Chapter 11

The more I thought about the laser aiming device, the more I wanted one. I figured that since the ray guns shot the equivalent of a beam of light, then gravity would not affect the beam and neither would the wind. Therefore, I would never have to compensate for either one, and I would always know where the ray gun beams were going to strike relative to the laser spot. The problem was that I needed a spotting laser with much more power than the average laser pointer used by a lecturer.

I figured that if I could find a laser aiming device designed for use on a gun, then I would have something powerful enough to work with my ray gun rig. Therefore, "all" I had to do was to search in gun shops until I found what I needed. There were a lot of gun shops in Massachusetts, so I should not have much of a problem finding what I wanted. Ha! Dream on.

I lost count of the number of gun shops that I visited, and I had everybody else who could make the time helping me hunt. Finally, John found what I needed, and I would be forever grateful. The device was powerful enough to work up to about 250 yards, and it would have worked farther if I had had any way to see the spot without magnification.

Our planes were all pusher types—that meant that the propeller was behind the cockpit. Therefore, I could shoot straight ahead without worrying about hitting it. I wanted my gun rig mounted on the front of the plane with remote aiming and firing. That was going to be a bugger to design and build, but I found two experts to help me: Jeff and Charles (call me Chuck). They had been experts with building things before the aliens came, and they were ready to aid me with my design problems.

The three of us came up with a design that rotated the gun mount right or left and up or down 30°. I had a pair of joysticks to use to aim the guns. The trigger was a button on the right pointing lever and the safety switch was a button on the left pointing lever. Once we had the design mocked up, Joe and Bill constructed a metal version the matched my specifications. Once the rig was ready, we mounted it on the front of my plane, and I set about getting the guns to point where I wanted the beam to go and the laser to point between the ray gun beams.

The whole thing was a bit tricky to set up and damned destructive of temporary targets, but I finally had the aiming and shooting working properly after three days of blood, sweat, and lots of tears of frustration. I even thought to put in a lock so that the rig would not move, and the pilot could aim the guns by twisting and turning the ultralight as if it were a full fledged fighter.

As soon as the gun system was ready to go on the plane, Sarah and I set out to find something to shoot at. Everybody else who could came along to see how well the system worked. They all wanted the same thing if it worked as well as I hoped.

We headed toward Hartford because there was still active harvesting going on there, and we could shoot at harvesting machines as our first targets. Sam and Tilly were along to provide bombing expertise if we got that lucky. This time, Sue had stayed home to do the babysitting chores.

We got very lucky and spotted a harvesting operation hard at work destroying a grove of trees, and that was what I chose for my first target. Sarah approached one of the cutters from the side, and I worked to bring the laser designator into line on its side. Dammit, we had to make two passes before I could get the laser to point where I wanted on the side of the machine. I gave it a short burst from the four ray guns on the rig, and I managed to hit where I aimed. That produced some cheering that I could hear without the radio.

I had deliberately kept the burst very short because I was not sure where to find another target. My shot was effective in damaging something on the machine because it began to turn sharply to the left. The machine seemed to be locked into a circular pattern, and that made a screwy target for me to shoot at. That was just the thing I needed for practice shooting, so I now went after the machine with the intent of destroying it completely.

Sarah circled around and approached the machine at a fast speed to maximize the realism of the practice. This meant that I had to hurry to acquire my target and to get off a long enough burst of energy. That was pressing things at my current level of skill, but I needed to stretch myself to see what I could do. I managed to shoot off the top of the machine, but I still had not killed it.

Sarah made another pass, and this time I hit something that caused an internal explosion within the machine. Parts flew everywhere, and there was no doubt that I had hit a significant place on the machine. Fortunately, I remembered where that shot had been aimed, so I wanted to go for the same spot on the remaining cutting machine.

She now made a run at the other cutter, and I tried to set up my shot for the same spot as had caused the explosion on the first machine. There was too much vibration on board the ultralight to get a really steady platform, but I knew that patience would solve a lot of problems. I managed to get the red laser dot where I wanted it and held down the trigger button.

I could see that I was cutting a surprisingly large hole in the side of the target machine, but the beam did go where I wanted it to. The target machine blew up and nearly shook us out of the air when the shock wave hit us. That was unexpected, but no permanent harm was done. Sarah was able to maintain control of the plane, and carried us out of range of the fire that was raging at the machine. Again, we were cheered enthusiastically.

Now it was Sarah's turn. I set the guns to fire straight ahead and locked them in place. Sarah made a wide turn and approached one of the grinders. She was holding as steady a line as she could manage while splitting her time between flying the plane and simultaneously trying to aim the guns. It was impossible for her to hold the plane steady enough to maintain her aim so she flew over the machine without firing.

Instead, she made another loop around and lined up on the target. This time, she began to fire the ray guns before the red dot actually reached the machine. She held the trigger button down and simply flew past the target. Damned if she did not cut the machine into two pieces! This was certainly adequate to put the machine out of commission, and I was the first to applaud her shooting. Her grin of triumph was almost literally from ear to ear, and she deserved all of the praise that she was receiving.

Okay, now it was time for me to return to practicing my freehand shooting. I unlocked the gun mount and resumed control of the guns. We went after another machine, and I tried Sarah's technique. It worked as well for me as it did for her, and I was able to cut the machine into two parts very near its middle on our first pass. However, that was not what I was trying to learn to do, so I went back to aiming at the machine when we went after the last one.

My skill at aiming was improving at a rapid rate, and I was able to hit the target on my second try. That was more like what we would be facing if and when we met an alien flying box. Now that we had destroyed the harvesting machines, we waited around for the chip carrier to show up so that we could follow it to the distillery. We were lucky and only had to wait for about 10 minutes before one showed up.

It loaded up from the pile of chips that had been left on the ground and took off for its delivery point. Of course, we followed as closely as we could so that we would not lose the chip carrier before it got to the distillery. We managed to stay with it, and we checked for aliens waiting to ambush us while we waited for the chip carrier to leave for another load. There were no aliens about that any of us could see, so Sarah left to chase the chip carrier while Tilly and Sam took care of the still.