Microsoft Word - MaximumVelocity.rtf (3 page)

blast. Thinking quickly, Samantha pulled out one of her phase pistols and aimed it straight at the

nearest hover car. She pulled the trigger, and watched with a smile tugging at the corner of her

lips as the car went spiraling downwards.

“
Eleanor
, please call up random defensive and offensive firing sequence,” Johanna’s

voice called out, over the din of battle.

“My pleasure,”
Eleanor
answered. Samantha heard the familiar whine that
Eleanor
made

when she charged her weaponry. “Taste a little bit of my home cooking, you little chicken

shits!”

Samantha cringed, when the ladder rocked again. Wild wind whipped through her hair.

A bug splattered against her cheek. “Gross.” She swiped the back of her gloved hand across her

cheek.

“
Eleanor
, please keep your showing off to bare a minimum, that is until we get

Samantha’s arse up inside.”

“’Course, sorry I didn’t know what I was thinking.”

Samantha was just about to remind
Eleanor
that she was a machine not a real human,

when
Eleanor’s
AI appeared before her.

“Cripes,
Eleanor
, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Highly unlikely,”
Eleanor
contradicted. “I’m here to provide a distraction, you just get

your booty up inside into the passenger seat. Your odds of hanging on forever and avoiding

weapon fire are extremely thin. You need to get to safety.”

“You know, this is one of those crazy moments where we seem to be shit out of luck,”

Samantha muttered, staring wearily up at Johanna. Johanna scooted over and stared down over

the side of the car to reach out for Samantha. “Don’t worry about me, Johanna, just make sure

that you pay attention to what’s going on.
Eleanor's
shield’s won’t last forever.”

“Must I continually remind you that I am a
Faerie Cruiser
and that I’m perfectly capable

of multi-tasking?”

“You remind me of that bloody fact on every single one of our missions,” Samantha

grumbled. Hauling herself up the last few meters, she jumped up into the passenger seat as the

ladder sprung back up inside of
Eleanor
. “And you do a bang up job taking care of us.” Her

grudging admission seemed to delight
Eleanor
. “But despite all of your hard work, it’s frantic

times like this that I sort of wish we’d have stayed back on Earth. In comparison to this, Hawaii

was an absolute dream. It was a walk in the park. That month we spent there was sheer

heaven....”

“Walk in the park, my ass! You complained about being on vacation every single
day!
”

Johanna pointed out, rolling her eyes.

“Yes. I know. But I was with my family, and we did happen to come across that hefty

little bounty, while there.” She sighed.

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“
Happened
to come across is putting it mildly. You searched for trouble, and when you

found it, they nearly kicked us out of the hotel. I know we’ll never be able to show our faces

there again!”

“Oh, you’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad. You’re blowing things way out of

proportion.”

“Samantha, you chased Chuck Smith all of the way through the hotel, out into the pool

area, and right across their grounds. You interrupted a wedding, for heaven’s sake!”

“Oh, well that was nothing. All in a day’s work, and I did apologize to the bride for

getting her nerves up.”

Johanna snorted, and narrowed her eyes. “You were shooting as you went. The

monetary damage nearly took all of the money that Chuck Smith’s bounty was worth. Not to

mention the fact that you could have hurt someone!”

“I was only aiming at Chuck! And besides he was only armed with a stun weapon…no

innocents could have been killed. And having to pay for the damages was a small price to pay for

hauling in that loser. He had strangled two women, what was I supposed to do, let him get away

Scot free from me, so he could do it again?”

“Of course not,” Johanna replied.

“Thank you,” Samantha grumbled.

“Ah, I don’t want to interrupt your friendly little disagreement. But I think we’ve got

bigger fish to fry at the moment.” Veronica’s abnormally weak voice caused Samantha to raise

one eyebrow.

“You know that you’re royally screwed when Big V, there becomes the voice of reason.”

“Thank you, Samantha,” Veronica said.

“No prob. Any time.”

“We are outnumbered and out gunned. My distraction didn’t seem to be effective. What

shall I do now? I would advise against staying and making a stand, though since I am only an

artificial intelligence I shall listen to my betters.”

“What crawled up your artificial ass and died?” Samantha asked, wondering at
Eleanor's

huffy tone.

“I think it would be best if we made a fast getaway at our maximum velocity,” Johanna

advised. “But then that’s only my two cents worth.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s worth more than that, since I heartily agree at the moment. I may be

daring at the best of times. But even I can see that this isn’t the right time to go up against one of

the most powerful criminal organizations in the known universe. Unlike one woman in this car, I

do possess a brain, and it isn’t up my ass.”

“At the moment,” Johanna whispered beneath her breath. Samantha gave her a sizzling

stare and then sighed when Veronica spoke up.

“Samantha, you really shouldn’t talk that way about your sister,” Veronica interjected,

staring smugly at Samantha from the back seat.

“Alright. Enough of this bickering, I’m beginning to get an ass ache,” Johanna muttered.

“
Eleanor
, kindly revert operating controls to me. If you don’t mind I’d like to get us away from

this freak show as soon as possible.” Johanna stared over at Samantha and Samantha gave her a

silly grin.

“I thought it was agreed upon that I would do the driving,”
Eleanor
huffed.

“No. I never agreed to such an asinine idea. And, just so that you know, this little game

we’re playing is getting old. I’m the driver. You’re the computer. You only drive the car when

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I am busy or…”

“Put out for the count,”
Eleanor
provided, heaving a great sigh. “Fine. I’ll allow you to

do the driving, but I’m still doing the navigating.”

“As long as you let me steer you, then I don’t care what sort of navigation advice you

give me.”

“I don’t care who’s in control at the moment, but someone had better get ready to do

some fancy flying. Because those bad assed dudes mean business, and I don’t think we’re in a

position to fight them, much as I hate to admit it.” Samantha groaned, rolling her eyes when she

heard Veronica’s unusually soft-spoken voice.

“Has anyone been bright enough to get in touch with the
Excalibur?
”

“Do I look like the village idiot to you, Veronica?” Johanna snapped off. “Of course I

was smart enough to open a link between
Eleanor
and the
Excalibur.
Except there is one

problem, our link was being tapped and I had to cut it off.”

“Well, what still burns my butt, is that you thought it necessary to go after the Triad.

Didn’t I tell you that you’d be up to your ears in dangerous shit if you went after them? I swear

woman, you don’t listen to anyone but yourself. I mean we do have Royce Crowe down in the

brig, but
NO
you had to go and get a bigger bounty that would give you more sacks of money,

not to mention a whole world of personal glory.” Samantha spewed out a gust of air, and flung

her ponytail out of her face.

Veronica continued to remain unusually silent. Johanna stared up into the rearview

mirror, and began nervously chewing at her lip. They were speeding through the sky at their

highest speed, though by the looks of things, the Triad was still hot on their trail.

“Veronica?” Samantha asked. She missed the woman’s acerbic retort, and shivered, as

an uneasy feeling washed over her. “Johanna, there’s something really wrong with Big V.”

Veronica’s eyes were rolling up inside of her head.

“What?” Johanna asked, whipping her head around, and nearly giving herself a good case

of whiplash. “Oh,
crap!
Samantha, was Veronica drugged with something when you found

her?”

“Yeah, but I thought it was just some sort of sleeping drug. Come to think of it…she

looked a little green and her eyes were glassy.”

“It was something stronger than a sleeping pill. I’m sorry to say. Here, you’ll have to do

the driving while
Eleanor
keeps her attention fixed on firing the weapons.”

“I can do both,”
Eleanor
piped up. Johanna rolled her eyes at Samantha and then

motioned for them to switch places. In one amazing feat, Johanna and Samantha successfully

switched, and then Johanna moved into the backseat, dragging her black med bag behind her.

“Veronica?” Johanna asked, tilting Veronica’s head toward her.

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Her pupils are dangerously dilated. I don’t think she’s been injected with any type of

poison that is indigenous to Earth. But for the life of me, I don’t know what she’s been injected

with.”

“You know, the Triad did have a New San Francisco wildcat in the basement of the

warehouse. You don’t suppose that maybe they gave a New San Francisco poison to her, do

you?”

“You’ve probably hit the nail on the head. I’m going to give her the treatment for New

San Francisco’s deadliest poison and see if that will buy us some time until we can get back to

the
Excalibur.
” Johanna rummaged around for the necessary hypo spray and then injected

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Veronica. “Stay with me, Veronica!” Johanna pleaded, feeling for her pulse.

“Don’t worry, Johanna. Veronica’s way too ornery to buy the farm.”

“Samantha, just concentrate on the
driving!
” Johanna snapped. Samantha stared back

and let out a howl of surprise when she saw the Triad hover mobile that was gunning right

toward them.

“Hang on. I’m moving into evasive maneuvers. Are you with me,
Eleanor
?”

“
Always
,”
Eleanor
replied, shimmering into existence beside Samantha.

“I will never, never get used to your AI form. You look just like Veronica, and it gives

me the willies.”

“Try establishing a com link between us and the
Excalibur
again,” Johanna barked out.

Samantha chomped down on her lip, and winced at the following pain. Johanna was worried,

really
worried. Things didn’t look good for Veronica and the thought was making Samantha’s

heart race. She and Veronica may like to spar with each other when the mood struck, but she

didn’t know what she’d do if Veronica died. In fact it was such an abhorrent thought, that she

didn’t even want to contemplate it.

“Absolutely,”
Eleanor
said, making Samantha cringe.

“I really hate that word,” she said, briefly closing her eyes. “How’s Veronica doing?”

Samantha asked, just as
Eleanor
hooted.

“I’ve successfully taken down another one of those sneaky little bastards,”
Eleanor

explained. She lit up the interior of the car, so that Johanna could see what she was doing.

“Samantha, are you flooring the engines?”

“Look, Johanna, if I went any faster we’d rip
Eleanor
apart from the exertion. She’s

going at her maximum speed.”

“Fine. But I just don’t think that we have much time. I simply must get to the

Excalibur’s
med bay. I don’t have the necessary equipment here.”

“Well, if I could get in touch with the
ship
,
they just might be able to rendezvous with us.”

She chanced a glance into the back seat and felt her heart plummet. Johanna was

working furiously on Veronica but it didn’t seem as if she was making much headway. They

were damn lucky that Johanna was a medical doctor, yet her skills didn’t seem to be helping

Veronica at all.

Samantha was determined to get Veronica back to the
Excalibur
on time. No one was

going to die on her watch if she could help it. And no matter how much Veronica and she

disagreed, she certainly didn’t want to see Veronica bite the big one.

All of a sudden, the com link between the
Excalibur
and
Eleanor
crackled to life.

“Where are you ladies?” Tyler’s worried voice asked. Samantha wanted desperately to

see him before her, since for once in her life she didn’t know what to do.

“We’re on our way back to you guys,” Samantha said a little terser than she had intended.

“Is that weapon fire that I hear?”

“Yep.”

“Do you need our help?”

“Yep.” Samantha didn’t want to admit it, but having them arrive onboard the
Excalibur

would be a Godsend.

“Send me your coordinates, and we’ll be on our way.” Tyler was a very good pilot almost

as good as Johanna.

“
Eleanor
, you heard the man.”

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