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armaments.
    Today, however, they had mostly carried the ‘buster’ missiles used to destroy armored and other hardened targets. They had already used all four of their intercept missiles in earlier engagements over the skies of Gastien. Doing so had even scored them three confirmed air-to-air kills. This time, they would be using guns… both their nose turret and the mini-plasma cannons in their wings.
    Josh slowly pulled back on the flight control stick, bring the Falcon out of its dive, shaving off energy and airspeed in the process.
    “Two contacts,” Loki reported. “Five degrees to starboard and fifty meters up. Fifty kilometers out. Turning toward us.”
    “Coming five right and angling up,” Josh answered as he adjusted their course to intercept the two approaching Jung fighters. “You gotta wonder why they’re even bothering. I mean, they’ve got no support base, no ships left in the system, and they’ve gotta be getting low on fuel by now.”
    “They’re firing,” Loki warned. “Four missiles inbound. Impact in thirty seconds.”
    “Are they stupid?” Josh wondered. “Firing from this far out?”
    “Twenty-five seconds.”
    “Micro-jump us forward,” Josh instructed. “Put us five hundred meters in front of them.”
    “I can’t,” Loki warned. “We’re moving too fast.”
    “Calculate the jump for half our current speed… I’ve got an idea.”
    “What idea…”
    “In five!”
    “Fuck, not again,” Loki mumbled as he activated one of their standard, pre-programmed micro-jumps. “Jumping in three…”
    Josh pressed the manual override on the lift thrusters, then swiped his gloved finger across the thruster vector control pad, swinging all four lift thrusters as far forward as possible. He pulled his flight control stick back slightly to pitch their nose up forty-five degrees as he quickly brought the thrust levers to full power.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Loki cried out.
    “Slowing us down!”
    “Jesus!” Loki replied, hanging onto either side of his console to brace himself against the sudden deceleration.
    “Be ready on the nose turret!”
    “Jumping,” Loki announced as his visor went opaque, and the jump flash washed over them.
    Josh’s visor cleared a moment later, revealing the two Jung fighters only twenty meters below, seconds from passing under them. Without reducing power, he killed the two lift thrusters under the Falcon’s starboard side, causing the interceptor—which was still sliding along a level flight path in a forty-five degree, nose-up attitude—to spin around and backwards, its belly facing the two Jung fighters that had just passed under them. He opened up the starboard lift thrusters again, swinging all four of them downward to help maintain their altitude as well as to avoid increasing the lateral speed as they continued to slide along backwards, their nose still pitched up forty-five degrees.
    The interceptor shook violently throughout the maneuver as the airflow over its lifting body was forced to move in directions its designers had never intended. Loki twisted the control stick for their nose turret, causing it to roll over one hundred and eighty degrees in order to angle its double barrels downward toward the fleeing Jung fighters. He watched as the targeting reticle locked onto the fighter to the left and turned red. He pressed the firing button on top of the control stick, and the enemy fighter burst apart. The second fighter rolled and pitched down and away, making a run for lower altitudes. “The other one’s getting away!” Loki exclaimed. “He’s in a diving turn to starboard! He’s going for the deck! He’s getting away!”
    “The fuck he is!” Josh insisted, pulling out both power levers and letting go of the flight controls.
    Without input to the Falcon’s flight-control surfaces, they automatically returned to a neutral state, allowing the airflow over the ship’s lifting body shape to return to normal. The lack of