Chapter 29

Bernie had a stroke of inspiration! He asked Bill and Amos if a round could be fashioned for his new cannon which would fire the 20-gauge explosive slugs to simulate a cannon cannister round. It occurred to him that he could hunt the Velociraptors with such a round and, undoubtedly, kill at least one with every shot.

The two technical mavens put their heads and knowledge together and came up with a round for the 2.75 caliber cannon which could fire 21 of the 20-gauge explosive slugs at one time. The spread turned out to be a little too much for shooting at Velociraptors at more than about 60-75 yards, but that was a livable limitation, at least for the first trials.

They made up 8 of the rounds and Bernie took Cindy out on a hunting expedition. They did find one pack of the carnivores and Bernie made a run at them. He was lucky to find them in an open field which gave him plenty of maneuvering room. Bernie's first pass was at an altitude of about 60 feet and a speed of 15 MPH. None of these Velociraptors had ever had to worry about attack from the air, so they just stood and looked at him as Bernie swept in with his attack. His preliminary trials at the firing range had shown him that he did not need to readjust his sights for the new round, so he did not have to make any adjustments to his attack to correct for the new round.

Bernie closed on the pack of eight Velociraptors to a range of about 100 feet. He fired his cannon and pulled up and around to see what sort of damage he had done. The eight carnivores had been fairly close together, and his shot centered almost exactly on the middle of the group. He was amazed to find seven of the raptors dead or dying, and the sole remaining raptor running at full speed away from the carnage.

Cindy had been watching the attack from overhead, and she was nearly speechless at Bernie's results. The explosive slugs had all struck at nearly the same time so they went off at nearly the same time. All that Cindy had been able to see was a gang of raptors, a fireball, and a gang of dead raptors! Surely, this shot had done even more damage that a single shot from one of the big gun's normal exploding shells could have done. The advantage was that the explosions had been spread out, thereby producing a larger fireball than would have been produced by a single concentrated blast.

Other than some singed meat and bones, there was not much for Bernie to find when he landed to examine the result of his experiment. Cindy was flying cover, just in case more carnivores showed up while Bernie was on the ground, but they kept in contact with the small personal radios that they carried. There really was not much detail for Bernie to see—the raptors had simply ceased to exist! On the other hand, Cindy could see a nearly circular pattern of scorched earth with nothing living within its area. This was, indeed, a sobering thing to see. Both of them were so impressed and, yes, shaken by the experience that they just headed home to report their results.

Fortunately, Cindy was carrying a digital camera, so she was able to record the initial firing of the gun and the aftermath for the people at home to see what had happened. This was important, because they would not have been able to believe the results without some visual proof.

As soon as the after-action meeting was begun and the pictures shown, Ed resolved to build some more of the larger planes so that they could incorporate one of Bernie's cannon as well as mount rockets for firing at larger beasts at longer range. The rockets carried a larger warhead than the cannon fired, so a combined armament would be able to take on any carnivore they knew about. What Ed initially wanted was eight rockets, eight cannister shells, and eight standard shells for the cannon. The problem was going to be finding enough electric motors to power the air craft. They had enough motors for the one large plane they had, plus enough for one more plane. The question was whether or not Amy could come up with more of the motors.

Things had calmed down for a while, and they went nearly two more months before any more boats were transported. This time, it was LS2 that had the visitation. The boat was a small cargo boat that appeared to be carrying supplies to a construction site on one of the islands. It, too, was a gold mine of useful supplies.

There were no people on the boat, but that was of minor concern when they saw what the boat was carrying. It was loaded with construction materials, including several hundred sheets of 1/4-inch thick fiberglass panels, two portable saws with diamond-tipped blades, and six replacement blades. On top of that, there were drills and carbide-tipped bits suitable for drilling holes in the fiberglass, and crate after crate of nails and screws in several useful sizes. There were also several crates of various carpentry tools, enough to equip the colony for years.

Now we would be able to salvage the hulls of the fiberglass boats that had previously been useless because we had no way to cut the hulls into suitable sized pieces. We would probably start with the boat that had just delivered the tools.

This boat had some long, nearly flat sections which we could use to reinforce the fence around the farm. We used the diamond saw to cut panels as long as we could from semi-straight sections. This only gave us enough material for about 100 feet of fence, but we needed several thousand feet. Well, we had to start somewhere. The other boats on hand gave us about 1000 feet of fence and a couple of gates wide enough to pass the golf carts.

The fence design we came up with was for a wall of fiberglass nominally three feet high and leaning out at a 30 degree angle. On top of this we strung the electrified fence wire. This would not stop the larger dinosaurs, but it was effective in blocking the entry of the small mammals that delighted in pretending that they were uptime rabbits and squirrels. Between the fence and the dogs we released in the farm at night, we soon had no serious problem with varmints among the food crops.

Fortunately, the horses had found some grass and some of the ferns that they could eat, so the horses did well, even during the monsoon. The horses were able to fight off the Velociraptors because they could move so fast and could kick so hard. The combination of dogs and horses did a good job of intimidating the Velociraptors as long as they had a choice of food, but when the ceratopians disappeared, the situation changed. At that point, we could not release the horses outside the town wall unless they were guarded by humans with shotguns. We had to do something about those damned Velociraptors!

That was where Bernie's new cannister round came into its own. He spent two weeks diligently making aerial sweeps over our neighborhood and firing at every Velociraptor that he could find. By the end of the second week, he had run out of targets, so he went back to his normal flying routine and we were rid of the damned little raptors until the end of the next monsoon season.

Amy had a hard time tracking down the size motor we needed for the new, more powerful airplanes. She finally found what we needed in the industrial washing machines that were packed on the trimaran. There were something like two dozen of the big washing machines in a container, and we certainly did not need to wash clothes, so we had no qualms about stripping the motors out and adapting them to our airplanes.

We now had the potential for more planes than we had pilots, so Ed was authorized to try to find some more pilots. Counting himself, he now had five pilots, but pregnant women were not going to be good pilots during the last stages of their pregnancy, so he would need replacements, particularly since at least 50% of the pilots would be female. All of the teenagers volunteered to try out, and he found six good candidates, three boys and three girls.

He had dedicated one of the new airplanes to be a 2-seat trainer, so he was well equipped to begin teaching the new blood how to fly. An ultralight is very forgiving, so the neophytes quickly learned enough to fly on their own in single-seat planes. Between flying everyday and doing a lot of shooting practice, they learned enough to be useful in about six weeks of intensive training.

Their biggest problem was in maintaining formation, but they improved as they got more practice. Each new pilot was assigned as wingman to one of the experienced pilots, and they learned quickly. The pilot who was odd-man-out each day was assigned to maintenance and repair, so they were conscientious and careful that all of the planes were kept in good flying condition.