Read World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) for Free Online Page A

being shut out.”
    “Maybe they’re a bit busy there,” Dev suggested, “trying to stop the runaway.”
    “I’m using police codes. I shouldn’t be getting the ‘unavailable’ tone. Someone should be answering and saying sorry for not picking up sooner.”
    “Can’t we go any faster?” Stegman said, an edge of panic in his voice.
    “The limiter says no,” Utz replied. “We’re at two-fifty kph, the allowable maximum.”
    “How come a freight shuttle’s going quicker than a pod anyway?”
    “How should I know? It’s heavier. Has momentum. Maybe its limiter’s been disabled.”
    “Can’t you disable ours too?”
    “Tell me how and I will,” Utz said acidly. That shut Stegman up.
    The tunnel walls were rushing by. A township station flickered and was gone. The pod was shuddering now, as though trying to decide whether to leave the guideway and take flight.
    If it and the track parted company, in the tight confines of a tunnel...
    Dev tried not to imagine what the result might be. It would make the crash at Jansson Crossing look like a gentle flirtation. Cleanup crews would be scraping parts of the pod’s occupants off the rails for weeks.
    The freight shuttle had got to within a stone’s throw of the pod. The pressure wave it was pushing before it added to the smaller vehicle’s instability. Dev could feel the pod being bounced and buffeted. There was a squeal and a spray of sparks as its left-hand flank nudged the guideway. Kahlo swore and Stegman wailed.
    Dev looked up. “I’ve got an idea,” he announced, and before anyone could ask what it was, he swivelled round in his seat and began kicking at the rear windscreen.
    “Hey!” yelled Stegman. “That’s police property.”
    “Seriously?” said Dev, kicking harder. “That’s what you’re going with, at a moment like this?”
    “You can’t vandalise police property. It’s an offence.”
    “I gave you a dead leg. Does that count as vandalising police property too?”
    The windscreen glass starred.
    “Besides,” said Dev, using both feet now, “if that shuttle shunts us, a whole lot worse is going to happen to this pod than a busted window.”
    The windscreen bowed outward, then all at once broke free of its frame, rubber seal and all. It spiralled into the shuttle’s face, exploding to smithereens. Shards hailed along the tunnel.
    “Those are gun-stuns, right?” he said to Stegman.
    Stegman glanced down at the two chunky rubberised cylinders attached to his utility belt. Police-issue EMP grenades.
    “Yeah. So?”
    “So give me one of them.”
    “No.”
    “Okay, then.”
    Dev reached over and briskly unclipped one of the gun-stuns. Stegman tried to snatch it back off him, but Dev swatted his hand aside, then levered himself halfway out of the hollowed windscreen frame.
    A hurricane tore at his hair and clothing. His ears popped.
    The shuttle had neared to a distance of five metres, still remorselessly bearing down on them.
    Dev lowered his arm, lining up his hand with the gap between the shuttle’s skirt and the inside of the guideway. He primed the grenade, thumbing off the cap and depressing the spring-release trigger. One-second delay. All he had to do was let go of it at just the right moment...
    The pod juddered sharply as he released the gun-stun, throwing his aim off. The grenade hit the base of the track, then bounced up the front of the shuttle and over the top. It detonated halfway along the shuttle, over its cargo bay, silently, uselessly.
    Dev crawled back inside the pod.
    “All right, give me the other one,” he said to Stegman.
    “Just what the fuck are you up to?”
    “What do you think? Gun-stun. Three-metre-radius pulse of electromagnetic energy. Disrupts electronics. Disables non-shielded weapons that rely on circuitry. Also electric motors and electromagnetic fields. And what is that shuttle riding on? A damn great electromagnetic field. I land the thing beside the levitation coils, and the shuttle