The Wolf Worlds by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch Read Free Book Online Page A

doubled the stampede's drive forward.
    Into the crater.
    Directly toward the Jann cruiser.
    The Jann com center was a confusion of gabble: "Negative observation on firestart"… "Alpha patrol, this is base. Alpha patrol, do you receive this station?"… "In the name of Talamein, stop them!"… "All stations… all stations to General Quarters"…
    and then a long, blood-chilling shriek from one speaker.
    The shriek came from the lone Jann soldier on observation point as the charging cattle broke through the savannah and reached his position. He held the trigger back to full automatic on his projectile weapon, and three animals rolled and were swallowed up as the rest of the herd boiled over the Jann.
    The cattle thundered on. Even though they had heard the rush of the charge, the men in the weapons pits outside the floodlit glare had little time. To a man, they died under the axe-sharp hooves of the herd.
    The Jann cruiser was barely twenty meters ahead of them.
    There was no way or time for them to turn.
    Sten. crouched high in one tree in the grove closest to the cruiser, didn't even have time to finish his flashed-curio equation:
    To calculate the changes in velocity of a body (the Turnmaa) when a certain force is applied (stampeding cattle), the formula is—clottin' hell!
    That solid black wave of cattle hit the equally solid Jann cruiser… and the stampede kept on coming.
    And like a wave, it crested higher as animal dove over dead animal into the cruiser.
    Fifty meters away, Sten could hear the alarms roar inside the cruiser.
    The huge ship tottered on its landing jacks… rocked… and one small phalanx of animals slammed into it.
    The Jann cruiser rolled, jack supports bending and snapping, and crashed to the ground.
    Sten could feel the smash, even over the rolling thunder of the stampede.
    Which was…just below him.
    And, of course, the animals broke neatly, dividing around the trees, and continued their panic run off into the blackness.
    Sten dropped out of the tree and hurtled toward the cruiser, clambered over the dead and dying animals, just as the Turnmaa settled on one side. The weapons in the top turrets were parallel to the ground.
    Sten's willygun came off his shoulder, and he scrabbled up the cruiser's side, feeling a fingernail tear and break away. The turret hummed into life, just as Sten shoved his willygun's muzzle into the shrouding around the chain-gun's barrels.
    He yanked the trigger all the way back and held it.
    The willygun contained 1400 rounds. Each "bullet," while barely 1mm in diameter, was made of Antimatter Two, the same substance used to drive starships. Each "bullet" was in its individual Imperium shield, and laser-fired.
    One round, on impact, would have about the same explosive force as a twentieth-century handgrenade.
    It took twenty rounds to sledgehammer through the shrouding, into the turret's inside. And then: Picture liquid dynamite exploding. Picture the heart of a fusion reactor, sans lethal radiation.
    The picture of hell.
    Sten let 500 rounds whisper/and/crash into the turret, then dove straight down, as the explosion boiled up, spraying the steel of the turret out the gun mounting.
    Sten tuck-rolled in midair, then thunked down on a fairly convenient steer. He whirled as footsteps thudded up and:
    "Ah tol' you there be naught ae useful like ae coo," Alex said, helping him onto his feet.
    And then the world turned into chaos as:
    Dilti, Bet. and the Stra!bo warriors roared out of the darkness; Hugin and Munin. seemingly enjoying themselves immensely, loped out to join the Lake People's charge; Doc panted up, muttering unintelligibly, and…
    Ida was standing beside them, her willygun spitting out measured bursts as Jann warriors tried to retake the turret, and:
    "Ah'm Red Rory a' th' Coos," Alex bellowed, and leaped straight up the cruiser's side. Caught hold of some ripped hull plate and dove into the hole where that turret had been.
    Sten, somehow, was right beside him,