Dread Dominion by Stephen Marley

Author:Stephen Marley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

EIGHTEEN

A CRESCENT OF JUDGES fired at Hershey, their Lawgivers spitting flame. The Grand Hall of Justice resounded to the thunder of the continuous salvos.

Her heart changed to lead and sank. She'd blazed a path all the way up from the subterranean levels of the SJS to run into an arc of firepower from her own people. She was the target of dozens of Street Judges:

Street Judges were firing at her.

And missing.

Hundreds of slugs must have blasted from the barrels.

And thunked harmlessly into the hall's plasteen walls.

Deliberate misses.

She suddenly grasped the situation. Even in normal times, Street Judges would be reluctant to kill Hershey on the say-so of the hated SJS. Now that Justice Central was going crazy, Street Judges would be inclined to ignore a highly dubious SJS order to shoot a high-ranking colleague on sight.

Judge Dew, an old friend, darted a look at a nearby emergency chute and mouthed, 'Run!'

The crescent of Judges was giving her cover. Blocking the view of any hostiles in the Grand Hall.

But that wouldn't hide her from the SJS guards charging up the stairs at her back.

She took the advice and ran, leaping feet first into the emergency chute.

She slid down a couple of metres to a horizontal tunnel where the chute's magnetic field swept her along at a dizzying speed. Emergency chutes were designed for rapid-response situations when a Judge needed to reach a Lawmaster in seconds. Just what she needed for a quick getaway.

After a couple of breaths she was deposited in a Lawmaster parking area. She was on one of the motorbikes and donning the helmet left on its seat before any of the attendants grasped what was happening. By the time they realised who she was, Hershey had gunned the bike into action and was hurtling up the exit ramp.

No shots followed. A thin smile brushed her lips. The attendants were Street Judges, and these were strange times.

She laughed aloud as she raced onto a slipway that swerved up to merge with a megway. In moments she was racing down the megway, accelerating to 550 kph, a full 150 kph faster than the average traffic speed.

From Level 7 of Interrogation to the open megway. Pretty good going.

The exhilaration soon faded. She was one woman on a motorbike in the most heavily policed city in history, scanned by numerous surveillance Eyes. Her body throbbed from bullet wounds to her back and legs. And she was under sentence of death.

There was no way she could outrun the long arm of Justice Central, with its fleets of hover-wagons and Gunbirds. And a Lawmaster-mounted Judge at every corner, a lot of whom would obey the shoot-on-sight order without question. Come to think of it, McGruder would have confirmed the order by now. They would all be gunning for her.

Gruddam it, how the drokk did you get the Helmets off your back? Now she knew how a hunted perp felt. Not too good.

Hard to lie low in Mega-City One, but she had to try.

A glance in the rear-view mirror.

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