Chapter 6
With Nup out of the way, at least for now, Jonnie got down to the business of seeing what could be done to halt the drone.
He drew off a bit to give his screens better play on it. It looked like a derelict! Here was a mark where an atomic bomb had hit it, there was a scar where possibly a plane had crashed into it leaving the charred remnants of oil and fuel. There a row of minute dents where surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles had struck it. But such marks were notable only for their stains, not for any damage they had done.
He flew the battle plane down under it. He looked at the big skids used for parking and storing. No joy there.
He brought the battle plane alongside it again. He felt like a hummingbird flapping along with a buzzard.
Probably when the last mission of this thing was completed and it had crashed, demolishing the then-known city of “Colorado Springs,” the company had just let it lie there until it had built hangars and, as an afterthought, had probably flown water tanks over it and way above it and washed the radiation off of it and then stored it.
A chilling thought as to why they must have done that. Psychlos had no room for sentiment or art in any form. They would not have kept it for any other reason than that they couldn't dismantle it on this planet. Psychlo alone would have the massive shops to do that. They certainly didn't want it back. It had done its job. They wouldn't leave it out where it could be measured up by some enemy agent. They had kept it because the company couldn't destroy it on this planet. What it was built of, the devil only knew!
Well, he tried to cheer himself, Nup's plane skids had stuck to it. These magnetic so-called skids were actually whole-molecule reorientation fields. The molecules in the surface of one substance became, with the field, comingled with the molecules of the other substance like a temporary weld. So this thing was built of molecular metal, possibly some unknown– to this planet– metal, alloyed with some other strange metal. It even could be that the combination of such metals was, while molecular, irreversible and couldn't be melted or pounded apart once mixed. Maybe the Psychlos had something that, when certain elements were mixed together, could not then be "unmixed" by flame, electrical arcs, radiation, or anything. Maybe even laminated layers of such metals, each one protecting the one under it.
A very chilling thought. Jonnie did not consider himself even a kindergarten-level metallurgist, but he recalled the prohibition the Psychlos had of ever teaching an alien race anything about that subject. And here he was trying to solve it, flying along in the night, without texts, without a calculator, and without even the mathematics to use it if he had it.
What would destroy that drone? And before it reached even the coast of
Scotland.
He had thought a Psychlo was a monster when he first saw one. Now he was really looking at a monster. An ultimate in indestructibility.
Out of the tail of his eye he thought he saw something move on the viewscreen. He looked at it closely. There it was again. A rhythmic pulse under the bottom of the drone. He counted it out. Once every twenty seconds, regular as his watch. Suddenly he realized he had been studying just one side of the drone. He guessed he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Well! Easily remedied. He hit his console with rapid fingers and flick, he was over on the other side of the drone.
This side had been away from him when he first saw the thing from the plains after it fired. Nup had been flying on the other side also.
He trimmed in his viewscreens.
What! The huge loading door was unlatched. And since Nup had landed on the nose, making the drone roll and crab periodically, the door was swinging open and closed.
A door.
Unlatched.
He televiewed it with quivering fingers. It had the broken stub of a key in it.
He viewed the whole mammoth door. It was open when the plane rolled down on that side, then was closed by the rushing air and gravity when the plane rolled back.
Every twenty seconds.
He suddenly regretted the tenderheartedness that had caused him to refuse a companion on this voyage. It would be dangerous, but hanging from a dangling wire ladder, it would be possible to drop down and into that door. No, it would require a pilot to run the plane and somebody going into that drone who knew enough to paralyze it if possible. And he had no pilots, and Glencannon couldn't be spared.
Open, closed, open, closed.
Size? He looked at the door. He compared his own ship's span and depth. This ship could fly into that door! Top and bottom a very narrow squeeze. Plenty to spare on the sides.
Yikes! Fly this ship sideways at three hundred two miles per hour? And then in?
Well, it was standard battle tactics to fly sideways with these teleportation motor drives. There was no wing support area needed such as birds used. When you shut off these motors, the ship didn't glide anywhere. It just dropped like a stone. It was leveled with small teleportation balance motors, not fins.
Yes, in theory one could fly sideways and then dart forward and in.
But the timing! Ouch. That rolling drone was moving the opening up and down about thirty feet each roll.
He'd try it.
But that slamming door had to be taken off first. The way it swung, it barred the available opening.
Jonnie decided he would first try to shoot the hinges off. He dropped the battle plane back, setting the firing controls to “Needle Width,” “Flame,” and “Single Shot.”
He lined up the plane and sights, fingers dancing on the console, one foot extended to the floor firing button– always hard to reach in a plane built for nine– or ten-foot-tall Psychlos. Even Ker had trouble with floor controls.
Line up, door open, hinge exposed.
Stamp!
A needle of hot flame hit the hinge. It didn't sever. The door began to swing shut again.
His local command channel burst into life. “What the crap are you doing?” cried Nup, alarmed.
“I don't have a copilot, Your Executiveship. I have to shoot the door open to change the controls and destination.”
“Oh.” Then, as Jonnie was lining up for the next try, “You be careful of company property, Snit! Willful damage is a vaporizing offense.”
“Yes, Your Executiveship." Jonnie fired the next try.
The hinge glowed briefly. The door hid it from view again. The door didn't sag. Maybe the hinge was binding. Jonnie looked at the infrared target scope. Yes, there were two hinges, one up, one lower.
He lined up on the lower hinge. Door open, hinge in scope. Stamp! Flash!
The door still didn't fall off.
Maybe if he alternated his shots, upper hinge, lower hinge, one then the other.
He drew off a bit to flex his fingers. The other scopes showed ice and sea endlessly below him. Nothing else in the sky.
Back to it. Upper. Stamp! Flash! Lower. Stamp! Flash! Over and over. But a shot possible only every forty seconds.
This was time-consuming! Well, he wasn't too pressed for time. Not yet anyway. Stamp! Flash! Wait. Stamp! Flash! Wait.
Those hinges would get cherry red but they didn't sever.
Getting nowhere, Jonnie drew off. Then, with a bright inspiration, he took a position above the drone and slightly to the other side so he could fire into the back of the door as it rolled open. He changed his gun setting to “Broad,” “No Flame,” and “Continuous.”