Free The Guns of Two-Space by Dave Grossman, Bob Hudson Page B

automatic that most of them had time to see the flight of their ball and the fountain of wood as it smashed a gaping hole low in the enemy's bow.
    Melville paused just long enough to see the ball hit. Then he rolled off the platform, landed like a cat, and departed without a word, accompanied by his dog and a chorus of cheers. With his monkey clinging tightly to his back, he trotted to the hatch, slid down the ladder into the hold, and landed with flexed knees in the 1.5 gees. He and Boye stepped quickly to the hatch that led to the upperside, dove head first into the open hatch, went up the ladder, and in a matter of seconds the captain and his dog (and their monkey riders) had gone from the lowerside bow to the upperside bow, where Sudden Death sat waiting for him.
    Again he mounted the platform and took aim, with his monkey craning to look down the barrel as well. Again the huge brass cannon screamed, <> "Cha-DOOM!!" <> And again a hole was smashed into the enemy's bow and a cheer rose up from the Fang s and their monkeys. And once again auditory exclusion shut out the sound of the shot. But he could not shut out the vicious, savage scream of the gun in his brain. It made his mind ring like a bell. It made his soul ring with a fierce, feral, angry, alien yearning for death and destruction.
    Both above and below, a hole was already smashed in the bow of the enemy's Ship. If he could put one of the 24-pound balls through that hole and into the enemy's Keel, the Ship and everyone aboard her would die almost instantly. Almost. There would be a few seconds as the horrible certainty of their fate sank in.
    Of course, the same thing could happen to them. Melville and his crew, his friends, his family could also die. He had not asked for this battle. The enemy had sought him. They had hunted him down and they planned to kill him and his brothers. It was kill or be killed, and Melville was determined that it would not be him or his friends who died this day. Not this day.
    Almost without thought he found himself back on the lower gundeck, lying atop Cuddles. <> "Cha-DOOM!!" <> the gun screamed in his ears and his brain. The gun crew's initial nervousness was gone now, replaced by a sort of wild-eyed joy as they grinned at each other like children. This was not another drill. It was real, and they were firing in earnest at a real enemy. In that brief moment the crew, the Ship, her guns, and her captain became one entity, one creature, focused with absolute, single-minded intensity upon the destruction of their foe.
    Because of the delay as her captain went back and forth between her guns, the Fang was firing slightly slower than her opponent, and the enemy was beginning to play havoc with their rigging. But ah, the precision, the deadly, exact placement of the Fang 's shots. As they closed with the enemy Ship its fire was like a shotgun blast in their rigging. But Melville's fire was like the steady blows of an ax, cutting and hacking deep into the enemy's heart.
    It was only a matter of time. It was only a question of how much damage the enemy could do to the Fang 's rigging before they died. For die they must. Die they would. And die they did.
    The Fang s all cheered as the enemy Ship began to sink. Melville had lost track of where he was and how many shots he had fired, but he felt this last, killing blow sink home.
    Above and below the plane of two-space the view was the same. First the Guldur Ship's hull sank from view, then her mainsails, her topsails, and finally her topgallants disappeared. In the end there was only a short stub of her mainmast standing up, with a cluster of terrified Guldur and Goblan clinging to it, striving and fighting for a few last seconds of life. Then they too disappeared into the cold depths of interstellar space.
    If they could have reached them the Fang s might have tried to rescue even the most despised enemy from this fate, but they were too far away. The only