Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

Another tank swiveled and blew the yellow Stanley into debris across the plain.

The Jonesy zeppelin, still on fire, came dashing in and struck the tank with a shell and got vengeance.

Then I was pulled back into driving. Marie Atlas slammed her spurs into that poor horse. But no matter how much she brutalized that animal, we had her. Micaiah brought up his MG21 and fired off rounds. Some hit her, knocking her around on the saddle, but he didn’t hit her where it counted.

“Aim for the head,” I admonished.

“I understand your request,” he answered robotically, “but I am out of ammunition.”

I wished we had Wren. I wished Pilate had been able to join us. But no, it was just us.

Then I knew: I would need to clip Miley with the car. Unthinkable. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, hurt that pony.

We were right up on her, Miley’s hooves nearly hitting the front bumper of the BMW. Atlas turned with a pistol in her hand, to fire at us. Her eyes widened.

Micaiah shouted in my ear. “Brake! Now!”

I didn’t know why he would want me to, but I did. We slammed to a stop ...

Just as June Mai’s Jonesy zeppelin fell out of the sky above us, on fire, taking missile after missile into her side. Marie Atlas slammed her heels into Miley to get her going once more, and she had to duck—we both did—as that cigar-shaped behemoth came crashing down.

Then both Severin and horse were lost in all the Kevlar, plastic, and Neofiber of the demolished blimp. The heat of the explosion swept over us in a wave, and I could smell my hair singe. Sweat dripped down my neck. I’d been under an exploding zeppelin before, and let me tell you, it’s no fun.

I cranked the wheel to the side and drove the gas pedal to the floor, and we raced south, away from our quarry. The burning zeppelin struck the prairie behind us. Another turn of the steering wheel and we were back in pursuit, but I had to skirt the wreckage while avoiding the battle around us, as tanks, Stanleys, and Gammas exchanged fire.

The Jonesy crash had given Marie Atlas enough time to make it into the salvage yards.

And maybe, maybe, through to the border on the other side. If so, the chalkdrive was gone, and our war would be over.

(ii)

Both the boy and I were silent as I swerved onto a service road and headed toward the Plainville Salvage Yards. With dirt under us, I slammed gears until I found one that really threw the rocks under our spinning wheels. We shuddered up a hill and fishtailed, but I knew how to turn into the spin. I’d grown up driving where asphalt was mostly wishful thinking. Topping the hill, we got a view of the border and the ARK armada we faced.

That was where the Moby was headed—toward the SISBI fence and American airspace. I didn’t want her going up against those Kestrel gunships. About the size of the largest of military helicopters, the gunships were shaped like a Y, with wings and a tail like a lobster. Blue lights winked across their bodies. The blue-fire of their engines made the fence glow around them.

Under the Kestrels were floating MFV Havok military vehicles, completely frictionless. The Havoks were eight meters long, three meters wide, and squat, riding on a cushion of air instead of wheels. Machine guns, charge guns, and other armament dotted their metal roofs. Electric lights glowed along their edges and from their undercarriage. They were full of Regios guarding the border, waiting for Marie Atlas and the chalkdrive.

Micaiah and I careened down the hill as the Moby soared over the airplane hangars, junk piles, and dumpsters of the Plainville Salvage Yards. I could only hope Sketchy had guessed what had happened: Marie Atlas had the chalkdrive, and we had left our people to chase after her.

Sketchy stopped her airship right over the junkyard. Then her triple-X machine guns started up, tracers lighting up the sky, firing at something on the ground, hopefully Marie Atlas.

We sped through an open chain-link gate and into the salvage yard. Piles of debris surrounded us, matted clothes, ratty mattresses, sticks of ruined furniture, metal barrels leaking some kind of ooze, half tore-up mobile homes, cars, and RVs scattered here and there. But like the main street in a city of garbage demons, a central corridor opened where wind-whipped paper was caught in tornados of trash.

The sky was getting dimmer, but I could still see, thanks to the flicker of a stack of monitors. It reminded me of the train crossing outside of Buzzkill, Nebraska. The pile of screens would glow, show video, and then they’d go dead, only to wink on again. So that was the true border. The edge of the Yellowstone EM field, that was the border, and it was ragged, changing. The fence didn’t mean much. Those Kestrel gunships and the Havoks underneath them couldn’t get too close lest they wind up dead in the dirt.

But I wondered if they really understood how the Juniper border worked; I sure as hell did. And that might give us the advantage we needed.

Marie Atlas was pinned down by the Moby. The Severin was crouched down behind a dumpster that was rusted out but still intact to offer some protection. Miley, that fine horse, must’ve run off. Thank God.

Marie Atlas saw us and hit us with bullets. Micaiah and I ducked, and I braked. Then a bigger explosion threw fire and dirt into our faces; the impact of an explosive shell shuddered the ground next to us.

Pulling out of an airplane hangar was an old Dodge Laredo with an AIS attachment, followed by two tanks, their turrets swiveling. They hadn’t committed all their forces to the battle. They had saved some, just for us.

Just for me and Micaiah.

He looked on with mild eyes. Not a bit of fear.

I couldn’t say the same.

Another shell struck to