Desolation Crossing

by James Axler

  If the rest of the attack party had still been in the vicinity, then this could have caused further damage. Unfortunately, the initial strike had done nothing more than spur them on, and they were bearing down on the convoy with even greater speed.

  Mildred spoke into the comm mic. “Five down, John, seven bearing down.”

  J.B. LISTENED TO Mildred’s words as he squinted through the ob port, trying to make out the lines of the attackers through the backwash of dust that rose from the wheels beneath the port.

  “Dark night, LaGuerre, how the hell do you expect us to mount a defense when you make it this hard to see the enemy? We need to stop and meet them head-on.”

  He looked at the trader. LaGuerre was sweating heavily, his eyes wide with fear.

  “No way. I only fight when the odds are stacked on us winning. There are too many of the bastards, man. We can’t stop, can’t slow down. That way lies buying the farm.”

  “Bullshit. We can’t see the enemy, we can’t hit them, we buy the farm.” J.B. spit.

  “Fuck that,” LaGuerre snapped back. “I’m trader here, and this is my convoy. Do it my way or not at all.”

  J.B. knew that arguing with a terrified man was useless. Especially a terrified man who had power. Especially when there was no time. He cursed to himself and turned back to the ob port. During the few seconds he had been arguing with LaGuerre, the dust had cleared a little, and it was easier to see. Maybe it was also easier to see because the seven wags left were gaining at speed.

  “Why didn’t you say?” he directed at Eula. The woman had been watching all the while, and had said nothing to alert him.

  She shrugged. “You’re in charge. It’s your job, and you’re supposed to be good at it.”

  J.B. stared at her, openmouthed. Fuck…What the hell was the matter with these people? It didn’t matter. There were more important things to think about right now. Not least of which was the fact that Ryan and Jak had left the rear of the convoy and were headed for the attackers. Within seconds they would be too close to risk another rocket attack.

  “Cody, Doc, hold fire on the attackers,” J.B. snapped into the comm mic. “Ryan, Jak, what are you doing? Answer, dammit.”

  His answer was a silence broken only by static.

  R YAN AND J AK had been operating almost in isolation since the journey had begun. Their only contact with one another was as they passed by each other on their recce maneuvers. Even then, it was impossible because of the heavy protective goggles and the dust to make anything remotely approaching eye contact. Each had, individually, wondered how the hell he was supposed to communicate with the other in a time of emergency; by the same token, each had decided individually that the only way to face this was to just tackle the problem should the need arise.

  Ryan caught sight of the attackers before Jak. It was in evitable, as the albino youth’s sharpest senses were dulled by what was surrounding him.

  It was at the farthest reach of a patrolling arc that he saw the wags on the horizon, breaking through the shimmering heat haze. He wondered if the convoy had seen them, thought about barking his sighting into the comm mic that was by his cheek, then figured it would be next to useless. He hadn’t been able to hear them, didn’t even know if the bastard thing was working. There was no sign of the approaching wags being attacked, but there was no way they were in range of any ordnance carried by the convoy. Ryan figured that the best he could do right now was to make Jak aware of the approach, so that both of them would be ready to act.

  As they passed on their complex circuit, he tried to yell. Even as he did so, he realized the futility of it. He couldn’t hear himself, no way would Jak be able to hear him. He would have to find another way.

  The two riders had fallen into a pattern, passing each other on a circuit that only their close knowledge of each other—an almost telepathic empathy built up among all the companions by their times of standing shoulder to shoulder in combat—would enable them to execute without fear of collision.

  Ryan changed his pattern, taking two circuits to fall in beside Jak. The albino teen had been perplexed by Ryan’s change, though no sign of this had crossed his impassive, scarred visage. Not wanting to second guess the one-eyed man, Jak had stayed in his circuit, operating as a holding pattern for Ryan to orbit until his own new pattern had been established.

  Once Ryan was riding parallel to Jak, the two men looked across at each other. Ryan raised one hand, pointing in the direction of the attackers and signaling Jak to follow him. With the albino in train, Ryan led them out of the wake of the convoy, the new circuit taking them beyond the lip of the old highway and into clearer air, where it was easy to see the approaching wags. Turning so they now ran at an angle to the rear of the convoy, and keeping a line that enabled to them to recce the attackers, they saw the first rocket from Doc miss its mark, followed, to their gratification, by the following strikes.

  The two riders stayed their hand until the smoke and dust had cleared enough for them to be able to fully assess the situation. Seven wags were left running, and closing on the convoy so fast that it wouldn’t be long before the long-distance weapons would be too dangerous to the convoy itself at such a shortened range.

  There were no other strikes, and the convoy kept moving at its current pace.

  What the hell was going on? Both riders knew that J.B.’s tactics would be to bring the convoy to a halt. Sure, it made them a sitting rather than moving target, but chances were that this was a raid for jack and supplies, not a drive-by for sport. In which case, direct hits weren’t in the opposition’s game plan. It was a risk, but the Armorer played the odds. From a standing position they could be far more effective as a strike force while defending ground.

  So J.B. would have the convoy stop. Yet still it rolled on, neither increasing nor slackening pace. LaGuerre—both Ryan and Jak had marked the trader as a slippery, tricky bastard, but neither one had thought he could be a stupe or a coward. He was either or both.

  Unable to communicate with anyone else—or even each other in anything more than the most rudimentary terms—the two riders knew that they would have to take action without recourse to J.B. or any other companions. They would just have to trust that they would be seen and not become the victims of friendly fire.

  Because the defensive fire had stopped, and the attackers were closing fast.

  Ryan indicated to Jak that they should move out. The albino nodded and followed his leader as Ryan guided the bike onto a course that would take them in to engage with the enemy. Going through both riders’ minds was the fact that the seven wags hadn’t yet fired a single shot. It was reasonable to assume that this was because they needed to be closer to engage, and the only logical reason for that was that their ordnance could only be used up close. Handblasters, short-range SMGs or rifles. Grens, maybe, but only propelled manually or through attachments to the shorter range hardware.

  If it was a reasonable assessment of what they would face, then they knew that to keep moving, and fast, would make them hard to pick off while the attackers were also on the move. It was a fighting chance, and that’s all that Jak or Ryan would ever ask. Especially as they were now close enough to have come within range of this assumed ordnance.

  The primary aim was to prevent the oncoming attackers from engaging the convoy. Because of the limited ordnance that Jak and Ryan carried, they knew that their best course of action would be to separate the seven wags in the attack. If they could pull apart any formation that the attackers had, then it would be easier for the moving convoy weapons to pick them off. And, along the way, there was the chance that a piece of good shooting from the back of the bikes would also help to achieve this aim.

  Which was okay as plans went, but was a hell of a lot harder to put into practice when you were down on the dustbowl, dirt-packed ground.

  Ryan and Jak were encountering the same problems. The off-road ground was smoother than the shattered highway for a short distance, as the old shoulde
r of the road had remained flattened and hardpacked. But go beyond this, and the ground became treacherous. Ridges of dirt and rock, holes caused by burrowing rodents, patches of dirt that clogged and covered potholes and cracks in the surface area: all of these could be easily negotiated on foot, and wouldn’t cause anyone to stumble. But driven over at speed by the tires on a bike—tires that were bald, with little or no grip, and in sore need of pumping—these small contusions in the earth suddenly became traps that could maim or chill.

  The bikes bucked and roared as they hit the uneven surface. If they could gain enough speed, then they could ride over the irregularities, gain enough momentum to make the uneven surface blur into regularity. The problem with that idea was that the bikes weren’t quite powerful enough to do that and still retain maneuverability. The only way they could build up this momentum was to run in a straight line…and be an easy target.

  So both riders opted to zigzag, trying at the same time to keep up as much speed as possible while avoiding the worst of the uneven ground. It meant that the attackers who chose to fire on them were finding their shots run high and wide. The downside was that it meant that their progress toward their target wags was hindered by bone-shaking encounters with uneven ground that threatened to unseat them from the bikes at any given moment. That, combined with the clouds of dust that were swirling almost as though they were part of the very air, meant that visibility was reduced in range, and any notion of judgment regarding distance was, at best, nominal.

  It was a far from ideal situation. Unable to communicate by sign anymore, each rider had to hope that the other would know by some kind of instinct where the other sat. Their heads were filled with the roar of the bikes and the rush of blood that accompanied each bone-shaking jolt. Their vision was obscured by the dust that swirled around them, and the dirt and flies that gathered on their goggles. The oncoming wags would be fixed in the center of their vision, only to be shot out of the side or the top by a jolt that caused the stomach to try to force its way through the craw.

  How the hell they were supposed to fire was a mystery: a matter of instinct and luck, rather than any kind of judgment.

  Not that it stopped them. Handblasters were all that they had, and to try to grip and fire while riding one-handed was asking to be thrown. Nonetheless, it was all they could do.

  The crack of their handblasters was lost to them in the scream of bike engines tortured by the surface they were forced to ride. They couldn’t tell if they were hitting their targets. Dirt swirled around them as the return fire kicked up traces. Nothing seemed to hit: the bikes didn’t buck and rear from tire or engine damage, and there was no searing pain or numbing sensation from a slug ripping home.

  In truth, it was hard to know what was going on. In the middle of this engagement, it was impossible to know if their tactics were working, or if circumstance had diverted them.

  The true pattern could only be seen from the outside.

  J.B. WAS WATCHING the maneuver with mounting apprehension. He would have much preferred to bring the convoy to a halt, adopt a defensive formation and then bring the attackers into an area where the armament he carried could blast the living hell out of them. But LaGuerre had scuppered any chance of that. J.B. knew that Ryan and Jak would expect him to do this, and wondered if part of their pulling away from the convoy was to act as bait to the attackers, drawing them into an attack that didn’t exist.

  The convoy hadn’t deviated from its path. It followed the line of the highway, as simple as that. The attacking wags had come from a diagonal, deviating only when the rocket attack had put paid to nearly half their number. They had pulled an almost 180-degree turn, and seemed to be going back on themselves. Their aim soon became clear—they were moving to cut ahead of the convoy. Instead of coming from the side, and risking another blast from the rocket launchers, they had opted to cut back to try to meet the road so that they could turn and meet the convoy head-on.

  And now Ryan and Jak were entering the fray, leaving their posts at the rear and heading across at another angle to cut in front.

  J.B. figured that he knew what they would do, if they could—divide the enemy, make it easy for convoy blasters to pick them off. No way they could do much damage themselves. Looking at the way they were ducking and weaving across the dustbowl, he doubted very much if they would be able to risk any shots of their own.

  And they had no communication. He couldn’t raise them, and so he was damn sure that they couldn’t raise each other. So friendly fire was a real and present danger.

  Dark night, he could punch out LaGuerre’s lights for making this difficult. Seven wags, none of which looked that heavily armed. It should have been piss easy. Instead, he was watching Ryan and Jak on their erratic course, wondering how the hell he could fire on the attacking wags without taking out the riders.

  One thing for sure—whether they knew it or not, Ryan and Jak were serving the convoy well. Their sudden appearance, and the path they were carving across the land, meant that the attacking wags had been forced to modify their course, both to meet the new threat with attack, and also to avoid a collision that would have suited neither party.

  Now, instead of running a course that would see them hit the road ahead of the convoy, they had been diverted into one that saw them running parallel to the highway, the bikes running interference between them. The seven wags were currently devoting their attention to the bikes, SMG fire raking the ground around the weaving path of both Jak and Ryan. The riders had avoided being hit thus far, but in truth it was only a matter of time before probability dictated such a hit.

  The good thing for the convoy was that fire was being taken away from them. Without their attention being taken up by the need to respond, it gave J.B. vital seconds to plan and act, rather than being forced to react.

  “Cody, Doc, listen carefully,” J.B. said in calm and measured tones that were far from reflecting how he felt. “We can’t talk to the bikes, and they can’t talk to us. I want to avoid hitting them. But the truth is that we can’t tell what Jak and Ryan are going to do. They’re keeping the wags from firing on us, but that won’t last long. We’ve got SMG capability, and we’re going to use that and not the rocket launchers. I want each of you to pick a target area and stick to it. Don’t try to follow the wags, just aim at those that come in a hundred-degree angle. Make that the firing area.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss…” Cody’s voice was strained. The convoy rider was having trouble grasping J.B.’s concerns—it figured, as the bike riders weren’t his people, and he would have just blasted the hell out of anything in his field of vision. Would he do that anyway? J.B. hadn’t had the time to form an opinion; he could only hope.

  Doc’s voice, when it came, was far more reassuring. “My dear boy, I completely agree. Spare the rod and pass the ammo, I say.”

  A fleeting grin crossed the Armorer’s face. He had no idea what the hell Doc was talking about—much like usual—but he knew that he could rely on the old man.

  “Okay. Pick your targets and fire at will,” J.B. commanded crisply.

  There was no further dialogue between the convoy wags. J.B. settled in behind the SMG post to fire at the attacking wags, and knew that his order had been successfully understood by Cody when a burst that could only have come from the second-in-line wag ripped into a clearing space between Ryan and Jak, hitting home and causing one of the attack wags to spin off course, a plume of smoke rising from a gas tank that had caught fire. The wag veered erratically away from its companions, the crew jumping to avoid being consumed by a fire that spread rapidly. Their flight was in vain. At the speed they were going, it was likely that bones would crack and internal organs tear on impact. That was assuming they could escape the blast that ripped the wag apart. The gas tank caught fully and exploded, triggering a chain reaction in the ordnance they carried. The sound of the explosion was loud enough even to be heard above the steady roar of the convoy engines, sounding a second after the flas
h of the explosion assailed their eyes.

  “Good shooting, Cody,” J.B. said into his mic, wanting to keep the man sharp and on his side with due praise.

  As he spoke, he took aim for a wag that had come into his field of vision. It drew level with the LaGuerre’s armored wag, then used its lighter weight and comparatively stronger horsepower to pull ahead, starting to alter course, so that it was moving out of parallel and into an orbit that would take it in front of them. Jak and Ryan were farther back, engaged in weaving between the five wags that still moved straight.

  “Nice try, but no way,” the Armorer murmured to himself. He admired the boldness of the move, figuring that it was probably how he would play it under such circumstances. Which was exactly why he knew it needed to be snuffed out before it became a threat.

  Pulling clear of the melee at their rear, the attack wag crew knew that they were opening themselves up to attack, which was why they laid down some fire of their own. Chattering SMG fire was echoed by the dull clanging of the shells hitting the armorplate of LaGuerre’s wag. If they thought such ordnance would have an effect on the wag, they were soon disabused of the notion. J.B. knew it was now time to see what else they carried with them. If it was heavy and could cause damage, then he didn’t want to see it. So he had to act swiftly.

  The attack wag was pulling forward and across, making any angle of fire from the leading wag more and more difficult to attain with accuracy. If they could pull out and come straight on to LaGuerre’s wag, they would hit a blind spot. There was a cannon mounted for firing ahead, but the Armorer knew from its design that it was a long-distance weapon. Sighting it for close in firing would be difficult if not impossible. Further, if the attack wag was heavily armed, then blowing the bastard out of the road could lead to damage from the blast.