This week with Arlene and Jeff:
...He was barely clear of the runway since he was last after all the later-model, high-speed fighters that had been given preference, and was just past 2000 feet as he began his turn toward his assigned area. As he continued his climb, one of the alien Paladins' dove past him at enormous speed. Because of its shields, it had not appeared on his radar until it was almost upon him.
Nevertheless, one of the Paladin gunners fired at him as they dived at the base. His A10 shook and seemed to stagger in the air, but it was a Wart Hog, so it kept flying. The Captain barely noticed, his blood up, as he banked hard to fall in behind just as the Paladin slowed abruptly and began firing at the planes lined up on the ground.
The gunners either didn't notice him or disregarded his ugly craft as they poured bolt after bolt toward the airfield below. The Wart Hog has a rudimentary sight that the pilot uses, but mostly he just points his plane at the target and hoses it with the Avenger's tremendous rate of fire. The gun uses 30 millimeter depleted uranium cannon shells capable of burning through thick tank armor since the depleted uranium is much harder than steel, and the huge projectile is rocking along at 1013 meters/second or roughly 3323 feet/second.
The shields of the Paladin could easily shrug off a cannon shell, but a stream of them made of depleted uranium wasn't in the same ballpark. Halfway through the first second, the Paladin's shields failed, and most of the rest of the rounds in that two-second burst chewed up the fuselage, motor, energy system and… aliens - although it was certainly debatable if they ever knew that they were under attack before they ceased to exist. Since the Captain had started firing a quarter-mile before he caught up to the hapless Paladin, the blast only rocked the Hog...
Have a goodun;
Roust