Track of the Beast: A Brock Stone Adventure

“Alex, I hate being your guinea pig,” he shouted. His voice was lost in the wind. Heart in his throat, he locked his legs as Moses had instructed him, and fired the burners.

A jolt of white-hot pain shot from his hips up his spine as he was hurled forward at high speed. In his ears, the scream of the wind rushing past him dueled with the sonic scream of the rocketboots. He felt his lips pushed back by the force of the air, baring his teeth in a rictus of adrenaline.

He released the button and adjusted his course so that he was following directly behind the fighter plane. Another burst of the rockets and in seconds he had closed half the distance between them. Still locked in on its target, the Albatross banked to the left as the gap between it and its quarry narrowed perilously. The pilot fired again and the rounds just missed the transport’s tail section. Distress twisted Stone’s gut. For a moment, he had been certain his friends were goners. It was time for an act of desperation.

Like a quarterback leading his receiver, Stone chose a path that would intersect with the banking aircraft, and hit the gas. He was hurtled forward like a bullet, so fast that the biplane seemed to be standing still. For a split-second Stone feared that he would overshoot his target. The pilot finally noticed him and let out a cry of alarm.

Everything seemed to happen in an instant. Stone released the gas. The pilot took his craft into a dive. Stone, inexperienced with the soaring suit, pressed his arms to his sides. He immediately began losing altitude. Too much altitude.

He soared beneath the fleeing biplane and slammed into its undercarriage. His breath left him, replaced by a flood of pain. The impact sent the plane into a barrel roll. Stone reached out in desperation and managed to hook his arms around the landing gear. The world somersaulted before him and he closed his eyes against the dizzying sight.

The engine whined and sputtered. The pilot spewed a stream of invective. Stone wondered if they would crash. And then he barked a laugh. The Albatross might crash, but thanks to the sailing suit, he didn’t have to go down with it. But no sooner had the thought come to him than the pilot brought the craft out of the roll and righted his course.

“Now what?” Stone said to himself. He was unarmed and clinging to the landing gear. He could do no good from here.

The pilot once again drew a bead on the Flying Wing. Stone’s collision with the biplane had gained the fleeing transport a few precious seconds, but not nearly enough. The fighter plane opened fire. From his position beneath the craft, Stone saw the rain of bullets seem to bend toward their target. A few more seconds and they would shred the transport plane to ribbons. Having no better idea, Stone flipped upside down and pressed the soles of his boots firmly against the plane at a spot he estimated to be underneath the pilot’s seat.

“This had better work.”

He activated the rockets. The impact nearly tore his shoulders from their sockets, but he held on to the landing gear with all his might. The average man would not have been able to maintain his grip, but Stone was not an average man. He held on with muscles that had been honed by years of strenuous training and enhanced in ways he didn’t like to think about. Pain burned through even as the rockets burned through the thin aluminum hull.

It was only seconds, but it felt like hours before the pilot let out a shriek of pure pain and terror. Stone released his grip on the landing gear and let himself fly free. As he sailed away, he glanced back to see the burning fighter plane tumbling toward the ground, leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

The pilot bailed out. He tumbled toward the ground, then activated his chute far too early. He hung there far above the ground as the strong wind began to carry him toward the distant mountains.

This was an opportunity Stone could not pass up. He turned and sailed toward the drifting pilot, who didn’t see him coming. Stone wrapped his arms around the man as they collided, pinning his arms to his sides. Immediately they began to fall, the parachute unable to support his weight.

“What are you doing? You’re going to kill us.” His words cut off in a gurgle as Stone wrapped a powerful hand around his neck.

“Listen carefully. You answer all my questions or I’ll cut your ropes and let you fall. Understand?” Stone didn’t have a knife on him, but the pilot didn’t know that. He nodded and Stone lessened his grip.

“Why did you attack our plane?”

“Orders,” the man grunted. “You’re being tracked. Pilots all over are on the lookout for you. If one of us spotted you, we were to report your location, then shoot you down, preferably somewhere witnesses wouldn’t see.”

“Who did your orders come from?”

“I don’t know.”

Stone once again tightened his grip on the man’s throat.

“He’s called the Warden.”

Stone frowned. “And who do his orders come from?”