Okay, here is an except. I tried to find a short exiting passage with the ekranoplans(skips in this story.) Justin, the protagonist, has an implant in his brain that interfaces with his craft. He snuck into the neighboring clan's territory to repair a cell tower, and they caught him.
He calls his skip the <i>Kludgy</i> because he put it together out of scavenged parts. It looks like a wreck but flies well. The "bad guys" are using sail-hydrofoils and catboats with auxilary power provided by hydrogen fuel cells.
I just had to do a hydrogen explosion. Justin is using a laser cutter, not a laser gun. The cannon are basically 105mm howitzers, the sort used for triggering avalanches.
Funny thing is that when I first wrote this, I knew very little about ekranoplans. I just knew how I wanted them to fly, and I had a hard time explaining why the craft couldn't go up high to avoid the sailboats.
I do hope that it gets translated into Russian. My writing has bit of Alaskan history thrown in with some references to the Bering Expedition and to the Russian fur trade in the Aleutian Chain.
<I threw my toolbox on my back seat and jerked the painter free. As I coiled the line, a second black-sailed vessel glided from behind the point. I slammed the canopy shut and backed the <i>Kludgy</i> from shore. Jets don't fail me. I shifted the ballast water, blasted my jets, and rose on step. Come on <i>Kludgy</i>, get up to speed. Leaping airborne and spreading my wings, I hurdled the prow of the lead boat. As my ballast water splattered her deck, two men scrambled for a cannon in the bow. I flew higher and cleared the second boat. Free and headed for the Narrows.
I dropped to skim the water. The Narrows waited, a dark cleft in the snow-dusted mountains.
Around a headland sailed two more hydrofoils with guns booming.
Komoko firing! I banked away from my goal. Frat! They were all over; two dozen or more Komoko boats--hydrofoils, magneto dingys, and catboats--sailing on the bay and schooling around that two-masted ketch. Last time I'd seen her had been during our battle over control of the Narrows.
A transmission crackled from the cruising pod; <i>Surrender and you won't be hurt.</i>
I didn’t believe them. Not when they'd killed Uncle Sajaks, and were rumored to have assassinated Uncle Reolo. Not when they'd blocked my nephew's flight to the hospital.
The gush of their propulsors sent spurts of mist over the indigo water. A hydrofoil came about. As she blasted her propulsors to climb on step, steam blew, and she leapt like a breaching whale, white-and-black hull clear, and then dashed into the next wave.
I circled, searching for an opening among the pack, but they closed around me like killer whales surrounding a beluga calf. I wouldn't surrender.
Our cannon boomed from the east ridge of the Narrows.
<i>Saak, hold fire. Out of range.</i> I flew higher by pulsing my jets continuously until the boats below shrunk to the size of larvae on the water, but the mountains hemmed me in. The strain of the propulsors ached in my shoulders; I couldn't hold the pulse cadence for long. The Komoko blocked my goal of the Narrows. I had speed and maneuverability, but they had numbers.
My sonar indicated shallow water to the lee of a headland. I dropped and skimmed. A black-sailed vessel broke away. Guns tracked me with a succession of booms and exploding shells. Water geysered to my starboard.
I led to the shoal. There the vessel grounded with sails luffing. A beached whale. Two down and eleoz to go. Not good odds.
Somewhere on the distant east bank, Saak waited with his gun. He transmitted, <i>Laser. Use the laser.</i>
What was I going to do with it? Burn little holes in their sails?
<i>Burn the tanks.</i>
I understood--ignite the hydrogen tanks, but it was too unlikely; the tanks had refractory casings. I saw another weakness first. The hydrofoils were stable, but the catboats heeled over in the wind. The recoil of a cannon almost swamped one. Big guns on little boats.
I powered the laser and sent the blue dot racing on the shifting waves. I made a run and aimed the beam to scorch the sails. The sailboat followed at full speed and heeled over. When I came at her from windward, they took the bait and fired. The boat careened, keel surfacing with the white underbelly upward. She capsized.
<i>Yes!</i> transmitted Saak.
Would they fall for that trick again? Banking, I came at a hydrofoil with my hot laser tracing a line of steam. The blue dot raked across a stern and winked over two men, the wet deck, the cockpit. I struggled to hold the dot near the tank. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Bang!
With a lightning flash, the sail shredded, and the ultraviolet blaze ripped the hull apart. It shouldn't have happened, couldn't have happened. The tank must have been faulty.
Bits of charred sail drifted down over the ruined boat. I flew over it to the safety of the Comryez Narrows.
