Lone Wolf (41 page)

Argent’s beside me so suddenly I don’t hear him come up. “Well?” I ask.

He shakes his head, and through his face-shield I can see a humorless smile. “The word is that our air assets are ‘fully engaged’,” he says.

I glance up. The air battle’s still going on, but only a half-dozen Yellowjackets are still in the air. I understand what he means.

What about the surviving Wandjina? I scour the skies for it, don’t spot it. Either some antiair defense has taken it out, or it’s burned all its fuel and augured in. No joy there.

Frag it! The Otter’s two hundred meters out at the moment, heading west. Our two Riverines are east of here, out of harm’s way but also totally out of the action. Without air support, and with the Nightrunner crippled, the slots in the Otter are going to get away. Unless ...

My gaze shifts to the two Suzuki Watersports moored at the next dock over. Why the frag not? “Come on!” I bark at Argent and the two of us sprint on over.

30

The low-slung, sleek-hulled vehicle looks something like a water-going combat bike, with the same fairing and twin-firmpoint arrangement as an assault-rigged Harley Electraglide-1000 armed patrol bike. The basic layout may not be much different from my old Bombardier WaveRunner, but that’s like saying Raven’s Merlin isn’t much different from an Eagle assault fighter because they’ve both got wings. This Watersport—painted a mean black—has a different geometry. In fact, everything about it is more raked and streamlined than my old toy. Even moored to the dock it looks slotting fast.

Fast enough to catch the Otter? We’ll see.

I sling my assault rifle and swing myself astride the Watersport. “Hop on,” I tell Argent as I start to cast off.

“On that?”

Any other time, I’d find the expression on his face humorous as all hell. Not now. “Poor widdle man too scared to get on the widdle fragging bike?” I growl.

The runner still hasn’t moved. “You know how to ride one of these things?”

“Fragging right I know,” I snap. “Now get the frag on!”

I hear him sigh and he slings his cannon. The stem of the Watersport settles alarmingly as he seats himself gingerly on the back of the seat. “There should be handgrips on either side of the seat at the stern,” I tell him without turning around. While he’s trying to find them, I’m scanning the control panel. Very different from my old WaveRunner, let me tell you. This thing’s got gauges, for frag’s sake—a speedo, oil pressure, temperature, and fuel. On my old toy the only way to judge speed was by how hard the thing jounced when you hit a wave, and the only way to tell you were running out of gas was when the engine started to sputter. At least the steering and throttle arrangements are the same. All I’ve got to remember is to keep my fingers off the triggers for the firmpoint-mounted weapons—medium machine guns, they look like—until I’m ready to rock.

I hit the starter and the engine catches instantly, a smooth, turbine-like whine from somewhere under my hoop. I scan the gauges—everything in the green—fuel tank nearly full— and check to see I haven’t missed casting off any lines.

“Hang on,” I tell Argent, and I grab a handful of throttle.

Too big a handful. The Watersport lunges forward so hard my head snaps back on my neck. I grab the handgrips wildly to keep from getting thrown off, and one finger hits a trigger. The right MG cuts loose with a short burst, chewing the drek out of the other Watersport moored a couple of meters ahead of us, while I feel two metal hands grabbing onto my shoulders in a death-grip. I release the throttle and the thrust fades. “Sorry,” I mutter.

Argent’s grip on my shoulders loosens slowly. “You said you knew how to ride this thing!” he snarls.

“I’m fragging rusty, okay? And use the fragging handgrips!”

This time I give it some throttle more cautiously. The small hull surges forward, kicking up onto the step almost immediately. Small waves slap against the hull, and I raise myself a little off the seat, taking the shocks in my thighs rather than in my hoop. I glance down at the speedo. Already we’re doing forty klicks—pretty fragging near top speed for my old WaveRunner—and the throttle’s only halfopen. Either the tech’s advanced drastically since I was a kid, or this is a specially jazzed mil-spec model I’m riding—or maybe a combination of both. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter. I crack the throttle wider open. The wind lashes at me and the spray mists my face-shield. Suddenly I realize I’m grinning like a fragging bandit. “Yeeeaah!” I howl into the wind of our passage.

The Watersport’s going like a bat out of hell—fragging near seventy clicks, according to the speedo—and it feels like a live thing under me. I do a couple of quick turns, just to scope out the maneuverability. This baby’s way more nimble than anything I’ve ever ridden before, but that’s no surprise. Just the slightest shift of weight and millimetric adjustment of the steering makes the hull carve deep and hard, slashing up a high curtain of water to the outside of the turn. It’s all coming back to me, all the techniques for squeezing maximum performance out of the machine. My muscles seem to remember like it's yesterday. Shift the weight forward to drive the leading edge of the hull deeper, maximizing the carve. Shift it back to kick the bow a little higher, getting it to plane better over the waves. Argent’s weight is like a sack of fragging potatoes behind me, a hindrance even though he’s starting to get the hang of it, leaning into the turns with me rather than fighting them. It probably doesn’t matter that much, though. The little beauty’s screaming now, skipping across the water, catching a half-second of air off even the smallest wave.

Up ahead I can see the Otter. We’re closing the gap, maybe only a hundred meters back now. But just as I realize that, I see the stem of the boat sink lower as the driver pours on more power. I think we’re still reeling them in, but the rate of closure’s dropped drastically. Frag it!

Yet maybe it’s not going to matter much. To my right, I can see a Yellowjacket breaking away from the dogfight and now skimming toward us low over the river. I turn my head slightly and yell back to Argent, “Is that our air support?”

I feel him shrug, then hear him mumble into his throat mike. If he can raise the small rotorcraft, we’ve got this whole thing chipped. The Otter’s got a machine gun, but that style of pintle mount doesn’t let you elevate the weapon enough for antiair actions. The Yellowjacket can fire a burst of chain-gun fire across the boat’s bows and order it to stop. We’ll catch up with the rotorcraft playing overwatch, and it’s game over.

If, that is, the Yellowjacket’s one of ours ...

The thought hits me with shocking suddenness, and my gut knots. Argent’s still muttering into his mike, but it doesn’t sound like he’s getting the response he wants. The small rotorcraft’s hurtling in closer, and it’s lined up with us, not with the Otter. I throw my weight to the right and drive the leading edge of the hull deep, honking the Watersport around in the tightest possible turn. Only sheer luck keeps us from catching a wave and going over. Equally sheer luck
keeps Argent from ripping my arms off as he grabs my shoulders again.

Just in time. The Yellowjacket’s chin-mounted chain gun sparkles, and the fire-stream chums the water where we were a second ago. The pilot tries to correct, slewing the micro-turret, but he’s coming in too fast on his strafing run to compensate. Then he’s over and past, already swinging up in an arcing bank.

I carve us around in another tight turn as the Yellowjacket sets up for another pass. The pilot seems to have learned his lesson. This time he’s cut his speed way back and is cruising in slowly instead of going for a high-speed pass. The rotorcraft looks dead level, a perfect solid weapons platform. I carve again, and his first long burst misses by ten meters.

Behind me I can hear and feel Argent wrestling with his assault cannon, trying to bring it to bear. Tough job; there’s just not enough space back there to move around much without going swimming, and my hard maneuvers aren’t helping. Another burst of chain-gun fire, this one only a couple of meters astern of us.

“Hold us fragging still!” Argent barks.

“Like frag I will!” I shout back. The Yellowjacket’s hovering now, the pilot tracking us entirely with the microturret. Another longer burst almost right on the money, and it’s sheer luck we’re not dead.

“We’re dead if you don’t,” the runner snarls at the back of my head.

“We’re dead if I do.”

But he’s right, of course, the Yellowjacket’s going to score eventually. So I grit my teeth and crack the throttle as wide as it’ll go, tearing off perpendicular to the chopper’s line of fire to give the pilot as tough a tracking problem as possible without any more wild maneuvers. The chain gun fires again, the bullets slashing into the water meters behind us. The pilot checks his fire, I see the micro-turret slew, and I know what’s coming next.

Sure enough, the water chums wildly ahead of us, as he tracks the stream of fire toward the racing Watersport. In a second or two we’re going to intersect, and that’s all she wrote. “Do it, Argent!”

The Panther cannon roars, the recoil almost enough to put us out of control. Perfect shot—the high-explosive round impacts dead center of the Yellowjacket’s canopy. It staggers in the air, then a secondary explosion blasts it into fragments and the greasy fire of burning fuel.

The relief’s enough to make me want to yarf, but I’ve got to stay frosty a little longer. While we’ve been playing games with the Yellowjacket, the S-C Otter’s been opening up the gap, boring forward at full speed. We’ve got to play catch-up, but I’m starting to think we’re not going to make it.

“Will this thing go faster with just you aboard?” Argent asks.

I nod.

“Then this is where I get off,” he says. “Catch ya later, Wolf.”

And then he’s gone, just dumping himself overboard. I wince at the thought of the impact he took. At the speed we’re going, water’s about as compressible as concrete. Good luck to you, priyatel, I tell him silently. Hope you don’t break any bones.

And I hope you can swim.

Free of the extra weight, the Watersport picks up like the engine’s turbocharged. The speedo bar creeps up to just below eighty klicks, and the impact as the little craft skips over small waves is almost enough to knock my teeth loose. The exhilaration’s back, but it’s coupled with real fear. A Watersport’s like a bike in some ways, but water isn’t like a nice smooth highway. Waves and boat-wakes are real dangers, and if you hit them just the right—or wrong—way, they can send you cartwheeling across the surface.

Those fears are starting to increase as I close with the Otter. The open boat’s kicking up a good wake, making waves high enough to throw the Watersport into the air at the speed I’m going. I’ve got to be real careful how I shift my weight as I come back down.

Now that I’ve cut the gap to less than fifty meters, it’s time to check out what my firmpoint-mount machine guns can do .. . and, more important, how using them will affect my handling. I squeeze both triggers, carving a slight turn to rake the stream of fire across the Otter’s stem. I can feel the Watersport shift and shimmy with the: recoil—disturbing, but not critical. Firing only one of the guns would probably be more risky, but as long as I balance the recoil I think I’ll be okay.

And that’s all fine and good, but I’m not the only one who’s got weapons. I see the muzzle flashes as the Otter’s medium machine gun opens up. This isn’t a chain gun with a grotesque rate of fire, so I can’t see the stream of fire, which makes the whole thing all the more frightening. If the Otter’s gunner gets a dead bead on me, the first indication I’ll have of it is when I start taking hits. I cut left, catching a good second and a half of air as I cross the wake, shifting my weight desperately to stop the Watersport’s tendency to corkscrew. Almost immediately I cut back right again, jumping the wake a second time. Then back to the left.

I'm like a water-skier cutting back and forth behind the boat, getting closer with each crossing. This is starting to feel suicidal, but it’s the only thing I can think of. The gunner aboard the Otter can traverse his weapon to track me— with limited success so far, thank Ghu. Not so with me. My firmpoint-mounted weapons are fixed, so if I want to hit something, first I’ve got to point the nose of the Watersport at whatever it is. Meaning, in turn, that I can put my imaginary sights on my target at only two points of my zigzagging, and those make for maximum-deflection shots anyway.

Meaning, still further, that my odds of scoring serious hits are next to squat, while the chances of the Otter’s gunner being able to blow me into scrap get better and better the closer I come. For about the millionth time in the last minute, I seriously consider simply giving up the whole mess as a bad fragging job. But then I remember what Eye One, the drone spotter, said: three corp execs. Would execs bail out without taking as much incriminating drek with them as they could? Not fragging likely, priyatel. Even if the combat deckers crack the lab’s system, there might not be anything left to find because all the dirt might be downloaded onto chips now aboard the Otter.