Chapter 12: The Attack

In the early morning hour, Rain was on watch. She saw the six air cars fly through the pass. She picked up her portable radio and called first Mist then Dawn and Mark. The three of them hurried to the control room and watched the video recording of the six ten passenger air cars go through the pass.

With no hurry, the defenders took their positions. Tes, Rediya and Tani gathered the children and making two trips transferred them all to the cave house. Steve was moved and made comfortable in a bed with all the life monitoring and life giving gauges hooked up. They parked two six seat cars in the garage and closed the door. Tes and Tani were the last to arrive and then they waited, as did the defenders down below.

At Mark's directive, cameras with zoom lenses had been set up on nearby cliffs so that the progress of the enemy could be tracked. The defenders took turns, one from each of the three groups to go get something to eat and relieve them selves. Jake and Maj took turns monitoring the cameras that watched the approach.

That afternoon Tani calmly picked up the case that held the gun Maj had made for her and walked out on the bluff. Squatting down she unbuckled the case and removed the rifle although to call it a rifle required a stretch of the imagination. It was more like a miniature cannon. She opened the metal box that had the shells in it and loaded one of them into the receiver. The cartridge was nearly eight inches long and almost three quarters of an inch in diameter it actually had two stages in it. The primary stage was the larger and sent the bullet on its way. The second stage ignited when the bullets was about fifty yards from its target. It contained a sensor that locked on to the laser painted target, directing the bullet with pin point accuracy and increased the velocity. The bullet itself was nearly as big as her thumb. She looked through the scope and smiled. Dad really made this to my request. I just hope it is accurate to the range I asked for. She sighted through the scope and picked out a tree trunk that she judged to be about three miles away. She pressed a button on the side of the gun and was pleased to see a red spot appear on the trunk she was looking at. She placed two balls of cotton in her ears.

"Here they come," Jake yelled.

Maj immediately got on the radio and alerted the waiting teams.

Jake and Maj watched as the six air cars drew nearer. They were about a mile from the harpoon launch sites. Suddenly in the front car, the head of the driving robot exploded and its body was pitched over the side. Almost ten seconds later a very loud boom reverberated from the hills.

"What the hell was that?" Jake asked.

Maj smiled and said, "I think that was Tani with her new toy."

Almost a full minute later the robot driver in the second car exploded and was pitched out. The loud boom echoed in the hills again. Robots scrambled to move into empty driver's seats and regain control of the air cars, dropping in altitude as they did so.

"What the hell was that boom?" Mist's voice crackled from the radio. Dawn and Mark asked the same question seconds later.

Maj the proud father told them, "That, my friends, is Tani."

"Tani," Mist exclaimed, "but she is almost three miles away at the cave."

"It's a long story but take my word for it that is Tani," Maj answered, "Get ready all hell is going to break loose." In his talks with Mark and Steve, he had learned what hell meant.

Boom... boom... boom each boom was still almost ten seconds apart and each time just before the sound a robot exploded and was pitched from the air car.

After the first shot, Tani had winced in pain. Her shoulder had absorbed the vicious kick of the rifle. She thought, obviously I did not have Dad put enough cushion in the butt of this rifle. She arose to her knees and took off her blouse. She wadded it up and placed it between her shoulder and the butt of the rifle for extra cushion. That was why there was a longer pause between the first and second shots than the following shots.

Tes ran from the house just in time to see the rifle Tani was firing boom loudly. She covered her ears and watched as Tani took aim through the large scope once more.

The robots frantically sought to drop below the tree line and avoid the shots that were so deadly. They dropped right into range of the harpoons.

"Launch," Jake, yelled at Maj. the harpoons streaked upwards spearing their targets and retracting. Just as Jake had predicted they worked great. Five of the craft were speared and dumped their passenger out at around four hundred feet. The sixth craft came to a halt just before it was in range.

Three more of the robots exploded in the sixth craft followed by boom, boom, and boom.

A huge hole appeared in the hull near the rear of the craft and it began to plummet earthward then the boom was heard.