The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

A few happy-gas and sleep grenades cleared away the mechanics for the moment. Some lay cheerfully unconscious while the others laughed themselves sick. The noncom had cowardly stayed out of range and was back on the radio again. I studied the instruments. There! The little black knob with PAUENJE on it. When I slapped it the jets whined and rumbled to life. A rocket slug crashed through the open canopy above my head and I ducked cursing. As I kicked in the throttle I saw the noncom kneeling to take careful aim. The plane began to move—slowly.

His gun flared again and I felt the vibration as the slug buried itself in the seat. Which was probably armored. My first bit of luck. I flipped the tail so it pointed at the gunman, which put the armor between me and him and gave him a good blast of jet exhaust in the face. The plane bucked and shuddered and moved forward again—and I saw the torn fuel hose flapping in the windstream and pumping out its vital juices. Those idiots hadn't disconnected it! I didn't know where the fuel gauge was on the cluttered instrument board, nor did I want to look at it. Logic told me that gravity would bleed the fuel out a lot slower than the pumps had forced it into the tanks—but logic had nothing to do with this. I had a vision of the jets dying out here in the middle of the field while the forces of the enemy closed in around me. I could feel my blood pressure going up like an express elevator.

My busy little noncom friend was obviously still working on the radio, because when I turned onto the runway I saw that some trucks were moving into position to block it and something that looked suspiciously like an armored car was roaring up in the background. I cut the throttle back almost all the way and ducked my head down to read the instrument panel again.

What I was looking for wasn't there! Then I noticed another bank of switches on one side and painfully spelled out their dim messages in the bad light. ISBACIVANJE. There it was!

I looked up and saw that I was about to crash into the first truck. Men were bailing out and running in all directions. My feet paddled about as I groped for the wheel brakes and I threw the rudder hard over. I finally found the brakes, stood on the right one and did a shuddering turn. About a half-meter of wingtip tore off on the front of the truck. There was the orange blast of a gun as someone fired at me, but I have no idea where the slug went. Then the jet was around and I was belting back in the opposite direction. This time at full throttle.

The runway lights were streaming by, faster and faster, and I had to keep one hand on the wheel while I groped for the belts and harnesses with the other. One of the buckles was missing and the end of the runway was coming up before I found out that I was sitting on it. I clicked it into place and grabbed the wheel with both hands as I ran out of runway.

The jet did not have flying speed. The nose was mushy and would not lift when I pulled back on it.

Then I was bumping across the graded dirt heading straight for that stone wall I had been looking at all evening.

Faster and faster to a certain collision.

Chapter 9

The timing had to be just right. Too early or too late would be just as disastrous. When the wall loomed up above the jet and I could see the joints between the blocks I figured it was about right and I hit the eject button.

Bam! The sequence was almost too fast to follow—but it worked. A transparent shutter snapped down over my face, the still tilted up canopy blew away with a crack of explosives, and the seat slammed up so hard against me that it felt like my spine had shortened to half its length. Almost in slow motion I sailed up and out of the jet and, for a hideously long second, saw the raw stone of the wall directly in front of me. Then I was over with only the dark sky ahead.

At the highest point in my arc there was another sharp crack at my back and I looked up to see the white column of the parachute swirling up above me. I was falling and the roofs of some buildings looked very close below.

The chute opened with a rustling snap, the seat pushed up against me and, a moment after this jarring deceleration, the wall of a building was rushing past and the seat hit the ground and rolled over. The chute settled slowly down and draped me in its enveloping folds.

I am chagrined to report that I did nothing at all at that moment. Events had moved even faster than I had planned and this final bit had been simply stunning. I gaped and gasped and shook my head and finally had enough sense to bang the quick release and throw off the harness straps. After that I kept my head down and crawled and finally got out from under the chute.