“That’s a smart trick old John’s pulled,” Clemens said. “Radio the Goose and tell them to come in on the Rex’s broadside.”
Byron hastened to obey. Sam turned to de Marbot. The little fellow wore a coal-scuttle helmet of duraluminum, a chain-mail shirt and kilt, and leather jackboots. A leather belt held a holster in which a Mark IV pistol was couched and a scabbard in which a cutlass was sheathed.
“Tell your men to bring up the SW,” he said. “On the double!”
The Frenchman punched a button which would put him on the intercom to the storage room.
“Is the enemy plane still on the radar?” he said to the operator.
“Not at the moment,” Schindler replied. “It’s behind the hills, too close to the mountains.”
“It’ll come hellbent for election right over the tops of the trees,” Clemens said. “We won’t have much time.”
De Marbot gave a groan. Clemens looked at his pale face and said, “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” de Marbot said. “I heard something that sounded like an explosion! The line’s dead! Nobody answers!”
Sam could feel himself turning gray. “Oh, my God! An explosion! Get down there, find out what’s going on!”
Byron was by another intercom on the bulkhead. He said, “Station 25 reports an explosion in Station 26.”
The Frenchman stepped into the elevator and was gone.
“Sir, there’s the enemy plane!” the radar operator said. “On the port bank, just above the structures, coming in between those two rock spires.”
Sam ran to the window and looked out. The sun flashed on the silver-and-blue-streaked nose of an aircraft.
“Coming like a bat out of hell!”
He gripped the ledge, forced himself to be calm, and turned. But Byron had sent word down. It wasn’t needed, since the attacker was visible.
“Hold your fire until the attacker is five hundred yards distant,” Byron said. “Then fire the rockets. Cannons and small arms, wait until it’s within two hundred and fifty yards.”
“I shouldn’t have waited,” Sam muttered. “I should have brought the laser out as soon as those boys took off. It could slice that plane in half before it launched the torpedo.”
One more regret in a lifetime of regrets.
And just what in blue blazes happened down there?
“Here it cometh!” Joe Miller said.
The torpedo plane had dipped down past the bridges running along the edge of the hills. Now it was skimming the grass of the plains. Whoever the pilot was, he was handling his big heavy machine as if it were a one-seater fighter.
Events happened fast after that. The plane was going at least 150 miles per hour. Once it reached The River, it would have a mile to go to its target. But it would release the torpedo within six hundred feet. Closer, if the pilot was daring. The nearer the release, the less chance for the Not For Hire to evade the missile.
It would have been better if the boat were to turn prow-on and so present a smaller target. But to do this would cut the defense fire to a minimum.
Sam waited. The moment that the silvery weapon of destruction was loosed from its carrier, he would give the order to Detweiller to swing the boat around. The plane would be a lesser menace then. In any event, if it survived the hail of fire, it would be getting to hell out.
“Five hundred yards,” Byron said, reading the radarscope over its operator’s shoulder. He spoke into the intercom linked with the batteries. “Fire the rockets!”
Twenty silvery cone-tipped cylinders, spouting flame from their tails, sprang like cats at a feline convention after a lone mouse.
The pilot had the reflexes of a cat, too. Twelve rockets, smaller than those hurled at him, sprang from below his wings. The two flights met in three battings of an eye and went up in flame surrounded by smoke. Immediately after, the plane bored through the clouds. Now it was so close to The River that it seemed the waves would snap its bottom.
“Fire the second battery of rockets!” Byron yelled. “Fire cannons and small arms!”
Another flight of missiles arced out. The steam machine guns hosed a stream of ,80-caliber plastic bullets. The 88-millimeter cannon on the port side bellowed, spouting flame and gray clouds. The marines, stationed between the heavy platforms, fired their rifles.
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