File 6.6 - Escape

Fin and Sheila came to a grinding halt at the coordinates already too late as they discovered. Only a truck and deep impressions in the earth were all that they had. “Dammit. They got away!” He kicked the door of the rental leaving a new dent in it.

“Cap’n!” Nate came over the radio again. “The ship’s makin’ a break for it! Looks like they’re tryin’ tah lose us by flyin’ through the city.”

“Stay on them! They’re the only lead we have and if we lose ‘em we’re stuck!” Horrible swearing and yelling came unintelligentably through the radio in the sound of Sam. They could only listen to the sounds. There was nothing to do anymore.

“Keep on ‘em, Sam!” Nate yelled, his feet up on the panels as though it helped to make the Niph fly faster. He might have been the co-pilot, but he really did nothing but read the computer. At the moment, he was completely useless.

Jerking the ship around and away from a skyscraper, Sam swore again at the pilot of the unknown ship. “Bastards! What crazy pilot is sittin’ in tha ship? He’s gotta have ice fer blood to be makin’ maneuvers like that!” A sharp three g dive followed up with a ninety degree near full speed turn left Sam fighting the Niph. She was never meant for this sort of work. “Dammit! Where’s Ed?!”

Nate looked a little shocked at Sam to hear him actually wanting Ed to pilot. It gave him a clear sense of how bad the situation was. He saw the numbers on the screen and their distance. They increased and decreased rapidly. They were pulling stupid stunts through the city in ways that were pretty illegal. “Ride their ass!”

“I’m tryin’! But he’s good! I’ve ne’er seen skills like this before!” Then the ship suddenly dropped off his visual sights. Sam hadn’t been flying using the radar, it was too slow for what he needed. Only feeling out the movements was going to keep up, but now he lost the target. “Where?!”

“Behind!” shouted Nate, but it was too late.

“How the hell?! Shit!” A horrible crash of metal echoed through their ship and threw off sparks all over the cockpit. The ship tilted forward from the impact and at their speed it was nearly uncontrollable. Sam had to blindly flip switches, cut warnings and get the ship under control with the ground coming up on them quickly. “Shut the hell up, computer!” He kicked the panel, breaking the glass surface.

“Sam?!”

“Bastard! Crazy, shit, bastard!”

“Sam!”

“Shut up, Nate!” He fought with the feedback from the stick and felt the whole ship complain and groan. It was already injured and crying from being rammed. Now Sam demanded it to do something it didn’t want to do. But he yelled and screamed at it to listen to him. The ground was coming too fast. The people were starting to become distinguishable from the cars. “Dammit!”

In the last moment, everything finally kicked in and responded. The Niph pulled back arcing back into the air and away from the city. But unfortunately, they had lost sight of their target. They failed.

“Sorry, Cap’n. They escaped,” Nate reported over the radio. “All we have is a last headin’, but we can’t be sure that’s accurate to where they’re goin’.”

“Dammit.” He kicked the rental again. It complained a little more this time. Then he sighed. “Return back to the coords. They’ve won this round.”