Aston Martin was hugging the far side of the channel and easing slowly downtowards Harry. The Crown Vic hadn’t moved. The .50-caliber slugs had knocked out one headlight, starred its diamond glass windshield, and scratched the paint on its armor plating but aside from that had done no real damage.
Now, as he watched, the front end of the Crown Vic’s hood split open and a squat, snub-nosed canon rose into sight. It rested on a gimbaled gun carriage and had what looked like a tightly wound stainless steel spring wrapped around a stubby barrel that ended in a funnel-shaped, blunderbuss muzzle. The butt end of the barrel fit into a brass drum at least eighteen inches across and a foot thick. Two large copper nodes stuck out of the top of the drum with thick electrical cables and glass insulators attached. The cables snaked back into the grav-core.
Suddenly, a pencil thin beam lanced out from the barrel, and Harry recognized the distinctive mewling hiss of a gigawatt plasma canon as the beam grew as thick across as his own wrist. The crazy son of a bitch had come loaded for bear, he thought, his hopes rising as the bright, neon-purple particle beam walked up the channel towards the machine gun nest, leaving exploding geysers of superheated steam and torn atoms in its wake.
The machine gun began firing blindly into the curtain of steam in a panic-stricken attempt to knock out the plasma canon before it zeroed in.
Then, down the channel behind the Crown Vic, Harry saw the flare of a rocket launch. It burned down from the top of a huge, jungle covered mountain of debris that might have once been a minor skyscraper. The rocket cut a flat arc through the night sky and zeroed in on the limousine. There was the sharp slap of an explosion and a gigantic flashbulb seemed to go off behind the curtain of steam that the plasma canon had kicked up. The particle beam instantly cut off as if someone just pulled its plug. The machine gun kept up its mad chatter for a while longer and finally coughed into silence.
The veil of steam blew apart into long misty tendrils, andHarry saw what was left of the limousine settling nose first into the water. Slowly, its rear end lifted straight up like the sinking of the Titanic. The car slid down, hit the shallow bottom of the channel, and stopped with a sudden jolt. Only its rear end still stuck out of the water like a surreal black tombstone. Ghostly white clumps of crash-foam floated on the oil slick water.
Mother of Gods! Harry thought. That had to be a Seraphim Stinger to do that much damage! He’d heard of them but had never seen one in action. There weren’t many weapons that were against the law, but a Stinger brought down an automatic death penalty.
The Seraphim didn’t care. Like the freezer, the Stinger was a low-tech weapon of opportunity, cheap and easy to build. It was basically just a miniature grav-coil, no bigger than a small stack of old DVDs, wired to a rocket and a cell phone running a simple targeting program. The coil had only a rudimentary containment field and was spun into the red when the rocket fired. When it hit its target, the impact breached the containment field, the coil went critical, blew a hole in the fabric of space time, and released a nanosecond blast of pure Planck energy. Simple coil physics and “Presto!” No more car problems! Harry thought.
He noticed that the Aston Martin that had been sneaking towards him had turned around. It was badly battered by the shock wave from the blast, and its containment field must have been breached because it was leaking gravity waves and weaving and hopscotching drunkenly back up the channel, chasing the dwindling taillights of the other cars.
Harry watched in despair as they fled. “No! Don’t leave us!” he sobbed. “Please don’t leave us!”
As the taillights dwindled to pinpricks in the distance, Harry heard shouts and cheers from the ruined buildings. A searchlight punched down from a roof across the
Now, as he watched, the front end of the Crown Vic’s hood split open and a squat, snub-nosed canon rose into sight. It rested on a gimbaled gun carriage and had what looked like a tightly wound stainless steel spring wrapped around a stubby barrel that ended in a funnel-shaped, blunderbuss muzzle. The butt end of the barrel fit into a brass drum at least eighteen inches across and a foot thick. Two large copper nodes stuck out of the top of the drum with thick electrical cables and glass insulators attached. The cables snaked back into the grav-core.
Suddenly, a pencil thin beam lanced out from the barrel, and Harry recognized the distinctive mewling hiss of a gigawatt plasma canon as the beam grew as thick across as his own wrist. The crazy son of a bitch had come loaded for bear, he thought, his hopes rising as the bright, neon-purple particle beam walked up the channel towards the machine gun nest, leaving exploding geysers of superheated steam and torn atoms in its wake.
The machine gun began firing blindly into the curtain of steam in a panic-stricken attempt to knock out the plasma canon before it zeroed in.
Then, down the channel behind the Crown Vic, Harry saw the flare of a rocket launch. It burned down from the top of a huge, jungle covered mountain of debris that might have once been a minor skyscraper. The rocket cut a flat arc through the night sky and zeroed in on the limousine. There was the sharp slap of an explosion and a gigantic flashbulb seemed to go off behind the curtain of steam that the plasma canon had kicked up. The particle beam instantly cut off as if someone just pulled its plug. The machine gun kept up its mad chatter for a while longer and finally coughed into silence.
The veil of steam blew apart into long misty tendrils, andHarry saw what was left of the limousine settling nose first into the water. Slowly, its rear end lifted straight up like the sinking of the Titanic. The car slid down, hit the shallow bottom of the channel, and stopped with a sudden jolt. Only its rear end still stuck out of the water like a surreal black tombstone. Ghostly white clumps of crash-foam floated on the oil slick water.
Mother of Gods! Harry thought. That had to be a Seraphim Stinger to do that much damage! He’d heard of them but had never seen one in action. There weren’t many weapons that were against the law, but a Stinger brought down an automatic death penalty.
The Seraphim didn’t care. Like the freezer, the Stinger was a low-tech weapon of opportunity, cheap and easy to build. It was basically just a miniature grav-coil, no bigger than a small stack of old DVDs, wired to a rocket and a cell phone running a simple targeting program. The coil had only a rudimentary containment field and was spun into the red when the rocket fired. When it hit its target, the impact breached the containment field, the coil went critical, blew a hole in the fabric of space time, and released a nanosecond blast of pure Planck energy. Simple coil physics and “Presto!” No more car problems! Harry thought.
He noticed that the Aston Martin that had been sneaking towards him had turned around. It was badly battered by the shock wave from the blast, and its containment field must have been breached because it was leaking gravity waves and weaving and hopscotching drunkenly back up the channel, chasing the dwindling taillights of the other cars.
Harry watched in despair as they fled. “No! Don’t leave us!” he sobbed. “Please don’t leave us!”
As the taillights dwindled to pinpricks in the distance, Harry heard shouts and cheers from the ruined buildings. A searchlight punched down from a roof across the
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