Remember that time when you were a kid, harmlessly riding your hoverboard down the street, until you ran into the neighborhood bully and his posse, whom you’d previously pissed off somehow, and now you had to dodge a hailstorm of rocks and dirt clods headed in your direction? No? Just me then? Well, anyway, flying in Rostov was a lot like that. Except that we were doing it in Raptors, loaded up with missiles, and trying to dogfight at four hundred klicks. So less “ride a skateboard through a hailstorm” and more “push a wheelbarrow full of nitroglycerin through a hailstorm.” Anyway, it was not, and still is not, my idea of a fun time.
Still, at least we had ejection seats. Not that a multi-ton rock going through the cockpit gave anyone time to punch out, but it was a physiological safety blanket that the cats didn’t have. I was flying with Iceman, who flew with an attitude that closely remembered an Old Earth movie character called “Dirty Harry.” It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d told some Kilrathi ace “Go ahead, make my day. Punk.” right before ripping his face off with a Dart.
I sure didn’t envy the helmsmen conning the Claw their duties. We came out of the launch tubes almost directly into an asteroid field. Dodged rocks at our first nav point, dodged more rocks at our second nav point, but found a couple of Dralthi waiting for us. One blew up after a single weapon salvo – must have taken a big rock right in the teeth after I’d dropped his shields. Ice and I tag-teamed the other one for a quick kill, then went back to picking our way towards the third nav point.
That was where the party really happened. It turned out that Nav Three was closest to one of the system jump points, and the two Gratha sitting there were clearly waiting for something. Ice and I each picked a target and rolled in. It wasn’t until after we’d gobbled up the appetizer that four more Gratha showed up on radar, just before a Dorkir-class transport jumped into the system.
The trailing Gratha pilots must have been pissed, but they couldn’t stray too far away from their escort assignment, lest Ice or I leave them behind and hit the transport before the big fighters could get back. We engaged the fighters instead. The Raptor isn’t exactly a ballet dancer like the Rapier, it’s more like a heavyweight boxer with some good footwork, but against the slower Kilrathi heavies, we made it work. The Mass Driver and Neutron gun combo is lethally effective when you can get everything to hit.
Finally heading back to the Claw involved threading our way through a couple more rock fields. It sounds like Shotglass was inspired to create a new drink. Not sure I want to know what’s in it.