Read Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) for Free Online

them the harder it was to maneuver, but it forced any attacking fighters to fly straight in. The grav prop would pull in and defend against the particulates, but any sharp maneuvers would leave them wrecked. With the speeds they were flying at, even the smallest grain of sand could cut right through their ships, and in attack mode, Vincent’s cockpit was exposed. It was strafing runs against the bombers’ gunners.
    The bombers numbered three dozen, with a squadron of fighters for support. The Reapers would be hard-pressed to keep them all from letting their payloads loose, even with the extra time Vincent's maneuver had bought them. Several of the ships dropped torpedoes that blasted into the Reapers’ midst, the more maneuverable Chimeras were able to dodge the incoming projectiles. As the Reapers jinked and weaved among the incoming fire, the lead bombers grew desperate enough to launch their payloads at the Inferno.
    Vincent cringed as the missiles streaked towards his home. He turned away without looking to see if they connected, and concentrated on stopping the remaining bombers from loosing their own missiles. Let the Inferno 's own point defense systems worry about the strays. With a quick kick to the left rudder, he popped into a tight turn. His maneuvering thrusters turned his tail and his grav prop pulled his craft onward, taking him out of the path of the bombers, and their sand clouds.
    The fighter escort broke out to engage the Reapers, and Vincent locked onto one. As he painted the target, it juked left then followed with a sharp turn to the right. Vincent followed a moment later, stealing himself to the spin as the toned-down inertial compensator allowed him to feel a small percent of the g-forces his ship was pulling. As the fighter leveled out, he attempted to paint it with another missile lock. The enemy pilot responded with a tight roll up and around.
    A less experienced pilot might have attempted to repeat the maneuver, but Vincent only rolled his wrists forward on the joysticks so the ship snapped upside-down, and with his grav prop turned down low to reduce drag, he continued backwards with the inertia and painted the target. It was a dangerous maneuver to have his unprotected flank traveling forward, but he was rewarded with a flash: The enemy ship flared bright as a star in its destruction. Vincent flipped back around, keeping his grav prop forward to catch any debris in his path.
    The other Reapers had broken down into four groups of three, Vincent flying with the Duchess and Zombie. Not feeling the need to oversee his well-qualified pilots, Vincent let his squadron's position fade into the back of his mind, concentrating instead on his own path.
     Zombie called.
    "Break off, I'll take him," Vicnent said as he swung up and around.
    
    "Zombie, cut hard," Vincent commed.
    
    Vincent dialed down the power on his grav prop while the Duchess and Zombie spun in a helix around him. As he lost momentum, one fighter shot past him to chase his wingmates. Vincent squeezed out a shot with his blasters, scoring a glancing blow against the oncoming fighter's shields. As the blast connected, the refracted light fed into his sensors, the data showing negligible damage in the strike. Both fighters banked away.
    Knowing he would not trick them again, Vincent directed power back to the engines. His speed peaking, he took his wingmen into a turn up and around to strafe a group of bombers. As his HUD keyed onto the new opponent, he rotated the frequency of his blasters. He sent out a call to Duchess and Zombie, who rotated their own frequencies to different wavelengths from his own. Hoping to overload the bombers’ shields together, they triggered a trio of blasts. The beams slammed home, though when the light faded, Vincent cursed as the shield shrugged off the combined blow.
    "Some kind of new armor, it's absorbing the shots," Vincent said. "Switch to