Oh. That didn’t exactly sound like a devastating weapon of mass destruction, but it was a little late to be picky.
“How many shots do you have?”
His answer was a frown that meant “not enough.”
The lines of skimmers tightened up as they drew closer to the opening of the bay. That was good. It made for a smaller target.
“Raise the guns!” Genj ordered, his anxiety growing. “Fire!”
“They aren’t in range,” the gunner replied, concentrating. “Don’t worry. When they get closer, I’ll give them a special welcome.”
I saw a black flash swoop through the sky, flying past the mountain, headed out to sea. It looked like an oversize black bird. I’d never seen anything like it on Ibara, but I’d seen it before.
“Saint Dane,” I whispered to Alder.
Alder added, “It appears he will be viewing his war from above.”
“Yeah, let’s give him a good show.”
My palms were sweating. Out of habit I picked up the black dado-killing wand. It served absolutely no purpose other than to give me something to hold on to. I kept squeezing it while watching the dados approach. More and more lines kept appearing. It looked as if there were an endless number.
“Little closer,” the gunner coaxed. His hand gripped the joystick. “Little closer.”
The dados tightened further. The first line was fifty yards from entering the bay. They were in range. All was silent. That wouldn’t last.
“Welcome to Ibara,” the gunner said, and reached for the control panel, quickly flipping a line of switches.
One by one the guns of Ibara rose up out of the water. Before this I’d only seen one set of guns. Now ten silver dual cannons came out of the depths and locked into position, forming a protective half circle in front of the bay. The dado armada was sailing right into their sights. The battle for Ibara was about to begin. The gunner’s right hand was on the joystick to aim and fire. His left hand was on the control panel to alternate between guns.
“Now, now!” Genj ordered.
The gunner let loose. With his chair swiveling quickly to line himself up with the series of gun sights, he unleashed a torrent of missiles. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Instantly dados exploded before our eyes. It would have been a gruesome sight if they had been people. But they were machines. It was like shooting a dishwasher. A deadly dishwasher, but still, a dishwasher. I dug every second of it.
The gunner spun back and forth quickly, lining up his sights, using his left hand to alternate between the ten dual guns, blasting the dados into eternity. It was a beautiful thing. He was good. Then again, there were so many dados, he could have fired with his eyes closed and nailed one every time. Since the drivers of each skimmer stood to the front of their crafts, they were always the first hit. Once they were either knocked off their feet or blasted to bits, the skimmer would lie dead in the water while the other dados scrambled to take control. It caused a massive jam up. The skimmers piled into one another. The chain reaction kept growing until it was chaos on the water. Sweet.
“This war will be over before it starts,” the gunner shouted confidently as he kept firing.
The term “shooting fish in a barrel” sprang to mind. The gunner never missed. One shot meant one dead dado. Sometimes more. Soon the water was filled with floating dado parts.
Drea was overjoyed and clapped her hands, exclaiming, “We won’t even need the arrows!”
Alder wasn’t as confident. He watched the carnage with a scowl. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. The gunner was doing better than we could have hoped. He was destroying hundreds upon hundreds of dados. Unfortunately, there were thousands upon thousands of dados. We were only in the first quarter.
I grabbed one of the runners and shouted, “Get down to the first line of archers. Tell them to hold their fire until the dados step onto the beach.”
He nodded and ran off.
“What do you mean?” Drea asked in dismay. “It doesn’t look like they’ll get beyond the opening to the bay, let alone the beach.”
“They’ll turn back,” Genj said with confidence. “Now that they see how well we’re defended, they’ll cut their losses.”
“They won’t,” I said flatly.
“How can you know that?” Moman asked.
“They already knew about the guns,” I answered. “Why do you think they sent so many? They’re machines. They don’t care how many are destroyed. They’ll just keep coming until our ammunition runs out.”
The gunner continued his onslaught. The water was a debris field of destruction. Skimmers flew along with no drivers, smashing into other skimmers. The dados in the water couldn’t swim. If a missile didn’t kill them, the water did. Hundreds thrashed wildly before sinking. Many were hit by speeding skimmers, or from the next line of dados. It was a slaughter.
“I’m nearly done,” the gunner called out. “Keep firing!” Genj ordered.
The gunner didn’t miss a beat. He kept swiveling and spinning, changing his guns, destroying dados. I realized that he was using fewer and fewer of the guns. Soon, he shifted his firing between only four. Then three and two and finally one. With a last destructive burst, the guns fell silent.
“That’s it,” the gunner said, exhausted. He was covered with sweat and breathing hard.
Down below there was a logjam at the entrance to the bay. The dados from the rear couldn’t push past.
“This obstruction will not last long,” Alder observed.
He was right. Several skimmers left the rear ranks and zoomed around to either side of the bottleneck of dead skimmers and dados. Methodically they pushed the debris out of the way.
“They know what they’re doing,” Siry said. “They expected this.”
I didn’t know how many dados the gunner had gotten. Three hundred? Five hundred? Maybe a thousand? Who cared when there were thousands more out there with only a hundred yards of wreckage between them and the bay.
The tribunal realized that their brief moment of triumph was already a memory.
“It’s up to the archers,” Siry said.
There was nothing we could do but wait, and worry. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. It was a false calm. The storm would start again soon enough. Down below I saw the first line of archers tensing up. They knew what was coming. It was going to come down to numbers. If the tak-charged arrows could knock out enough dados, it might end the invasion. Looking out at the multiple lines of dados in skimmers, waiting for their pathway to clear, I didn’t like our chances.
“I’m no use up here,” the gunner said. “I’m going down to join my line.”
“You were incredible,” I told him.
“I’m proud of you,” Genj added. “We all are.”
The gunner nodded in thanks, and was gone.
The dados waited patiently on their skimmers for the path to be cleared. Those not clearing the debris had re-formed into tight groups that looked exactly wide enough to pass through the opening into the bay. They knew what they were doing all right. Still, there was no way they could know what waited for them in Rayne. They knew about the guns. They didn’t know about tak.
“This is it,” I declared.
The entrance to the bay was clear. The skimmers fired up and moved forward. The eye of the hurricane was on its way out.
“Wait,” I whispered. I wanted the first line of archers to do just that. My fear was that they’d start shooting too soon and the dados would scatter. We needed to draw as many as we could into the trap and maximize the destructive power of the tak arrows.
The dados were in no hurry. They moved slowly and in perfect formation into the bay. They looked more like conquering heroes, who had arrived to capture their spoils, than an invading army ready for battle.
“They think the battle is over,” Siry said hopefully. “They have no idea they’re about to hit a firestorm.”
The armada grew closer to the beach. I hoped the runner had gotten to the line with my message to wait. It had to be terrifying to be down there, watching the enemy get closer. But they had to be patient. The longer their
