He spotted the Hunter-Killer’s floodlights first. The Skynet Express was right on time, barreling through the mountains toward the bridge several miles ahead. He gulped at the sight of the formidable armored juggernaut, as well as its aerial escorts. He wasn’t looking forward to the wild goose chase that lay ahead—especially since he was supposed to be the goose.
Here goes nothing.
An Aerostat spotted him. Zipping back to investigate, the levitating drone buzzed past his cockpit, scanning him with its lasers. Geir rolled down the side window and drove it off with a blast from a Smith & Wesson pistol. The pesky machine darted out of the line of fire.
“That should get the HK’s attention,” he muttered. Cold air invaded the cockpit. “Lucky me.”
Sure enough, the Hunter-Killer banked away from the tracks below, leaving the train unescorted. Its powerful impellers tilted as it rotated to face its quarry. Larger and more heavily armored than the antique fighter plane, it was like a condor turning to confront a sparrow. Its floodlights searched the heavens, almost blinding Geir.
He opened fire with his machineguns, more for form’s sake than anything else. The heavy-caliber fire would barely dent the HK’s reinforced-steel fuselage. He’d need a well-aimed rocket to bring this sucker down.
Too bad he didn’t have any.
Having baited the HK, Thunderbird fled for its life. Geir leaned on the stick, and the plane made a tight 180-degree turn, heading back the way it had come. Away from the bridge. He switched off his nav lights to make himself less visible, and poured on the speed. His mission now was a tricky one. He had to stay out of range of the HK and its plasma cannons, while not getting so far ahead that the Hunter-Killer would give up on the chase. The last thing he wanted was for the HK to reverse course and head back toward the train.
And Molly.
As he hit the gas the sudden burst of acceleration shoved him into the back of his seat. He gritted his teeth. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the HK gaining on him. Floodlights and targeting lasers swept the air behind him, competing with the colorful spectacle of the aurora above.
Whose crazy idea was it to volunteer for this suicide run?
He smiled ruefully.
Oh, yeah. Mine.
Evasive tactics were his only hope. He pulled back on the stick, climbing steeply toward a higher altitude at nearly a thousand feet per minute. Pushing Thunderbird to her limits. Way past its prime, the obsolete fighter was too old for this kind of barnstorming stunt. Geir offered up a silent prayer for the throbbing Rolls-Royce engine. Here was where all his nonstop maintenance and fussing would pay off... hopefully.
40,000 feet was as high as the Mustang could safely fly. He kept one eye on the altimeter and the other on the HK that was soaring after him. It was sticking to him like glue.
Scary, armored glue.
35,000 feet. Thunderbird’s nose was pointed toward the heavens, at so steep an angle that Geir found himself staring straight up into the prismatic splendor of the northern lights, some thirty miles above his head. Rippling green curtains glowed against the night sky. Faint yellow pinwheels spun hypnotically. The celestial light show was caused by the collision of solar winds, drawn by the magnetic lure of the North Pole, with gas particles high in the ionosphere. Even though the aurora occurred at an altitude far beyond Thunderbird’s capabilities, Geir could practically feel the charged particles suffusing the air.
Hairs rose along his arms and at the back of his neck. There was a peculiar crackling in his ears. Ozone tickled his nostrils. The awe-inspiring sight, as it filled up the view in front of him, imbued him with hope.
He wasn’t just enjoying the colored lights. He was staking his life on them.
The aurora borealis produced over a trillion watts of electricity with a million amp current. With any luck, the massive electromagnetic fluctuations would interfere with the HK’s targeting systems. It was ironic, in a way. He was praying that the ionized stream of plasma would save him from the HK’s fearsome plasma cannons.
Nature versus technology, he thought. That’s this war in a nutshell.
A warning light flashed on his instrument panel, which Doc Rathbone had upgraded with salvaged military electronics. An alarm sounded.
The HK had a lock on him!
Geir considered bailing out, but he was too high up— it would mean certain death. Besides, he still needed to keep the HK occupied and away from the train. So he crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.
That uranium had better be worth it!
The HK’s plasma cannons, which were mounted on its undercarriage, flared like supernovae. A sizzling blast of superheated hydrogen ions shot upward toward Thunderbird, missing it by less than twenty yards!
Geir gasped in relief. The aurora had done the trick, screwing up the HK’s aim just when it counted. He wanted to kiss the incandescent haloes above him.
“Thank you, you beautiful colors!”
But he knew he couldn’t count on the aurora to keep on saving him. The HK’s fiendishly clever neural network was doubtless already adapting to the charged atmosphere, recalibrating its sensors to compensate for the troublesome electromagnetic interference. Geir would have to pull another trick out of his hat if he wanted to prolong this one-sided dogfight.
Time for another evasive maneuver. He shoved the control stick to the far right, throwing Thunderbird into an inverted roll. Then, before the HK could react to his changed orientation, he pulled back on the stick. The nose of the plane dipped toward the ground and Thunderbird went into a high-speed dive. Geir’s stomach climbed up his throat. The Alaskan wilderness came rushing up way faster than he would have liked. Towering pines and jagged peaks waited to impale him.
All right, he dared the HK. Come and get me!
Another blast of plasma fried the empty air the Mustang had occupied only heartbeats before. Geir banked hard to the left and tugged on the stick, leveling out only a thousand feet above the forest canopy. Wings parallel to the earth, he headed north toward a range of nearby mountains, enticing the HK even further away from the train it was supposed to be guarding. As the indefatigable Hunter-Killer swooped after him, he climbed once again toward the upper heights.
The sudden peaks and valleys took their toll on his nerves. He felt like he was riding a roller-coaster, only without the tracks. His head spun. Blood sloshed in his ears. Yet he doubted that the HK was feeling nearly so jangled.
Too bad machines can’t get vertigo!
At 36,000 feet, he took another hard roll to the right, just like he had before. The idea was to make the HK think that he was about to make another upside-down dive. A quick glance behind him confirmed that the HK had taken the bait; it rolled to dive after him.
Sorry, he thought viciously. Us crazy humans aren’t nearly that predictable.
At the last second, right before he fell into the dive, he pushed forward on the stick and kept on climbing. Caught off-guard by its prey’s abrupt change in direction, the HK plunged into a spin. A misdirected plasma blast ignited the treetops below.
“Sucker!” Geir took an instant to savor his survival. He leveled off at 37,500 feet, dangerously close to the Mustang’s operational ceiling, then dived back down to just above the rugged landscape. Hugging the treetops, navigating by the nap of the earth, he tried to put a little more distance between him and the disoriented HK, which was already recovering from its spin. A glacial valley, protected by sheer white walls, offered a few moment’s shelter from the machine’s weaponry.