Sky Strike by James Rouch Read Free Book Online

curve of the branch line became sharper Burke had to ease back the speed to keep the loudly protesting wheels on the track.
    Don’t start laying the blame on me.’ Ripper became conscious of several pairs of eyes on him. ‘Hell, the lick we were going it were making my eyes go funny trying to watch the track. I tell you what though, I reckon I got a kinda idea where we’re going right now.’
    ‘Think you might let me know before we run out of track?’ Burke had the brakes on hard now, and their fierce application was filling the cab with a banshee scream of metal on metal.
    Ripper pointed along the tracks to where they passed out of sight behind the bases of a row of tall cooling towers. ‘Looks to me like this spur is taking us back to the place where all that flak was parked. Ain’t enough they screwed us up on the way in. Seems that we’re about to give them a chance to have another try.’

    FIVE

‘Every fucking time I start to enjoy me-self...’ Applying the brake savagely, Burke brought die train to a halt at the crest of a gentle downgrade.
    ‘All change.’ The drop from the cab was greater than he’d estimated, and Dooley made a heavy landing on the oil-stained ballast, almost f ailing.
    ‘You weren’t much fucking use were you?’ Glaring hard, Burke crammed all of the sarcasm he could into the accusation.
    Ripper paused as he turned in the doorway and sought for the top step with his foot. ‘Heck, now you can’t blame me. I seen tidier crows’ nests than that tangle of tracks back there a ways. I only said I knew how to spike a point, I didn’t offer no guarantees about keeping us heading in the right direction for ever.’
    ‘What’s the matter?’ Squeezing past the driver, Hyde waited his turn to disembark. ‘Is he complaining about having his new toy taken from him?’
    ‘Sure is. I wonder he don’t throw a tantrum and bust it, stop anyone else having fun.’
    Until Ripper spoke, Burke had been about to grudgingly accept the situation, but now he got an idea, and stubborn: ‘Major, I take it we don’t have a use for this old Commie rattletrap any more.’
    ‘Glad you’ve got the message at last. Now get your carcase out here. We’ve territory to cover, fast.’
    Alone in the cab, Burke reached for the brake handle. The motor was still turning over, raggedly, with occasional surges. He’d have liked to have sent it off under full power, but he hadn’t the time to rig the controls in a manner that would overcome the built-in fail-safe devices, and so this would have to do. Releasing the brakes, he climbed out to join the others.
    ‘What you been doing in there, saying goodbye to it?’ Ripper’s boisterous laugh caused his helmet to slump down over his eyes, to leave his broad grin showing.
    ‘Sort of, if you must know.’ Several seconds elapsed before Burke could be really certain that the wheels were turning, but once he could detect movement, it rapidly grew more obvious.
    Trundling with increasing momentum, the locomotive rolled noisily past. Burke felt the warmth of the smoky exhaust, pungent with the stench of unconsumed fuel, and then as the rake of wagons passed, the fierce heat from the burning coal-load of the fourth in line. Red-hot slag tumbled from a circular hole in the side of the wagon, and there were screeches and masses of sparks from a bogie wheel that had jammed. Furnace heat from above sent the white metal of its bearing in dribbles of molten silver globules to splash brightly on the track bed.
    The train never made it as far as the cooling towers. Barely a quarter of its journey completed, it rolled violently as it hit a junction. Ballast flew up, and the train left the track. Flying granite chippings were replaced by a spray of mud as the locomotive ploughed to £ gentle halt in soft ground flanking the line, its wagons still upright, and coupled, the last of the zig-zag formation clear of the tracks.
    Burke tried to grab a launcher from Cline. ‘Get