Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence (9 page)

Vic grabbed the crumpled lieutenant under his arm and said, "Get up and walk, you baby." He dragged
Hill behind him toward the bike, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you just walked down there and took that. What are you, some kind of covert operative?"

"
Getting there," Frank grinned. His face was puffy with exertion but he was beaming from ear to ear as he moved out of the way for Vic to hoist Lieutenant Hill into the rear seat.

They all looked up as a
hoverbike engine roared to life around the corner. The roar filled the street, and Frank and Vic crawled over one another to get to their bike's throttle and take off. Vic only managed to get his leg over the back seat and grab hold of Frank's shoulders, just as a mounted biker came peeling out of the alleyway.

The
modder spun out in the street, searching frantically up and down for the stolen bike without realizing it was parked only a foot from the corner. Vic jammed his gun in the modder's face and cocked the hammer back.

All of them
knew that Vic's gunshot would bring the entire horde charging out of the club, but the modder also knew that same shot would leave his brains splattered all over the sidewalk. The modder didn't move and didn't make a sound.

"Let me guess," Vic said, looking down at the
modder's shaking hands. His bike was smaller and older than the other ones. Just a kid, really. He hadn't even had his scarlet eyes installed. "You're new to the gang, right?"

The
modder didn't say anything, but his eyes were wide enough to tell the story.

"
You were supposed to be watching the bikes, weren't you," Vic said.

The
modder nodded quietly.

Vic centered his pistol on the
modder's forehead and said, "Let me ask you a question, son. You want to die for this motorcycle or do you want to live to fight another day?"

The
modder turned and looked at the club's front door, sensing his fellow gang members lurking just behind it. "They'll kill me if I let you go without a fight," he whispered nervously.

"
You think I won't, sunshine?" Vic said. "So which is it? Die now or live to fight another day?"

"L-live," the
modder said.

Vic pointed at the gun
holstered on the modder's side and said, "Toss that on the ground."

The
modder took a deep breath before he reached down and undid his pistol, letting it fall onto the street below. He looked ready to cry.

"Get ready to go," Vic muttered over his shoulder.
He waited for Frank to crank the engine before he lowered his weapon and said, "Remember this. Apply pressure."

"To what?" the
modder said in confusion.

Vic fired, blowing a hole in
to the modder's left thigh with a loud bang that sent blood and bone fragments spraying into the air. Their bike took off immediately, leaving the injured modder behind, grabbing his leg and screaming in terror. The club's front door burst open and dozens of angry modders came racing out, ready to shoot. They all turned to see one of their club bikes vanishing down the street, with the triumphant face of Vic Cojo standing on the back of it, giving them the finger.

They ran for their own bikes, moving inhumanly fast on legs that cranked like steam pistons. Within seconds
they had their engines gunned and were taking off in a blur down the alleyway, turning hard to catch up to the fleshbags, eager for the taste of human flesh. 

The female
stopped at the entrance, scowling at the injured newbie with murderous contempt. Her claws were extended toward his throat, ready to tear it out, when she spied the bleeding bullet hole in his leg and paused. "You let them get away?" she snarled.

"T-They ambushed me as soon as I came out of the alley," he said.

"You idiot," she said. Her face twisted in disgust and she said, "Well? Are you going to pick up your gun and go find the fleshbag who did this or just sit there and bleed?"

Bob Buehl had one foot on the headrest of the pilot's seat and one on the dashboard, rocking out to the sick guitar solo pumping through every speaker inside the ship. The solo hit its highest chord and Buehl leapt into the air and kicked, landing on his knees with his fingers dancing across an imaginary fret board. He could see the legions of lusty young women screaming for his body and it was just what he needed to get pumped. In the middle of the song, he heard a strange, high-pitched, pinging noise break into the solo, and looked up. It was gone as soon as it came, and he shrugged it off as a glitch in the audio system.

Buehl dropped to the floor and
cranked out twenty pushups as fast as he could. He watched the sweat drip off the tip of his nose onto the rubberized mats in the cockpit and it made him work even harder. He finished the set by thrusting his arms out straight and bridging himself over the floor, holding the position even when his arms started to shake. The song ended with another loud ping and Buehl realized what it was. An incoming call.

He g
roaned in frustration as he got up and grabbed a towel from his seat to swipe over his face. The comm sounded again before he had a chance to answer and Buehl poked his finger on the screen and said, "What!"

The voice on the other end was
complete static, interrupted by a few hardly-audible words that sounded like, "
…Coming in hot!
"

"
Say again?" Buehl said, leaning closer to the speaker to hear. "Repeat that. I say again, repeat."

More static, and then, "
bzzzt
…
Open!
"

"Open what?" Buehl s
aid.

Gunfire burst across the hull window where he was standing, pelting the glass with loud, heavy
plinks that made Buehl drop to the floor instantly. He got up slowly, looking at the scored window glass in wonder, just as the voice on the com said,
"Get the hatch open, you idiot! We're coming in hot!"

Buehl let out a
mute gasp as he saw the first hoverbike racing toward the ship, with Frank Kelly bent over the front handlebars and Vic Cojo leaning over him, shouting into the bike's comm microphone,
"I repeat, we are coming in hot, now get the hatch open or we're all dead!"

The sky filled with
hoverbikes flying behind Cojo and the others, racing toward them, trying to catch up. Buehl's eyes widened at the sight of the weaponry the modders were carrying, and his fingers flew over the console, activating the ship's systems and ordering the lower hatch to open. Another barrage of gunfire struck the side of the ship, much louder and longer this time. Buehl realized the crazy bastards weren't just trying to kill Frank and Vic anymore. "They're shooting my ship," he muttered.

Another barrage struck the window
directly where Buehl was standing, a series of rifle blasts that would have caved his face in except for the ship's heavy shielding. He hammered his fists against the windows in outrage and shouted, "Stop shooting my damn ship!"

Outside
on the landing deck, flying past dozens of other parked ships in a blur, and Frank whipped his head around to see how close the hoverbikes were. As he looked, one raised a rifle and splattered the side of their bike with gunfire, nearly sending them crashing into a power pylon.

"Just drive!" Vic shouted, shoving
the side of Frank's face back to look at the ship.

"They
're trying to kill us!" Frank cried out.

"
I know that! Shut up and drive!" Vic shouted.

The
modder steadied himself to fire again and Vic bent down, just about to pull the trigger when Frank panicked again and started to swerve side-to-side. The modder fired first, punching holes in the bike's rear chariot seat just above the crumpled form of Lieutenant Hill, who squealed in terror. Vic grabbed Frank by the back of his neck and said, "I've only got two rounds left in this gun, and so help me, I will use one of them on you if you do something stupid like that again."

"We're almost there!" Frank said, eyeing the open emergency hatch in the side of the ship.

"Are you listening to me?" Vic shouted.

"No, I'm not listening to you, you maniac! I'm trying to get us into the ship!" Frank gunned the engine
and they rocketed forward, not slowing down.

"Frank?" Vic said
, nervously eyeing the rapidly approaching hull of the ship.

"Shut up, I'm trying to concentrate," Frank muttered, keeping the throttle cranked all the way back.

"Listen, I'm sorry. Slow down before you kill us!"

Gu
nfire ricocheted off the back of the bike, sending sparks and hissing bullets flying past their heads. Above the groan of the ship's engines and the gunfire and their own arguing, all they could hear was Hill sobbing in the back seat that they were going to die.

"Hold on!" Frank called out
as the bike zoomed through the hatch's opening and he yanked the handlebars down, sending the bike into a skid and them headfirst toward the wall, the bikes metal scraping and sparking and the thrusters firing out of the open door.

Frank kept the throttle down, sending long jets of flame
scoring out of the hoverbike to keep the bikers from flying in after them, only releasing the lever when the hatch's metal door began to close. 

Once
it was sealed, Vic wiggled out from under the bike and bent to lift it, just enough for Frank to squirm out. Hill had been thrown from the chariot seat and was slumped against the compartment's wall, staring at both of them wide-eyed, but neither of them paid him any mid.

Outside of the ship, the modders were circling around, gunning their engines. Frank flinched when several gunshots struck the side of the ship
and he looked nervously at Vic and said, "Can they shoot through our shielding?"

"I doubt it," Vic said. "The Samsara isn't built for galactic warfare but
unless we're stupid enough to stand here and let them blast us, we can take off."

Frank started behind him, following him toward the cockpit. "The what?" he said.

"The Samsara," Vic said. "The name of the ship you've been flying around is the Samsara. Nobody told you that?"

"
Maybe because it's a stupid name," Frank said. "What kind of an idiot name's a ship that?"

Vic looked back
firmly at Frank and said, "The kind that just saved your hide."

Frank stopped to look out one of the observation windows and saw there were more and more
hoverbikes joining the fray and said, "You're sure they can't get through our shielding?"

"Not with those guns," Vic said over his shoulder.

The bikes armed large cannons on their sides and front lined up alongside one another and their barrels started spinning, gathering speed until they whined. From the rear of the formation, the crunching sound of tracked tires rolled across the landing deck, its engine louder than all the bikes combined. Its heavy armor plating had only narrow slits to see through and the driver knocked down the wall of a building trying to turn the tank around to face them. There were parked cars in the way but the tank just rolled over them and crushed them to the ground, all while maneuvering its massive gun turret to get it centered on the Samsara.

"What if they have a tank?" Frank called out.

"Don't be stupid, why would they have a…" Vic turned and looked out the window and he bent forward, craning his neck to get a better view. He took off running down the corridor, shouting, "Bob! Get us out of here! They're going to blow up the damn ship!"

They found
Sgt. Bob Buehl standing over the weapons console with his arms folded, glaring through the window at the hoverbikes outside. The weapons console was filled with red error icons.

"
We have to go!" Vic shouted.

Buehl stared straight forward and said,
"No."

"No? What
the hell do you mean no?"

"I mean, no," Buehl said. "They shot my ship. Nobody shoots my ship.
Nobody."

"Warning: Shields integrity at fifty percent,"
a computerized voice said from the console.

"
Then release the weapons systems," Buehl ordered the console.

"
Request is invalid,"
the computer replied.
"Firing on individual land-based targets is prohibited."

"Unless we're facing an emergency situation," Buehl said. "Shields are failing."

"They're failing because you're just sitting here letting them shoot us!" Frank shouted. "Get us the hell into the air!"

Buehl turned and looked at Frank with gritted teeth and said, "Nobody shoots my ship
and gets away with it, you scrawny little sludgesucker lover. You understand me?"

One of the gun-mounted
hoverbikes erupted, punching holes in the shield of the lower deck and scoring the ship's siding.
"Warning! Warning! Deck 4 has been breached by hostile fire,"
the ship announced.