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He faltered. "She was beautiful. But in a different way."
"What way?"
"Bad timing for this chat, eh?"
"Not at all," she insisted.
"Look, Rosie got smoked, and I really don't want to talk about it especially
now."
"I'm not Rosie."
"Jeez, you had me fooled."
"Do you know what a soft monkey is?"
"Yeah, it's no fun at all."
"Listen, wiseass, when a mother chimp loses one of her babies, sometimes
zookeepers give her a chimp doll to help her deal with the grief. It's a very
old remedy, but usually very effective. I think you're still grieving. And I'm
your soft monkey."
He snorted, then the laughter came out full and hard. "I've heard some pretty
wacky stuff, but "
"You're beyond reproach." The VDU snapped into darkness.
Swearing, Maniac slammed down the reconnect button, and Zarya appeared, gaze
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averted. "I'm sorry," he said. "I get what you're saying. Call me immature,
but the monkey thing sounds funny. Maybe I'm still grieving, on the rebound,
whatever. But I like being with you. Can that be enough for now?"
"I guess so. But you won't have me until your head's clear. Until it's
right."
His heart sank. A week's worth of fierce wooing to get her into his rack had
just gone by the wayside.
"Lieutenants Marshall and Rolitov, flight control. You're clear for launch,
copy?" Boss Raznick said, breaking into their private link. Maniac hadn't
known the boss could do that; he'd have to be more careful about what he said.
"Copy that, boss," responded Zarya, her tone forceful and all business,
ringing quite sexily in Maniac's ears. "Clock stands at ten seconds."
They lined up beside each other, and Maniac flashed her a tentative thumbs up
before saluting Deck Boss Peterson. He watched the numbers spin down in his
HUD, spotted the green launch light, then slammed the throttles forward. He
and Zarya roared through the flight deck and impaled the curtain of sodden
energy like the sword whose name their fighters bore. The two Rapiers streaked
over the runway that split the Tiger Claw in two. Dark gray bulkheads broken
by maintenance planes blurred into dull, watery streaks narrowing toward a
disk of stars.
"Attack vector set. Switching to auto for five-second burn to regroup and
box," Zarya announced.
"Roger, that. In three, two, one." Maniac kicked in his afterburners while
simultaneously engaging the autopilot. The fighter climbed sixty degrees away
from the Claw and toward a tableau dominated by McDaniel's World and the three
moons.
Were it not for human intervention, Maniac could've mistaken the view for a
painting of celestial serenity by that famous Japanese artist whose name
continually escaped him. But Rapiers cut viciously across the canvas, long
tails of exhaust drawing straight, even lines in an otherwise curved natural
environment. At the moment, McDaniel's smallest moon shied behind the planet,
only a crescent still visible. The second moon hung to port, a pale white,
perfectly shaped orb with a massive crater near its north pole. The target
moon, Lyatta, orbited on a steep incline relative to McDaniel's path around
its sun, and the moon's many craters afforded the supercruiser's fighters with
excellent cover in which to stage an ambush.
"Burn complete," Maniac told Zarya.
"Copy. Going manual to form up."
Directly ahead, the other Rapiers of Black Lion Squadron had already assumed
four of the eight distinct positions that comprised the box formation. Four
points represented the top of the box and resembled the corners of a square.
Another square would sit about twenty meters back, just beyond the forward
square's thruster wash. He and Zarya would assume the base angles of the
second square, with Angel and Gangsta taking the top. Angel liked the
formation since it gave some of them a millisecond or two to jump once the
furball hit. The side of the box closest to the incoming fighters would break
first, and the other sides would follow in succession.
Breaking a box formation was much easier than, say, a wedge, which gave you
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