Fast (54 page)

            Flexing his calf, he tested the leg. Only moderately painful. The muscle felt badly pinched, but no bone damage. It would recover in a few minutes.

            Very lucky. Now, where are the creatures?

           
He scanned the twisted steel. Both creatures were trapped, but still alive. Their tentacles searched through the gaps in the compacted frame.

            Coleman pulled himself from the mess. The A-frame was accelerating. Bora was already halfway through another lap of the habitation level. The vehicle had accelerated the entire time Coleman was pinned. The floor flew past. Bora was travelling far too fast to maintain any type of control over the giant A-frame. Especially with the rear cab ripped off and dragging behind the truck.

            How will he maneuver at this speed?

            Suddenly Coleman heard an abrupt
hissing
sound.

            It came from the forward cab. The entire front cab section of the A-frame truck pulled away from the platform.

            Bora had unhitched the truck, abandoning the fast-moving platform.

            Without the steering cab, the platform raced out-of-control towards the north wall.

            Coleman realized the platform would probably never reach the wall. The mangled rear steering cab dragged like a ship’s rudder, pulling on one side and pivoting the entire platform to the right. At this speed, with this much momentum, the platform could only rotate so far before the wheels locked sideways.

            This thing’s going to flip any second!

            He searched for a way off the platform. There was nothing. He started scrambling over the steel, moving dangerously close to the creatures’ searching tentacles, racing for the side of the platform that any second would become the back of the moving death-trap.

            He had about ten seconds to find a miracle.

#

Cairns raced the quad bike straight through the debris field.

            He leant forwards over the bike, crouching in the seat, instinctively using his body weight to maneuver the vehicle at speed.

            In the last few seconds, the entire landscape of the habitation floor had changed again. He spotted an opportunity through the chaos. The last rotation of the wrecking ball had swept aside many obstacles, and now, thirty meters away, Cairns saw a mostly clear run at the giant scorpion.

            Mostly, but not perfectly clear. The bike bucked and lurched as he powered over minor obstacles. Cairns kept his knees bent and half-tensed, absorbing the jerking motions. He swerved twice more, avoiding a chair and an overturned quad bike, and then found his clear path to the scorpion truck.

            Twenty-five meters to go.

            The scorpion truck banked in a tight circle right across his path. The truck’s path was predictable. It clearly struggled to maintain control over the wrecking ball.

            At twenty meters, Cairns jumped up off the foot pegs. His boots landed side-by-side on the quad bike’s seat.

            Now he was crouched on the seat, leaning forwards and holding the accelerator full throttle.

            Fifteen meters…ten meters
….

            He tweaked the steering slightly, mentally projecting the motion of the truck and countering the quad bike to make an intercept angle.

            Five meters
….

            This is how it’s done.

            At full speed, he jumped straight up off the quad bike. The bike’s suspension boosted his jump.

            He sailed through the space towards the truck, rotating his arms to keep his body vertical as he flew.

            Whack!

            He smacked down squarely on the scorpion truck’s hood.

            The two Marines in the truck jumped in their seats as the momentum of his landing sent Cairns sliding up the windshield. The quad bike smashed into the truck’s side, wedging between two support struts.

            Cairns stopped sliding with two hands on the windshield, kneeling on the truck’s hood, staring into the cab through the windshield at the men.

            He smiled at the two stunned faces, one black, one white.

            That’s right. Play time is over.

#

Forest did a double-take as he recognized the face through the windshield.

            Cameron Cairns. Cameron Cairns is on our windshield!

            Cairns stared through the windshield at them. His expression looked unwaveringly confident. Very unlike a man riding on the wrong side of the windshield.

            This was too good an opportunity to waste.

            Forest jerked up his CMAR-17 and fired. Starting on one side, he hosed a line of horizontal gunfire straight across the windshield. He cut the windshield entirely in two.

            King turned his face as the windshield disintegrated outwards.

            When they looked again, there was no corpse sliding off the hood. No bullet-riddled body bounced under their tires.

            ‘Where’d he go?’ King demanded incredulously.

            ‘Here I am,’ answered Cairns, looming at King’s window, right at King’s eye level.

            ‘Holy Crap!’ King spun his head, eyes wide like a ghost had whispered in his ear.

            Cairns reached through the window and yanked the steering wheel.

            King’s careful control of the truck was completely thrown off as Cairns oversteered the vehicle into an even tighter circle. Cairns dropped away from the side and hit the ground rolling.

            It was too much for the support struts.

            All at once, the scorpion truck lurched up onto two wheels. With the truck just degrees from rolling, the crane tore right off the back.

            Forest felt the truck lurch forward as the crane tore loose. The truck stayed up on two wheels.

            King yanked the steering wheel back the other way, trying to counter the tilt and drop the truck back down to four wheels.

            The maneuver might have worked, except for at that moment, Bora rammed full-speed into the undercarriage of the tilting scorpion truck.

#

The creature hauled its body up the tray-back’s hood.

            Vanessa was now trapped between a pick-wielding terrorist coming through the roof and a creature coming up her windshield.

            Four tentacles snaked around the cab. Vanessa heard the thorns tearing at the edge of her windows and doors.

            It’s going to rip the doors right off!

            Her forward view was blocked by the monstrous body. She couldn’t see a thing. Both rear view mirrors were suddenly wrenched off the doors as the creature began pulling.

            Here it comes.

            She tensed, waiting for both doors to fly off as the creature applied the full force of its devastating hydraulic strength.

            The passenger side window caved inwards. Both window frames twisted and buckled, warping out of shape. Strips of metal peeled off the driver side door like an apple skin.

            But the doors didn’t come off. Vanessa was puzzled. She knew the creature could easily get through the doors.

           
It’s not after me yet. Of course! The vibrations. It’s after the engine. It’s trying to get through the hood.

            Hope motivated her to act.

            Time to leave.

            She grabbed the templates and wrenched on the door handle. She’d jump and roll like in the movies. The door didn’t budge.

            Damn! The tentacles are pinning the door shut. There must be some other way.

            A tentacle came right through the passenger window and tore the CB radio off the dashboard.

            At the same time, she felt the templates wrench in her grasp. The terrorist had lunged his arm through the roof and grabbed the templates.

            Vanessa pulled back in an awkward tug of war with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the templates. The creature’s tentacle started banging around wildly inside the cab. Any moment it would find her.

            Just do it.

            She let go of the steering wheel and grabbed the templates with both hands.

            Nearly, nearly, now!

            She shoved the terrorist’s arm into the creature’s tentacle.

            The tentacle encircled the man’s wrist, sinking backwards-facing thorns straight through the muscular forearm.

            The terrorist screamed and dropped the templates. The creature yanked harder. The arm came further through the hole in the roof. Vanessa heard the terrorist’s chest thump down onto the cab. The creature tugged and tugged. The man’s entire upper body kept thumping into the cab’s roof. The creature tried to haul in its victim, but the terrorist’s upper body couldn’t pass through the hole made by the pick. Vanessa could just see a shoulder and half a face wedged through the hole. The face hadn’t stopped screaming, and now the pitch increased as the frustrated creature really got to business.

            The arm tore right off in the cab.

            Oh, that’s disgusting
….

She recoiled from the bloody stump waving through the roof.

            But the screaming face didn’t pull back. Somehow, he remained pinned to the cab. The jagged edges of the hole framed the terrorist’s face. The man screamed straight down into the cab. Vanessa realized the creature was trying to pull the man over the cab roof.

           
She heard the terrorist’s knee thumping into the back of the cab. Next came the sound of heavy stones shifting in the tray.

            His legs must be trapped in the stones. That’s why he was cutting through the roof.

            Above her head, the screaming face disappeared from the hole. It reappeared at the top of the windshield. The man had lost the tug of war. The creature hauled him over the roof. The man’s cheek slid down the windshield. The frantically struggling terrorist slid into the creature’s embrace. Two more tentacles released the cab and gathered in the man’s twisting torso.

            The creature reared back, spreading open its massive mouth.

            Vanessa saw her chance and hit the brakes.