…yeah.
“They’re turning around, Tyrus. Predictive algorithms indicate that detour back to their original route will require them to pass less than a block from your current position. You can intercept here.”
A digital pinpoint appeared on the map in Rechs’s HUD.
The drugs he’d injected were taking effect. The bounty hunter wasn’t ready for a marathon, but he could move, and the ache in his legs and body had all but disappeared. He shoved himself away from the wall and began to run. The tac bag was secured but still banged into his back and side as he ran, acting like a drag as he tried to make the rendezvous with a bare minimum of seconds to spare. And trying to come up with a plan once he did.
He ran for the opening onto the main street when audio detection picked up the approaching escape sled that he was certain Rattclopp was aboard. It was howling, its engine screaming at full as it raced away from the mob that had blocked its escape route. It turned onto his street a mere ten meters away.
With no thought to the precious remaining jump juice, Rechs kicked the thrusters in while holstering his sidearm. He rocketed toward the vehicle, barely grabbing the rear passenger compartment as it roared along the street.
The wheelman felt the added weight, checked his side mirrors, and saw the bounty hunter death-gripping his vehicle. He swerved toward an upcoming abutment along the street and tried to scrape Rechs off.
Rechs pulled himself atop the speeding vehicle just before it slammed against the abutment, its scraping side sending sparks behind them. The impact at speed sent him over the other side of the vehicle just as a spray of automatic blaster fire, wild and unaimed, erupted through the roof of the sled.
Instantly the sled was swerving across the road, intending to drag him against the building on the opposite side. Rechs had no choice but to hang on, forced to see if his luck would hold.
Blaster fire in high-cycle mode smashed through the window just above his head and flung itself out into the hot air amid a spray of melted plastic and shattered glass. Rechs’s strength-augmented hands made grooves in the vehicle as he slid down to the passenger stepboard, like he’d dragged his fingers through moist sand.
Rechs couldn’t see what was about to happen but he had a pretty good idea it wouldn’t be good if he stuck around in his current position much longer. He activated the magnetic grapples on his boots and gloves and climbed underneath the sled. A second later the vehicle slammed into a building farther along the street.
The repulsors whooshed and roared around him, and Rechs made himself as small as possible, knowing that if he got between the powerful repulsors and the street they managed to keep a five-ton sled floating above, there was every chance he’d be flattened.
The driver mashed the accelerator and gunned it forward. Weight, load, and drag told him he still had someone attached. Both side mirrors told him where the hitchhiker was not.
And if Rechs wasn’t walking around on the rooftop through which someone inside the vehicle was shooting with frenetic abandon, then he was clearly hanging from the bottom.
And there was an easy way to get rid of anyone down there.
The driver gunned the engines and steered toward an obstacle ahead that would do the trick of knocking Rechs off.
Hanging on with both feet and one gauntlet, Rechs pulled an EMP grenade off his belt, slammed it into the undercarriage with some effort, and thumbed the activation flip. Then he dropped from the bottom of the sled and rolled along the hot surface of the quiet street as the sled sped away.
As he’d fallen, the sled’s powerful repulsors had passed over Rechs, causing a warning to flash inside his HUD that his armor integrity was in danger of being compromised. But the vehicle had passed over quickly, and other than a battered numbness in his legs, Rechs felt all right. No broken bones or dislocations from the repulsor buffeting he’d just taken.
Four seconds later the EMP grenade went off and shorted out everything in the vehicle. Engines, instruments, and repulsors. The sled crashed down onto the street and went sliding, turning over halfway down the block and coming to rest on its side.
Rechs got to his boots and shook his head. He was starting to feel dizzy. Either from the drugs or from the roll across the street. Or maybe he’d knocked his head against his bucket a few too many times.
“Tyrus!” It was Lyra again. Her voice distant and tinny across the comm. The bounty hunter stumbled toward the wrecked sled lying down the street. “Tyrus, are you okay? I’ve been listening over your comm. It sounds like—”
“I’m fine,” Rechs cut in, moving toward the sled as the driver climbed out and stood on the overturned vehicle before stupidly pulling a blaster. Rechs fired once and blew the guy off the top of the sled.
Orders must’ve been to protect the guy inside at all costs, thought Rechs. Likelihood of Rattclopp being in there… pretty high.
“Okay…” said Lyra hesitantly, like she didn’t believe him when he said he was fine.
The AI began to tell Rechs something, but his ears were ringing so badly at that point that he couldn’t make it out. Couldn’t focus.
No… it wasn’t his ears.
His armor hadn’t had the time to protect itself completely against the effects of the EMP. It was still booting. He was dragging it forward under his own power. He’d barely noticed and was now glad for those hard training sessions where he worked in it unpowered.
Times like this happened sometimes.
He reached the sled.
“Tyrus, the marines took out your drone. Didn’t recognize the signature and since it’s a no-fly zone…”
The armor finished booting and came back online.
Rechs pushed the sled over to its upright position. Someone inside whined at being hurt. Started screaming that whoever was
