“We are taking fire from the mother-boat,” Dallas reported.
“Range?” Hail asked.
“Two-thousand yards,” Dallas answered.
“We’re still out of their range. Those 50s won’t hurt us.” Hail said.
Hail told Dallas, “Pop a few grenades in front of them and see if that slows them down.”
“You got it, Skipper,” Dallas said. “I’m putting Ratt on auto-suspend.”
In avionic terms, auto-suspend for a drone was similar to auto-pilot on a plane. By suspending the drone, the aircraft continued at its current direction and speed, unless it encountered an obstacle, in which case its programming would run an avoidance sub-routine.
Dallas took control of the ship’s porthole that was already open and shooting video. He touched his screen and activated the gun cluster control. Dallas switched aiming control to his right-hand joystick and the servo-motors on the gun turret jumped to life. A thick red laser beam shot out across the sea.
“Bringing the XM on target,” Dallas announced. He then focused the tip on the beam about fifty yards in front of the oncoming Whaler.
“Let me know when, Marshall” he told Hail.
“Fire a burst,” Hail told him.
Dallas pulled the trigger and the XM307 grenade launcher chugged out four metal bombs that spiraled through the air like tiny footballs. Two seconds later, the tight group of grenades exploded with such force, that the drones hovering next to the Nucleus juddered.
In front of the Whaler, water was hurled up into the air and thunder rolled across the ocean. The grenades had all exploded under water. The shock and awe was simply a fireworks show. All the shrapnel from the grenades sank safely to the bottom of the Java Sea. The mother-boat remained intact.
The Hail crew expected a reduction in speed or possibly a change in direction. But to everyone’s surprise, none of a chunthat stuff happened. The Whaler kept pouring on the juice and the gunner opened up again with the big fifty caliber machine gun.
“Distance?” Hail asked.
“Fifteen-hundred yards,” Tayler responded.
“Where is the little boat?” Hail asked.
“Heading back toward the mother-boat,” Dallas answered.
“Screw these guys,” Hail said. “Bring up the railgun.”
“Yeaaaaaah, the railgun!” Alba yelled, grabbing the bowl of popcorn again. “This movie just keeps getting better.”
For the second time, Dallas switched weapon devices and assigned himself the railgun control set.
Dallas pressed some icons on his monitor and somewhere far away from the security center they heard a loud metallic ka-thunk that reverberated throughout the ship.
“The containers are unlocked and we’re elevating the gun,” Dallas said.
The pirate manning the machine gun on the Whaler was the first man to see a new and disturbing site. A door on the end of a large cylindrical cargo container flapped open. And then, seemingly defying gravity, two huge containers, connected end to end, began to rise from the deck of the huge ship.
The pirate gunner on the Whaler turned and yelled something at his fellow pirates who all rushed up to the bow. The cargo containers began turning in the Whaler’s direction, slowly, like the head of a lethargic snake. When the barrel finally came to rest, its dark mouth was pointed directly at them. Now each of the pirates on the Whaler could clearly see that the containers were not floating in midair. In fact, some sort of massive lift had moved the containers into this threatening position.
More urgent words were exchanged on the Whaler.
More bullets sprayed out of their machine gun at the big ship in front of them.
More distance was reduced as the pirate ship continued to close on the Nucleus.
“Charge the capacitors,” Hail ordered.
Dallas looked for the correct icon and replied, “Bringing up the grid.”
A deep 60 hertz hum began vibrating the hull of the Nucleus. The heavy harmonic tone came from the transformers as they sent thousands of volts into the huge capacitor farm. During all the test firings of the railgun, the exact same sound of corona discharge had been experienced. The weird sounds of fluid being ionized around a conductor had been anticipated inside the security center. Everything was as it should be.
The pirates watched as a glow appeared from inside the dark cargo container that was pointing its enigmatic opening toward them. At first, a blurry blue hue could be seen inside the black hole. Then as the gun began to take on a charge, the hue mutated into a red and yellow type of fuzzy static that jittered around inside the tube.
The pirate who was at the wheel of the Whaler pulled back on the throttles and the bow of their craft dipped and then dug into the waves. The pirates were now clustered up front on the bow of the Whaler, staring so intently at the Nucleus that the pirates on the small wooden boat came to a stop as well. The men in the little attack boat turned to look over the shoulders at the strange sight, apparently wondering what the hubbub was all about.
The sound coming out of the weird metal tube was terrifying only because it was like nothing any of the pirates had ever heard. In nature, the only thing comparable would have been a beehive strapped to a pirate’s head. But there was more to it than just that. Each of the pirates could physically feel the sound. Their skin prickled. Their teeth vibrated. The insane buzz was accompanied by a low hum that seemed to move the air around them.
The pirate standing next to the gunner on the Whaler dropped his rifle on the deck and jumped into the water without warning. The other pirates didn’t seem to notice. The glow inside the container was getting brighter. Two semi-circles of red and yellow, with a vivid core of blue, took on a physical form. The colors were more than just a shape. They were alive somehow. The sound got louder and the pirates on the Whaler were still hypnotized. None of them were moving. Everything seemed to stand still. Their boat was immobile. The waves that had been lapping at both of the pirate’s boats had been vibrated into nothing more than faint ripples. The breezed died away and was replaced with the faint smell of insulation being burned on a wire.
The gunner on the Whaler turned and screamed something at the other pirates, but his voice had been reduced to nothing more than queer vibrations of undiscernible tones. That’s when two more pirates on the Whaler jumped into the water and started swimming for home. That left four pirates on the Whaler and five on the wooden boat. But now, the pirate that was driving the wooden boat turned and began distancing themselves from the white mother-boat.
On board the Nucleus, Hail asked, “What’s the firing status?”
Dallas checked his screens.
“Almost charged. About another fifteen seconds.”
Back down on the water, the buzzing bees had been replaced with a sound of a thousand woodpeckers hammering their beaks on the inside of the metal shipping container. The air around the vessels became electrostatically charged. The pirates turned to look at one another as the hair on their arms and heads began to elevate. The thick anchor-chain on the deck of the Whaler rattled and then scuttled across the deck, magnetically snapping together and forming a huge ball of metal. Two more of the pirates had seen enough. They dropped their guns on the deck and exited the Whaler. That only left two combatants on the mother-boat. The gunner and the driver.
The edges of the cylindrical container had become less defined as the atmosphere surrounding the railgun became murky with ozone and electrons. The light inside the hole was so bright that the pirates had to shield their eyes. The gun’s fire warning tones blared from the ship’s horn and the last two pirates, who were literally shaking with fear, threw in the towel and bailed off the boat head first, so scared that they forgot to unstrap their guns.