Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Driving Lesson Chapter 6 Page 2

Tricia slipped her datapad into the bracket in front of her so she could see its screen while keeping her hands free. "Wasters!" she said.

That one word immediately had George concerned. The possibility of bullets flying had considerably increased.

"Miss Hiddenhill, I really, really need to go now. It's hard to hold two conversations when I can't pull the mouthpiece away from me."

Tricia pulled out a grenade launcher from a hidden compartment beside her feet. The weapon looked like a large caliber rifle.

"Okay, bye." Tricia ended the call. "Finally!"

"Mab's aunt?" George inquired.

"No, her mum," Tricia said, "Concentrate, we've three waster vehicles coming in." She turned on the ballistic computer on her weapon. Then she checked the sights.

"Unfriendly?" George asked.

"Likely."

"What would they want with us?"

"Spare parts, fuel," Tricia answered. She pulled out an assault rifle and checked its ammunition magazine. "It's necessary to bring extra fuel out here. Fuel production in the wastes isn't much so it's valuable."

It was a race to escape. George was going to give it his best effort, especially if he could avoid having bullets fly at him. He had an advantage - their vehicle was made with urbanite technology, which should be better than what the wasters had access to.

The pickup's engine abruptly died.

Tricia stared at the driver. "How did you even manage to stall a moving vehicle!?"

"Give me a break! This is my first time driving under stress!" George pointed out.

"Just restart the engine and go!"

Guided by terse instructions from Tricia, George managed to restart the engine before the pickup slowed to a stop.

Tricia watched the datapad in front of her, which fed video from the camera at the back of the pickup. She double-checked with the rearview mirror at the top of the windscreen.

"Three sets of wheels," the Vixen summarized, "That armored one is going to be trouble."

George glanced at the rearview mirror and saw their three pursuers. Two of them were fast dune buggies with little armor. The station wagon in the middle had better protection than the other two, and it had a mounted machinegun. It also had the large wheels typical of vehicles out in the wasteland.

"Stop and surrender!" a man's voice was heard from the back, likely from a loudspeaker on or in one of the vehicles.

"Does anyone actually stop?" George asked.

"The people who do are probably dead," Tricia replied.

George stepped harder on the accelerator.

Tricia opened the glove compartment and took out a magazine marked with an orange tape. She unloaded the grenade launcher and inserted the orange-taped magazine. "Let's hope this trick works." She turned in her seat. "Hold the vehicle steady while I fire."

"We've you outnumbered!" came the voice again, "Surrender!"

George gripped the steering wheel, determined to keep the pickup going straight for as long as necessary.

With a hand on the roll bar above her seat, Tricia pulled herself up and aimed. She fired five shots in quick succession then dropped back to her seat. She watched the camera view on the datapad.

"Huh, it actually worked!"

In the rearview mirror, George saw that their armored pursuer had turned and slowed to a stop. He had not heard any explosions. "What'd you do?"

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