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Three others said the same.
“I’m not getting anything on my sensors. What is it you thought you saw?”
“Like a plane or something,” Justin said. “Probably nothing.”
Tolliver had no face and no facial expressions, but he muttered something, and his tone worried Justin.
And then, again, the stabbing pain. But this time it had a rhythm to it. On . . . off . . . on . . . off. And still it was only affecting him.
“Wait!” Tolliver said. “I’m getting something. Definitely something off to our nine o’clock.”
“What is it?” someone asked.
And again, the rhythmic stabbing pain, faster this time. On-off-on-off.
A signal! Someone was trying to tell him something.
“It’s a goddam drone!” Tolliver said. “There!” He pointed his mechanical arm, and at that second Justin saw a small but distinct flare, a jet of flame.
The stab! Urgent this time, unrelenting.
The pieces came together in the blink of an eye. Justin instantly began to morph. His sword arm stretched out. His skin was replaced by chitinous armor. His other hand became a claw. And the instant he was more Knightmare than Justin, he leaped from the side of the truck.
It would certainly have hurt Justin very badly—jumping off a moving truck doing sixty would break his bones and scrape his flesh and quite possibly smash open his head and kill him.
The half Knightmare hit pavement, though it felt more as if the road surface had jumped up to hit him. The impact emptied his lungs and shot a different pain through his spine, but his armor did not crack, his sword arm did not shatter, and Justin DeVeere did not die.
Ka-BOOM!
The truck was a few hundred yards down the road when the Hellfire missile found it. Justin lay on his back and did not see the moment of impact. But he felt the concussion and the rush of superheated air.
And he saw bodies twirling through the air.
He jumped up, now fully Knightmare, and saw the truck engulfed in flame. It ran on for a few feet before veering off the road and coming to a stop.
Knightmare ran to see, equal parts shaken and curious. He stumbled and fell when his feet tangled in the viscera of the turtle woman.
A bush had caught fire, and a part of Justin registered the sight and connected it to the biblical tale and imagined trying to re-create it. But even he could not distract himself from the horror smeared down the highway.
He found Tolliver. The tank man was on his side. His missile launcher was crumpled, his sensors all blown away. The back of Tolliver’s steel body burned.
Knightmare knelt down and peered at the slit and to his shock saw Tolliver’s eyes open and aware.
“Who are you?” Tolliver asked. His voice was faint, weak, as if whatever pumped air through his voice box was on its last wheeze.
“Justin,” Knightmare said in his booming morphed voice.
“The kid?”
“Yeah, the kid,” Justin acknowledged.
“Huh.” The next sound may have been a laugh. “I’m finished. Friendly fire! Damn it all.”
“I’ll see if there’s a fire extinguisher in the truck cab.”
“No. No,” Tolliver said. “This is where it ends. Use that blade.”
“What are you . . . what?” Justin drew back. Was the marine asking him to finish him off? He wasn’t a murderer! He’d killed people, yes, but not in cold blood, only to defend himself!
