Star Road Page 21
Been a long time since anyone gave a damn about me.
“Ruth. Take your seat.” The tone in Jordan’s voice ... again suggesting that they knew each other.
Still, the Seeker didn’t back down. Ivan kept track of her in his peripheral vision as he stared long and hard at Jordan.
“Anything to say?” Jordan asked, his voice low.
“Not really.”
Ivan took a deep breath, still calculating—and not seeing—any way out of this without endangering the other passengers in the cabin, and probably losing the race to his gun.
“Well?”
Finally: “Yeah.” Ivan shook his head, looked away. “I might be able to stop them.”
Back to see the gunner’s face. Set, ready for anything.
And maybe even enjoying this.
“That’s what I figured.”
Ivan exhaled to steady himself. His pulse pounding in his ears ... throbbing in his neck.
“Or lead us right into a trap.” Ivan braced. Jordan pointed his gun right at Ivan’s midsection.
“What’s been going on ... out there, back at the other station. I see the patch. I get that. But that’s not how the Runners operate.”
Jordan laughed out loud. Then: “You mean you! How you operate.”
Ruth let out a gasp behind him. Ivan shook his head.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go down ...
He considered pleading with Jordan, telling him everything. But he knew the gunner wouldn’t believe a bit of it.
And if the situation was reversed, he wouldn’t, either.
And so here we are...
~ * ~
Annie had never seen anything like it.
Ever.
Jordan appeared to be losing control. His face flushed, breathing fast through his nose. Sweat stood out on his brow, but his gun arm remained as steady as ever.
She never wanted him to look at her like that.
He looked like he was ready to reach into Gage’s mouth and rip his lungs out.
She had to do something.
“Stand down, Jordan,” she said.
She knew he heard her command because of the quick flick of his eyes—a millisecond—in her direction.
If anything, his body tensed even more.
Can’t have a damn firefight in here.
“I said, stand down!”
“Sorry, Captain,” Jordan said. “I can’t do that.”
“That’s not a request, Jordan. It’s an order. You can and will stand down—now!”
“Could I ask exactly what the hell is going on here?” Nahara asked, turning to Annie.
He started to stand up but then sat back down when Jordan fired a quick glance at him.
Ruth looked like she was working up her courage to intervene.
“I know who you really are, Gage,” Jordan said.
He practically spit out the name.
“Oh, yeah?”
Ivan looked up at him as coolly as if Jordan were a waiter who had just asked him how his meal was.
“Yeah. Ivan Delgato.”
What? Annie thought.
Impossible. The Runner leader was in prison, on Earth ...
No... No way ...
Ivan picked up the arm patch from his lap and studied it, letting it dangle between his fingers.
Then—amazingly—Gage ... Ivan ... didn’t deny it.
“This isn’t us. This isn’t how we operate,” he said in a low and controlled voice.
“Whoa—hang on!” the Chippie said, sitting up in her seat to get a better look at Ivan. “I knew it! I knew you were ... somebody.”
Now Nahara stood up.
This is getting crazy here, Annie thought.
“Nahara, sit the hell down,” she said.
“You traitorous son of a bitch!” Nahara shouted, fists clenched, his face flushed.
“W-why doesn’t he look like he did in the news vids?” Rodriguez asked.
Great... now everyone’s involved, Annie thought.
“Micro-surgery, more than likely,” Jordan said. “A bit of sculpting? Right?”
Ivan said nothing.
His pulse rifle still only inches away.
Jordan’s attention didn’t waver from Ivan.
From Annie’s viewpoint, it looked as if the two men had locked eyes like big jungle cats about to engage in battle.
Fucking primal.
Annie and Jordan both knew how fast Ivan was—they’d seen him in action.
Hell, he’d saved their lives back there.
That had to count for something.
Would Ivan do something now that might get innocent passengers injured ... or killed?
Then again, if he really was Ivan Delgato—the convicted leader of the Runners—he had proven that he had no regard whatsoever for innocent lives or people’s property.
And what the hell’s he doing out of prison?
Last she’d heard, Ivan Delgato was off to the Cyrus Penal Colony in the Movasi Sector.
Enough, she thought.
Have to take control of the situation.
Annie stepped forward, being careful not to place herself between Jordan and Ivan.
“Did you send that message pod from Station Two?” she asked. “Maybe our coordinates and routed them to your damn Runners?”
Holding her gaze, Ivan shook his head slowly. “I never even got close to the pods.”
Jordan: “So you haven’t contacted anyone, told them about this SRV? I have a hard time believing for one second that—”
Then, from behind Annie, a sudden shrieking noise, a shrill beep sounding a warning.
Filling the cabin.
“We have company,” she said, turning to Jordan.
His expression—a stone carving.
Jordan nodded.
“Get me a neuro-collar,” he said.
Jordan? Giving orders now?
“It doesn’t have to be this way” Ivan cast a glance back and forth between her and Jordan. “I can explain.”
“I knew we never should’ve picked him up,” Nahara said.
Annie went to the emergency supplies compartment and entered a code. The container door popped open.
“So much for your vaunted code of the Road, huh?” Rodriguez piped in.
The alarm—still blaring.
Annie moved fast, getting the neuro-collar for Jordan.
Her gunner meanwhile gave Ivan a sharp nudge with the barrel of the gun.
“Who’s coming, Delgato?”
“How the hell would I know?”
Now another, harder hit with the gun. To the face. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
Ivan looked ready to leap up at Jordan. Tear his throat out.
“Easy, Jordan.” Annie handed him the collar.
“You’ve been leading us into this trap all along starting with your Speeder breaking down.”
“If I wanted you dead,” Ivan said softly, “believe me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“Collar him,” Annie said. “There’s incoming. We don’t have time for this.”
The warning sound increased in volume and frequency.
The passengers looked wide-eyed, panicked.
The situation ... out of control.
Whoever’s coming here... they’re getting closer.
“Everyone, I’m going to keep Delgato collared until we get to Omega Nine. Then the authorities there can straighten it all out.”
“What authorities?” Jordan asked.
“You want the truth?” Ivan’s voice was firm. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Studied the smear of blood for a moment.
Jordan wrapped the collar around Ivan’s neck and snapped the connectors in place.
“Yeah, you can tell us all about it later.”
The neuro-collar signal lights came on, blinking green.
“Jordan, let’s move it.”
But Jordan stayed where he was, watching, as if he didn’t trust the collar.
Then he reached down, took Ivan’s pulse rifle.
Annie turned to the passengers, their eyes on her.
“Get in your seats. Buckle up. We’re getting out of here. Now.”
And she darted back into the cockpit, her gunner finally turning and following her.
~ * ~
26
RUNNERS
Jordan followed Annie up the stairs and into the cockpit.
But when he sat down in his seat and strapped in, glancing at the console, he didn’t like what he saw.
Annie already had the vehicle’s engines powering up. The SRV started rolling.
“We have someone—a few someones—coming in at two o’clock on the port side,” Annie said. “They’re on an upper level, but they’re heading our way.”
Jordan nodded.
“I’m picking up at least six vehicles,” Jordan said, adjusting his scanners. “They’re bunched close together, scrambling the signal.”
“Shields?”
“Up to maximum, too.”
“Can’t be sure they’re hostile,” Annie added—a hopeful note as if to reassure herself. “We can’t simply assume.”
Jordan tapped the screen tracking the converging ships. “Tell me this doesn’t look like a coordinated attack.”
He unbuckled his harness. “I’d best get to the aft turret. Better safe ...”
He got up and moved quickly through the passengers’ cabin to the gun turret. He noticed that Ruth was looking at the immobilized Ivan.
Thinking, as he rushed past her: Pity? For him? Seriously?
He kept moving fast, and within seconds, he was strapped into the turret seat, gun powering up, headset on, and commlink working.
Ready to go.
~ * ~
“I still don’t think they had to do this,” Ruth said, leaning close and staring into Ivan’s eyes. “Can you even hear me?”
She turned and looked at the other passengers—Nahara, Sinjira, Rodriguez. “Is he still conscious? He’s like a zombie.”
Nahara nodded as he cleared his throat. “He’s fine.”
Rodriguez looked away for a moment, then back at her.
“Yes,” Rodriguez said. “With the collar, he can hear and understand everything perfectly. Just can’t move or speak.”
“He deserves to die, if you ask me.” Nahara’s face was flushed.
“What if he was telling the truth ... that he’s not with the Runners?” Sinjira asked. “From what I’ve heard, no one’s ever escaped from Cyrus.”
“Always a first time,” Nahara said, more calmly. “Maybe these attacks have been, like, a diversion while his band of killers broke him out.”
“Yeah. He had to have had help,” Rodriguez said, staring at Nahara. “From inside the prison or from the World Council or ... maybe even someone on this vehicle.”
“What? What the hell are you suggesting?” Nahara’s face was pale. His upper lip oily with sweat.
A lot of fear and mistrust on this ship, Ruth thought.
“Someone sent that damn message pod from inside the terminal.”
“It wasn’t me.” Nahara looked furious.
Ruth watched the passengers as they looked around suspiciously at one another.
All of them, jumping to conclusions, making judgments. Calculations. Paranoia.
Now, turning on one another.
“How about you, Doc?” Nahara leaned one arm on the seatback and stared directly at Rodriguez. Challenging him. “We still aren’t clear why you’re headed out to Omega Nine. What’s the big secret, hmm?”
Rodriguez tightened his mouth and shook his head.
“If it was any of your business, you would know.”
Then Sinjira got up and walked over to Ivan. A smile lit her face as she knelt down in front of him, Ruth inches away, taking it all in.
Leaning close, pressing her breasts against his arm, she whispered loud enough for Ruth and everyone else in the cabin to hear: “We should talk, Ivan. Perhaps when we get to Omega Nine”—she paused—-”when they take off this stupid collar. We could license your life story for ... millions. The stuff you’ve done, the things you’ve seen.”
Ruth looked back to Ivan, a line of drool and blood running down his chin from the corner of his mouth. Like he was crazy, demented, looking so vulnerable... so harmless.
How the hell can this be Ivan Delgato, the notorious rebel? she thought.
He’s not a cold-blooded killer...
“You should go back to your seat and strap in,” Ruth said. Sinjira rolled her eyes and then stood up. She delicately traced the edge of Ivan’s jawline with the tip of her forefinger.
“Are you his nursemaid?” she said, glowering at Ruth. “Or maybe... you’re interested in the Runner for other reasons.” The Chippie was grinning wickedly now. “Can’t say I blame you.”
Then, a sudden lurch of the vehicle threw her off balance and almost onto the floor.
The captain’s voice came over the speaker.
“Please—everyone remain seated and strapped in.”
Ruth checked Ivan’s straps, and then sat down and buckled in as the Chippie made her way back to her seat.
And then SRV-66 started moving on the ramp leading to the Portal.
Fast.
Something, Ruth thought, is going on....
~ * ~
As soon as she powered up and started rolling, Annie saw the incoming vehicles on the screen.
She watched as they split up and took different ramps.
Different vectors.
Circling like vultures...
Surrounding us...
“Looks bad, Jordan,” she said into the commlink.
“Go as fast as you can, Annie,” Jordan said over the headset. “I’ll keep them busy.”
“Okay.”
The SRV picked up speed as she moved it away from the demolished terminal building.
Fast, Annie trying to gauge how much speed she could muster as she hit the curved, fun-house ramp to the portal... just how much she could push it.
Zigzagging to avoid the still-smoldering rubble and scattered body parts.
Her breath froze in her throat when she brought up the rearview screen with a swipe of her hand.
A vehicle suddenly appeared behind them, and it was huge.
Almost as large as a WC troop ship.
And then she realized that’s exactly what it was—a decommissioned troop ship that had been modified, almost unrecognizable. Its hull was scored with numerous pulse blasts and dents. Gun turrets bristling everywhere.
Even as she watched, the forward portals opened, and several small, bullet-shaped speeders shot out, heading toward her.
“Jordan, they’re coming in fast. Speeders all over the place,” she said.
“They have to stick to the Road like we do.”
As if in response, a white spike of fire shot from the rear of the SRV. The shields on one of the speeders exploded in a shower of orange sparks and bubbling hot metal.
What was left of the speeder stopped dead on the road—a twisted wreck.
Annie’s options of which ramp to take were numerous ... and confusing.
The map configuration on her HUD displayed dozens of interlacing ramps and roadways, all curving around wildly and converging in gigantic Gordian knot-like intersections.
The entire interchange was supported by hundreds of massive pylons that faded away into the distance. Below the ramps, the oceans churned, hurling huge waves up to the sky.