“Too damn many!” Mildred spit, working the slide to clear a jam. “If a chain reaction starts, with the helium tanks damaging each other, the wave of shrapnel will tear the Herc apart, and us along with it!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dean told her, slashing through the last anchor rope with his bowie knife. Instantly, the balloon began to drift leisurely across the wing as it followed the gentle evening breeze, heading straight for the sec men in the trees.
“Too heavy!” Jak started to saw at the tough plastic ropes holding the weighted bags. The loss of the two weather balloons may have grounded the airship before its maiden flight. The first bag dropped away and nothing happened.
More sec men appeared in the foliage, firing their handcannons in a cacophony of blasts, a stray round nicking one of the plastic ropes holding the overhead netting in place. Swinging up the Uzi, J.B. cut loose with the subgun in a stuttering spray and emptied nearly a full clip into the trees, wounded sec men slumping over branches, the dead falling away like overripe fruit.
Screams filled the night, black smoke was pouring from the ground fire and flintlocks threw hot lead everywhere. Holstering her piece, Krysty went to slash the next weighted bag, but it snapped before her blade could touch the plastic rope. Instantly, the balloon and its crew bobbed straight into the air, their velocity increasing with every second.
“Hot pipe,” Dean whispered, watching the wreckage of the Hercules and the jungle dwindle below them.
As the strange craft cleared the trees, the evening wind took hold and they swung away from the crashed plane and over the treetops. Continuing to shoot, Ryan could see the sec men swarm over the smoking Hercules, several managing to climb on top to send a unified volley toward the escaping airship. Another balloon in the net noisily deflated. Their craft slowed its ascent, and Mildred frantically dropped one of the few remaining bags in response.
“Not enough,” Krysty said with a frown, holstering her blaster. Drawing the Veri pistol, she took careful aim and sent a blinding flare directly into the open cargo door of the Hercules. It ricocheted off the metal floor and disappeared into the cargo hold. Moments later, the interior of the plane became violently illuminated with the hellish red light from the sizzling magnesium charge. The woman sent in a blue flare, then a yellow, in an effort to set off the huge stacks of old ammo. Even a small explosion could damage the helium tanks and stop the sec men from shooting at them. She had no idea if guncotton lost its ginger over the decades the way black powder did, but the C-4 plastique sealed safe inside the airtight warheads of the big 40 mm Bofor rounds should be strong as ever. Hopefully.
Shifting position, Dean joined her and the two sent more incandescent flares into the ship before Ryan stopped them.
“Save it,” he directed sternly. “May need these to get out of here.”
“Flares?” Krysty demanded as she tucked away the stubby blaster. Then comprehension filled her face. “Right. Hadn’t considered that.”
The blasterfire from the sec men became sporadic as the airship rose high into the night, and then without warning a gout of flame belched from the open hatchway of the Hercules as the entire vessel shook. Then the hull split open lengthwise as the craft disappeared in a blinding thunderclap. The concussion of the staggering blast savagely rocking the balloon, causing Jak to lose his grip on the ropes and fall to the pallet, grabbing his bad ankle.
Incredibly, the tandem-mounterd Bofors chattered into action as the corroded shells in their breeches cooked off from the heat, kicking the cannon into momentary life. Four stuttering streams of tracer shells flew in every direction, the ancient 40mm warheads detonating randomly.
As the rambling mushroom cloud spread outward, the wave of shrapnel arrived, burning bits of wreckage soaring across the sky. A burning motor went straight by the companions to arch gracefully over the jungle and head back down like a meteor toward the nearby ocean. Then the partially dismantled ejector seats launched from the flaming wreckage, propelled high and wide by the rocket engines built into their stout titanium frames. At the apogee of flight, two of the rockets unexpectedly detonated, but the rest disengaged and white parachutes blossomed from the backs of the chairs. Then the ancient silk ripped apart under the weight of the empty seats, and the predark safety mechanism fell into the dark greenery to crash out of sight.