Free Mike's War: Sequel to Jesse's Starship by Saxon Andrew Page B

you need to fire them to hit your target.”
    “No human is going to be able to do that.”
    “You’re right. The ship’s computer will feed information into your helmet with a cursor on where you need to line the ship up. Once you move the ship to the correct alignment, a circle will overlap the cursor and the cannon will fire automatically.”
    Jeanette nodded, “Like flying a Raptor or other high performance warplane.”
    “Yes.”
    “What’s the range?” Howey and Mendrel looked at each other and Jeanette didn’t like their expressions, “Don’t tell me I’ll have to get close enough to kiss them.”
    Howey tilted his head, “Two miles would be effective. However, at high speed maneuvers, you might need to pucker up.”
    Jeanette started shaking her head and Mendrel smiled, “If we can eliminate the shell casings, you’ll be able to carry double the load of ammo. You’ll have six cannons to use so fire a spread of projectiles and let your target run into them.”
    “And if that doesn’t work?”
    Mendrel smiled, “Like Howey said, pucker up.” Jeanette closed her eyes, put her hands on her temples, and rubbed them. “You should know that you will probably only need to hit their warships with just one shell.”
    Jeanette opened her eyes, “Oh?”
    “You’ve seen the explosion a single sliver causes, haven’t you?” Jeanette nodded. Mendrel pointed to the huge projectile standing next to the work table, “That shell holds the explosive force of about fifty thousand slivers. The armor piercing nose will penetrate the hull and the explosive mix will detonate once the nose stops.”
    Jeanette took the handgun out of her holster and ejected a sliver. She went to the 120 mm shell and held the sliver up to it. It was miniscule in comparison. She shook her head as Howey smiled, “Picture your sliver increased to the size of that projectile.”
    Jeanette reloaded the sliver and smiled, “It looks like we’re going to have a blast.”
    Mendrel nodded, “And then some.”
    • • •
    Tilly looked at the two community leaders and waited for them to stop yelling. Benjamin Drazek was screaming that his community needed a city of their own to build their places of worship and to retain their culture. Mohammed Al Shezek was screaming that the Jew was right and none of his community should be forced to live with them. Tilly listened to them and remained silent. She sat in a chair out in the open air and slowly rocked back and forth as the two leaders yelled their demands. After forty five minutes they stopped yelling and Ben said, “Have you heard one word I’ve said?”
    “Yes, I’ve heard them all. I’d repeat them but I don’t have another forty five minutes to waste.”
    Ben’s face turned red and Tilly said, “Do all of your citizens now have a family carrier to get them where they need to go?” Ben stared at Tilly, looked at Mohammed, and then nodded. “So any of your people can go to anywhere on the planet in less than an hour and probably anywhere on this continent in less than fifteen minutes.”
    “Yeah, so what?”
    “If you built your places of worship out in the middle of the wilderness, everyone in your community could go and worship from anywhere in less time than it once took to walk to your temple.” Ben and Mohammed continued to stare at Tilly. “We are not going to repeat the same mistakes that we made on Earth. All of us are a part of one community now and all of us will respect, defend, and fight to protect everyone on this new planet we’ve made our home. You can build your places of worship wherever you choose; however, all of us will live together and build one community. If you’re unhappy with the way the immigrants have been settled here, tough. Everyone is free to worship anyway they choose and no one will be allowed to interfere in that right. However, we will build a world where all of us live together in peace and work together to make this world something