B20C25

We hauled like only a cockroach can haul: six legs scampering madly, like Wile E. Coyote
loading up to chase Roadrunner.
Zoom! Off across the steel deck.
Zoom! Over a seam in the floor that was maybe an eighth of an inch but seemed like a wide ditch.
Zoom! My little compound eyes millimeters above the ground, my antennae waving, streaming out behind me.
Zoom! We were Vipers on the interstate! We were Porsches on the autobahn! We were like those crazy rocket cars out on the salt flats. We were moving at full, screaming, cockroach speed.
Which, unfortunately, is about walking speed for an average adult human.
<Step on them!> Visser Three cried triumphantly. <Crush them!>
But we had one other skill, in addition to looking disgusting: We were agile little bugs. Ever try and step on a roach going full out? Ever try and step on a roach armed with full human intelligence?
It isn’t easy.
WHOOOOOOOSH! Down came something so big it blocked out the sky.
I stalled the legs on my left, motored the legs on my right, and did a Bat-turn that would have left the Batmobile skidding.
BOOOOOMMMMM! A Hork-Bajir clawed foot the size of Arkansas landed behind me. Hah!
Too slow.
Too slow by about three millimeters. Next one might get me.
Then …
<Opening up ahead here!> Jake yelled.
Opening to where? I didn’t care. I saw a dark, horizontal band stretching forever to my left and almost forever to my right. It was just a seam between one level of steel and another, but it was taller than a quarter was thick, and that’s all I needed.
WHOOOOOSH!
BOOOOOMMM!
<Ahhh!> Suddenly I was running on five legs. One had been yanked out by the roots as the HorkBajir toe landed on it. The roach didn’t care. It creeped me out, but the roach was indifferent.