Moon Dreams
Page 21
Weaponized
Paul sat in the copilot’s seat as the MoonBeam settled back towards her landing pad. Micah was bringing her in for a smooth controlled landing after almost three hours of hover testing in the air over the center of the hollow. He’d done as well as anyone could as had Helena and Terrance. Paul had done his work quietly, recording results and running the systems that were left almost totally to the copilot. None of the three had spoken to him any more than was absolutely necessary, they were angry at his presence, seeing it as another slap in the face.
He wasn’t here because he wasn’t confident in their competence as a team, he was checking out some of the evolutionary changes that had been implemented in the ‘Beam,’ but that had held no water with the three military bigots and in the end Paul had given up trying.
The pads tapped the ground and they all checked systems and began to shut the third and most advanced moonship down. Paul glanced up at a row of covered panels above the main copilot controls. He was pretty sure he knew what was behind them but he was not going to ask. No more than he was going to ask about some items mounted to the heavy frame of the ship under the main cabins. He had worked for the DoD and was a good enough weaponeer to guess what they were, but he wasn’t part of the loop and he wasn’t going to invite getting slapped down by asking about them.
Paul turned to Micah and looked into the hostile dark brown eyes, “My guess, Micah, is that you will get pretty much full time usage of the ‘Beam from now on, and will be just about free of my meddling. I hope you enjoy it, you’ve earned it up to a point - and while I may disagree with some of the things I suspect you’ll be doing, they’re none of my business.”
Paul had gotten out of the copilots position as he spoke, he saw sneers forming on both the military men’s faces and slapped them down, “Just don’t expect me to come and pull your chestnuts out of the fire if you get in too deep doing something stupid and dangerous. I may be ordered to do it in the end but flying these ships is dangerous enough without taking them in harm’s way on purpose. Just remember, even with your armor you’re still thin skinned, and one hit in the wrong place could take half the Stacks out in a second. The others could cascade out a few seconds later and you can’t glide, auto gyro or eject, you’ll just make a big metal lined hole in the ground.”
Paul walked out of the ‘Beams bridge and rode the elevator down the strut to the cargo deck, trying to ignore the metal-sheathed mass of what he suspected was a small caliber automatic cannon mounted halfway down.