to the inside of the van. I removed it from its straps and brought it forward.
“Well, we have a lot of over-kill at least. This thing could take on a fighter plane. Where’s Jake now?”
“They put him in that green car over there,” Nikki pointed. “The ladies seem to be getting into the two cars ahead and the one behind the car they have him in.”
“OK. We’ve got to stop them before they get too far. If they’re in cars, they must be leaving the rocket port area. We don’t want to lose them in the city traffic as crazy as it is right now.”
“There’s only the one road off the rocket port into Miami—”
“Right. If we hurry, we can head them off.”
“But what will we do if we catch up with them?”
“This rail gun can take out a car no problem. If I hit it right. We’ll have to try to get the escort cars and cut the odds down to what we can handle with just the two of us.”
Nikki raised her eyebrows but was too polite to point out just how harebrained my scheme was. Instead she jumped into the driver’s seat, “Let me drive and you fire the rail gun, I don’t know the slightest thing about it.”
I decided not to tell her I didn’t know anything about the rail gun either, other than what I’d seen in the 3Vs. Why do women always assume that men know all about weapons?
She put the van into gear and we raced toward the road. The bag ladies’ caravan started at the same moment. We were all racing toward the road with a column of parked vehicles between the cars and our van.
As we moved down the poorly-lit parking lot and then were in the congested traffic, moving at a crawl. As we inched ahead, the bag lady caravan started to outdistance us. A car pulled out of its parking space ahead of us, blocking our way and we came to a complete stop as Nikki slammed on her brakes.
We bashed into the car with a resounding crumpling of metal. An angry giant jumped from the car.
“Sorry,” I yelled to him as we backed away, “we’ve got a friend to rescue.”
He hurled his hat at us and coated the warm Miami air with curses as Nikki reached the end of the long line of parked cars and turned the van around. Again we came to a stop.
I turned and watched the bag ladies’ cars which were now at the end of the parking lot, turning onto the road that ran out over the dark ocean that was lit only by car lights of travelers over the bridge, the whole downtown Miami area being powerless and illuminated only by the burning stadium that lit the nighttime sky.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to catch them in this traffic,” I said.
“There’s a way,” Nikki said. “I’m going to get up some height so we don’t crush anyone with our downward grav wash.”
We rose into the air. Then I fell back into the seat under the enormous acceleration Nikki was pushing the car into. We quickly pulled up alongside the cars as we flew over the ocean alongside the bridge-like roadway Jake and the bag ladies were on. Nikki had the van’s lights off and no one in the cars seemed to be aware of us.
“Let’s try moving over and dropping downward over the lead car,” I said. “The wash from our rods might be harsh enough to force them to stop.”
That was an understatement.
As we dropped down, the car faltered a moment, bouncing up and down on its shocks and broke through the steel rail and went careening into the ocean with a tremendous splash. The car behind it either felt the effects of our passage or the driver panicked. In any event, it went crashing through the rail on the opposite side of the road and went splashing into the black water as well.
Nikki pulled up and put the van into a steep curve. I was slammed into the door which popped open and I nearly fell out before I grabbed the seat and held on for dear life.
“Let’s try that on the rear car,” Nikki yelled, ignoring the fact that I was about to fall out of the van.
“Yahhhhhhggggggg,” I answered, heroically.
She ignored me and finished the turn as we wheeled behind the rear car and dropped down toward it as it sped along the road just as I pulled myself back into my seat and slammed the door shut.
By the time I was buckled in, we went bouncing down over the rear car. Again, the force of the van’s anti- gravity rods caused the car to screech about and go out of control. This time, rather than going off the road, the car bounced end over end and rolled about umpteen times. The bag ladies in that car must feel like they’ve been in a centrifuge at the high setting after that, I thought.
No one in the car moved when it finally landed on its top.
The final car Jake was in had come to a quick stop as we passed by it. A spotlight on the car sprang to life as someone tried to track us. We climbed over the ocean and Nikki executed a steep turn and headed back toward the remaining car.
“Any ideas?” Nikki asked as the bullets from the guns below us started dinging off the outside of the van and the windshield.
“Don’t drop as low this time; we can’t risk hurting Jake. But come in close. It looks most of the bag ladies have left Jake in the car. Maybe our grav wash will knock them down.”
Nikki went over them and the bag ladies standing on the road were flattened like rag dolls as we flashed over them. Nikki did a quick stop that felt like it exceeded the limits on my seat belt if not my body and performed another tight turn that again took us toward the car. This time we went over it slowly; a bag lady that had been struggling to her feet was instantly thrown flat onto the plastic roadway and knocked senseless. We circled it twice. No one moved below us.
Nikki moved out over the ocean and held the van at the same level as the car on the bridge.
She turned the van’s lights on so that they bathed the car on the road. One last bag lady sat next to Jake who still appeared to be unconscious.
“Oh, no. I hope they haven’t hurt him,” Nikki said.
“Probably just stunned,” I said, hoping it was the truth.
Without warning the bag lady jumped out of the car and went running down the road toward the city.
“Shall we chase her down?” Nikki said.
“No, let’s just get Jake and get out of here. The rocket takes off in just minutes and we should get out of here as soon as possible anyway. ”
Nikki eased the van forward; the guard rail crumpled under us as we went over it. Nikki settled the van down on the highway. I jumped out and ran to the car.
“Jake! Jake, are you all right?”
Only snoring answered my question. I pulled him from the van, knowing better that to try to lift his heavy frame; wearing a truss the rest of my life didn’t appeal to me. “Nikki, can you give me a hand?”
She got out and ran alongside me. Together we wrestled Jake into the van and got him buckled into the rear seat. We screwed his helmet onto his suit and I put a quick patch, from his suit’s emergency kit, over the spot where the bag ladies’ stun shell had hit him.
“Do we have to listen to his snoring,” Nikki asked over her suit’s radio.
“We ought to keep track of him to be sure he’s breathing OK,” I lied. I figured there was nothing like hearing someone snore for a while to kill any romantic interest Nikki might ever have for him.
Behind us, the sky lit up around the rocket port.
“There goes our rocket,” Nikki said and pulled off the bridge.
Just as we crossed over the water, fire covered the roadway, lighting the area as if it were daylight. As the fireball from the road climbed into the air, a fighter screamed over the road, causing the flames to roll as the air was torn aside by its passage.
Radar had picked up our battle with the bag ladies. Now someone was aiming to even up the score and had just missed turning us into baked beings.
Chapter 24
“Oh, ——,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
The fighter wheeled about to make another pass at us.
Nikki didn’t need any encouragement. I fell back into the seat as we flew forward at maximum speed.
“Get the radar on them,” Nikki said.
