SHE WASN'T FAST ENOUGH
© Dana W. Paxson 2005
Story threads back to scene CLOCK, BUZZ, ANDRO: |
Story threads back to scene BORN AND BEARS AND DIES: |
Story threads back to scene BODY IN THE ROAD: |
![]() |
![]() |
|
SHE WASN’T FAST ENOUGH 1561 4D “Get out,” Ezzar ordered the van driver. Her partner Andresko pointed a beamer at the man’s head. The driver pulled the door handle, and she stepped back. A whole load of guns and beam cartridges; this hijacking on a hill road dampened by spring showers was a lot easier than the firefight they’d had two days ago. She breathed and waited for the driver to step down. Four armed men leaped from the van‘s rear. An explosion rent the air; her partner’s gun blew apart as he fried in a heat beam. The gun’s pieces rattled and rained about her as she lanced the driver with a beamshot, dived and rolled into the road’s shallow ditch, firing as she fell; another heat blast raked her left arm and knee and withered the swampgrass she landed in. The corpos had been warned. Cries of pain told her she had caught at least two of them in her fire. She wriggled deeper in the grass and the muck, trying not to leave signs of passage, and then lay still under a steeple of reeds, feeling the cartfeed on her beamer for blockage. It was all right. She waited for many breaths, hearing nothing except the distant gasps of the corpos she’d shot. The gasps stopped. A van motor started. They couldn’t be leaving. She started to move, then froze — they’d be watching for that. The mud covered her thighs. She raised herself just enough to see the top of the van. Two heads stood in front of it, facing her, looking down at the mud in front of her hiding place. She dropped down again. They’d seen her. As fast as she was, she couldn’t kill both of them before she’d be fried herself. She ground her way down in the mud. Now, before they moved closer. In one quick motion, she came to crouch, fired at the van‘s powercell, and tried to bury her face in the muck. She wasn’t fast enough. The van detonated; she was lifted and flung through the air at least twenty long strides, slamming against a sandstone outcrop that overlooked the road. Blackness closed on her. |
||
![]() |
![]() |
Story threads leading to scene IN A SOFT, SHY VOICE BARELY HER OWN: * FERDINAND'S ROAD |
Story List |
SURPRISE ME |
Author Page |
USER SURVEY |
PUZZLE ME |
MAKE ELM MARK |
HOVER Lucida Bright BARE |
HOVER Lucida Bright FULL |
HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE |
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL |
HOVER Times New Roman BARE |
HOVER Times New Roman FULL |
PAD Arial BARE |
PAD Arial FULL |
PAD Lucida Bright BARE |
PAD Lucida Bright FULL |
PAD Times New Roman BARE |
PAD Times New Roman FULL |