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As Hanna passed between them, Fewsteem and Dabis grinned.
"Must we kiss you as well, Commander?"
"Not if you'd like to live long enough to reach your
battle stations," Gerrard replied.
Dabis rolled a seaman's cap nervously in his hands. "Sorry
to say, Commander, but our battle station was the galley,
locking down pots and pans. We never were highly ranked."
"Come with me, then," Gerrard said, motioning over his
bandaged shoulder. "You too, Tahngarth. We'll need the four of
us to operate the forward guns. Acquit yourselves there, and
you'll get a promotion." He strode up the stairs from the
engine room, through the hatch, and out onto the deck.
"Forward guns! Possible promotion!" Dabis enthused to
Fewsteem. "Better than pots and pans!" Across the deck, they
scrambled to the guns.
In her centuries of existence, Weatherlight had been
fitted out with numerous defensive measures-dimension
disrupters, glasspitters, bombards, lantern-guns, acid
atomizers.... All of these weapons, though, had been genteel
compared to the massive Phyrexian ray cannons now mounted
along the rail. Each consisted of a man-sized barrel above a
muscular engine manifold. Conduits ran between the two as if
they were networks of pumping veins. A pair of foot wells and
a torso harness allowed the gunner to brace against the
manifold while gripping the dual fire controls. The pivot that
joined barrel to manifold was a ball-and-socket operation,
permitting movement about two axes. Speaking tubes built right
into the pivot formed an open channel of communication to the
bridge. Pneumatic arms aided in smooth tracking. A targeting
chamber mounted atop the gun allowed pinpoint acquisition.
Two such guns were poised on the upper deck, and Gerrard
and Tahngarth climbed the stairs to these. They strapped
themselves in. Man and minotaur gripped their separate fire
controls, moving the barrels experimentally through their full
arcs. Both of the guns could shoot forty-five degrees past the
prow on the opposite side, allowing dual coverage of the whole
forward quadrant. They each could also sweep back one hundred
twenty degrees on their own sides. Their field of fire
overlapped with the guns stationed to port and starboard
amidships. There, Fewsteem and Dabis readied themselves. A
fifth such gun perched on the tail of the ship, and even now,
a certain green fellow climbed stiffly to the controls. Squee
had overheard the call to battle stations, and he longed to
fire the weapon he stared down at for agonizing hours. A sixth
gun was mounted to swivel vertically down from the ship's
belly, and a seventh to fire vertically upward from the center
of the main deck.
"Whatever their other faults," Gerrard called over his
shoulder to Tahngarth on the upper deck, "Phyrexians certainly
know their weaponry."
Checking his range finder, Tahngarth replied in impressive
deadpan. "I've never before seen a machine so worthy of my ...
adoration."
Fewsteem and Dabis, amidships, were similarly delighted.
"Strap in, boys," came the voice of Sisay from the
speaking tubes. Gerrard glanced toward the bridge's windows to
see her standing at the ship's helm. She waved. Through the
tube came her voice. "Hanna's plotting our course. As soon as
she's got it-"
The ship rumbled eagerly, surging higher up from the
smoldering floor of the hangar. Intakes on either side dragged
in long draughts of air. Steady and humming, the ship released
a blast of fire.
Laughter filled the tubes. Then came Hanna's voice. "Sorry
about that. We've got lots more power-" She too was
interrupted as the prow of the ship swung suddenly about,
pivoting on its central axis. Weatherlight swung in line with
the caved-in passage.
"And she's more maneuverable," Sisay explained.
"Everybody, hang on until we've got the feel of the ship."
"Hang on, strap in, and draw a bead on that rockslide,"
Gerrard ordered.
"Right, Commander," came Fewsteem's and Dabis's unison
reply in the tubes.
"Take us in steady, Captain, a hundred yards from the
cave-in," Gerrard said. "Karn, shunt all auxiliary power to
the forward guns."
Though there came no response from the engine room, sudden
heat filled the footwells. Fire crawled within the manifold
conduits.
Weatherlight lifted smoothly above a ruined goblin skiff
and then coursed down a corridor among smoldering hulks. She
slid easily into place before the landslide and shivered to a
gentle halt.
"Train guns. Prepare fire."
The guns locked in on two axes. Lenses shifted within
targeting sights, bringing the rubble wall into precise focus.
Within the barrels, mirror arrays aligned for optimal-range
targeting. Weatherlight held so steady, the crosshairs did not
shift a single stone. One by one, indicators flashed, showing
synchronous alignment among two ... three ... four guns.
Manifolds blazed underfoot.
"Fire!"
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