by K. D. Austin
Salvor already had the wing doors open. “Hop in. This thing’ll get us back to the spaceport in a flash. It has a rear-mounted burn-engine with deuterium caps and iridium couplings.”
“Can you drive this thing?” Lance asked.
“It’s a vehicle.”
Hanna noted that he didn’t really answer the question. She also knew he could fly a spaceship better than anyone she’d ever met, but there was a big difference between flying in the vacuum of space and handling a wheeled vehicle in atmosphere. But what other choice did they have? Those GrayMars could pop out at any moment.
Hanna crawled into the long silver-and-red car behind Lance. The Nebula looked like a pen with wheels and two turbine engines on either side. It was only about as long as the three pirates laid end-to-end. It was also a two-seater.
Salvor took the driver’s seat, which left Lance and Hanna to try to fit into the passenger seat. His short hair pressed into her face as he swiveled to close the door. It smelled like ozone, smoke, and oddly, pears. The eclectic mix of scents caused another flutter in Hanna’s stomach.
He had to wrap his left arm around her in order to have enough room to shut the door. She was suddenly very conscious of her bare skin under the illusion of clothes. He gently caressed the curve of her hip, causing her to shiver slightly.
“Hold on,” Salvor said as he gunned the engine to life.
Hanna vainly tried to engage the safety restraint, but it could not wrap around both Lance and her, so it gave up and beeped at them instead.
The Nebula sounded like a bomb exploding as Salvor flipped off the brake and hit the accelerator. The front wheels left the ground for a heart-stopping second. Then they slammed back to earth, and Salvor crowed as he barely managed to miss a huge rock that had clearly been used to hide the rocket car from roadside view.
“Bova!” Salvor was loving it. He maneuvered the rocket car onto the small roadway that led to the bridge. “This is going to get sticky.” He crowed again.
Hanna struggled to turn her head enough to see out the windshield, since she had turned sideways in Lance’s lap when he shut the door. “What is it?”
“Roadblock. Pulsar Tanks,” Lance said. “Salvor, turn around.”
“Too late.”
Hanna felt her stomach set up shop in her throat as Salvor slammed the accelerator forward.
She pressed herself back against Lance, feeling the hard muscles of his chest under his enhancement suit. She strained to turn so she could see. Lance wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted and rotated her slightly. She enjoyed the feeling of his rough hands on her skin in spite of herself. Finally, she could get a glimpse out the windshield.
Two Pulsar Tanks, thirty meters wide and ten meters high, stood in the middle of the road. The block-shaped armored vehicles boasted four legs protruding from the bottom and one arm extending from each of their four sides. Two legs ended in large wheeled treads that would allow the tank to churn up ground quickly in pursuit of its prey. The remaining two legs had robotic feet that the tank’s driver could use to navigate rugged terrain. Each of its four arms terminated in a different array of weapons. Hanna had no idea what most of them were, but any one of them looked capable of blowing the Nebula into another galaxy.
The road, as Hanna had noticed on the way here, was carved through the obsidian cliff that the complex was built into. There was no shoulder that they could use to go around.
Whoever had attacked the complex did not want anyone to escape, and they had access to some serious weaponry. Maybe they really were rogue Galactic Marines. Hanna looked over at Salvor and was not surprised to see that he was smiling. He began crowing.
Each Pulsar rotated three cannons toward the car. “Salvor, turn around,” Hanna said, instinctively pressing herself backward as if it would get her away from the tanks.
“Salvor, what are you doing?” Lance said, and for the first time, Hanna heard fear in his voice. That tone sent a shiver through her greater than the one caused by the sight of the Pulsar Tanks taking aim.
“Hang on to something,” Salvor said, pushing the accelerator harder.
Lance wrapped his arms around Hanna, and since there was nothing else to hold on to, Hanna held on to Lance. The rocket car shuddered as Salvor jerked the wheel hard to the right, and the squeal of metal filled the interior. Lance scrunched into Hanna, and she fought to keep from colliding with Salvor as the Nebula shot up the side of the cliff face. It raced at an angle up the cutout section for about four seconds before gravity caught up to it, but that was all Salvor needed.
He jerked the wheel hard left. The back of the Nebula swung through the air. The car was now almost parallel to the ground, riding along the wall at an insane speed with the Pulsar Tank beside it. For a split second, the rocket car slid sideways toward the ground. Then the wheels caught the rock face enough to jerk the car forward. It shot passed the tanks and skidded onto the road beyond.
Salvor shifted the gears, and the Nebula bolted down the road. A distant boom indicated that at least one Pulsar Tank had fired, but at that point, the Nebula was moving too fast and had put too much distance between them to be hit now.
“Piece of cake,” Salvor said, laughing.
“That was insane!” Lance said angrily.
“I suppose you’d rather have gotten killed?”
“That should have killed us!”
“Hey, I just saved our lives. Where’s the thanks?”
“Thanks, Salvor,” Hanna said, though her voice almost failed her, as it had constricted during Salvor’s crazy escape.
Lance laughed then and hugged Hanna against him. She realized her arms were still holding him tightly. She slowly relaxed her arms but left them around Lance.
“Let’s not celebrate too early. We still have to get back to the ship and find some help for Arden,” Lance said, reminding everyone of the reality of the situation.
“If he’s still alive,” Hanna said.
“He’s alive,” Salvor replied sharply.
Hanna wanted to believe him and knew the pirate leader had to be resourceful to have done just the little things she was aware of. However, The Hairy Hand had become a deathtrap. Lance started to say something else but apparently thought better of it. He looked at Hanna, and she felt he was thinking the same thing she was. They needed Salvor to focus on driving at the moment.
The Nebula rocketed down the small road toward the bridge and the spaceport beyond it.
“The nav-com on this thing says we’ll be to the port in about two minutes at our current speed. It’s just past the bridge we came across to get here.”
Lance craned his neck to look at the console. “What is our current speed?”
“Only a thousand one kilometers per hour. This thing could go a lot faster, but I didn’t want to attract attention when we crossed through town.”
“Too late,” Lance announced. “We’ve got company coming up fast.”
“Where?”
“Right behind us. Pulsar Tank.”
His words were punctuated with a boom that was immediately followed by an explosion of rock and road to the car’s left. The Nebula jerked violently.
“Those things shouldn’t be able to move that fast. I’m gonna punch it. Hold on again.”
“I hate it when you say that,” Hanna said, gripping Lance.
“If we can just cross the bridge and get to the highway, I can shake them.”
Hanna could feel her eyelids pull back from her skull as Salvor gave the rocket engine full throttle. Just then, two things happened simultaneously. The Nebula went supersonic, and the bridge exploded. They were going too fast to even try to stop. So fast, in fact, that the car sailed out over the destroyed bridge as if it were still there. The car made it almost one-third of the way across the expanse before plummeting down toward the raging black water below.
“Bail out! Bail out!” Lance said, pushing against Hanna, but the Nebula crashed into the water before anyone could even try to open a door
.
Chapter 31
Hanna was thrown forcefully against the roof of the Nebula only to plummet back toward the seat. Lance slammed hard into her. His elbow connected with the side of her head, causing her vision to first flare and then dim frighteningly. At least this time he wasn’t hitting her on purpose, she thought randomly.
A siren was blaring somewhere, and Hanna could hear more explosions. Whoever these GrayMars really were, they clearly wanted to make sure the pirates were dead.
Once again, the choking smell of smoke filled her nostrils. Hanna coughed and sputtered violently as she attempted to breathe the acrid air through her mouth. Pushing herself up enough to see her companions, she saw Salvor, unconscious, draped across the wheel. A small trickle of blood flowed down his forehead. That wound didn’t look life threatening, but Hanna couldn’t see what other damage he might have suffered. Lance, on the other hand…
“Hanna, I can’t move my legs. Do I still have legs?”
The calmness in his voice scared Hanna more than panic would have. Lance was tough. Even after the mind-hack, he was the toughest person she knew. She didn’t want to look at his legs, fearing what she would see—or what she wouldn’t.
“I can’t see them, Hanna. I need you to tell me if they’re still attached.”
Hanna forced herself to look. The Nebula was crumpled on the passenger side. The front of the car now sat where the passenger seat had been. Hanna had been thrown over onto Salvor. Her eyes traveled down Lance’s body.
“It’s okay, Lance. Your legs are still there. They’re just pinned under part of the car. I’ll try to get you free. We need to get out of here. We’re sinking.”
Hanna struggled to reach the crumpled metal that pinned Lance’s legs. The rocket car was a mangled mess, but the templast windows were still intact. However, water was seeping in through the cracks, and the passenger compartment was slowly filling with water.
Hanna couldn’t budge the metal that was pinning Lance’s legs to the floor.
“You’ve got to help me, Lance. Use the strength enhancement of your suit to free your legs.”
“I can’t twist around enough to get a grip on it.” He was right. Lance was trapped from behind and couldn’t get the leverage he needed to pull free. They needed more strength.
“Salvor! Salvor!” Hanna tried to shake him, even tossing some of the invading water at his face. Nothing. He was out. Hanna could see his breathing, so she knew he wasn’t dead, but he was as good as dead as far as helping was concerned.
“Get yourself and Salvor out. Maybe you can get help.”
“I don’t think there’s help out there.”
The Nebula rocked in the water as an explosion thundered nearby as if to emphasize her point.
“Anyway, running for help was how we ended up like this. No. We’re all getting out of here.”
“How? We’re just all going to drown. If we don’t get blown up first.”
Lance had a point, but Hanna decided to make another option for them. A plan was forming in her head. Hanna didn’t like it, but it was the only way out she could see.
“There is a way for us to all get out of here. But you’ll have to do exactly as I say. And don’t ask any questions. We don’t have time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I said, no questions. Just trust me.”
Hanna thought about how ironic that statement was considering what she was about to ask Lance to do.
Hanna pulled up her HUD and struggled through the confusion that was dominating the rocket car’s area of the net. She finally sorted through the mess and focused in on Salvor.
Hanna scanned his system externally but found most of it shut down. Making an instant decision, she pulled out her jacks and stuck them into the ports on Salvor’s wrist. Then Hanna hacked into Salvor’s personal system. It was a much more difficult task alone than it had been with Arden’s help. When she’d hacked Lance, Arden had acted like a nurse with a surgeon, making sure she had access to all the proper tools at the proper time. After her hack into the dead man at the lockers, she thought she could do this alone, but since Salvor was still alive, his system was fighting against the hack as Lance’s had done. She couldn’t do it alone. Lance would have to help her.
“Okay, we’re going to have to get Salvor to help us out.”
Lance shook his head, not understanding. “He can’t move, Hanna. He’s out cold. You already tried to rouse him.”
“He can move, Lance. We can move him. Actually, you can move him.”
Lance was totally confused. “I can’t even get to him. I’m stuck. And we’re sinking faster.”
He was right. The water inside was rapidly rising. “You can’t get to him physically. I don’t have time to explain. Just do what I tell you. It’s our only hope.”
Lance was completely perplexed. As Hanna struggled to access the net and then Salvor’s system, he stared skeptically. “Hanna? Have you lost it? Salvor might be dead. We’ve got to do something, or we will be too.”
“Listen to me. This will work. Now follow this link.” Hanna sent the hack to Lance, realizing that although it wasn’t how he meant it, she had lost it. Showing Lance that she could mind-hack someone was way too dangerous, but not as dangerous as staying in this sinking rocket car. Fleetingly, she realized she had another option. Nothing was trapping her in the car. She could blow the door and escape. The idea didn’t even slow down in her head. Salvor had risked his life for hers more than once, and at this point, so had Lance, even if that was because she’d programmed him to do so. Leaving them would be just like killing them, and Hanna couldn’t do that.
“Hanna, what is this?”
“No questions, remember. Just do it. It’s our only hope. This will link you into Salvor’s mind.”
“You have lost it.”
“Maybe. But it’s our only hope. Just trust me.”
“This can’t be done, Hanna. It isn’t possible. It isn’t right.”
Hanna didn’t have to reply to that because she could tell from his expression that Lance had already accessed Salvor’s personal system and gone into his mind. Lance’s face paled, and Hanna was sure it was more from the shock of what they were doing than from the cold of the water that had crept up to his waist.
Hanna spurred him on. “You’ve got to find his motor functions. You have to override them and make him help us out.”
Lance was shaking his head. “I can’t. I mean—” His voice broke off, and he turned his striking pale-green eyes and regarded her with horror that slowly melted into something Hanna couldn’t interpret. She sensed a change come over Lance at that moment, but Hanna didn’t have time to think about what it meant. She was too busy keeping the hack active.
“You’re in his mind now, Lance. Just control his body as if it were your own.”
Lance nodded slowly, and then his eyes took on the unfocused look of someone concentrating on the net. Lance’s body went limp. His stubbled face flopped into the frigid water. Hanna quickly reached over and turned his face to keep his mouth above the cold liquid.
Hanna was worried. She didn’t know if Lance could even do what she was asking of him. She was about to start trying to talk him through it, but then froze in amazement. Salvor stirred in his seat. His eyes snapped open, empty and unseeing. Lance was in control. It was actually working.
“Okay, Lance. This is where it gets really hard. You’ve got to keep the link to Salvor and control him while moving yourself, too. I’ll do what I can to help you, but you’ll have to make Salvor move yourself.”
Lance’s muscular form shuddered in the water, sending ripples through the rocket car’s flooding interior. Salvor’s eyes fluttered and then closed. He slumped over, whacking his head on the steering wheel.
“Lance, you can do it. If you just concentrate on moving his arms and legs, I’ll try to keep Salvor’s motor functions synced to you.”
Lance sat up, and his eyes opened. He stared hard at Hanna,
and she realized he understood what they were doing now, how invasive it was. But, like the soldier he was, he set his face in determination and nodded at her.
Boom!
The Nebula rocked in the water as another shot from their pursuers exploded in the river nearby.
“I can do it,” Lance gritted at her in a way that sounded more like “I don’t like it.”
He fell back into the net-trance as he found his way back into Salvor’s system. Hanna monitored both of their systems and tried to guide Lance’s attempts to control Salvor. She stared in awe as Salvor stirred out of his seat. On her HUD, Hanna watched as Lance activated the strength enhancement on Salvor’s suit.
Salvor’s muscled arms stretched over Hanna and grabbed the crumpled metal that was crushing Lance’s legs. The veins in Salvor’s neck bulged with the strain as he began to pull.
“Rarrrhh!” Both Salvor and Lance grunted as Lance used Salvor’s now-super strength to pry back the smashed door. With his legs suddenly free, Lance flipped himself over. Hanna was amazed at how smoothly he was able to control both himself and Salvor.
Boom!
Another close shot. Their targeting was improving.
“If we don’t sink, we are going to get blown up,” she said.
Before Hanna knew what was happening, Salvor’s body scooped her up and pulled Lance to his feet. He reached over to hit the emergency exit switch that would blow the top and windshield.
“Wait!” Hanna said.
“What?” Lance managed to say fairly well with only his own voice.
“I saw a couple of hover packs in the storage compartment. We might need those.”
“Be quick.”
Hanna reached into the crumpled compartment and grabbed the two small hand-sized bundles that she hoped were actually hover packs. Salvor’s arm grabbed her again, and Lance pressed the button. The top and windows blew out in a flood of rushing water and bubbles. The water pushed them back into the car. Lance gurgled and grunted and then used his own muscle and Salvor’s to haul them out of the sinking rocket car.
Hanna broke the surface as Lance pushed her forward, but he struggled in the current, trying to control both bodies. He and Salvor started sinking.
