Page 17 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
“Roger that.” Murph tapped keys. The pulse cannons opened up.
The high-divergent beams unleashed wide, spherical bursts of electromagnetic energy shotgunning across the sky.
“Stoney, evasive maneuvers—flank speed. Everybody else—hold on!”
Eric grinned ear to ear as he shoved the throttles forward and yanked the joystick.
Like a giant Jet Ski, theOregon’s massive, newly upgraded magnetohydrodynamic engines blasted monumental torrents of water through the improved thrust-vectoring venturi tubes beneath her hull. The multidirectional thrusters meant Stoney could turn the five-hundred-ninety-foot vessel on the head of a pin. He executed a well-practicedslalom maneuver he’d used in previous combat. Throughout the ship, crew members clutched whatever they could reach against the turn. The unsecured galley was a maelstrom of breaking plates and crashing pots.
“That’ll confuse ’em,” Max said with a chuckle as he clung white-knuckled to his console. “Or at least make ’em dizzy.”
“Either works.” Juan grunted, his body straining against the chair harness.
The targeting radar screen popped back on as more drones dropped from the sky.
“Laser firing,” Murphy reported.
“Cannons redlining,” Hanley warned, his eyes locked on the temperature gauges maxing out.
“Comms clear.”
“Nav clear.”
“Shut the cannons down,” Cabrillo ordered. They’d done their job.
Bang!
“Hit amidships, port side,” Max called out. “Hull breach above the waterline.”
“Casualties?” Cabrillo asked.
Bang!
“Crane number one hit,” Max said. “Good work, Stoney. That thing was heading for the bridge.”
“Wepps?”
“I count fifteen tangos still out there—Check that. Thirteen. They’re closing low and fast. Port and starboard.”
“Decoys?”
“Kamikazes.” Murph checked his console. “Laser down. Capacitors recharging.”
“Wepps, Phalanx systems. Now!”
Murph slammed his palms onto a pair of bright red buttons.
Instantly, six metal plates just below theOregon’s main deck dropped like gun ports on a pirate ship revealing six M61 Vulcan Gatling guns, three on each side of the hull. The multibarreledmachine guns opened up in a hellish roar. Each weapon unleashed precise bursts of AI-targeted 20-millimeter rounds at the rate of seventy-five per second. Within moments, the last of the kamikaze drones had been splashed.
The op center erupted in wild cheers and applause.
“Comms, hailNomadfor me.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
Juan checked the screens again. No more threats. All clear. He leaned back in the Kirk Chair.
“Nomadon the overhead, Chairman.”
