nervously.
Kasha looked ahead. Her eyes narrowed. “There it is,” she announced.
Bobby scanned the sky. He soon made out a small speck of yellow in the distance. They were catching up.
The tang had Spader and Courtney backed into a dead end. They both smelled the putrid odor it gave off when it was ready to feed.
“Two on one,” Courtney said.
“Could be worse,” Spader said bravely.
Three more tangs dropped down from above, making Courtney jump back in surprise.
“Just got worse,” Courtney said weakly.
The tangs stood in twos. They slowly stalked forward, their vile smell making Courtney gag. “Is it gonna end here?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“If it does,” Spader said, “it won’t be because we didn’t give ‘em a go.”
With one quick move, Spader reached both hands back over his head, grabbed the shoulders of his harness, and pulled it up and over, tank and all. He bashed one end of the tank on the ground, hard enough to smash off the nozzle. A jet of high-pressure liquid shot from the broken valve like a portable water cannon. The chemical spewed at the tangs, making them scream and back away. The surprised beasts waved at the rush of chemicals with their lizard arms… and fled.
“We got ‘em!” Spader shouted, and took off in pursuit. Courtney followed right behind. Spader kept the spewing tank aimed at the squealing lizards. When the tangs reached the mouth of the crevice, they kept going and jumped right off the ledge, tumbling down the side of the steep mountain to escape from the attack. Spader kept the high-pressure tank aimed down at them until the chemical finally ran out.
“That was awesome!” Courtney yelled. “How did you know it would work?”
“I didn’t,” Spader answered with a chuckle. “Lucky us.”
Spader tossed the empty tank aside and said, “Except now we’re down to two tanks.”
“Wrong,” Courtney corrected. “We’re down to one tank, and Mark’s got it. The tank on my back’s no good if we can’t get it to Black Water.”
Spader put his hands on his hips and looked back into the crevice. He stared into the opening, then his eyes traveled up the craggy face of the mountain.
“What are you thinking?” Courtney asked.
“Those wogglies got up there somehow.”
“You’re kidding?” Courtney said. “You want us to climb over this mountain?”
“Well, like you said, this tank’s not doing any good out here.”
Courtney glanced up at the mountain, imagining what it would be like to climb up the rocky face. She had been to the climbing gym back in Stony Brook many times, and was pretty good at it. But that was always with a rope for safety. And a big thick pad on the floor.
“If you can’t make it, I can go myself,” Spader said.
Courtney Chetwynde never, ever backed down from a challenge. She wasn’t going to start now.
“I’ll lead,” she said, and began climbing up the craggy face.
EELONG
(CONTINUED)
The small, yellow giggrew larger in front of Bobby and Kasha as they sped to catch up. Bobby looked to the ground below where thousands of gars were making their way along the route to Black Water. They looked to Bobby like an army of ants, all moving toward the same goal. Bobby nudged Kasha and pointed down. She looked and nodded. “It really is incredible” was all she could say.
Far ahead, the gray mountains that held Black Water were in sight.
“Don’t worry,” Kasha said. “We’ll catch him.”
“Then what?” Bobby asked.
Kasha didn’t answer. Bobby truly felt as if her plan was to pull a kamikaze stunt and crash into the gig to knock it out of the sky. The idea terrified him, of course, but he was torn. If this was the only way to stop Saint Dane, then maybe this is what had to be done. He could only hope that Kasha was a good enough pilot to land their gig once it was crippled by a collision. One thing he knew for sure: There were no parachutes on board. He wouldn’t be able to bail out the way he did with Jinx Olsen’s plane. If the gig went down, they were going down with it.
They were near enough to the yellow gig so that Bobby could see the klee pilot was looking down, probably to check Seegen’s map against the terrain. Bobby figured that the pilot was so intent on carrying out the mission, he never thought there might be somebody chasing him. Kasha kept their gig directly behind him so there was less chance of him catching sight of them if he looked off to either side.
“I don’t want to have to crash into him,” Kasha said, as if reading Bobby’s mind. “But I will if I have to. There’s a chance we’d survive, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Me neither. Is there a Plan A?”
“The gigs have a tool package underneath,” Kasha explained. “That’s where we keep the net for harvesting and a few other cutting tools.”
“Can we get to them?” Bobby asked.
“No,” Kasha answered, smiling slyly. “But we can dump them. I wonder what would happen if they landed on his main rotors?”
Bobby smiled with relief. Kasha had a nonsuicide plan after all. If they could fly over the gig and dump the tool package, the netting and the other tools might foul the klee’s rotors.
“I like this,” Bobby said. “Can you get on top of him? He’s going pretty fast.”
“I can catch him anytime I want,” Kasha said. “I was waiting until we hit…that.” She pointed out in front of them to the huge lake they had detoured around on their previous trip to Black Water. “It’s better if he crashes in the water than on a bunch of innocent gars.”
Bobby chuckled. Kasha knew exactly what she was doing.
“Strap in,” she ordered. “This might get bumpy.”
Bobby quickly slipped the safety straps that were built into the seats around his shoulders. Kasha did the same. A quick look down told them that the klee pilot was nearing the shore of the lake. They would have a short window of opportunity when he was flying directly over the water. After that he’d be back over the streaming mass of gars on the far side. They had to make their move now. Kasha reached for the throttle. Bobby felt the gig shudder. He had thought they were flying under full power. He was wrong. The little gig shot forward with such force that Bobby was pressed back into his seat. Kasha nosed the craft up and they rose higher. Timing was going to be critical. They needed to fly directly over the other gig, which was pretty dangerous in itself, and drop the tool package before the klee pilot realized what was happening. Then they had to hope it would do enough damage that the gig would crash into the lake.
Bobby held his breath. Kasha maneuvered their gig closer to the klee. They were only a few yards behind the yellow gig when Kasha toggled a switch on her control panel. Bobby heard a mechanical sound, along with a bump. It reminded him of the sound he heard on passenger planes when they dropped the landing gear. He figured that Kasha had opened up the tool hatch below.
Kasha eased their gig forward. She flew with one hand on the joystick and the other on the control panel, fine-tuning the rotors. Bobby’s heart leaped. They were actually going to do it!
But there was one thing Kasha hadn’t counted on-the sunbelt. The band of light in the sky was behind them. As soon as they got above and behind the yellow gig, their shadow crept over their quarry. The klee pilot saw the looming shadow and spun around in surprise. Busted.
“Drop the tools!’ Bobby shouted.
“We’re not over him!” Kasha shouted back.
The klee pilot instantly dove down and away to his left. Kasha didn’t panic. She dove right after him. The quick drop made Bobby’s stomach lurch. Now it was a true chase, because their prey was on the run. The klee pilot
