a small object leave the ex-Magistrate’s fingertips and knew that he was closing down pursuit behind them. The rear tires kicked up dust and dirt, creating a smoke screen, the engines throbbing just in time as the tread caught traction and the pickup truck moved over the small ridge, racing away from the militia.
Behind, Thurpa could see the concussion wave and smoke from the thrown grenade, a vomitous column that was quickly followed by the sharp crack of the gren’s detonation.
“Reload,” Kane ordered the other three.
Thurpa did so, depositing his mostly empty magazine and keeping it to reload later. He put in another curved stick, rocking it until it was secure in the magazine well of the rifle. Another thirty rounds ready to fly, giving their enemy a reason to slow down. He looked around, seeing that they had made a turn and watching the bend in their smoky trail, and the pickup zoomed along in the rut between two ridges.
Kane kept watch for sign of the militia bursting over the hill they’d topped, all the while keeping another hand grenade ready to throw. The small explosive might not have destroyed an enemy vehicle and its shrapnel might not have caused harm to the men in the backs of those gun jeeps, but the blast would be sufficient to slow pursuit, giving the Cerberus crew and their allies the room they needed to fall back and outmaneuver the marauders.
Kane gave the roof of the pickup a hard slap, and at that moment Grant swerved hard to the right. Nathan, Lyta and Thurpa clutched at what handholds they could find as the force of the turn threatened to send them tumbling against each other like sacks of cement. Thurpa was glad to return the favor to Lyta by cushioning her, and he also managed to lash out his hand, blocking Nathan from barking his temple against the sidewall of the truck bed.
“Thanks,” Nathan muttered as Lyta was sprawled into Thurpa’s lap.
“You’ve done far more...”
Gravity seemed to cut out from beneath them before Thurpa could finish his sentence, the pickup topping the ridge and going airborne for a few feet. Right now they were in free fall, moving at the same speed as the falling truck they rode in, so the illusion of zero gravity was strong.
In that moment of eerie physical calm, Kane threw his grenade. His little hand bomb seemed to careen wildly away from the truck, almost as if it had been flying at a right angle to where the man hurled it, but that also was an illusion. The wheels hit the dirt, and Thurpa grunted as Lyta mashed him deeper onto the floor of the truck bed, knocking the breath from him. Nathan grimaced as his shoulder struck the same bit of rail that his head nearly had been dashed against.
“Sorry!” Grant bellowed over the racket, obviously in apology for the landing after their short flight.
On the heels of Grant’s shout, Kane’s second grenade went off. This time, the explosion sounded louder, and the rising jet of smoke and debris from the blast was accompanied by a flaming object that tumbled end over end through the sky. Thurpa hung on, watching the trail of the burning thing through the air until he realized that it was a human arm, or what used to be one.
“Direct hit!” Thurpa shouted.
“No time to celebrate,” Kane answered. “We’re slowing in three.”
Thurpa counted down in his mind, scrambling to his knees and bringing his rifle back to bear. The pickup’s brakes squealed and dirt flew. The desert wilderness might have made things harder for Thurpa to see targets, but that worked both ways. Instead of going full speed forward, they backed at a slower speed deeper into the ever expanding clouds of kicked-up dust.
Kane had pulled his hood up and put on the faceplate of his shadow suit. The skin-tight, advanced polymer uniform had undergone several upgrades, one of the most useful being a set of high-tech optics built into the cowl’s faceplate. Thurpa might not have been able to see a foot past the back of the pickup truck, but that didn’t stop Kane, and he could see where the man pointed.
Backing farther into their dust trail also bought the Cerberus expedition more time. The militia opened fire at the far end of the cloud of debris, missing the pickup by yards.
“Now!” Kane ordered.
Thurpa fired in the direction that Kane pointed, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. He surely couldn’t put out the amount of lead that a machine gun could in this manner, but he would make sure that his bullets were on target and not wasted. Kane himself used a borrowed battle rifle, and his training with full-automatic meant that he could control the kick of powerful recoil. Kane’s rifle was louder, and from the cab, Thurpa could make out a sidelong muzzle-flash.
Brigid was using her own shadow suit’s optical technologies, shooting out the window of the cab with a weapon. Thurpa didn’t care what she was firing, just that what lead they threw at the Panthers of Mashona had an effect. Thurpa had seen what this militia was like when he was still beside Durga and the Millennium Consortium expedition. They had soured him on people, and the marauders only continued to make bad impressions when they discovered Lyta and the other survivors of her frontier village held as slaves.
Lyta was half starved, dehydrated, and left bloody and scarred by heavy chains. That kind of abuse turned Thurpa’s stomach, especially in the light of meeting good people, like the Zambian military at Victoria Falls and of course Kane and his allies from Cerberus. When he saw the creatures who were to feed upon the Panthers’ captives, his patience for them was totally discarded.
He didn’t raise a finger to help them when Neekra’s horrifying spawn attacked another of their units, only moving or shooting to protect Nathan and Lyta. Thankfully, in the presence of the ancient staff, they became invisible to Neekra’s vampiric horde.
Thurpa wanted every bullet fired through his rifle to strike one of the Panthers and cause irreparable harm and pain to them. The militia had been the reason two city-states had come together as allies, because the Panthers of Mashona sought out technology and slaves. The marauders had been thieves, scavengers, parasites. They gave nothing to the world.
The pickup truck roared to life, jolting forward, but this time Thurpa was prepared. He’d braced himself, as had Nathan and Lyta.
“How’d we do?” Thurpa asked, seeing Kane throw one last hand grenade before they got to full speed. Kane remained quiet, but he looked toward Thurpa to acknowledge the question. Moments later, Thurpa heard the detonation of Kane’s good-bye bomb. Once more, screams filled the air, and the militia continued shooting wildly.
Finally, the man in the black high-tech suit spoke. “We’re doing okay.”
The pickup swerved, swinging around into the tracks of the enemy vehicles. As they cut across their pursuit’s trail, Thurpa glanced into the distance. No more vehicles were on the horizon, but the look he got was fleeting, and he was certain that he’d miss something. He only had his human eyes, not built-in telescopic or infrared receptors on a moon-built faceplate.
As it was, Kane didn’t sound too glum, despite his conservative estimate of their success. He just kept perched in the truck bed, eyes peeled for their foes.
This explosion didn’t sound as vigorous as the one that sent a flaming limb soaring through the sky. Gunfire still rattled from whichever vehicles were still in the chase. They were not safe, not by a long shot. The battle was still to be won.
Grant shouted through the small window between the cab and the bed. “Found some tree line! Going for it!”
Kane gave his partner a thumbs-up, and once again, those in the back of
