TekWar (The TekWar Series) by Shatner William

Author:Shatner, William [Shatner, William]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781453287446
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

19

THE DOORS OF THE hidden shed whipped automatically open. Beth guided the skycar out into the rainy night, taxied across a stretch of clearing and sent the craft climbing into the surrounding darkness.

Glancing over at Jake, she smiled. “You’re not used to riding in the passenger seat.”

“I’d feel more comfortable at the controls.”

“Then our partnership’s going to be an especially valuable experience for you, something that’ll expand your range of experience and build your character,” she informed him. “That’s how my father likes to describe anything that I initially turn my nose up at.”

“Yeah, my father handed out similar slogans.” Jake slouched in his seat. “Most of them, though, didn’t turn out to be true.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t like him.”

“It was, actually, the other way around.”

“That’s too bad,” Beth said as the skycar rose above the trees and leveled off. “What’s our destination, by the way?”

“Right now just head in the general direction of the state of Chihuahua.”

The dark-haired young woman punched out a flight pattern on the control panel. “What was your father?”

“Military man—professional soldier.”

“Stationed where?”

“Mexico, Central America, Brazil.”

“So that’s how you got to know this country, traveling with him?”

“He usually didn’t take us with him, my mother and I. But after she died, he allowed me, reluctantly, to live with him here in Mexico.

“My father and I ... Damn!” She was frowning at the dash panel. A tiny rectangular screen there had come flashing to life; a bulb of red light beneath it was flashing. “We’re being chased.”

Jake saw a picture of a heavy black skycruiser on the little screen. It was coming up fast on their tail from the jungle below. “Let me take the controls.”

Beth shook her head, her long hair brushing at her shoulders. “I can outfly most anybody, Jake,” she assured him. “My father taught me originally, and there was also a professional skyracer I used to be fond of.”

“How well armed are we?”

“Just a disabler beam in the tail.”

“Nothing lethal?”

“My father doesn’t believe in that.”

“Okay, I’ll handle the tail-gunner job.” Unbuckling, he left his seat and double-timed flat-footed to the gunner chair at the rear of their skycar.

He could see the big cruiser climbing closer through the heavy rain.

“Hang on,” advised Beth.

She gunned the skycar and it shot ahead, climbed and then started to execute a zigzagging backward loop.

Jake found himself hanging upside down in the gunner seat.

They started to pass upside down over the pursuing skycruiser.

The bigger craft had a lazcanon mounted on each of its stubby wings. Two thick, crackling lines of purplish light came knifing through the night rain. They converged on the spot where the skycar would have been if Beth hadn’t gone into the loop.

Jake thumbed the trigger button of the disabler gun.

“C’mon, Jake,” urged the young woman, “you can do better than that.”

His first try had missed the pursuing craft entirely.

“Okay,” he said through clenched teeth and fired again.

The next intense burst of green light touched the tail of the black cruiser. All at once the whole craft glowed a sputtering green.

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