MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 29

Jonah didn’t have time to do more than gape.

He heard the pounding of booted footsteps, and suddenly the deck was filled with armed Chang Corp men. He didn’t know where half of them had come from. One of them shouted at him to get out of the way. The next instant, the air was filled with the harsh reports of gunfire. The Chang Corp men were shooting at the yacht, and the people on the yacht were firing back. Jonah didn’t need telling twice. He raced for cover. The door that led to the cabins, to safety, was just a few metres away from him.

He couldn’t reach it. A bullet whistled by Jonah’s ear, pinged off a bulkhead beside him, and he lost his nerve and threw himself down flat.

The freighter had slowed down to enter the harbour, but now he could feel it picking up speed, trying to shake off its attacker. Jonah didn’t dare raise his head to see how it was doing. His sights were set on that door. There was a lull in the gunfire and he tensed, preparing himself to try for it again.

A fresh spray of bullets exploded above Jonah’s head. Two Chang Corp men fell. One of them staggered backwards, and landed right next to Jonah. The man’s eyes were staring sightlessly at the sky. He was dead. And Jonah was pinned down.

He pressed himself against the cold metal deck and waited. To his relief, the fighting started to move away from him, along the deck towards the stern. He guessed that the freighter was outstripping the less powerful yacht – but the pirates weren’t giving up, still firing after their hulking target.

Jonah scrambled for the door. It seemed to take him an age to reach it, to yank it open, to dive through it. He sagged against a bulkhead, his forehead drenched with sweat, his heart hammering.

He headed for Sam’s cabin, and was relieved to see her coming out of it. She had been online most of the night and had slept in. Sam’s green eyes were red-rimmed, her black coveralls rumpled as if she had slept in them.

She kept on going back the way Jonah had come, forcing him to follow.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

Jonah grabbed her wrist, swinging her around to face him. ‘You can’t go up there, it’s not safe!’ He explained what he’d seen.

‘Of all the stupid luck,’ she muttered. ‘A motor yacht, you said? Black and green stripes around the hull?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Jonah. ‘I think so, yeah.’

‘GuerreVert,’ said Sam. ‘They patrol the harbour, attacking diesel ships. Delphine was boasting, back in France, about how many they’d sunk.’

‘So, they... They’re eco-terrorists, not pirates? They don’t really want the cargo?’

Sam shook her head. ‘They’d take it if they could, I’m sure, to fund their operations. But the cargo isn’t their primary objective. They won’t be happy until—’

They heard a whistling sound, followed by an explosion, almost right on top of them. Jonah leapt on top of Sam, trying to protect her. The boat shook with the force of the blast, and the pair of them ended up in a tangle on the floor.

‘Rocket launchers!’ Sam exclaimed as they picked themselves up. ‘They’re firing rocket launchers!’

‘What were you going to say?’ cried Jonah. ‘GuerreVert won’t be happy until...? Until what?’

‘Until they’ve sent this oil-guzzling boat to the bottom of the bay,’ said Sam. Then she looked at Jonah, her face pale. ‘Dad! Dad and Bradbury, they’re probably in the Metasphere. They won’t even know what’s happening.’