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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 151: Kondor 308
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 122
The trio sped over the dry ground on their pair of motorcycles and pulling one trailer, leaving dust trails behind them. They had what Kondor realized was a somewhat irrational hope to surprise the sheik’s retinue--they were off the racecourse, where attention presumably would be focused, but the bikes were not stealth equipment and the desert was a fairly quiet place, so they would be heard quite a while before they arrived. Thus the hope was that they would be ignored, presumed to be tourists trying to follow the race without interfering with the course. The question was how close could they get on this ruse, and that remained to be seen.
There was also the complication that he and Zeke were driving the bikes, and while they both had their M-16s over their shoulders they couldn’t access these quickly while driving, and so would have to draw their pistols and then drive one-handed. They were to some degree relying on Amanda, who had an unusual special weapon that was the core of their plan. They just had to get her close enough to use it.
Of course, first they had to find and identify the sheik’s camp. His team’s colors were silver stars, and presumably the camp would fly a banner so marking them. Some of the patrons of other teams would also have camps along the course--and of course vehicles, because once the racers had passed this point the camps would be struck and relocated to a suitable vantage point for tomorrow’s leg of the race. Their discussions had considered whether they should simply buzz the sheik the first day and actually strike on the second or even third, but they weren’t certain how the nobleman would treat a “harmless annoyance”, so they decided they had to strike on the first day, and if their plan failed they would have to find another way to do it before the race ended.
They passed a few camps posted along the route. The first of these was already breaking down its tents in preparation to move, as the bulk of the race had passed. That was an element of the situation he realized they had not considered--they needed to get ahead of the racers if they were going to have the advantage of the distraction. He gunned the engine, and wished that their telepathy worked in this world. Still, Zeke kept pace with him, and since Zeke had neither a passenger nor a luggage trailer it wouldn’t be a problem. By the time they came to the third camp they had outpaced the horses and had their advantage. The question now, though, was which camp would be the one with the silver stars.
Zeke pointed ahead, and indeed there was a camp that was larger than the others and bore a banner with silver stars on a white background. It also appeared to have a portable scaffold of sorts, with several persons atop it looking through binoculars in the direction of the approaching riders. One of them pointed; apparently the race could now be seen with the optics. It was time.
He felt Amanda squirming, obviously getting her weapon and readying it. It was a blowpipe, and she had darts for it that were tipped with a drug--not the sort Derek used to render people unconscious, but a mix of hallucinogens and amphetamines that caused a berserk rage in the victim.
Zeke broke right to pass in front of the makeshift grandstand, and Kondor slowed a bit, both because he wanted the attention to be on Zeke and because he wanted Amanda to be able to get a clean shot. The obvious target was the bodyguard--he would be closer than anyone to the sheik, and in his rage would hopefully deliver a fatal attack on more than one of those near him.
As Kondor slowed to a stop directly behind the position of the bodyguard, he heard Zeke zooming ahead and spectators yelling at him in some foreign language. Amanda raised her blowpipe--but an alert guard spotted them, and started shouting, running toward them, and drawing a gun.
Kondor didn’t hesitate. He drew his pistol and fired, thrice as Zeke always did, bringing the attacking soldier down. He heard the sound of the dart exiting the blowpipe, and a slapping sound--what a man would do if he were stung by an insect. He looked up.
The sheik was looking down at them. He shouted something, which Kondor guessed was an order to the men probably to kill them--but at that moment the huge hulk of a man next to him roared, picked up one of the other guards, and threw him off the scaffolding to the ground.
“I’d say it’s time to get out of here,” Kondor said, but as he went to gun the engine the bike stalled. Dust, he supposed, and kicked the starter to get it going again even as the first bullets started hitting the ground around them.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #536: Character Confrontations. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
