The mortar bomb exploded, a flash of orange in a splotch of filthy smoke. Fragments of hot casing shredded leaves and created a circular froth in the channel. The bits which pattered onto the torpedoboat's deck weren't heavy enough to do damage at this range.
Light winked in the sky. A camera in the nose of the shell sent television pictures down a fiber-optics line to an operator aboard the surface skimmer. The operator had planned to steer the shell's tailfins by commands sent up the same line. Now the gossamer trail of glass drifted harmlessly from the sky, writhing in the turbulence from the explosion.
The operator would be shifting his console to control one of the two further rounds which burped from the clip-fed mortar as soon as the ADS detonated the first bomb.
L7521 had been accelerating. Samuels continued pouring the coal to his thrusters, closing the range to the hidden ambusher. The Blackhorse vessel was in trouble if it came off the outriggers here, because the depth of the channel might not be enough to float the hydrofoil's main hull.
They were in trouble no matter what.
Johnnie checked for at least the tenth time to be sure that his twin mount was set to fire explosive bullets. If he got a shot at the enemy, his burst had to count. He figured his best bet was to blow gaping holes in the hovercraft's plenum chamber, disabling the craft for hours and possibly—just possibly—giving the hydrofoil a chance to run clear.
The ADS snarled like a bumblebee larger even than the jungles of Venus had spawned. One of the pair of guided shells exploded at its apex. The speck of the other continued to drop while the Gatling spun to track it, then fired again.
The blast rocked Johnnie down in his seat. Something whined angrily off the neck flare of his helmet. Water just off the torpedoboat's bow spouted six feet high where a large chunk, perhaps the nose cone, hit.
The surface skimmer was paralleling them unseen on the other side of the island to starboard. Johnnie aimed where the AI told him to, praying for a target.
Nothing but mangroves, tens to hundreds of yards of rippling black trunks. Too dense for sight, too dense for bullets to penetrate.
The chart in the holographic display unrolled as L7521 sped down the channel. Because of the chart's reduced scale, its movement appeared leisurely compared to that of the trees and the squawking, startled animals ducking to concealment among them.
Over the scream of wind and the thrusters, the hostile mortar went choonk, choonk, choonk. The enemy had fired a full clip. There wasn't a prayer that a single ADS would detonate all three of the guided rounds.
Two crewmen with set, powder-blackened faces poised on the edge of the cockpit. One held a fresh drum of ammunition for the little Gatling; the other sailor would jerk the spent drum out of the way when the gun stuttered to silence. The Automatic Defense System blazed out a hundred flechettes per second—and the feed drum held only five hundred rounds.
A blue line unrolled across the chart display, marking a neck of land so marshy that the water stood on it. At top speed, L7521 might be able to cut over that part of the island before her outriggers ripped off and—
"Uncle Dan!" Johnnie screamed. "A mile ahead there's—"
"Too far!" Dan shouted.
The ADS fired, blasting the first of the shells. The Gatling turned, cracked out a single flechette, and froze with its ammunition supply exhausted as the two remaining bombs bored down under the guidance of their operators.
Ensign Samuels emptied his handgun skyward as his men struggled to reload the Automatic Defense System. Even if the bullets chanced to hit, they didn't have enough energy to explode the shells.
The shore to starboard sucked away from the torpedoboat. Molluscs riffled the air above a sandbar; the water in the slough beyond was too deep for mangroves, but great carnivorous lilies spread across its protected surface. The land beyond the slight embayment was marked by a yellow-green line on the chart.
Johnnie's hand curved back to his own pistol.
Dan, controlling all L7521's systems through his helmet, fired the cage of armor-piercing missiles on the torpedoboat's stern.
The crash of the first-stage rocket motors was echoed an instant later by a sharper crack as each 5-inch missile went supersonic and the ramjet sustainers ignited. The six rounds rippled off in pairs. Their backblasts enveloped the vegetation to port in steam and yellow scorch marks. Chips of mangrove wood exploded from the dense growth hiding the surface skimmer from its prey.
The missiles had sharp noses and enough velocity to damage the armor of a battleship, an ideal combination for penetrating brush with minimal deflection. Dan had waited to fire the salvo until the forest between him and the ambusher was thin as it was going to be—
At any time before shells blew L7521 to scraps and foam.