Dark Space [antikvár]

PrologueEthan targeted the nearest enemy fighter and brought it under his crosshairs. He heard the soft cUck of a laser lock even before his eyes registered the crosshair turning green. He pulled the trigger and held it down, pouring a continuous stream of fire into his target, but the laser charge gauges began flashing red on his HUD and his continuous stream of fire diminished to a slow trickle. Ethan eased up on the trigger and switched over to missiles just as his target began jinking out of line. Enemy ripper fire sizzled off his rear shields, and Ethan broke into an evasive pattern, forgetting about his target for the moment. The sound of ripper fire hitting his shields stopped, only to start again from another angle when a second junker swooped down onto his six. Ethan craned his neck to get a visual reference on the enemy fighters. They were converging on him from completely opposite directionsa pincer maneuver that was sure to get him killed."Ah, a httle help over here? I'm caught in a vice!""Roger that. Five," Seven said.Ethan tried to hold it together as enemy fire sizzled off his shields, turning them dark green, then yellow, and finally red. Now shells plinked off his hull as the shields were unable to completely dissipate the energy of those projectiles.The streams of enemy fire on his port side ceased, followed by, "That got him!" from Guardian Seven. Now, with only one fighter attacking him, Ethan strengthened his shields on the starboard side and circled around to line up on the enemy fighter's tail. A few moments later he poured freshly charged pulse lasers into the twin hulls of a blocky junk fighter already trailing smoke from one maneuvering jet. Unable to evade him, the junker took heavy fire. One of his shots punched through to the reactor, and the enemy fighter suddenly