Salvo’s voice crashed over the trans-link “Point Bird! Status!”
“Under fire,” Kane responded smoothly. “A Vulcan-Phalanx turret.”
No reply filtered over the link. Kane repeated the report and added, “Bird Three, do you copy?”
“Copy,” snapped Salvo. His voice was full of strain and even anger. “Take evasive action. We’re falling back.”
“Complying,” Kane replied. “Further orders?”
Once more there was a long, static-filled silence. Then Salvo said, “Point Bird. Take it out.”
Grant’s and Kane’s eyes met briefly, and Grant nodded curtly, fingers tapping the keys to transfer the fire-control system to Kane’s console.
The Deathbird began a slow, careful descent, following the canyon floor as it snaked its way between the cliff walls, sliding under the searchlight beam. The gun turret was less than a hundred yards ahead.
Flickering spear points of flame erupted from the slits of the housing. The Deathbird lurched sideways as a piece of the canyon wall exploded in a flaring shower of rock chips. The fragments rattled noisily against the fuselage.
Applying full throttle, Grant pulled into a steep climb, rising so swiftly and sharply that the craft appeared to be standing on its tail. The maneuver created a force equivalent to three times that of gravity, and both of them were slammed into the nylon webbing of their seats.
Grant referred to this maneuver as “peel up, pop down” and it was successfulthe radar-controlled searchlight and miniguns couldn’t react quickly enough to the abrupt change in the target’s altitude and trajectory.
At the apex of the ascent, with the airspeed decreased to thirty knots, Grant pushed the yoke forward and nosed the Deathbird into a steep dive.
Kane swallowed, hoping to keep the contents of his stomach from rising into his throat. The cockpit resonated with the high-pitched whine of stressed engines and the slipstream of air sliding around them.
Struggling against the amplified G-force, Kane reached for the fire-control board. The craft dropped rapidly to an altitude of barely thirty feet while increasing its airspeed to a hundred and twenty knots. Grant leveled the craft off, and the Deathbird hurtled forward, skimming the rocky ground, leaving streams of grit swirling in its wake.
The searchlight was still tracking across the empty sky, swinging to and fro. The thudding hammer of the Vulcan-Phalanx guns continued, pulverizing the walls, starting miniature avalanches, punching the stony ramparts full of gaping cavities.
Kane knew that the few seconds’ respite from the radar could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The tracking controls would reestablish their lock at any second. He worked the keyboard of the console, raising the mast-mounted sight over the main rotor assembly. On the display monitor, he adjusted the electronic cross hairs, superimposing them over the image of the gun turret.
He achieved target acquisition just as the cone of the white light dropped straight down out of the sky, washing the interior of the cockpit with a blinding blaze. He pressed a key.
Trailing a short, fluttering flame banner, a Shrike missile burst from the starboard stub wing. The three-foot-long projectile inscribed a fiery, down-plunging arc, like a lazy meteorite.
The Vulcan-Phalanx gun tower was swallowed by a billowing red-orange ball as the high-ex warhead, mixed with an incendiary agent, detonated precisely on target. The seachlight went out with the suddenness of a candle being extinguished. The thudding of the guns ceased abruptly as the delicate circuitry within the turret was smashed, scorched and melted. The roar of the explosion rolled down the canyon, bouncing back and forth off the ramparts.
Grant pulled the Deathbird into a climb and reduced the airspeed to a hover as Kane punched up a status display. The missile had struck at the base of the tower, leaving only a split-open stump of smoldering metal protruding from the ground.
“Target flash-blasted,” Kane said calmly. “Zone secured.”
“Copy that, Point Bird,” came Salvo’s reply. “Get dirt-side. We’ll join you in a minute.”
“Acknowledged.”
The aircraft flew a few hundred feet beyond the shattered gun turret, and Grant settled its skids gently onto the ground. Before disembarking, both men methodically inspected their ordnance. Though they had double-checked each other before leaving Cobaltville, their training told them that Magistrates should never assume they were invincible.
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