The Aeronaut's Windlass Read Online Free Page B

upon copper wires, and when the weapon was activated, it behaved in much the same manner as a common gauntlet—except on a far larger scale. Then the energy of a cannon crystal was added to the outgoing rush of power, and the result was pure destruction.
    A cannon bolt unleashed massive energy upon impact. A single hit from one of Predator ’s cannon, if placed in precisely the right place, could incinerate most of an unarmored vessel. Seven such weapons turned their fury upon the Auroran ship, targeting the tips of her masts, where her etheric web spread out around her. Grimm watched intently for the results of the first salvo.
    In theory, the light cannon aboard Predator could fire a bolt that would strike effectively from nearly two miles away. In practice, it took a steady ship, a steady target, skilled gunners, and no small amount of luck to hit something at more than half a mile, perhaps more if they used the heavier chase gun, Predator ’s only medium cannon. A light ship’s defense was in its agility and speed, and they rarely cruised stably when they went into battle. Such cold-blooded trading of fire was for the heavier warships, armored to withstand multiple hits and carrying weapons ten times the size of Predator ’s arms.
    His gunnery crews were all veteran aeronauts of the Fleet, and he would match them against any active warship’s crew. Though Predator was moving swiftly, the target stood barely two hundred yards off her beam, and the men had known the exact angle at which Kettle would hold the ship.
    Ships did not dodge broadsides at this range. One could hardly see a cannon’s blast in flight. It simply moved too quickly. There was the flash of the gun and the flash impression of a glowing comet dragging a tail of sparks, and then impact upon the target, with a barely detectable delay in between.
    Not a single crew missed its target.
    And not a shot landed.
    Instead, there was a flash of emerald illumination perhaps twenty yards short of the enemy vehicle, as the cannon blasts struck the enemy ship’s shroud.
    The shroud was a field of energy generated by a ship’s crystal power core. When a cannon blast struck the shroud, it illuminated like a hazy, spherical cloud flickering with lightning, absorbing the incoming fire and dispersing its energy safely before it could strike the ship. Shrouds were a strain upon a ship’s core, a tremendous demand upon the core’s energy reserve. One did not simply sail along with the ship’s shroud raised and in place.
    Grimm’s eyes widened as time seemed to stop.
    Predator ’s cannon had ripped deeply into the enemy’s shroud, the energy of the blasts chewing away at the defensive field, almost all the way to the Auroran’s hull. But they had not inflicted any damage.
    The Auroran vessel’s shroud was up and in place.
    Therefore she had seen Predator coming.
    Therefore she had been watching.
    Therefore the Auroran had intended to be spotted, sitting fat and lazy on a sluggish current just above the mezzosphere, a perfect target—and she would be ready to return fire.
    Even as Grimm flashed through those thoughts, he saw signal rockets flare out from the Auroran—as if the shrieking thunder of discharged cannon wouldn’t have alerted the Auroran’s allies.
    Creedy screamed in fury. He had obviously reached the same conclusions Grimm had, and he’d likely thought that it would be his death scream. After all, no ship the size of Predator , unarmored, could survive the weight of fire the Auroran could throw back at her.
    And an instant later, the Auroran returned fire.
    The deck was nearly bleached away by the flash of light that spilled forth from Predator ’s shroud when the Auroran guns spoke. The enemy ship carried twelve light cannon in her broadside to Predator ’s seven, and if they were slightly less powerful individually, the difference was hardly worth noticing. The enemy fire lit up Predator ’s shroud like a bank of fog, and wiped it away