but no sign of that attacker.
One down.
Nina admired Knox's handiwork from her view in the sunroof. On the other side of the highway, the remaining Speed-Lion sped along pre-occupied with dodging oncoming traffic and considering a new avenue of attack.
Above the honk of horns, the gush of wind, and the constant race-car growl of the BMW's engine, Nina heard a noise. A hiss, maybe.
She glanced around until finding the source of the new sound. It came from an object several hundred feet above and behind. There against the backdrop of a beautiful blue sky she spied a light. No, not a light, a flash. A silvery flash reflecting the south Florida sun.
The Witiko Skytroop's jetpack roared at full throttle to keep pace with the pursuit…then he stopped and hovered in mid-air and took aim with his one-shot rocket launcher. The alien's hovering body wobbled as the projectile fired. A plume of gray smoke spat from the orange flames at the tail of the missile as it swept down, locked on the speeding car.
Nina's eyes widened and her pulse quickened but she could offer no defense against the descending rocket. Like all such Witiko weapons, this one moved relatively slow, lumbering through the air. But she also knew it to be very precise. Despite the weave and bobs of the car between traffic, the guidance system in the nose of the thing remained focused on its target while the igniting liquid fuel caused it to dive bomb on perfect course for her destruction.
Her mouth hung open.
This is it.
She heard the rumble of the rocket's flames, she saw the red-tipped nose where a deadly charge waited to finish its mission, she could nearly read the alien symbols on the outer casing.
The car drove faster and faster but the missile lunged for the kill and — darkness shrouded Nina and the car. She heard the clap of an explosion and felt a shake from the shockwave. Then a burst of light again as the day's brilliant sunshine enveloped them once more.
Nina saw a cloud of smoke and a sheath of concrete debris billow skywards from the pavement of the Ives Dairy Road overpass that crossed atop the Interstate at exactly the right moment. The missile-interrupted in its journey by luck-detonated there a few yards above its intended target. Instead of destroying the fleeing car it destroyed concrete.
As the life-saving overpass faded fast behind the speeding BMW, Nina stood in the open sunroof breathing out gasps of air. Her heart thudded fast and those gasps turned to a laugh of relief-not humor-as she understood she still lived for no reason other than sheer chance.
Her moment of rejoice was chased away by the zing of bullets mere inches from her nose. She turned to her right and saw a second Witiko flying parallel to her over lanes of southbound traffic some twenty yards away with his Gatling-gun whirring.
She huffed a determined grunt, raised the M-4 to her marksman's eye, and squeezed the trigger. The first round of shots went wide, but the second hit the alien's jet pack. His controlled flight turned into something akin to a pin-poked balloon. His body barrel rolled over and over while streams of hissing vapor escaped from a ruptured line in his rockets.
Gong.
The out-of-control Witiko slammed into the backside of an exit sign straddling the southbound lanes. His broken body stuck there for a second, then dropped like a dead sack to the lanes below where it crunched beneath the wheels of a garbage truck.
Over there in that same area, the pursuing Speed-Lion raced along with its eyes on the BMW but still hesitating to attack.
Nina felt a tug on her BDU pants. She lowered into the cockpit of the car.
Gordon told her, 'Get buckled up. I want to get off this highway. I want to find somewhere quiet and isolated, like a dead end or something.'
'Oh,' she sarcastically remarked. 'You mean like a trap?'
'Yeah,' his eyes gleamed at the suggestion. 'A trap. Now hold on!'
Gordon swung the car onto an exit ramp that descended east off the Interstate. The Speed-Lion saw the move and cut across both the southbound and the northbound lanes of 95 in pursuit. Instead of following on the concrete ramp, it leapt the guardrail and descended a grassy embankment a few dozen yards behind the fleeing automobile.
Gordon nearly lost control as he moved them off the ramp onto a neighborhood street, racing by one of the new 'In and Out' convenience stores on the corner where the off-ramp met the avenue. That store sat directly in the path of the fast-moving beast.
Instead of slowing…instead of going around…the Speed-Lion crashed through the rear wall of the market and disappeared from view as the black sedan accelerated to escape. The front plate glass windows with neon beer signs and poster board advertisements for homemade cigarettes exploded outward as a monster-sized bullet fired through the entire store. The Speed-Lion never missed a step, erupting from the tunnel it had punched through the market and falling in
behind the BMW.
Gordon hammered the gearshift down and accelerated at full power as the car and the creature that chased it caught up with a herd of migrating automobiles across two lanes heading east and two more heading west. Instead of fast-moving Interstate travelers the chase found itself in the midst of crawling neighborhood drivers moving between sidewalks filled with pedestrians, family shops, and street vendors. A red light held the lanes at a standstill as the action raced toward an intersection.
Nina closed her eyes as Gordon side-swiped a rusting SUV waiting for the green and sped through the stoplight.
The Speed-Lion leapt in the bed of a waiting pick up then soared across the intersection through the air, landing at a fast gallop.
Far behind the chase near the blasted-through remains of the 'In and Out' convenience store, the black Suburban that had observed the battle on the Interstate from afar swerved off the ramp and onto the side street with Hobbs driving and Roos impatiently tapping his knee. The remaining Witiko-the one that had fired the unlucky rocket and who controlled the slaver device on his wrist-flew above the Suburban's roof.
In the meantime, the Speed-Lion tried to close for the kill but Gordon expertly swerved through the gridlock using the mess to block the enemy's approach. Frustrated, the creature bound over a hatchback, crushing its roof, then tried running on the sidewalk to avoid traffic where it tossed pedestrians aside.
'Here,' Gordon whispered more to himself than Nina, 'this will do.'
He slammed the brakes, released, and steered hard to the left, skidding sideways as they left behind the markets and vendors of the main drag and sped between neglected warehouses and a defunct U-Haul dealership. The enemy followed first at a distance but then closer as the lack of obstacles allowed it to reach top speed.
The black SUV and flying Witiko Skytrooper also fell in behind.
Gordon kept the gas pedal to the floor, topping eighty miles per hour on a street designed for less than half that in the old world. Rusted cars, bent street signs, and trash-filled parking lots blurred in the side windows.
'Gordon,' Nina noted their path and warned. 'Dead end.'
Ahead they saw the silhouette of a raised highway, no doubt I-95 but no on-ramp invited a merge; no exit presented itself. Instead, a concrete barrier wall separating the quiet street from the confines beneath the Interstate offered a sudden stop as the only option while the right side of the road dropped off steeply into a drainage ditch and the left side was dominated by a featureless, cinderblock exterior belonging to a building whose purpose had died with Armageddon.
Gordon laughed under his breath. Behind them the Speed-Lion slowed as it sensed its quarry to be trapped.
'Gordon!'
His hands worked fast as he depressed the clutch, turned the steering wheel, and pulled the emergency brake. The BMW 540i's ass-end swung around while its front felt glued in place. Nina's head banged hard off the passenger's side window to the point that she saw stars. The tires erupted in torched rubber.
Everything stopped.
