     
    He decided Shafter had written the Manual of Exo-Atmospheric Fighter Combat himself. Shafter's name wasn't anywhere in the document, but he could hear his grim-faced commander's voice when he read it. "Aerial combat is a 250-year-old tradition with a canon of tried, trusted, and proven maneuvers that have been relevant and useful to combat pilots flying endo-atmospheric planes from Sopwith Camels to 13th Gen Sukkhois and Sub-orbital stutter-jets. Nearly all of these maneuvers have been developed to help the fighter pilot accomplish one goal: to move his plane in a manner that allows him to put his weapons on target and blow his opponent from the skies. In space, the goal is the same, but there's significant differences in the maneuvers used to achieve it.  
    "Lift isn't holding the fighter up, so it doesn't need to face the direction of travel to keep wind rushing over the wings. It can face any direction relative to its path of travel and it's impossible to stall. An exo-atmospheric fighter is always in a state of hyper-maneuverability. This radically changes what is required to achieve a firing solution and the tactics employed to that end.
    "Throw away the defining energy-management components of most classic maneuvers like the high and low yo-yo. If you chase an opponent through a turn then pull up and roll down on him across the circle, then you