"The car's about to take off," Alex says in the rushed, high-pitched way of someone who is very nervous. "Batman and Mel are going after it. Cover them, but if they can't keep up it's all up to you."
Tama risks taking her eyes off the snipers for a few moments so that she can look back at the garage/warehouse. Sure enough, there's a rectangle of light at ground level. It's expanding upwards as the door opens. For a moment Tama thinks of zipping in there to meet the car head-on, but she realizes that wouldn't be a good idea. It's probably going to come out fast, and she's pretty sure the driver won't have any qualms about mowing her down.
When a gleaming black hovercar rockets out of the square of light Tama's glad that she decided not to go in through the garage door – even in her armor she wouldn't have stood a chance. Two dark streaks trailing flames follow after it. They aren't going so fast that she can't make them out; Batman is in the lead, with Melanie behind him. Some blaster bolts lash out at them from the garage door and from the soldiers already out among the boxes, but they all miss. Tama decides to buzz the nearby soldiers one more time before heading off after her friends to cover their tales and, if need be, take up the chase herself.
~***~
Terry can't help but feel satisfied by the surprised expressions that appear on the faces of the nearby guards when he and Melanie blast out of the makeshift garage to follow the black hovercar. He weaves through a number of blaster shots on his way out and takes note of Kitsune, who starts following him as he flies over the walls of the industrial complex. If the bad guys send another car or some other vehicle after him, it will take a while for them to catch up. Speaking of vehicles…
He quickly presses a button on his belt that will summon the Batmobile. Somewhere it's disengaging from its autopilot route and making a sharp turn in his direction. The movement causes him to wobble a little bit in his flight, but he quickly corrects it.
Now the passengers in the car have noticed that they're being chased. Terry sees the front passenger window and one of the rear windows slide down. The soldier he saw is leaning out of the front window, and Grey Suit is in the back. They both have blasters, which they point at him (he's slightly ahead of Melanie) and fire. Terry weaves around, dodging their shots almost without thinking.
Right now they're only about two stories off the ground. The buildings around them reach up to five or six stories. At the moment they're not ascending; they probably want to try and slag him, then maybe rise above the buildings and into the open air. At this height the driver can't go too fast because the streets aren't in a regular grid – this is Old Town, after all – and he has to worry about bumping into something. But above the buildings he can probably leave Terry and Melanie in the dust. The Batmobile isn't anywhere close by, and they may be long gone before Terry can get in the cockpit.
Unfortunately they seem to be pretty quick on the uptake. Grey Suit and the soldier are still shooting, but the car is rising slowly. In half a minute, maybe a little more, they'll be up far enough to blast off. Terry checks a little red display in the lower left-hand corner of his vision. "THRUSTERS AT MAXIMUM," it says. He's going as fast as he can.
Well, jets aren't the only way to keep up. He holds out his left arm, trying to keep himself steady as he does so, and fires his grappling hook at the car. It puts a nasty dent in the trunk but doesn't catch. Terry retracts the line and tries again. This time it pierces the back of the car and stays. He's done this lots of times before. He grips the cord with both hands. Now he's almost hang-gliding behind the car. He starts pulling himself forward, inching bit by bit towards his target. Now the trick is to make it there without getting shot…
~***~
Barbara had not been able to assemble her troops in the neighborhood around the warehouse so that she would be ready to strike at the right time, since that wasn't the way the police did things and it would raise too many questions. But Bruce's forewarning allowed her to look at a map of the area and make up a strategy before she went in. And she'd taken one of the small GCPD hovercars there herself. She might have had to wait on Bruce's orders – a circumstance that she resented, and still does, even though he was right – but she's going to do this her way, and get a piece of the action too. Almost like the old days.
Right now she's parked in an alleyway, lights off, watching the glowing map on one of the dashboard screens. On it are two dots; Terry and the hovercar he's chasing. All hovercars have a GPS uplink so that they can get route updates fed into their onboard computers, so a person with the right equipment, who knows what they're looking for, can track them pretty easily. Terry's case is a little different. Barbara managed to find the frequency for the transmitter in his suit, and uses a secure program to keep track of him at all times. Neither Bruce nor Terry knows that she can do this, and they're never going to know.
On another screen variously colored dots representing about a fifth of the GCPD's total forces are closing in on a collection of lines representing the defunct industrial complex Natalie Milou's kidnappers (minus the ones in the car) are hiding in. Normally Barbara would be taking care of the main assault herself, but this time she's delegated that to Captain Burke. She's half-listening to the strike force's communications over her radio, but everything seems to be going fine, so she doesn't really pay much attention. Barbara's interested in that car Batman is chasing.
And, what luck, it's coming her way. As she watches the red blip of the car get closer to her own green blip on the screen, she becomes aware of the sound of its engines. "Hit it," she says to Lieutenant Mia Rhodocanakis, who is in the driver's seat. Mia's one of the best drivers on the police force. She quickly flips a few switches to power up the car and turns the siren on, then lifts out of the alley to place herself in front of and slightly above the black hovercar. In the rearview mirror Barbara can see that Terry has harpooned the car and is flying along behind it while two of the passengers attempt to fry him with blasters. She finds this both incredibly brave and incredibly stupid, and she smiles. Lieutenant Rhodocanakis whistles appreciatively at Batman's feat but keeps her concentration on driving. There's also someone else flying along behind Batman – Barabara doesn't know who it is – and farther back a red figure that is probably Kitsune.
Barbara grabs the mike for the car's speakers and presses the button on it. "This is the Gotham City Police," she says in her sternest voice. "Reduce your speed and land immediately."
The black hovercar ignores her, as she thought it would. Instead it continues to rise. It can only go slowly because most of its engine power is going into propelling it forward. Barbara frowns and puts the mike back in its clip. "Get above it," she tells her lieutenant. "We'll try to force it down."
"Yes ma'am," Lieutenant Rhodocanakis says, trying to hide her excitement and failing.
Barbara can't help feeling excited herself. This is about to get very interesting.