JUNIPER’S DAUGHTER – FRONTIER TOWN by nick armbrister out on amazon

The grey transport was hit by the edge of the laser beam, not a direct hit but enough to damage it by burning through the paint, scorching the metal and melting through the upper hull of the troop compartment breaching the pressurised insides. Fortunately there were no soldiers in or they would be toast. Burning bits of metal fizzed and fell away in the slipstream leaving a large jagged hole. Aerodynamic buffeting affected the transport’s flight performance greatly reducing its speed and agility, if the jet got onto its tail it would shoot it down for a hard kill and not just damage it. Radioing it was damaged and out of the fight, the transport turned to Renford and slowly climbed for height; if wouldn’t head for home or it would be shot down. No, it had more evil intentions, in its weapon magazine were eighty-six nuclear bullets and these would be fired mercilessly onto the town randomly at maximum rate of fire.

   The Aeroprogress T-720 Kahlia Akasha jet fighter was heavily damaged by the exploding nuclear bullets whose flash almost blinded the pilot, his dark vision visor on his helmet saved his sight. Shock waves reached out at the speed of sound, shaking his warplane and upending it sending it into a death spiral towards the ground; the engine coughed and cut out in the vacuum of air following the shockwaves. Bits of access panels fell away from the fuselage revealing vulnerable innards, one of the front canard control surfaces was ripped away, fluttering down like a broken butterfly. Cracks spread over the cockpit canopy which almost failed under the stress, the nose wheel landing gear hydraulics failed allowing the wheel to come half down into the slipstream slowing the jet to stall speed. Aboard the jet every single electronic computer system, display and avionics went offline, dead, as did the flight control system which was fibre optic controlled. Falling to earth the pilot was almost knocked unconscious; in his wounded warplane he had seconds to eject or try to force land, would he live?

   Now over the town centre at three thousand feet, the highest the escort transport could fly level in its damaged state, the pilot pressed the trigger and fired every one of his nuclear bullets. Some were set to airburst following his air battle; quickly clicking ground burst option, he watched his shells fly three miles before exploding in the air or on the ground when he pushed the nose of his craft dangerously downwards. His airspeed increased madly and wind blast whistled and ripped into the damaged cargo section threatening to rip his craft apart. Instead of controlling his descent by throttling back he advanced his single throttle from maximum power to emergency power, forcing his methane rocket engine into overdrive. Thirty seconds of this would blow the engine and his craft up but he didn’t have thirty, he had little more than six seconds. He followed his exploding nuclear bullets that detonated with the force of ten tons of normal explosive on a defenceless town, wrecking shops, houses, offices, pubs, clubs, roads and people. Thousands of people were killed in the wicked barrage of nuclear bullets, two hundred more died when the stricken transport and its suicidal pilot thundered through the roof of Gothic Night nightclub where an alternative music night was being held. Among those killed were Denise the tattooed lady of the night, Jason martial arts expert who sold old tour t-shirts, Rolo the huge fat security bodyguard, ultra talented singer Katie Kat from the gothic metal band Gothic Sunrise and dozens more who lived and thrived in the Gothic Quarter. Among a hundred or so critically wounded was Craig who ran his small shop, it was fifty-fifty if he would live. Nothing remained of the club except a huge crater and rubble, blast damage smashed many other pubs, bars and properties in the area, not to mention almost total destruction wrought by the nuclear bullets. It would take years to repair the damage, indeed never if the will wasn’t there. The English army had drawn much blood on this evil mission, which wasn’t over yet, not by a long way.

   Coming to, in his spinning crippled warplane, the pilot attempted to radio his base but the radios were dead, shaking his head he pushed his control stick fully forward bringing online the manual back up system that was an emergency once only get you down function. Seeing an overgrown field on the edge of town he pushed the nose down, desperately trying to maintain airspeed, he had already stalled and spun one time another time would be his end. His engine was still on but not in working order, shutting it down manually and closing off the fuel supply to help reduce fire risk, he popped the circuit breaker even though no power flowed through any of the systems. Lower and lower over the rough grass, a tragic shadow getting larger until impact! Bouncing once losing and three of the eight blades of the rear propeller, catching a wingtip and snapping off the vertical fin at the tip swung the fighter round, sending it careering backwards through an old stone wall smashing bits off it and shaking the pilot. Spinning, bouncing and finally coming to a halt after a hundred metre free for all over the grass the jet was still. Fumes from a ruptured fuel tank slowly wafted into the air and into the broken cockpit lulling the pilot whose face mask had been torn off. Almost falling asleep he would be burned to death if the fumes caught fire, a brave woodcutter from a nearby copse of trees ran forward with an axe. He smashed at the tough plastic cockpit finally breaking through where it was cracked and making a hole big enough to free the rear-seated pilot. The front cockpit was empty. Using his razor sharp knife to cut the pilots five-point harness he slapped the man on the face to wake him. Cutting his umbilicals that connected him to the aircraft he was now free. Cursing, the woodcutter struggled to lift the semi conscious man out of this ruined aircraft, after minutes of struggling he did it and carried him ten yards over the grass in case the fuel or weapons caught fire. Would further assistance come from the town to the shot down aircraft and pilot?