The Yeoman: Crying Albion Series - Book 1 (21 page)

Chapter
19

The
Chase

The
Ford Puma now raced north to the Yeomanry border. It was not far, only thirty
minutes or so to the Albion bastions near the River Trent. Their enemies were
numerous though and now knew their position and direction of travel.

“Arrgh
it hurts!” Riley said as her arm flared with a throbbing pain.

“It’ll
hurt a whole lot more if we’re captured. Get ready!”

Behind
them, the vengeful Interceptor appeared and was gaining on them. Its siren and
blue lights made easy work of clearing the way ahead of it. No matter how
Gearson weaved and wended through the traffic the enemy was gaining on them.

First
they were two hundred yards away.

Then
a hundred and fifty.

A
hundred.

“Listen,”
Gearson cautioned. “You have to kill or halt that driver or we’ll be run off
the road. Can you fight through the pain?”

Riley
nodded.

“Take
my Fallien,” he said reaching into his jacket and removing the revolver. “It’s
loaded with stun ammunition. It’ll fracture their windscreen at the very least.”

Riley
took the sidearm and began to lower her window. The incredible buffeting of the
wind was deafening.

“When
I swerve, It’ll give you the chance to shoot the drivers-side,” Gearson
shouted. He angled to the left-hand lane. “Ready?” he questioned.

She
thumbed the heavy hammer back, cocking it. “Do it!”

Gearson
swerved the Puma across from left, to
center
and then to the fast-lane on the right. Riley
forgot about the pain and aimed the revolver one-handed. Normally a person
would grip the car interior to steady themselves with their other arm. Her
left-arm hung limp with pain though. Gearson’s muscular arm gripped her tightly
as she took aim one-handed. She shot the weapon and narrowly missed with her
first shot, sending an exotic bullet deep into a nearby forest. The second was
almost true, it struck the top corner of the driver’s windshield. The impact
sent radial cracks outwards several inches. It wasn’t enough to obscure the
vision, but it was a distraction. The driver of the Interceptor applied the
brakes and began to withdraw to a safe distance.

Templeton
hit the dash with her hand. “What are you doing? Ram the bitch off the road!”

“I
can’t if I’m shot dead,” Nichols said angrily. The wind noise and buffeting
made communicating difficult.

“This
is bulletproof glass,” she tapped at the glass, “stop being a coward.”

“No
it’s bullet resistant and I don’t want to antagonize them.”

“Get
us closer!” she said un-holstering her own sidearm.

Templeton
leaned out and returned fire with her Glock a couple of times but, like her
former friend, she could not aim easily one-handed either. The various wounds were
a relentless distraction and the distance too great for any accuracy. Both
shots missed their mark and the Puma pulled ahead further.

“Get
me closer, I order you!” she howled, contemplating pistol-whipping the
recalcitrant Nichols.

“Hold
on the radio’s saying something!” Nichols countered. He turned it up and
listened. Through the code and neutered language of police radio vocabulary the
news was favourable. Nichols listened and understood what was now being
ordered.

“Did
you hear me?” the SOTF agent said barely keeping her temper in check.

“Yes,
but there’s no need now, local enforcers have closed off the motorway and
A-roads leading to Albion. They’ve no way to flee now, we’ve got them trapped.
You did it! We’ve won Rebecca!”

The
femme fatale woman, had not noticed the broadcast fully. She looked
calculatingly at him and their distant quarry before backing down.

“I’ll
take your word for it, but they aren’t in our hands yet!”

“They’re
backing off!” Riley said optimistically, craning her neck at the shrinking
opponent. “I shot out the driver’s window. That’ll have given them the
message.”

“We’ve
one last problem though.”

“What’s
that?”

“Enforcer
units will be making roadblocks and customs checkpoints just prior to Albion
territory.”

“Oh
shit, I forgot.”

“Given
that we’ve been spotted you can bet they’ll be getting them manned and ready.”

“What
are we going to do?”

“Get
my case from the back seat, the biggest and heaviest one!”

Riley
did so, it was a challenge and difficult with only one arm to move it with but
she managed it.

“Alright,
get that case opened and do EXACTLY as I tell you.”

She
released the catches and flipped the lid. Inside was a bulky laptop with thick
cables that coiled and disappeared below it.

“Remove
the laptop.”

She
did so and beneath it, cushioned by the foam interior was a large device that
took up almost all the case. It was dark gray, had four arms that ran to a
central hub and there the thick cables from the laptop fused seamlessly inside
it. A solitary cable from the hub-unit terminated inside a moulded computer
joystick with a red-trigger. Gearson took a quick look behind him and to the
laptop before nodding. Everything was in place, the equipment Navigator had
done his job well.

“Turn
the laptop on, tell me when you get to the menu screen,” Gearson spoke the last
few words with a tense tone. He began to ease off the accelerator.

Two
miles ahead of them a roadblock appeared with three police cars. Their distant
flashing lights were like a trap beckoning them onward.

Riley
opened up the green, rugged laptop. It was a strange thing with a small screen
but large keys. The lettering was in English, as was the archaic interface menu,
allowing her to navigate the system.

“Menu
screen has come on, what do I do?”

“Select
Vehicle Type, hit enter, then select sub-compact.”

“Done!”

“Next
cursor down to Weight. Hit enter, scroll down to under three thousand pounds.”

The
wounded woman did as ordered but saw a message flash up

“It’s
asking for calibration, Yes or No?”

“No.”

“Ok.”

“Finally
scroll down to the stabilisation option. Hit enter.”

“It’s
asking for calibration again!”

“You
need to take the big four-armed hub unit and mount it widthways in the
passenger’s footwell. Get it central!”

Riley
struggled to lift the awkward object one-handed. Gearson helped her as best he
could while he drove. In the rear-view mirror the ominous sight of the interceptor
made him anxious though.

“You
have to hurry! That friend of yours is closing the gap again.”

“Alright
it’s in place!”

“Now
hit enter when it asks, ‘Yes for calibration?’”

“Done.”

Almost
immediately a sound unlike any other filled the vehicle. The tone of the noise
outside was mingled with a harmonic whine.

“Now
take the joystick from the case!” Gearson shouted.

“Kallan
what is this thing?”

“No
time! Just do as I say! You need to select on the menu where it says, ‘Offset Displacement.’”

The
roadblock was less than a mile away now. Invitingly it was partially clear. The
hard-shoulder and fast-lane were blocked but two lanes allowed traffic through.
Gearson knew their tactics though, they’d allow them through but spike the
wheels with a stinger. With the motorway barrier and police cars on both sides
there’d be no way around it.

“Forward
Engine and two passengers?” Riley suggested.

“Select
it!”

The
noise from the hub now became more subdued and yet it hummed in an oscillating
manner.

“That’s
it! It’s equalizing! Now take the joystick and give the trigger a light touch,
no more than a split-second!”

Riley
squeezed it as ordered and immediately the hub whinned musically, as it did so
the entire vehicle’s chassis raised itself evenly. As she released the trigger
the hub quietened and the vehicle settled back down as it was.

“What
did it just do?” Riley asked.

“It
channelled our forward momentum into ground-effect.”

“What?”
she asked, barely comprehending his words.

“You’ll
soon see, just do what I say, when I say!”

Ahead
of the Puma the police checkpoint seemed abandoned but four enforcers lurked off
to the sides of their vehicles and both crash-barriers.

“Get
ready, that’s them!” the police sergeant called out. He peered over and saw a
large truck and three smaller vehicles. The last one was the
gray
Ford Puma which lingered behind the large wagon. Back beyond it but gaining was
the SOTF Interceptor Unit, it’s blue lights flashing.

Two
constables nodded and held the stingers’ grip handles. The noise of the
approaching traffic almost caused one of the rookies to release it.

“On
my command lads!” the sergeant ordered.

The
truck rattled past at about forty, unsure of the checkpoint. Then the next two
vehicles passed.

“STINGER!”
shouted the police sergeant.

Both
constables flicked out their devices. Like a snaking set of expanding scissors
the compact stinger covered nearly fifteen feet. They were the modern-day
version of the medieval caltrops. Instead of use against horseback opponents
and light infantry though vehicles were its prey.

The
Ford Puma roared past.

One
of the constables, his head lower to the ground than the others, noticed a
bluish-purple light that flickered briefly as the shape surged past. In doing
so its tyres seemed to lift from the ground briefly.

The
sight almost caused a calamity as he tarried in whipping the stinger back from
deployment. The Interceptor almost surged over it. Thanks to the ABS system and
Nichol’s speedy braking its tires were spared from being punctured.

As
the stinger was dragged clear the Interceptor roared past with a woman’s curses
in their ears.

“He
jumped! He jumped!” said the astonished policeman. The others were scornful but
on checking the stingers barbs they saw that not one had been plucked out to embed
themselves in soft rubber of the Puma’s tires.

For
ten more minutes the Interceptor hung back as the their quarry kept up the
pace.

“Why
aren’t they slowing down? They went through the stinger!” Nichols asked
Templeton.

“Get
us closer,” Templeton spoke shrewdly.

Nichols
did so but only by a fraction. She suspected the Puma was customized with
either run-flat or solid-core tires. Yet they were not rated for high-speed
evasion. Even a presidential car could only go so fast with all four of its
tires shot out. What else was it? A high-pressure jet of air to push things
aside? No, it was something else!

Within
ten miles another checkpoint was passed by in the same manner, confounding the
local police forces. This time the Interceptor vehicle was closer behind and
only by slamming on the brakes was the stinger dragged clear in time once again.
This time vehicle was seen jumping in a bunny-hop fashion, almost like it
hovered as it did so.

“They
jumped! Did you see? Templeton said amazed at the sight. “The car jumped over
it slightly, almost flying in a way!”

“They
must have some suspension gadget to get it to do that! Or turbo-fans perhaps?”
Nichols wondered, impressed yet dismayed at the same time.

“Control,
get the police to use vehicles as barricades, target vehicle has device that
can jump Stingers.”

“We
acknowledge Unit Six,” came the voice over the radio.

“Hurry
it up Control, we’ve only fifteen miles before they reach Albion!”

“Not
far now Kallan!” Riley said with a hint of hope in her voice. “Take the next
exit, it should be about three more miles.”

“What’s
the reading on the power? It’s a
small colored
-bar
at the top right of the screen.”

“It’s
orange!”

“That
means enough charge for one, maybe two more jumps!”

“Can’t
it do more?”

“No
way, the ground-effect drains the element, it needs hours to recharge.”

As
the countdown markers to the turn-off neared Riley remembered something
important.

“Oh
shit, I need to call in our arrival to Albion!” she said suddenly.

“They
don’t already know this vehicle or track it?”