A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 135

With the specialized "Hind" attack cassette inserted in the launcher's RMP-re programmable microprocessor-the system automatically switches into "two-color" mode when it is a hundred meters from the infrared source. At this point it abandons the infrared radiations emitted by the engine exhaust suppressors and instead focuses on the much weaker ultraviolet emanations from the engine intakes. On tins target the high-explosive warhead hits to kill.

"Even a Shangane could learn how to fire one of these," Job said.

Sean grinned. "Tut-tut, your Matabele tribal racism is showing again.

It's like this-when you are genetically superior, there is simply no point in trying to conceal the fact."

They both glanced expectantly at Claudia, but she did not even look up from the manual as she drawled, "You're wasting your time, you two bigots. You aren't going to get a rise out of me this time."

"Bigot." Job savored the word. "It's the first time anybody has ever called me that. I love it."

"That's enough fooling around." Sean broke it up. "Let's take a look at the trainer."

After they had connected one of the freshly charged battery packs and assembled the trainer equipment, Sean gave his opinion: "With this stuff, we can have the lads ready to go into action within days, not weeks."

Once a microcassette was inserted into the training monitor, the launcher screen simulated the image of a Hind, which the instructor was able to manipulate in various flight patterns, climbing, descending, sideslipping, or hovering. While he did so, he was able to watch the trainee's reactions as he attempted to acquire the ghost ship on his own screen and attack it with a phantom missile.

Sean and Job played with the trainer like a pair of teenagers, flying the image in complicated maneuvers. "It's just like a PacMan game," Job enthused. "But what we need is a durn-durn, a pseudo-Shangane to act as a trainee for us."

Once again both the men looked at Claudia, who was still sitting cross-legged on the table, studying the manual.

She looked up as she felt their eyes on her. "A durn-durn?" she demanded. "I'll show you durn-durn. Give me the launcher."

She stood in the center of the amphitheater floor with the launcher balanced on her shoulder and stared into the sighting screw. The bulky equipment seemed to dwarf her. She had reversed her camouflage cap so the peak stuck out behind her head, and it gave her the ga mine air of a Little League baseball player.

"ReadyT" Sean asked.

"Pull!" she said, concentrating ferociously on the screen. Sean and Job exchanged smug supercilious i grins.

"Incoming!" Sean called sharply. "Twelve o'clock high. Lock and load." He brought the ghost Hind in on a head-on attack at 150 knots.

"Locked and loaded," Claudia affirmed, and in their screen they watched the duplicate sight ring of her missile launcher swing up smoothly and center on the approaching Hind.

"Actuator on," she said calmly, and a second later, they heard the launcher sob and growl in her grip, then settle into a steady insect whine, like an infuriated mosquito.

"Target acquired," Claudia murmured. The Hind was six hundred meters out but coming in fast, swelling dramatically in the sights.

"Fire!" she said. They saw the red light blink and then change to green, signaling that the rocket engine of the fictitious missile was running. Almost instantaneously the image of the Hind disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by the flashing legend: TARGET

DESTROYED! TARGET I)ESTROYM!

A profound silence followed. Job cleared his throat nervously.

"Flukes happen," said Sean. "Shall we try it again?"

"Pull!" said Claudia, and concentrated on her aiming Screen' Incoming Sean called. "Six o'clock high. Lock and load." He brought the next Hind in from behind her at treetop level, attack speed. She had three seconds to react.

"Locked and loaded." Claudia pirouetted like a ballerina and picked up the Hind in the sight ring. "Actuator on." As she said it, Sean flung the Hind into a climbing sideslip, giving her deflection in three planes. it wQAd be like trying to hit a high bird in a gale of crosswind.

in their screen the watched with disbelief as Claudia swung smoothly, keeping the image in the exact center of her aiming ring and the missile sobbed and then settled into its high-pitched tone.

"Target acquired. Fire!"

TARGET DEsTROy mi TARGET DEsTRoYED! The screen blinked at them, and they fidgeted uncomfortably.

Job murmured, "Twice on the trot. That ain't no fluke, man."

Claudia laid the launcher on the table, readjusted the peak of her cap over her eyes, then placed her fists on her hips and smiled at them sweetly.

"I thought you said you didn't know how to shoot," Sean accused her with righteous indignation.

"Would a daughter of Riccardo Enrico Monterro not know how to shoot?"

"But you are stridently opposed to blood sports."

"Sure," she agreW. "I've never shot at a living creature. But I'm death to clay pigeons. Papa taught me."

"I should have guessed when you said "Pull."" Sean groaned softly.

"As a matter of interest"--Claudia examined the fingernails of her right hand modestly---"I was Alaska State women's skeet champion three years running and runner-up at the national championships in 'eighty-six."