Chapter 11

I still had some control of my flier, so I was able to land very close to where the airship had come down. Fortunately, no one aboard the airship was injured, and a distress call for a repair crew had already been sent out. I sent out a similar call to the military base for a repair crew to work on my flier. Now, we had several hours to wait before the repair crews arrived.

There were eight guards aboard the airship, and I took command of them to ready ourselves for the arrival of the looting crew of the pirates. I figured that they would show up even though we had been able to call for help just because of the value of the cargo that had been handed to them.

The guards were experienced former soldiers, so I was sure that they could handle their weapons as well as anyone could. However, the only weapons that they had were the conventional swords, shields, and single-shot pistols that all citizens of Horurie carried. I knew that the pirates would be armed similarly, so I felt that we were in good shape if we were not too greatly outnumbered.

Of course, I was carrying my new style automatic pistol, so I was not worried about what I could do. I did add the detachable shoulder stock to convert the pistol into an assault rifle. That steadied my aim, but I did not know if I would really need it.

We had managed to land in a very large meadow so there were no trees to obscure our view of the approaching pirates if they did indeed show up. We all expected them, so there was little chance of them surprising us. I set the men in a defensive circle in pairs so that they could support each other. I planned to act as the mobile reserve to move in where I was most needed. The four-man crew of the airship had the standard weapons of their own with them, so I added them to assist me in the mobile reserve.

We only had to wait for about 20 minutes until the pirates showed up. There were 14 of them, and they were all armed in the conventional manner. They approached us in a relatively tight group just perfect for my assault gun. I set the pressure for silent operation and the firing style to full automatic. Two sweeps with my gun wiped out all but four of the pirates, and I left them to the tender mercies of the guards and airship crew. As expected, those who were not actually in on the battle were somewhat pissed off at me for keeping them from having fun. What could I say?

Within about an hour, the two repair crews arrived and made quick work of getting the two flying machines back into operating condition. The chief of the repair crew for my flier recommended that I take it easy when flying home. The engine really needed a close inspection of the type that could not be done in the field, so they recommended that I drop by a fully fledged maintenance operation before I pushed for maximum speed. Okay, I could live with that, so I returned home to reassure my wives that I was in good condition before heading to the R&D establishment the next day for the inspection and a few minor glitches that I wanted them to address.

The ship was repaired and brought up to the exacting standards those R&D guys demanded of all of their products. One of the minor changes they made was to increase the rocket load to eight: I had been so impressed with the performance of the rockets on my first try with them that I wanted as many installed as there was room. Hell, if I ever met more than eight enemy, I deserved what happened to me for not running like hell!

I discussed with them Sinola's request that the guns have a breaker switch that would separate them from the radar. I agreed with the R&D contingent that she was just being difficult, but I did have to live with her. They agreed to install such a switch on her craft, but none of us cared to see it become a standard issue item. I arranged for them to spend a week upgrading my wives' flier to meet the specifications of my flier, and we set a date. I also arranged for the women to borrow another flier to use in the interim.

My next opportunity to test my new toy came only four weeks later when King Haran had to travel to a State event. This was politically a big deal, so there was no way to keep his travel plans secret. Actually, the travel to the grand event was a part of the event, so any assassins had no trouble knowing chapter and verse on his travel plans.

He traveled with an official bodyguard of troops, and the whole trip was to be by flier. At least, that way I would be able to cover the journey in my new ship, so I had a tremendous advantage of speed and armament over any other fighter that was likely to show up piloted by some sort of troublemaker. This was one of those things where every person who was anybody in the social hierarchy was attending the event. Of course, that meant that my wives and I were on the guest list, so I had no trouble talking them into flying as my "wing man" during my escort duties.

The women were thrilled to be invited to help me, and I was happy to have them, especially considering that their ship had most of the capabilities of mine. Furthermore, they were both competent, nay, a first class combat crew, so I had no qualms about sticking them with the responsibility.

We were up early on the morning of the flight and took off for the palace in Horurie City in time to be ready by the time the king's entourage left. As expected, everything went well up to this point. We were not expecting trouble until we got out of range of the antiaircraft guns stationed at the palace. As part of our cover, we joined in at the tail end of the six regular fighters assigned as air defense for the procession. It was very unlikely that we would encounter any serious opposition because no assassin could hope to break through this many defenders, even if he had an accomplice.