He looked over his shoulder to direct his voice back to the rear cockpit. “When we get close enough, try to shoot out the engines. If we can force them to land, maybe we’ll have a chance.”
The only response was an affirmative from each man. As dangerous as the suggestion sounded — especially to the hostages aboard — both men were soldiers and knew better than to question an order from their leader. For better or worse, they had chosen that role for him, and now they were bound to that decision.
As the silhouette of the enormous flying boat gradually materialized ahead of them, Hurley pushed the cowling back and leaned out one side of the plane, Hobbs the other. Dodge felt a faint crackle of energy as they activated their exoskeletons. He climbed the Duck up above the Boeing then angled down to give them the best field of fire. His fingers were tight on the control stick as he made his first attack run.
Twin bolts of lightning lanced out ahead of the Duck and scored hits on both of the Boeing’s starboard engines. The inboard propeller continued to spin, evidently undamaged, but the outboard nacelle flared brightly and immediately began to stream smoke.
Dodge pulled back on the yoke and took the plane up to assess the results of the assault and prepare for a second run, but before as he rolled the plane onto its side, a tongue of white energy lashed up from the top of the larger aircraft — from the observatory window designed to allow the pilots to navigate by the stars — and flashed across their path.
“Damn!” he raged, reversing the roll, to peel away from the lightning bolt even as it vanished. He had hoped that the plane’s occupants would not immediately attribute the engine failure to any hostile act, but it seemed such was not the case. To make matters worse, the Boeing did not appear to be losing speed or altitude.
Another volley of lightning speared into the heavens, forcing Dodge to live up to his nickname. The Duck danced to and fro above the X-314, but nonetheless took a glancing hit that left a black streak on the fuselage. Dodge threw the agile aircraft into a dive that took it out of the range of their foe’s weapon, but a second shooter lurking just beyond the side hatch quickly took up the slack.
Hurley returned fire as Dodge twisted away from this new attack, and his lightning bolt left scorched aluminum across the side of the plane and forced the mercenary there to retreat from his position. It was only a brief reprieve; soon multiple bursts of electricity were arcing all around them. Dodge hauled back on the yoke and then rolled the plane over halfway through the loop — without knowing it, he had performed a maneuver known among barnstormers as an Immelmann turn — to change the direction of the plane, after which he retreated to an area of relative safety above and behind the larger plane.
“What now?” Hurricane shouted.
Dodge racked his brain for an answer. Their firepower was equal to the enemy’s and their ability to evade was far superior, but like the whalers in a longboat, it would only take a single unlucky swipe of the behemoth’s tail to destroy them, whereas the flying boat could withstand a lot of punishment. He circled back and contemplated the metaphor. The difference in their struggle was that they didn’t desire the death of the great metal beast; they wanted to get inside it. Dodge felt faintly ill when he realized what he was going to have to do. He took a deep breath, buckled the clasp on his own exoskeleton, and then shouted over his shoulder again. “Hang on! And be ready to move!”
He tried to think about what he was doing in familiar terms, sports terms. This was like football, and he was the quarterback forced to tackle an opposing linebacker who had recovered a fumble. It was going to hurt…a lot…but if he didn’t do it, no one could. He pushed the stick forward and charged.
Lighting stabbed out from the top of the larger plane and lanced head-on into the Duck. The engine flared brightly as the bolt incinerated hoses and set fire to the oil and fuel, and in an instant the cockpit filled with acrid smoke. But the electrical discharge could not stop or alter what Dodge had set in motion.
The smaller plane dove like a peregrine falcon on a fat pigeon. It swooped down onto the tail section of the X-314 and plowed into the airframe. The still spinning propeller blades, with the smoking mass of the ruined engine block behind them, chewed through the aluminum skin like it was tissue paper. With a cacophony of metal tearing apart, the Duck smashed into the cabin of the larger plane.
The difference in speed between the two was perhaps only ten miles an hour, but neither craft was designed to withstand a mid-air collision. The wings of the biplane snapped off, but not before carving halfway through the tail of the flying boat. What little fuel remained in the Grumman’s tank sprayed out onto the flight deck as a broken support beam gutted its underbelly, and a spark from the smoldering engine set it alight.
Through it all, the Boeing seemed not to have felt the blow. Aside from a tremor at the moment of impact, the big aircraft continued to lumber forward undaunted. Nevertheless, as the flames sprang up in the tail section further damaging the weakened skeleton of the beast, the inevitability of the experimental plane’s demise became certain; both aircraft were doomed.
The indefatigable Hurricane Hurley was the first to emerge from the wreckage. Shaken but unhurt, he tore himself free of the crumpled cockpit and came out ready to fight. Though he still wore the exoskeleton, some primitive impulse caused him to brandish his fists rather than the lightning weapon.
One of the mercenaries, the one that had taken a station at the side door, turned to meet his charge and he did not eschew the use of the ancient technology. Lightning sizzled through the smoky air, striking Hurley’s shield in a dazzling discharge, but ultimately caused no injury to the raging giant. Hurricane’s monstrous hands however, were far more effective. His punches did not penetrate the other man’s shield, but the force of the blow sent the unlucky Afrikaaner bouncing around the interior of the craft. As he tumbled away, Hurley slipped a hand through the force field and seized the man’s ankle, after which he whipped the unfortunate soldier of fortune around and pitched him headlong toward the wreckage of the biplane. The man bounced off the broken Grumman, and then vanished through the breach, sucked out into the darkness.
The crash had crumpled the lightweight frame of the biplane like a child’s balsa wood glider, but Dodge’s exoskeleton had protected him at the moment of impact. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until Hurricane broke free of the wreckage that he and Hobbs were able to extricate themselves. By the time they escaped, the entire tail section of the plane was ablaze. Fighting through the flames, they reached Hurley’s side at almost exactly the same moment that two more mercenaries came forward to challenge them.
Dodge saw Molly and the President, now bound hand and foot near the ladder that led up to the flight deck. Before he could take a step toward them, electric bolts began sizzling back and forth in the enclosed space.
Dodge joined the fight this time, adding the electrical energy from his gauntlets to Hobbs’ attack on one of their foes. The man’s shield crumpled under the combined assault and a final lightning blast sent him careening senseless into a bulkhead. Hurricane meanwhile engaged the remaining threat using the same methods that had defeated his earlier foe. It was over in seconds.