Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) by T.E. Bakutis (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📗

And if he stopped driving, he’d get dragged out of this ATV, pummeled and kicked until his captors got tired, and then shot.

Yet Jan still thought he’d find a way to get away. He believed it until his vehicle’s overtaxed engine literally exploded, belching a cloud of metal fragments and smoke high into the sky. So, not getting away after all.

The vehicle slowed and stopped as the engines behind him rose in pitch. He’d die in the desert instead of in his cell, but he’d die free, with the sun shining overhead. It wasn’t the worst way to die, not by a long shot.

But it was still dying, and dying sucked.

“Get out of the vehicle!” someone very angry shouted from behind his ATV. “Hands up! Out now!”

Jan wasn’t going to make it easy for them. He pondered leaping out of the driver’s compartment when the first Truther asshole came into view, but scarcely managed to raise his non-wounded arm. He felt like he’d just run a marathon.

Life was all sound, then. The sound of wind over the front of his stolen four-wheeler. The sound of boots crunching dirt as they approached. The soldiers didn’t ask him to surrender again.

The sound of a massive rifle crack split the blessed solitude of impending death. That single report echoed across the open field like thunder off a rolling storm. It was followed by another crack, then another. Then silence.

Silence reigned until it was broken, again, by another engine. Jan’s eyes remained heavy, but he focused on the steering wheel and forced himself to stay awake. More boots crunched dirt, and then a towering shadow rose over his ATV.

“Hey,” Pollen said. “You tired?”

“Shot,” Jan whispered.

“Big surprise,” Pollen said, before turning away and waving one arm. “I got him! He got shot!”

Jan grunted and let his heavy eyes close.

When Jan opened his eyes again, he thought, for a long moment, that the whole feverish escape had been a dream. The bone-wrenching pain when he attempted to raise his now bandaged arm shattered that illusion, and the sound of his own raspy breathing chafed. Jan was really, really tired of pain.

“Took you long enough,” someone grumbled at his side.

Jan turned his head and verified it was indeed Pollen sitting at his side, scowling mightily. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and forced a smile. “You were worried.”

The hard bed beneath him was rumbling, and the IV bag hanging to his side was swaying gently. They were moving. They were in the back of an autotruck.

“Hell yes I worry,” Pollen said as her scowl deepened. “You tell anyone back home, I shoot you again.”

“Where are we headed?” Jan assumed they were somewhere on the wilderness of roads between big cities, but he wasn’t sure anywhere was safe from Esparza’s goons.

“Star’s Landing,” Pollen said.

Alarm bells rang in Jan’s head. Elena Ryke was in Star’s Landing. “May I ask why?”

“Yes,” Pollen said.

Jan waited. Waited some more. “I’m asking why, Pollen.”

“Ask Emiko,” Pollen said, shaking her head. “I will go and get her. Do not try to kill yourself.”

Jan winced as Pollen crouch-walked past him to enter the cab of the autotruck. So Emiko had told Pollen about the incident in the maglev tunnel. No wonder Pollen was so pissed at him.

The door slammed, then thumped open again. Emiko limped into view, and Jan craned his neck to find a white brace wrapped around her right shin. She wore a tank top and brown camouflage shorts, but sensible shoes. Jan smiled at her. “Ah, Em—”

She slapped him hard enough to snap his head to the side. Yet that, too, was understandable. It was all understandable, and he was alive, thanks to her.

He met her furious gaze. “Em, I made a mistake.”

“You think?”

“I was frightened.” Jan was not ashamed to admit that, though he was ashamed, now, that he had given up. “That’s why I tried to off myself.”

“Still no excuse.”

“It isn’t. I’m also extremely pleased to be alive.”

Emiko’s glare slid into a frown. “So I was right?”

“Absolutely and unquestionably right.”

“Hmm.” Emiko slid just a bit closer. “I was looking forward to slapping you again.”

“Why are we heading to Star’s Landing?”

She sighed heavily. “Your fault, as usual.” For the first time, Jan recognized how frightened she was. “Kinsley decrypted the datapad you snagged on the way out. It’s really bad.”

So they now knew the disturbing truth as well. “The Truthers are financed by our own government.”

“That?” Emiko scoffed. “Oh, that’s a walk in the park compared to what Esparza and his pocket senators have planned.” She leaned close. “They have a mini-nuke, Jan.”

Jan missed a breath. “No.”

“They plan to set it off on Armistice Day.”

Jan went through all the reasons Commander Graham Esparza would set off a mini-nuke in Star’s Landing on Armistice Day, and drew a resounding blank. There wouldn’t even be any Advanced in the city. It would be nothing but natural-born Ceto citizens celebrating the day when, three years ago, Ceto’s restored government and the government on Phorcys signed the treaty that kicked the Supremacy off Ceto forever.

Why would Esparza’s Truthers want to blow that up?

“It’s a coup,” Emiko said. “Tarack’s data disc confirmed everything we suspected about the Truthers’ financing. Shockingly enough, President Mendoza’s not actually in bed with those assholes. It’s a small cabal of Ceto senators backing Esparza, funneling his soldiers government money, but it’s all been under the table until now. They plan to change that.”

“By irradiating Star’s Landing?”

“Guess which Ceto senators abruptly cancelled their attendance at the Armistice Day parade,” Emiko said. “And guess what Esparza told about a thousand former freedom fighters, all of whom are camped