The two bipods parted — taking separate canyons — Schofield peeling right, Brainiac banking left.
For Schofield, it was like entering a fireworks show — a spectacular display of tracer bullets, missiles and dangerously exploding rock.
He saw the two black choppers eighty yards up ahead — trailing the lead hydrofoil and one of the South African bipods. The two speeding helicopters stayed below the canyon's rim — the raging sandstorm above the canyon system preventing them from going any higher — banking and turning with the bends of the winding canyon, their roto blades thumping.
Tracer bullets streamed out from their nose-mounted Vulcan cannons. Air-to-ground missiles streaked out from their wings and blasted into the rocky walls of the canyon all around the two South African speedboats.
For their part, the South Africans weren't exactly either.
The men in the bipod had come prepared to protect the lead hydrofoil — they had a shoulder mounted Stinger missile launcher. While one man drove the bipod, the gunner thrust the Stinger onto his shoulder and fired it up at the trailing Penetrators.
But the Penetrators must have had the same ultrapowerful electronic countermeasures that the AWACs planes inside Area 7 had, because the Stingers just shot past them spiraling wildly, careering into the walls of the canyon where they detonated, sending showers of car-sized boulders splashing down into the canal below — boulders which Schofield had to swerve to avoid.
And then suddenly Schofield saw a long, white object drop out of a hatch in the belly of one of the black choppers and, dangling from a small drogue parachute, splash down into the water.
A second later, the water beneath the chopper churned into a froth and he saw a finger of bubbles stretch out from the roiling section of water, heading straight for the South African bipod.
It was a torpedo!
Five seconds later, completely without warning, the speeding bipod exploded violently.
The force of the blast was so strong that it lifted the fast moving bipod clear off the water's surface. Indeed, such was the bipod's velocity that it tumbled end over end, totally out of control, bouncing across the water's surface like a skimming stone until it slammed — top-first — into the hard rock wall of the canyon and blew apart.
Schofield drove hard, closing in, now fifty yards behind the action. He needed to catch up, but the South Africans had had too much of a head-start.
And then abruptly the canyon turned… and intersected with its twin from the left — the subcanyon that Brainiac and Herbie had taken in pursuit of the other two South African bipods — so that now the two canyons formed a giant X-shaped junction.
And it happened.
The white South African hydrofoil shot into the intersection from the top-right-hand corner of the X — at exactly the same time as one of its own bipods entered the junction from the bottom-right.
Speeding rivercraft shot every which way.
The hydrofoil and the bipod swerved to avoid each other. Both fishtailed wildly on the water, sending a wall of spray flying into the air — and losing all of their forward momentum in an instant.
The second South African bipod from Brainiac's canyon never even had a chance to slow down.
It just shot straight through the X-shaped junction like a bullet — between the two boats that had been forced to stop, blasting spectacularly through their spray — before zooming off down the canyon ahead of it, heading west.
The three Air Force Penetrators — two from Schofield's canyon, one from the other canyon — were also thrown into chaos. One managed to haul itself to a halt, while the other two whipped through the airspace above the junction, crossing paths, missing each other by inches, and overshooting the momentarily stalled boats below.
It was all Schofield needed.
Now he could catch up.
In his bipod, Brainiac was still eighty yards short of the X-junction.
He saw the mayhem in front of him — saw the restarting hydrofoil, and the stalled South African bipod.
His gaze fell instantly on the hydrofoil, which was now rotating laterally in the water, preparing to resume its run down the canyon to the bottom-left of the X.
Brainiac cut a beeline for it.
Schofield arrived at the junction just as the hydrofoil peeled away to the south and Brainiac's bipod swooped into the narrow canyon fast behind it.
'I'm going after the hydrofoil, sir!'
'I see you!' Schofield yelled.
He was about to follow when some movement to his right caught his eye. He spun to look down the long high walled canyonway that stretched away from him to the west.
He saw one of the South African bipods disappearing down the elongated canyonway — all on its own.
It was the bipod that had shot straight through the intersection, from the bottom-right corner to the top-left. Curiously, it was not even trying to return to give aid to the hydrofoil.
Then, in a blink, the tiny bipod was gone, vanishing down a narrow side canyon at the far end of the larger canyonway.
And it hit Schofield.
The boy wasn't in the hydrofoil.
He was in the bipod.
That bipod.
'Oh, no,' Schofield breathed as he snapped round and saw Brainiac's speeding bipod disappear around a bend in the southern canyon in pursuit of the hydrofoil. 'Brainiac…'
Brainiac's sand-colored bipod was moving fast.
Really, really fast.
It came alongside the speeding South African hydrofoil, the two rivercraft hurtling down the narrow rock- walled canal like a pair of runaway stock cars, with two of the Air Force Penetrators firing wildly down on them as they did so.
'Brainiac, can…you hear…me…?' Schofield's garbled voice said in Brainiac's ears, but in the roar of bullets, engines and helicopter rotors, the young Marine couldn't make out Schofield's words.
Brainiac got Herbie to use his pod's controls and bring the bipod in close to the speeding hydrofoil while Brainiac himself climbed out of his seat.
He watched the hydrofoil as they sped alongside it — saw its two strutlike bow-mounted skids carving through the water — but he couldn't see inside the big speedboat's smoked-glass windows.
Then, with a deep breath, he jumped — across the gap between the two speeding boats — landing on his feet, on the foot-wide side decking of the moving hydrofoil.
'…ainiac…out…of there!… '
Schofield's voice was a blur.
Brainiac grabbed a handhold on the roof of the speeding hydrofoil. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen next. Perhaps some resistance — like someone throwing open one of the hydrofoil's side doors and firing on him. But no resistance came.
Brainiac didn't care. He just dive-rolled onto the hydrofoil's forward deck and blasted out the vehicle's windshield. Glass flew everywhere and a second later, when the smoke cleared, he saw the inside of the boat's cabin.
And he frowned.
The hydrofoil's cabin was empty.
Brainiac climbed inside — and saw the hydrofoil's steering controls moving of their own accord, guided by some kind of computer controlled navigation system, an anti-impedance system that directed the vehicle away from all other objects, rock walls and boats alike.
Then suddenly, in the silence of the cabin, Schofield's voice was loud and alive in Brainiac's ear.
'For God's sake, Brainiac! Get out of there! The hydrofoil is a decoy! The hydrofoil is a decoy!'
And at that moment, to his absolute horror, Brainiac heard a shrill beep that would signal the end of his
