For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [58]
“She’s giving the one restraining her fits, trying to bite him, kicking at him even though it looks like her feet are bound at the ankles.”
“That’s her, all right.” Flinx couldn’t repress a grin. “What are they doing now?”
Lauren frowned. “Uh oh. Putting up some transparent shield. Now the regular vehicle dome over that. The dome we can penetrate. I don’t know about the shield-thing. Well, that’s no problem. Go to port.”
“Port?” Flinx repeated.
“To your left,” she said. “We’ll cut around in front of them and block their course. Maybe when they see that we can not only catch them but run circles around them, they’ll be willing to listen to reason.”
Flinx obediently turned the wheel to his left and felt the catamaran respond instantly.
“Okay, now back to star—to your right, not too sharply.” The boat split the water as he turned the wheel.
Suddenly, everything changed. A new sound, a deep humming, became audible.
“Damn,” Lauren said in frustration, pointing upward.
Flinx’s gaze went toward the clouds. The skimmer that had appeared from out of the northern horizon was of pretty good size. It was certainly more than big enough to hold its own crew in addition to the mudders’ occupants. If there was any doubt as to the skimmer’s intent, it was quickly eliminated as the versatile craft dipped low, circled once, and then settled toward the first mudder as it strove to match the smaller vehicle’s speed.
“If they get aboard, we’ll lose them permanently,” said a worried Flinx. “Can you pick them off as they try to transfer?” Already the skimmer’s crew had matched velocity with the mudder and was dropping a chute ladder toward the water.
Lauren bent over the rifle again. Her finger hesitated over the button; then she unexpectedly pulled back and whacked the butt of the gun angrily. “Lovely people. They’re holding your mother next to the base of the chute. I can’t get a clear shot.”
“What are we going to do? We can’t just keep circling them like this!”
“How the hell should I know?” She abandoned the rifle and rushed to a storage locker amidships. “Mudders, paralysis pistols, kidnapping, and now a skimmer sent out from the north. Who are these people, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Flinx snapped. “I told you before that I don’t understand any of this.” He hesitated, trying to watch her and keep the jet boat circling the still-racing mudders and the skimmer hovering above them. “What are you going to do now?”
The device she had extracted from the storage locker was as long as the dart rifle but much narrower. “When I give the word,” she said tightly, “I want you to charge them and pull aside at the last moment. I don’t think they’ll be expecting a rush on our part. They’re much too busy transferring to the skimmer.”
“What are you going to try and do?” he asked curiously. “Disable the skimmer?”
“With a dart gun? Are you kidding?” she snorted. “Just do as I say.”
“So long as what you say continues making sense,” he agreed, a bit put off by her tone.
“You’re wasting time. Do it!”
He threw the wheel hard over. The catamaran spun on the surface so sharply that the portside hull lifted clear of the water. A high rooster tail obscured them from sight for a moment.
In seconds, they were on top of the mudder and the skimmer drifting steadily above it. Activity on both craft intensified as the jet boat bore down on the mudder. As Lauren suspected, the last thing their opponents were expecting was a broadside charge. A couple of shots passed behind the onrushing boat, hastily dispatched and imperfectly aimed.
“Hard to port!” Lauren shouted above the roar of the engine. Those still on board the mudder had hunched down in anticipation of a collision. Flinx leaned on the wheel. Engine screaming, the catamaran spun to its left, nearly drowning those starting up the chute ladder toward the skimmer.
Lauren must have fired at least once, Flinx thought as the jet boat sped away. He turned the wheel, and they started back toward their quarry in a wide arc. To his surprise, the woman put the peculiar-looking weapon back in the storage locker