Free War of Alien Aggression 2 Kamikaze by A.D. Bloom Page A

have, things Horcheese couldn't identify. Running our copy on the same principle as theirs works...sort of..."
    "What's the difference?"
    "It's way more dangerous."
    " More dangerous? You already said their inertial negation system was lethal to the pilot. How much more dangerous can you get?"  
    "Theirs takes a long time to kill them; ours is lethal in less than five minutes."
    Ram couldn't have heard him correctly. "Did you say it kills a human pilot in five minutes of flight?" 
    Biko protested like Ram didn't get it, like he simply hadn't thought it through. "But until then you can take turns harder than the alien bandits and accelerate even faster. This is a craft that can take on the enemy fighters."
    "It can take them on for five minutes ," Ram said. "And Chief Horcheese actually helped you make this?"  
    "Nope," she said as she came out the stripped reactor section's secondary hatch. "I was never here. I'm in Hab2, deck 4. I'm sleeping right now." That's where Ram thought she was.
    He said, "Do you know exactly what you helped Biko make?"
    "This is the only thing that's going to save us," Biko said. "Don't you get it? Once Hardway rams the blockade gun and she's gone, this craft will be able to beat the alien fighters back.This thing is fast enough and agile enough to hold off the bandits until the UN task force can breach space and flood the system. This plane can fly the same maneuvers the aliens do and take 60-gee turns. It can take them on, Ram. It can fight them and it can win ." Biko put his hand on the reactor module. "Ram, I need your executive codes to disable the power regulation safety mechanisms the company put in place at the factory." Ram looked from him to the Chief. 
    "Chief or not," she said, "my company codes won't do it. I'm a bit put out they don't work on this to be honest."
    "Please, Ram." Biko said, "Give me what I need to get the job done." At first, Ram Devlin thought it was a hell of a change from the guy who said he didn't have what it took to be Air Group Commander because he couldn't send his pilots into certain death. Then Ram realized Biko was planning on flying his death machine himself. That's what he thought he was doing, but from where Ram stood, it looked a little different.  
    Whether Asa Biko knew it or not, he made that suicide plane for someone else to fly. And whether he knew it or not, that wasn't the act of a man who didn't have what it took to order men and women to their deaths. Ram had been right about Biko. What his initiative had accomplished today showed it. If they wanted Hardway to have the best possible AGC she could have, then he'd have to get Asa Biko to realize he had what it took to do the job.  
    So Ram lied. "My Staas Company command codes won't do it either." Ram told him the only person on Hardway with command codes that would disable the safety locks was Harry Cozen. "Let's go wake him," Ram said. "He needs to hear about this immediately. And bring him coffee." 

 
    Chapter Ten
     
    Harry Cozen listened to Biko from behind his desk. "Chilean smugglers," Cozen said when Biko was done. "They had a death machine. Used a kind of redneck pulse-pinch like your copy of the alien pinch. Used it to run the blockades making flights into North America on ballistic gliders. Almost all of them died."
    Ram knew the answer, but he asked the question anyhow. "What's the point in smuggling if you're not alive to spend what you earned?" There was a reason Cozen had mentioned that bit of aviation history to Biko. "Why make the run if you're guaranteed to die and can't enjoy the money?"
    "The pilots didn't do it to get rich, Mr. Devlin. They did it because the cartels kidnapped their families and it was the only way to save them. That's the same reason our Mr. Biko here thinks he's going to be the one to fly his death machine – because he wants to save us – the pilots, the maintenance crews – all of us. Even me. Apparently he'd rather die than see us die. I'm