Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [115]
But then I remembered: I was in a machine, and we were doing this all wrong. This wasn’t some movie, where people somehow don’t hear the slicks before they rise up over the trees. “Of course they can fucking hear us,” I shouted, more to myself than Ratchet. “Come on—just go in!”
Ratchet seemed to have anticipated the command, and the ship darted around the mound before I’d even finished yelling. We accelerated so fast that the lower portion of the ship drifted beneath us, and we came round on an angle. Only my seat belt prevented me from slamming to the floor and I kept my eyes locked out of the window.
In a flicker of an eye I saw Nearly and Vinaldi. Both looked as if they’d been nailed to trees. And Yhandim, who was holding Suej by the arm and staring straight at us. There were a couple of other soldiers in the clearing, one of whom was Ghuaji. That’s all I had time to see before the first bullets started hammering into the ship, one coming straight through the window to embed itself in the wall behind me.
Ratchet hurtled the gunship directly over the clearing, and into a tight turn. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to fire out of the window without getting shot, and that everything was now out of my hands.
“Kill everyone you can,” I said. “Except Suej and the two people nailed to trees.”
The gunship roared as it banked, virtually turning in its own length. Then it tilted forward and Ratchet brought it in low and fast, pulse rifles scything out the one form of energy the Gap villagers hadn’t been able to survive. On the monitors I saw one of the unknown soldiers go down, caught in the back by an orange needle of light.
You’re very welcome, I thought.
The ship rocketed past within yards of Nearly and I caught a glimpse of her face; she looked terrified but was still alive. For once in my life I felt like giving thanks to God, but then realized I didn’t have his E-mail address.
At the other side of the clearing Ratchet brought the ship into a screaming turn again, this time dropping lower and slowing down. The five remaining soldiers were now running away from us, but still holding combat formation. Yhandim and another soldier each had one of Suej’s arms, and were dragging her with them. Ghuaji and the other two were facing us as they ran backward, firing a constant stream of bullets into the gunship. The noise was like being in a tin can which has been left outside in a violent hailstorm. Bullets tend to make me want to hide, and I wanted so much to just hit the floor, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to see what was going on. Glass was shattering all around me, and the air was all ricochets and flames. It was getting hotter, and some part of the gunship was on fire, but I tuned it all out and watched grimly as Ratchet bore down on the fleeing men.
I had time for a brief warmth of smugness—Weren’t expecting me to come back in a gunship, were you, guys?— and then I saw something bad was happening. The soldiers were darting and running through the trees in a complex pattern, heading directly for areas where the trunks were too close together for the gunship to follow. Worse still, their outlines were becoming less distinct.
“Hurry!” I shouted to Ratchet. “They’re fading out!”
Ratchet couldn’t go any faster without killing us both, and concentrated instead on refining his fire; constant needles of pulse energy rocketed out from either side of me and into the darkness. They maimed trees, hit the ground, even perforated falling leaves; but still the soldiers evaded them.
Yhandim was now little more than a flicker, and Ghuaji was disappearing with him. The hands holding Suej’s arms were barely visible, but they weren’t letting go.
“Ratchet, you’ve got to stop them,” I screamed, “Or they’re going to take her away. They’ll turn her into one of them.”
The soldiers