Since running away from the machine was futile, Ryan dashed toward it. He had to have surprised the pilot as he burst out of the dust cloud, because he ran directly beneath the weapons pod without drawing another burst of green fire. He passed under the sleek belly of the craft and into the confined hurricane of its prop wind.
Fifteen feet below the middle of the aircraft, Ryan raised his pistol high overhead and fired straight into its guts. Though the range was no more than five feet, there was no clank of impact punctuating the flurry of gunshots, only the whine of deflected slugs as they ricocheted on the rocks around him.
Impossible, he decided as he raced onward, out from under the machine’s tail propeller. Impossible but true. Bullets had no effect. His hopes for living through this encounter were sinking fast.
Before him yawned the cliff overlooking the mud lakes. He guessed he was very near to the gully they’d climbed in order to reach the ridge top. There was no time left for him to make major adjustments in his jumping-off point. If he had guessed wrong, the drop was going to be a lot longer than thirty feet. The airship wheeled around behind him, swooping down for the chill. Straining, he sprinted for the edge.
As he took the last, desperate stride and his right foot came down on nothing, he thought he’d blown it. Down was a long, long way. Legs flailing, he dropped below the ridge top. Above him there was a flash of light and blistering heat as the laser cannon blasted a new cleft in the bedrock.
Ryan hit the pile of loose gravel at tremendous speed. The impact with the ground knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Because of the gully’s steep angle, he continued to fall down the chute, skidding, sliding. He covered his head with his arm as he started to tumble, end over end. With no way to control his descent, he was just another boulder, rolling downhill.
Buffeted, bounced, battered, he came to a shattering stop behind a big rock. Momentarily unable to breathe, he struggled to rise. But as he regained his feet, he found himself face-to-face with the hovering black ship and the multiple barrels of its weapons’ cluster. The aircraft was positioned to block any further movement on his part. He had nowhere to go.
Ryan raised his handblaster and opened fire. He didn’t have a hope in hell of doing damage to the craft; he was buying a few precious seconds of time for his friends. The pistol spit out several more shots before its slide locked back. Tossing aside the empty pistol, he reached for his right boot and yanked the panga from its sheath.
“Come on, you fireblasted bastard!” Ryan shouted at the windowless craft. He slashed the heavy knife blade back and forth in the air. “Come out of there and I’ll cut you a new one!”
Ryan expected the green flash any second.
He expected it to be the last thing he ever saw.
The ship moved in a little closer, as if the pilot wanted to get a better look at him. Without warning, a cloud of clear mist shot from one of the tubes in the aircraft’s nose. Ryan gasped in surprise as the mist billowed, wet and stinging, around him. His involuntary intake of breath sucked tiny droplets into his lungs. He tried to close off his throat, but it was already too late. His knees buckled.
Before he hit the ground, he was out cold.
Chapter Eleven
The first thing Ryan heard was the engine’s roar and the whipping of the wind. The first thing he felt was the pain in his right ankle, as if it were very slowly being twisted off. Blood throbbed in his face and neck, and the weight of his insides pressing at the back of his throat felt like they were about to jump out of his mouth. He opened his eye a crack, and there was nothing beneath him but air. For hundreds of feet.
Head down, he hung suspended in space.