“Die, you redneck bastard!” he screamed, and as he pushed the button, the turret exploded.
***
“Jesus! Did you see that?” Tiger exclaimed as the last turret went up. Suddenly, he realized he’d just been given a second chance. Out his window, he could barely make out the craft that had just saved their asses. He didn’t know where it came from, but he had a good idea. It’d probably been tailing them the whole time. Yet it’d never showed on the scanners.
Some kind of stealth technology, he reckoned. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that they’d ran into this buzz saw. If we’d put down at Moontown, that thing would have been on us like stink on shit. We wouldn’t have stood a chance!
Things began to slow down and his racing mind was able to focus now on just one thing. Escape. They’d survived the firestorm, they were all in one piece, and the Gus had held together. Now they just had to get gone!
“Hang on guys!” Tiger felt hope for the first time since the firing had started. “I’m gonna get us outta here!” He instructed the onboard computer to shut down the portside engine while opening up the throttle, on the starboard Thor, to the max. At the same time, he reached under the dash and found a toggle switch, one that didn’t come from the factory.
Tiger’s Uncle Mud used to tell stories about some of their descendants. With Uncle Mud, it was always difficult to tell where the truth stopped stretching, but Tiger had always enjoyed listening to the adventures and misadventures of their ancestors. Uncle Mud was a gifted storyteller, and he could spin such yarns in a way that could leave kids spellbound for hours. And no matter who it was about, be it inlaw or outlaw, one thing was for certain, you were proud to be a member of the Thomas clan.
According to a few tales, a couple of Thomas Boys had been bootleggers who ran moonshine out of the Tennessee hills into the city and suburbs. Mud always liked to tell about how they kept their old internal combustion automobiles souped-up with custom-built, high-performance engines. Most of the time, these muscled up motors and their driving skills were more than enough to outrun the law in a high-speed chase. But if they ever ran across a revenuer or deputy who could actually hang with them, they always had one last ace up their sleeve.
Nitrous Oxide. Injected directly into the manifold, good ol’ laughing gas gave the engine an instant burst of power and speed. When Tiger had Dee modify the Ol’ Gus several years back, he remembered back to his uncle’s tales. And, while it wasn’t nitrous oxide, the Wizard of Wrenches came up with his own special concoction. He called it Deez Kool Breez. It was the …“Oh shit!” … last resort when everything else had failed.
When he flipped the toggle switch, the wounded and battered old Gus suddenly came alive again, like a stallion suddenly spurred out of a deep slumber. All three of its occupants found themselves pinned to the back of their seats by the instantaneous acceleration. Just like nitrous, the Kool Breez was injected directly into the fuel mixture right before it entered the engine. Once ignited, it created a superheated blast that, for a few seconds, could provide the same amount of thrust as a booster rocket. The only drawback was it could do irreparable damage to the engines if fired for more than just a few seconds. And that was based on the engines being in top working order. These had already been shot to hell. Tiger knew in his heart he’d just killed the Gus.
But for the moment, they were streaking away to safety like a rogue comet.
***
Ollie could only stare off in shock, as the rear of the Pegasus suddenly lit up like a small sun and then suddenly shot away back towards town. In seconds, it was nothing more than a small white dot in the night sky. Tiger Thomas had escaped.
Climbing from his hiding place, he surveyed the ruined air defense components of his home security system. In less than five minutes, he’d lost it all. Everything! None of this went down anywhere like it was supposed to. What had happened? How had it come to this?
He was the only one who was supposed to have been doing any shooting. Life was so unfair!
Above him, the sinister-looking black craft that had fired the coup-de-grâce hovered menacingly. Even with night vision, it was almost invisible against the night sky. Ollie had never seen a craft like it before. What was it? Who sent it? It was obviously black-ops. But why had it ridden to the rescue of some loser like Thomas? Or had it? Was there a deeper, more sinister motive to its sudden appearance? Was its purpose less to save some redneck and more about eliminating a troublesome businessman? Had some of his neighbors finally tired of his antics? Maybe his wife and kids had decided to have him bumped off. What a more perfect time to do it … right in the middle of a firefight. Make it look like Tiger killed him.
Nah! They weren’t that damned smart and they sure didn’t have that much initiative.
A genuine shudder of fear suddenly ran down his spine. What if it’s someone else? Someone like the Space Authority. Maybe it had grown tired of his endless complaining about them rerouting the spaceport’s westbound landing approach to right over the top of Monte Sano. Would the Authority go to such extremes just to shut up an annoying homeowner?
Probably.
Well, regardless of who it was, they’d just messed with the wrong asshole.
