MoonRush (40 page)

“There’s our ride.” He reared back with his helmet, getting ready to smash the control console beside the windowsill.

Buton grabbed his wrist before Jarod was able to execute his maneuver. “What are you doing?” the scientist demanded.

“What
does
it look like?”

“Inappropriately using a piece of safety equipment to destroy private property?”

“No, creating a distraction, so we can jack their ship.” For a smart guy, Buton was being pretty thick right now.

“
This
was your plan?” Buton pushed a button on the panel Jarod had almost smashed, changing the polarization of the glass. With the new filter, a force
field surrounding the craft was clearly visible. Okay. Maybe not so thick. Buton shook his head, disapproval plain on his face.

“Were you planning on kicking at it until it gave in?”

“Hey, you don’t have to be mean about it.”

“Follow me.”

This was not how their escape was supposed to go. Jarod was supposed to be the one to get their bacon out of the fire. He called out to Buton’s retreating back.

“Where are we going?”

“
I
have a plan.”

Jarod followed the scientist, shrugging his mental shoulders. Couldn’t be worse than Jarod’s idea had been, right?

But Buton was just
retracing
the exact same route that had gotten them here. That didn’t seem like such a bright concept. The bad guys were down there. Bad guys with guns. Jarod made it a personal policy to avoid bad guys with guns at all costs.

Jarod called out, “We’re just going back to the garage.”

“No, deeper. Much deeper
,
” Buton responded in typical cryptic fashion.

And deeper they went.
P
ast the hat
-
check girl. Beyond the multiple levels of the garage. And then…they were below it all. The walls were concrete. The floor was concrete. The ceiling was concrete. Clearly
,
no expense had been spared on the décor down here. Jarod started worrying about running into serial killers or clowns or something.

“How did you even know about this place?” Jarod paused for a minute,
and
then the light dawned. “Never mind.”

“It is a misdemeanor to trespass on this level without prior written authorization from the proprietors.” Buton managed to say all that without sticking his tongue through his cheek.

The hallway up ahead ended in a very large door with a thick glass window. The window read
“Control Room” in large block letters.

Jarod immediately started feeling claustrophobic. This could so easily turn into a horror film at the drop of a hat.

“You realize how easily we could get trapped down here?”

Buton just looked at him. “Have I ever been wrong?”

Jarod was getting tired of hearing that phrase. He watched Buton open the huge door, but rather than go through into the control room, Buton started tinkering with the panel beside the doorframe.

“Um, dude. It’s open.”

Buton rolled his eyes. “But we would like it to stay closed once we are inside. Would we not?”

Ah yes, Buton was a regular crack
-
up. Jarod made a note to start looking for another genius
type, if only to take
potshots
at Buton’s towering intellectual ego.

Who was Jarod kidding? The reason he put up with comments like that was because Buton was that good and then some.

Jarod heard boots on the stairs. He turned to see the soldiers
mere
yards away from the door. He darted into the room as Buton finished entering the codes on the panel. Buton squeezed through the closing door just as it slammed shut.

From the far side of the door, Jarod saw the scientist…Weigner?...staring at Buton, a look of disdain on his face. Although…taking another look, that might just be the man’s typical face.

The soldiers lifted their weapons and Jarod dropped to the floor, hitting his funny bone. All the nerves in his arm fired at once, his arm jangling. The men fired at the glass, but the window held, slight spider webs stretching out from each bullet lodged in the window. Buton hadn’t moved a muscle. As far as Jarod could tell, the scientist hadn’t even blinked. Jarod faced off with Buton.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”

Dr. Weigner was furiously typing away at the panel outside the door. He glanced up at Buton and spoke through the glass, his voice muffled.

“You think to challenge me, Desei?”

Buton fired back. “And you thought a non-repeating
,
biphasic interpolator would keep me from accessing the hovercraft’s computer core?”

“And you cognate that this soft-wired pi-based stinger lock would impede my progress?”

Jarod groaned. “Oh, man.”

“What?” Buton looked up from his hacking.

“It’s a geek-off.”

Buton sniffed and turned back to Weigner. “This quasi-porous
,
hyper-attuned motherboard is putty in my hands.”

The older scientist responded with his own repartee. “Kindergartners will be cracking this code once I get through with it.”

Jarod began beating his forehead against the metal door. It didn’t help any.

“This is more painful than jail.” He paused in his head
-
pounding and glared at Buton. “And I didn’t understand a thing either of you said.” The words were meant as an accusation, but Buton simply began explaining. Maybe he couldn’t help himself.

“I’m using the café’s microwave transmitters to penetrate the hovercraft’s polarized plating in order to interface with
—
”

Jarod held up a weary hand. “Translate into
not-the-
smartest-man-in-the-world language.”

Buton showed Jarod the screen he was working on. It depicted the hovercraft, still parked above
—
where they had seen it last. Buton spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he were talking to a kindergartner.

“I’m taking control of their ship through this computer.”

“Okay. That’s working for me, except…” Jarod looked around the room. There was no exit. “Um, even if you somehow hack…” Buton stopped what he was doing and glared at Jarod, who decided to backpedal. Fast. “
When
you hack into the hovercraft’s mainframe. How are we going to get past them?” Jarod pointed at the muscular goons on the other side of the window.

In answer, Buton pushed a button and the wall slid to the side, revealing a door. Jarod just gaped for a moment.

“Let me guess. It’s a felony to trespass through the tunnel that leads to the landing pad?”

“You are catching on.” At least Buton had the grace to keep his face neutral.

Jarod didn’t know whether he should kiss the guy or slug him. Maybe that idea of looking for another genius wasn’t such a bad one after all. Too bad he was family.

* * *

Cleo knew certain things about herself.
For instance, s
he was not a patient woman. Okay. Difficult to deal with at times? Check. Able to handle difficult circumstances where she had little
or
no control? Not so much. And right now, there was nothing that Cleo could do. She was
not
happy about it. In fact, she pretty much wanted to crawl out of her skin.

Rob’s legs wouldn’t hold out forever. To be more accurate, they were all but stopped at this point. Rob was still working hard, but with less and less to show for it. The military hovercraft was catching up to them
—
fast. Cleo didn’t even want to look back to see where they were now.

Not for the first time, Cleo wished they had never come to the
M
oon. Everything had gone from bad to worse from the moment Jarod had brought up the idea. Then there was another part of her, small but insistent, that was whispering that she should never have joined the Rogues at all. It hissed,
that was where your
life
went from bad to worse.
She didn’t love that inner voice, but she was listening to it way too much right now.

Then she looked back at Rob, his young face twisted with the effort he was putting forth to save their collective butts. Even the nasty inner voice fell silent at that. Yeah, they fought like cats and dogs, but for better or for worse, these people were her family. Family might get you into trouble at times, but you never gave up on them. Especially not when they needed you the most.

According to Mia, they just had to get over the next ridge
,
and they would be at her ship. But getting to the top of the ridge
—
just a few hundred meters away
—
was starting to feel like it might as well be on the other side of the
M
oon.

And now, to make matters worse, an enormous group of squatters
was
making their way over to the
Jeep
. Cleo had no idea what they wanted, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. The closer they got, the shabbier they looked
,
and the more insane the light in their eyes appeared. These guys had gone space
-
crazy, and right now the focus of their insanity seemed to have become their little vehicle.

The closest one jogged alongside their
Jeep
, reaching out a trembling hand to those inside. “Did you find it?” His voice was filled with a strange awe.

“What?” Mia responded.

“The mother lode! Our salvation!”

Cleo had no idea how anyone had heard about their haul, but this was starting to scare her. Maybe this was just a weird cult or obsession that had nothing at all to do with them
.
T
hat would be strange enough on its own, but they actually
did
have the mother lode in their backseat. One slip of the tarp
,
and they would be overwhelmed by fanatics.

In taking a survey of the surrounding squatters, Cleo noticed something. Not only had the Rogues’ progress been slowed, but the hovercraft behind them couldn’t make any forward movement
,
either. She tapped Mia on the shoulder and pointed it out. Mia nodded as she spoke.

“Great. That gives us a second to breathe, at least.”