SECTOR 64: Ambush (29 page)

Sandy leaned across the cab and cranked the truck's right window halfway down. "Hello, is anybody there?"

For a moment, there was no response. Then, she heard a commotion inside the bank. It was hard to tell over the combined noise of the truck and Camaro engines, but it sounded like someone was arguing. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she slid across the bench seat. Sandy reached for the door handle, but before she could open it, a sallow face peeked out from inside the bank. The hollow-cheeked man was sporting a three-day beard partially obscured by the long greasy hair dangling in his face. A look of anger and hate banished the nervous curiosity. Apparently, seeing the roof mounted lights and the airport logo on the door, the man mistook the truck for a police vehicle. "It's the fucking pigs," he yelled.

From nowhere, he produced a huge shotgun. Before Sandy realized what was happening, the truck's right mirror and half-open window exploded in a cloud of flying glass and metal. Sandy screamed. Sliding back in her seat and ducking, she floored the accelerator, the truck lurched and died. Cursing, she put the transmission in park and fumbled with the keys. Two excruciating seconds later, the engine fired up.

Glass shards rained down into her hair as another shotgun blast took out the rearview mirror and driver's side window. Sandy couldn't believe this white-trash asshole was trying to kill her. "I'm not a fucking cop, jackass!"

The click-clack sound of the idiot pumping another round into the shotgun's chamber rewarded her communication efforts. Not willing to wait for improved discourse, she dropped the transmission into drive and hammered the truck forward, tires squealing as it raced away.

Sandy hazarded a peek over the truck's steering wheel just in time to avoid plowing into one of the trees lining the parking lot. Yanking the wheel to the right, she guided the pickup across the landscaping and onto the intersecting Laurel's Grade Highway. She knew the road well as it had been the route her parents used to cross from Carmel Valley to Salinas Valley on their regular trips to and from Monterrey.

Panting through gritted teeth, Sandy stared ahead. Periodically, she cast nervous sideways glances into the left mirror that had miraculously escaped destruction. The truck lumbered its way back up to the agonizingly slow sixty miles per hour governed limit. The rising winding road cut back and forth several times. Finally, it straightened for a mile. Reaching the far end, she allowed herself to relax as the red Camaro failed to manifest. Sandy hoped the road was well enough off the beaten path to dissuade the looters from veering too far away from the chain of goldmines that the Salinas Highway represented.

Slowly prying her white knuckled fingers away from the steering wheel, she flexed the blood back into them. Sandy willed her respiration rate down, fighting to rein in her emotions. Now anger had rejoined the party. Except this time, the catalyst was terrestrial in origin. She was amazed that the situation had degraded to looting so quickly.

The realization brought in a whole new concern. With her parents at the periphery of the weapon's effective range, she now realized they were also at the advancing forefront of human society's darker side.

Sandra pressed the accelerator harder. Stubbornly, the pickup refused to break sixty.

Five minutes later, she crested the ridge and passed into Carmel Valley. Like undulating corrugated ribs, parallel lines of grape vines rose and fell as the unending panorama of the valley's ubiquitous vineyards unfolded.

Frustratingly, driving downhill afforded no additional speed. The old white and blue pickup rattled down the winding country road at a steady sixty miles per hour. On both sides, purple accented, lush green vinery slid past at a glacial pace.

The scenery brought mixed feelings. As memories of her parents competed with worry for their safety, nostalgia and dread sat side by side in her heart. Cool, dry air whipped an unrestrained strand of blonde hair across Sandy's eyes. Annoyed, she tucked the wayward lock behind her left ear, then pounded the truck's steering wheel. "Come on, you piece of shit. Move!"

Ahead, where organized lines of vines gave way to open cow pasture, the road made a sharp turn. The rural highway swept left, but fresh wheel tracks continued straight, leading to a new hole in the pasture's barbed-wire fence. Beyond the breach, the rear bumper and spare tire cover of a black H2 Hummer protruded from a ditch.

Slowing for the curve, Sandy studied the scene. The rocky soil showed little sign of the vehicle's passage. A couple of scrub bushes had fresh damage. Dragged from their original upright positions, several fence posts on either side of the break in the barbed-wire leaned away from the road.

As the pickup rounded the corner, the scene moved into the truck's right window. Taut as a guitar string, a single strand of wire stretched from the last upright post on the left side. Running through a broken post laying on the ground, the wire appeared to be tangled in the Hummer's undercarriage.

Something moved in Sandy's peripheral vision. Snapping her head left, she slammed on the brakes. "Shit!"

A black and white cow stood in the middle of the road. The truck slowed to thirty miles per hour, but it was still too fast. The surging antilock brakes wouldn't stop the pickup in time.

Sandy yanked the wheel right. With the road still curving left, the truck shot off the paved surface. She missed the beast, but the left mirror ran out of luck. Striking the bovine's left hip, it shattered and fell off the pickup.

Crossing the gravel on the road's right shoulder, Sandy spun the steering wheel left.

It didn't respond.

Blasting through the barbed-wire fence, the truck created another exit for any additional cows remaining within the field's confines.

As if hitting a surface covered with ball bearings, the old pickup seemed to accelerate as the pasture's gravelly hardpan afforded the tires no purchase. To Sandy's horror, the Hummer-eating ditch passed under the sliding truck's front right fender. Then, the vehicle's slow left spin threw the right rear tire into what Sandy now realized was a small washout.

The truck fell sideways into the gully, striking the wash's dusty floor with a bone-jarring impact. The collision threw Sandy across the cab, slamming her into the right door as the truck finally stopped on its right side, wedged between the narrow walls of the arroyo.

The impact knocked the wind out of her. After a few hard-fought ragged breaths, she lifted her head from the dirt floor filling the blown-out right window. "Holy shit!" she growled through clenched teeth. Doing a personal inventory, she tentatively flexed her arms and legs. Finding no new injuries, Sandy gave silent thanks that it hadn't been the same side she'd injured when the last minute parachute maneuver had slammed her into Monterey Airport's Runway Two-Eight Left.

From her crumpled position on the inside of the truck's right door, Sandy reached up and switched off the truck's ignition. The sputtering engine finally fell silent.

From the bottom of the sideways cab, the truck's interior felt like a skinny phone booth. Overhead, the left window looked impossibly distant. With her uninjured leg, Sandy kicked at the shattered windshield. On the third try, the whole thing popped out as a flexing mass. Another string of profanities followed as she scrambled through the opening. Glass crunched underfoot as she stepped onto the crumpled windshield.

As Sandy inspected herself for cuts, a new shadow crept across the gully. Throwing her back against the dirt bank, Sandy snatched the nine-millimeter pistol from its shoulder holster and pointed it at the shadow owner's head.

Apparently uninjured, the offending cow stared at her over the edge of the gully. Silhouetted against the deep azure sky, its backlit black and white ears twitched. Regarding her, the cow batted its ludicrously long eyelashes. Somehow, Sandy resisted the urge to put a bullet between those eyes.

"Stupid cow!"

The animal blinked again and licked its snout. After snorting its disapproval of her appraisal, the cow turned and sauntered out of view.

She pushed off the wall, returning to her feet. Holstering the Baretta, she scanned the wash for a way out. Here, the sides were completely vertical and ten feet tall. Looking past the pickup, she spotted the other vehicle fifty yards farther up the gully. There, the sides didn't look as steep.

Squeezing through the narrow gap between the truck's roof and the wash's west wall, Sandy walked up the small ravine toward the H2 Hummer.

"All attack squadrons are to launch the instant we drop out of parallel-space!" ordered Admiral Thoyd Feyhdyak, commander of the Galactic Defense Forces Third Carrier Group.

His massive command ship, the
Galactic Guardian
, headed the task force. Similarly named, and second only to the
Helm Warden
in mass, it shared the same grand design, history, and military capability. He was confident of a quick victory against the Zoxyth.
I just hope we're not too late.

Thoyd watched the countdown in his EON's synthetic vision.

One of his staff read it out loud. "Three, two—"

A second early, the entire fleet snapped out of parallel-space. Unceremoniously, the Guardian and its formation of ships slammed into regular space. The forward star-field orb exploded to encircle the ship. Thoyd expected Earth's sphere to swell from a pinpoint and fill the view-wall. However, it barely expanded enough to differentiate from the background of stars.

As if a falling axe had cleaved half his mind, Thoyd's EON lost connection with his omninet-based self. Judging by the reactions of his bridge crew, they had all experienced the same disconnect sensation. The schism of being cutoff from his network based id left him feeling vulnerable and oddly alone.

An epiphany rocked Thoyd. "Hold all fighters." Dropping out of parallel-space a second early meant tens of light-seconds separated them from their planned deployment point. Even with the gravity drive's impressive speed, traveling that far was going to take some time.
So much for the element of surprise.

Already knowing the answer, Thoyd turned to the officer manning the tactical console. "What happened?"

"A quantum disturbance is jamming our wormhole generator."

Thoyd nodded. "Someone's dropped a disruptor field around the planet." It made sense. The ability to enter and stay in parallel-space required the capacity to open and maintain a stable wormhole. Any technology capable of collapsing that powerful quantum field would easily collapse their zero-width communication wormholes, as well. The thought opened up a hopeful possibility. To slow the Zoxyth approach, Admiral Tekamah may have dropped a disruptor in Earth space.

"Are you detecting any GDF transponder codes in system?"

Looking for other Galactic Defense Force ships, the tactical officer ran another sweep. After a few seconds, he looked at the admiral and shook his head.

"Then, where the hell is it coming from?"

The officer bent over his console, his fingers dancing above its surface. "The effect is centered on…" Pausing, he cast a confused look at the admiral. "Earth. It's coming from a body of water along one of the planet's continents."

Turning his attention back to his display, the officer froze, a look of horror banishing his confusion. "Sir! I'm also detecting a faint Zoxyth drive signature at that same location."

Frustrated, desperately wanting to report the development to Admiral Tekamah, Thoyd turned his inner eye to the inactive omninet link. "How in the hell did Zox get disruptor technology?"

Wide-eyed, the officer looked up from his terminal. "It's not the only Zox ship, sir. I'm detecting fifteen additional ships spread around the planet."

An unending high-pitched squeal rang in his ears. After an eternity, his eyes fluttered and opened. Flashing amber and red beams swirled through the dark misty atmosphere. He shook his head, and the ringing subsided, a cacophony of horns rising to supplant it.

Salyth's arm groped in the strobing darkness. Finding the helm, he fought to gain his footing on the slanted floor. Excess moisture was everywhere. With a mighty effort, he hoisted his large frame upright. Struggling to maintain the hard fought gains, Salyth grasped the sides of the wet console like a drowning drycat lizard. He activated the emergency lights. Very weak, they didn't provide much illumination, but he could see his blood splattered across the console. The tilt of the floor told him the ship was pitched forward on its bow and badly listed to port. Inertial compensators were offline.

Shaking his head, he tried to clear the swamp-fog from his thoughts. "These Argonians will pay dearly for this!" Salyth swore, the words triggering another bout of coughs.

As he actuated the controls to reboot the bridge's computers, one of his officers stirred. "To your feet," Salyth growled, a gurgle rattling deep within his chest. Another wet cough spewed more of his blood across the control panel.

Computers restored, the bridge's artificial gravity re-exerted itself, and the inertial compensators came back online. After a wave of vertigo, Salyth felt the floor level. Although, sensors showed the ship was still pitched forward and leaning left.

"I need to know what I have left," Salyth said weakly, this time fending off the cough.

"Yes, Commodore Salyth," the officer said. Struggling to his feet, the junior commander coughed up blood, as well.

While the officer evaluated his computer console, Salyth inspected the bridge. Now that the computers were coming back online, normal lighting filled the cavernous room. The rest of the crew members were dead. Broken bodies and severed limbs littered the bridge. Most of the control stations were black.

"Commodore Salyth, all passages leading from the bridge section have sealed. All communication links are gone. With the built-in redundancies, the only way we could lose all contact is if all other sections were destroyed," the bridge officer reported in a low guttural voice. "We must be the only viable portion of the ship."