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There was something odd about the way they moved, gliding over the snow with almost effortless ease.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Trouble.”
He grabbed Hayley’s hand and they began to climb down, hopping and jumping and sliding down the steep sections to cover as much ground as possible. They reached the bottom, just about tumbling into the group. “Someone’s coming,” he said sharply.
“From where?” Gregorovich asked.
“From the other side of the ridge.”
“On foot?”
“No,” Kurt said. “I think they’re using hovercraft.”
Seconds later, the high-pitched whine became audible on the ground.
“Move!” Gregorovich ordered.
In seconds, the snowmobiles were firing up, but they were almost too late. The group of hovercraft came charging up the slope, appearing out of the snowy haze like avenging ghosts.
Kurt and Hayley jumped on their machine. “Hang on!” Kurt shouted as he pressed the starter and twisted the throttle.
She clung to him as the snowmobile leapt forward. The rest of the group scattered in different directions like a herd of gazelles set upon by lions. It was an unplanned tactic, but it was effective. There were six snowmobiles but only four hovercraft. Not all of them could be followed.
Racing down the slope and cutting around a snowdrift, Kurt glanced over his shoulder, looking past Hayley. Unfortunately, one of the sleek predatory craft was hot on their tail.
“Hang on tight!” he shouted. “This is going to get rough.”
He turned his eyes forward, pinned the throttle full open, and began weaving back and forth across the snowfield. If there had been a forest on the island, he would have driven straight for it, but Heard Island was treeless, a fact that didn’t bode well in terms of finding a spot to hide.
He cut to the right and caught sight of a small explosion from the corner of his eye. He avoided it and cut back to the left, only to see another one.
There was no sound to accompany the phenomenon, no concussion wave or smoke. In fact, the display looked more like the blurred pattern one sees out behind a running jet engine.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Flash-draw,” Hayley yelled. “Stay out of it.”
“Sound advice,” he said.
They continued on at breakneck speed, and Kurt strained to see details of the near-featureless terrain streaking past him. Even with the goggles, the light was so flat it was almost impossible to spot dips and rises. Twice, uneven sections of the ground almost tipped them over, and then suddenly they were airborne, flying off the crest of a small ledge.
The snowmobile caught air at forty miles per hour, dropped about five feet, and landed solidly on the downslope like a contestant in the X Games.
Kurt’s chin hit the windshield, gashing it and jarring him, while Hayley’s boa-constrictor-like grip around his waist kept her on board.
The hovercraft launched itself over the same ridge without any hesitation. It dropped and landed smoothly on its cushion of air without any hint of the jarring impact Kurt and Hayley had felt. With his chin bleeding and his mind racing, Kurt realized what Joe had discovered in the outback: a hovercraft was the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.
He raced on, desperately trying to think of a way to escape its grasp.
* * *
As kurt and Hayley raced off, Joe Zavala found himself pointed in the wrong direction, with the nose of his machine aimed toward the ridge that Kurt and Hayley had climbed. He got on the throttle fast and twisted the handgrips. The engine revved and the tracks spun, and Joe manhandled the nose of the snowmobile around to a new heading.
He shot forward, racing up a small hill and down the other side, almost T-boning one of the Russians.
