Star Road (29 page)

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m useless.”

He looked like a lost child.

“Get your
ass
back there and do whatever you can! It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just keep shooting to let them know we’re not going down without a fight.”

“We haven’t already proven that?” Rodriguez said. When no one reacted, he left the cockpit.

As soon as Rodriguez was gone, the door slamming shut behind him, the atmosphere in the cockpit changed. Annie was focused on her piloting and the signals coming in on various displays and scanners.

“That asshole ain’t worth spit,” Jordan muttered.

Annie looked at the screens, moving from one to the other.

Dozens of speeders showed on her display, all angling toward them from several directions at once.

It looked like they’d easily intercept SRV-66 before Annie got anywhere near the portal.

“Okay, Jordan. It’s showtime.”

With the portal so close, they entered a gauntlet.

~ * ~

28

ROAD TEST

Rodriguez sat down in the
aft gun turret.

He grabbed the only thing that made sense to him—a headset—and snapped it on.

“You kidding me? What do I do back here? This is—”

“Rodriguez.
Quiet!”
Jordan said. “And listen up.”

It felt as if the gunner was speaking right against his ear.

“Just grab the stick in front of you, right between your legs.”

Rodriguez took the stick, and the twin barrels of the main gun and the turret started to move together.

“Whoa—I’m moving.”

“No shit. You move in the same direction as the guns. Now, when you see something coming at you, just press the button to fire.”

Rodriguez pressed the button. He blasted into a section of the ramp, and a smoldering crater appeared.

“At a target, Rodriguez. A
target.”

He nodded, his heart beating fast in his throat, and said, “Got it. Yeah.”

“Good.”

And Jordan vanished from the screen.

~ * ~

“So close,” Annie said. “But they’re all over the place.”

She looked at Jordan as his head swiveled from the cockpit window to the screens. Back and forth. Up and down. Calculating so much, so fast.

“Gotta wait. Let ‘em get a bit closer.”

Annie knew better than to question her gunner’s tactics. She had the SRV running full out. Let him do his job.

But she’d have to ease up a bit before they hit the portal. No telling what the Road was like on the other side.

“Okay,” Jordan said calmly, and then he started firing.

And Annie, even with her eyes locked on the ramp, adjusting her SRV as it rolled toward the portal, watched the nearest speeder burst into flames. Direct hit on its core.

Even better—the flaming metal mess careened into one of the other speeders and took it out.

“Nice one,” she said.

Then more blasts. Some of the speeders swerved to avoid the SRV’s shots.

But by getting close, they now had fewer options, fewer turns and ramps to take.

If one speeder dodged, the other had to sail on—exposed.

“Three down,” Jordan said.

And at least four...five more coming.

And then some started hitting the SRV.

“Hitting us in the rear,” Jordan said. Then: “Rodriguez ... you have permission to fire ...
amigo.”

Jordan went back to picking off the speeders with only seconds left before SRV-66 entered—or tried to enter—the Star Road.

~ * ~

Rodriguez’s frantic aiming had the gun turret swinging around wildly, his shots nowhere near hitting the two speeders racing after the SRV, firing away.

Can’t do this,
he thought.
Can’t do this.

He felt nauseous, and when he burped, a thick, sour taste filled his mouth.

I’m a scientist... not some space warrior.

This is above my pay grade.

He chuckled at that and, for a moment, stopped overthinking the shots. Now he moved, fired and—amazingly—a speeder burst into flames and crashed into the ramp, skidding and spinning around, sending up a shower of sparks.

“I
got
one!”

“So get more,” Jordan said calmly.

The adrenaline—a new feeling for Rodriguez—raced through him now. He felt positively high.

Which is when he turned to target the other speeder and saw that— instead—the other speeder had
him
in its sights.

“No,” Rodriguez said.

He pressed his button.

And the two opposing guns fired at the same time.

Rodriguez got off a shot; a hit but not fatal.

But the enemy speeder aimed dead-center on the turret and fired back.

The blast rocked the SRV, kicking it ahead, and the hit to the gun turret sent a shower of sparks raining down on Rodriguez. Hissing specks stung his exposed skin while the rocking SRV shook him back and forth like a rag doll.

His hands went up to cover his burning face.

Releasing the gun, he wiped away the painful glowing bits of metal and plastic from his hands and face.

~ * ~

Jordan tapped his screen.

“Rodriguez took a hit. We gotta get him out of there.”

“No,” Annie said quickly. “Stay at your post.”

Jordan had cleared the last of the latest wave of speeders. But more were coming. Fast. The portal entry lay directly ahead, its churning rollers growing brilliant in the dim sunlight.

“You can’t walk back there during a portal entry. Let’s get through— then you can pull him out.”

Jordan didn’t argue.

She liked that about him.

He had his opinions, but he took an order as if he were still in the military.

“Here we go.”

The screen showed the shimmering multicolored wringers of the portal while the cockpit window showed only a crazy jump into empty space.

“Now ...” Annie said.

And the SRV left the near-space of Hydra Salim. After a stomach-churning moment of weightlessness, they were suddenly back on the Star Road.

~ * ~

The first thing Annie did was look at the screens, checking to see if they were being followed.

“I think ... we did it.”

“Okay, let me get Rodriguez out. Maybe one of the passengers can bandage him up.”

“Right.”

Jordan unsnapped his harness and left the cockpit.

And Annie thought,
Did we really just outrun them? Will that battle cruiser give up?

Doubtful.

If it did, though, this was one hell of a lucky day.

She looked down to a screen showing the gun turret. Jordan was freeing Rodriguez from the debris covering the gun seat, hauling him out.

Not much blood.

That’s good.

Face is a mess though ...

Then she picked up movement on the aft screen.

And not just
movement.

The Runner’s battle cruiser filled the screen.

Too damn good to be true,
Annie thought.

Reality was now chewing on her ass.

And she sat there without a fore or an aft gunner.

What was the expression?

A sitting duck.

Even moving at hyper-speed, it was like she wasn’t moving at all.

~ * ~

Jordan eased Rodriguez into an empty seat at the rear of the cabin.

“How bad am I hit?” He touched his face. “Am I bleeding?”

“Superficial wounds, Doc. You got singed. You’ll be all right.”

He gave the man, who was acting like he was breathing his last, a hearty pat on his shoulder.

“You done good, Doc. Taking out two speeders. Something to tell your grandchildren.”

“If I ever have any—”

Then the intercom sounded.

“Jordan. We got company.”

His smile faded.

“Can someone come back here and help Rodriguez? Tend to his wounds? First aid’s right up here.”

He tapped an unlocked overhead compartment.

Sinjira stood up, looking scared, but she moved toward Rodriguez.

“I will.”

Surprised that the Chippie would offer, Jordan nodded and then ran back to the rear gun turret, fearing the worst.

~ * ~

Ruth looked at Ivan, slumped in his seat and rocking from side to side as the SRV constantly jigged left and right.

He could move his eyes.

And what she saw there—what she
thought
she saw there—made her reach out and place a hand gently on his wrist. She pressed her index and middle fingers down to feel his pulse. It was slow. Once every three or four seconds.

No matter what anyone else thought about him, this Ivan Delgato, she sensed nothing but honesty and goodness coming from him.

And she wouldn’t be where she was, traveling across space to find answers about not just the Road, but about the universe if she hadn’t learned to trust her feelings.

The vehicle rocked again. Hard.

Her hand tightened on his wrist.

His head immobile, his eyes strayed left, looking directly at her.

“Ivan,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you—”

His lips opened.

Also in slow motion as if it was torturously difficult, fighting the control of the neuro-collar.

Open lips. A pause. Then: “I—”

A word. His eyes wide.

Then: “Can.”

The next word took so much time, a tiny gust of air escaping through the narrow slit of his open mouth.

“Shoot…”

Ruth nodded and looked around.

“He’s offering to help,” she said.

And we need all the help we can get.

She nodded at Ivan and stood up and said, louder, “He’s offering to help!”

~ * ~

“Damn, Jordan. Look at this …”

On the screen, the battle cruiser was behind them. And as they watched, a huge hatch opened up, and more speeders streamed out like angry hornets leaving a nest—two, four, six in formation at first, then dozens, splitting up, weaving... bobbing.

Jordan had been blasting at the cruiser itself to no effect, but now he had targets he could take out.

Which he did with typical efficiency.

But for each speeder he nailed, another pair flew out of the cruiser.

Only a matter of time before they wear us down.

But then there came a sound.

Unfamiliar.

A heavy clanking noise to the right...just behind the cockpit housing.

A whining noise, like—

Drilling!

She knew immediately what it was. A grappling hook of some kind. A drill, burrowing into the hull of the SRV’s metal plating—plating that could handle meteors, even direct blasts from pulse cannons—but could, with the right drill bit, be penetrated.

If the drill didn’t cause the whole ship to depressurize, any rupture would force the ship into self-protective compartment-by-compartment shutdown.

And the SRV would stop ... dead.

Prime eating for the Road Bugs.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said.

“Annie?”

Jordan, so close to his gun’s noisy blasts, might not have heard the drilling into the side of the hull.

“We’ve been grappled, Jordan.”

“Thought so,” he said. A pause. Then: “Only one thing to do.”

“Yeah, only thing is ... I’ve never done it.”

“Seriously?”

“What can I say? I’m a cautious pilot.”

They were both silent for a few seconds, the drilling growing louder, setting Annie’s teeth on edge.

“No time like the present to learn a new trick,” Jordan said.

Annie nodded. She grabbed the wheel tighter, checked her speed, and sucked in a breath.

~ * ~

FOUR