CHAPTER SIX—WAITING

“It’s been a long time,” Lexa said. “Do you think Kyle is all right?”

John looked at his wristlet. They had been waiting for over an hour for Kyle now and still no word. Maybe something was jamming his ability to send them a signal?

Either way, he didn’t like it.

He pushed the door button and got out.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m just getting prepared,” John said, then walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He got out a ballistic vest and a BD-S unit. Before putting the vest on, he took off his gun, then put the holster onto his belt.

You better not be dead.

After that, he got back into the car. “Are we going to keep waiting?” Lexa asked.

“Ten more minutes,” he said. “Then we’ll go find Kyle.”

She nodded, a look of concern on her face. “If I had a body, I could go out and look for him so we wouldn’t have to risk the car.”

Yeah…

“Do you really want to be a part of the team?”

“Of course I do.”

“I think you will make a good addition.”

She smiled. “Thank you, John.”

Suddenly the radar started pinging. John swiped across the front windshield to make the display bigger. “It’s a ship,” he said.

The computer beeped and a cascade of slides came onto the screen. They showed that the shuttle carried ordinance and that its flight trajectory would intersect the Corvo.

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Do they know I’m here?

“This is not good, John.”

He breathed in deeply. “You can say that again.”

The thrust of the approaching shuttle could be heard filling up the sky overhead. John leaned out of the car door and glanced about. He spotted the vehicle—a little black dot trailing a white plume of exhaust.

Squinting, he realized the shuttle wasn’t descending toward him. But the computer had already indicated that before he even leaned out of the car. With the Corovo’s engines off, they would be harder to detect just sitting here.

Leaning back in, he said, “I don’t think we’re going to be flying out of here any time soon.”

She nodded. “Let’s go find Kyle.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He got out of the car at looked at his wristlet. Kyle was almost six kilometers to his south-west. At least that’s where the missiles had launched from. The last coordinates for May’s position were also just over six kilometers, but her position was in the north-west.

Since Kyle didn’t know John’s position—assuming he couldn’t contact John for whatever reason—he would most likely go to a location they were both aware of.

That meant either waiting in his present position—

No—Kyle would get too bored with that.

That meant it was most logical for him to make his way toward May’s shuttle. Turning to the north-west, John loped across the slightly wet arid landscape of the badlands.

“Wait, why north?” Lexa asked from John’s coms unit. He didn’t stop as he explained to Lexa Kyle’s reasoning.

“That makes sense,” she said.

Overheard, the sound of that shuttle’s engines started getting louder. John glanced about for the ship.

‘I think they’re searching for something,” Lexa said.

He nodded.

The engines got closer still. John turned and saw the shuttle descending toward his position. “I think they spotted the car!”

Thinking quickly, he activated his wristlet and fired up the Corvo’s engines, just before a burst exploded from the shuttle, the missiles leaving the flying vehicle in their wake as they hit the Corvo. The car exploded into a plume of fire and black smoke.

John backed away, hoping his activation of the Corvo’s engines gave those guys the impression that he had been trying to escape.

“John!” Lexa shouted. “The rocks!”

He turned and ran between them. They were large and provided good concealment. He ducked low as the shuttle that had just vaporized Kyle’s favorite car cruised overhead.

“Do you think they bought that you were in the car?”

“They bought it,” he said. “Otherwise they would come back in for another low pass to finish me off.”

“Kyle is not going to be happy.”

No, John thought. No, there’s going to be the hells to pay when this is all over.

With a smile he said, “He’ll get over it.”

“Oh dear!” Lexa said.