Free Ghost War by Mack Maloney

blood.
    And then, as suddenly as it began, the massive gunship stopped firing. Its engines still screaming but fading, it leveled off and turned toward the eastern horizon.
    The sudden silence snapped Ensign Ueno out of his dazed stupor.
    He had somehow managed to survive the nightmarish aerial attack. Through the heavy, oily smoke that now covered the ship, he was astonished to see the amount of damage that this one plane had so expertly inflicted on the once-mighty battleship. Though it seemed like forever, the entire attack had lasted less than a minute.
    Ueno quickly grasped the grim accomplishment of the plane’s surgical strike. In the short time it took for its just five slow orbits, it had succeeded not only in killing most of the crew but also in completely knocking out all of the battleship’s major defense systems. Each of the ship’s gun directors—the high-tech, computer-enhanced radar systems that sequenced the targeting and firing of the ship’s guns—had also been obliterated. Most of the antiaircraft fire control systems were now out of commission. Whatever 20 mm cannons or five-inch guns that the ship was able to fire during the lightning attack had been fired blindly. Not one shell found its mark on the frightening enemy plane.
    There was total panic aboard the ship now and insanity swirled all around Ueno. Sailors ran back and forth, some killing anyone who got in their way or any officer who tried to give an order. It was every man for himself. Gasping for breath, Ueno tried to stand but quickly collapsed in a heap. He realized for the first time that his left leg was horribly shattered. He never felt it happen, for the shock of being hit with a 30 mm cannon shell had numbed it completely. Unable to staunch the flow of blood, his leg trailing behind at an odd, twisted angle, he started to drag himself across the deck toward the bow, the only place that was not burning.
    But just then a deep sense of foreboding overwhelmed him. He looked skyward to see the second enormous airplane now spiraling down on the ship just as the first one did. This one, though, was painted in bizarre orange, blue, and yellow colors. Ueno stopped moving altogether. He sensed the end was very near.
    He was right.
    Hunter wrestled with the control stick of the C-5 Bozo , trying to bring her around. After seeing Nozo break off its attack, it was now time for him to deliver this immense airplane’s unique version of mechanized death to the severely damaged battleship blow.
    Unlike its sister ship Nozo , Bozo was quite unbalanced, due to the wide array of weapons on board. The combination of Gatling guns, artillery pieces, grenade launchers and a huge rocket platform distributed unevenly through the hold made for guaranteed aerodynamic instability. But Hunter finally managed to slowly bring the C-5 into something that resembled a spiral. Struggling with all his might to keep the huge lumbering plane in a slowly descending attack attitude, he called back step-by-step instructions for the gun crews to prepare.
    With each lopsided spiral, the airplane dropped nearer and nearer to the battleship. At the same time, the gun crew aboard went through the paces of loading and aiming their weapons. When the awkwardly loaded Galaxy reached the proscribed altitude of 350 feet, Hunter pulled hard back on his control column. He was barely able to bring the heavy C-5 out of its controlled fall. The instant it leveled off, he quickly banked it to the left then gave the command.
    “Commence firing!”
    That’s when all hell broke loose.
    In a deafening whirrr , the six GE Gatling guns poured out rounds at a rate of seventy per second, sending severe vibrations throughout the monstrously clumsy gunship. The heavy thuds of the five Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers rocked the plane violently with each recoil, and when the AP/AV 700 three barrel multiple grenade launcher joined in next, the circus-scrolled Galaxy was further tossed about. Then