Sooner Dead

by Mel Odom

  The 'Chine started turning the windlass aboard the ferry and the vessel slid out into deeper, rougher waters. Shudders ran through the ferry, and the mechmen on her second deck held on tight. Many of them shifted and knocked into each other. Stampede was right about them being more vulnerable on the ferry.

  Hella hurried to the second pole and looped plastic explosive around it as well. At the same time, Stampede broke cover and ran for the first pole. "Take your comm link out, Red."

  That was the part that Hella hated most. She was used to Stampede being in her head all che time, privy to everything but her most private thoughts. Not having him there, not being able to hear him and talk to him whenever she wanted, unnerved her. Still, she made herself pluck the comm link bud from her ear and place it into the special container Riley had provided. She just had time to snap the container closed and store it inside her pants pocket when the 'Chine spotted Stampede and opened fire.

  "Throw!" Stampede drew back his arm.

  Hella fisted one of the EMP grenades and readied herself to throw. She estimated the distance to the ferry as twenty meters. The Wroths had driven their anchor points deep into land that wasn't saturated with underground water from the river. She was within the effect radius. She threw and was dismayed to see that she'd overshot the ferry wide to the left.

  The EMP plopped into the water and disappeared at once.

  Stampede's grenade sailed prettily and landed on top of the ferry's open second deck. The 'Chine had hardly any time to react before the grenade blew up.

  Hella barely remembered to look away from the blast so she wouldn't be night-blinded. After the initial explosion, she glanced back at the ferry in time to see a handful of mangled bodies blown free. They sank into the river without a trace.

  Then the second grenade detonated, creating a flash underwater and shooting a spume of spray into the air. Metallic pings sounded as the antipersonnel shot peppered the hull from the underside.

  Stunned, Hella ran her hands along her body, waiting to see if the electromagnetic pulse was going to do anything to her. She felt a momentary wave of dizziness, but that quickly passed. However, the buzz of the nanobots' voices in the back of her head sounded louder than ever. Evidently they hadn't liked what they'd been subjected to.

  Stampede had already leaped up onto the first cable on his side then grabbed the second, higher cable. He wrapped a length of chain they'd gotten from their gear around the cable and gripped both ends in one massive hand. Instantly the chain slid along the cable as Stampede s weight fell forward along the downgrade of the support line. Sparks flew from the metal-on-metal contact. He gripped his rifle in his right fist and fired round after round as he shot forward.

  Scared of moving but more terrified of the thought of leaving Stampede on his own aboard the ferry, Hella draped her own chain over her cable and kicked off her own slide. The cable jumped and popped as the ferry continued fighting the current.

  Aboard the ferry, muzzle flashes on both decks revealed that the 'Chine hadn't been completely taken down by the EMP grenades. But they had been affected because they weren't moving very well and their aim was horrible. Still, with a fully automatic weapon, a gunner didn't have to be good, just determined.

  Hella morphed her right hand into a weapon and fired, using red tracers for every third round to better target the 'Chine. Bullets cut the air around her, but the mechmen collapsed backward along the second deck as the withering fire took its toll.

  Stampede reached the ferry first. He let go and dropped, landing on both big hooves on the lower deck outside the enclosed passenger area. He kicked one of the 'Chine over the side then grabbed another and hurled it over as well.

  Hella came down beside him, greatly aware of the silence inside her head where Stampede's voice used to be. She fired into the 'Chine and noticed that their movements were loose and disjointed. The EMPs had definitely had an effect. In fact, some of the mechmen lay on the deck, completely inert. The telltale green glow in their eyes was missing.

  Stampede pulled out another EMP, armed it, and shoved it through the window into the covered passenger area. He took up his rifle in both hands as bullets chopped into the ferry's metal hide. He looked at Hella. "Blow the anchors!"

  Dizziness still swirled inside Hella's head, and her guts churned. The nanobots' frantic voices turned even more insistent, maybe even frantic. She grabbed for the detonator hanging around her neck, missed because her reflexes were off, and grabbed again. She wrapped her hand around the slim control rod, found the button, and slid a finger over it.

  The EMP grenade went off inside the passenger compartment, and the unaccustomed whirling sensation trebled inside Hella's head. As a child, she'd never been sick. She'd been around people with fevers, some that had even killed a few of them, and they'd talked about the dizziness and nausea that had plagued them during those dangerous temperature spikes. She felt certain she was feeling what those people had been feeling.

  Before she knew it, she was on her knees, but she retained enough presence of mind to press the detonator button.

  On the north side of the river, two blinding flashes suddenly lit up around the anchor poles only a moment before the thunderous roar of the detonations reached Hella's ears. Immediately the poles tipped over and the cables went slack, trailing in the water as the ferry bucked and twisted sideways as the current took it.

  A massive wave of cold water poured over the ferry's low wall and deluged Hella. The sickness twisting like a gutted pig inside her head barely spared her any attention for the freezing temperature. Her arms and legs failed her, and her hands morphed back into hands without her willing them to.

  Off balance, she slid across the deck into a pile of partially functioning 'Chine. Her vision, something she'd always taken for granted, suddenly blurred. One of the 'Chine, Hella thought it was a young girl, which made the whole idea of the mechmen even more morbid, lashed out with a long knife attached to a third arm that sprang from her chest.

  Hella blocked her attacker's wrist with her forearm and felt the blade slice her right jaw. Blood turned her skin warm, and she wondered how many nanobots were lost. Focusing, Hella turned her other hand into a weapon, shoved it into the knife wielder's pallid face, and fired.

  Blood and brain bits blew out the back of the girl's head. Hella's next round destroyed the ApZero on her neck for good measure. After spasming for a second, the girl went slack.

  Panting for breath, still dazed, Hella forced herself to her feet. "Stampede. Stampede." She put her hand to her ear then remembered the comm link was in her pocket. Wildly she glanced around and saw Stampede throwing another 'Chine over the side.

  The river ran unmercifully with the ferry like a dog with prey in its jaws. Caught in the current, the floating platform slid free of the cables. Hella watched the thick, metal strands whip through the air toward her, and she was barely able to go to ground an instant before one of them sliced the space where she'd been. It caught four of the 'Chine and ripped them into halves.

  Panicked, Hella looked over to Stampede, expecting him to have suffered the same fate. Instead he was on his back on the deck and firing up at mechmen on the second deck. His bullets drove them back, and there was little return fire because his adversaries were disoriented from the EMPs and the pitching deck as the ferry rode the furious river.

  Stampede rolled to his feet and changed magazines in the rifle. He thrust the muzzle into the passenger compartment and fired an incendiary rocket. A heartbeat later, smoke and flames belched from the interior of the ferry's lower level.

  The ferry yawed again and nearly overturned. Hella barely had time to shift her hands back and grab hold of the railing. For a moment, as she watched a dozen of the 'Chine pour into the river, she thought the ferry would go on over. Miraculously it heeled back over and landed upright again. Hella's arms felt as though they'd been torn from their sockets.

  As she gazed over the top of the railing surrounding the lower deck, s
he saw the world rushing by her. Trees and brush along the river banks became a blur then became a tangle as the ferry swapped ends again and again.

  "Get up." Stampede growled in her ear and helped her to her feet.

  Morphing her hands back into weapons, Hella looked around and saw that they were the only ones left on the lower deck. Fire still burned inside the passenger compartment. Stampede charged up the stairs leading to the second deck. Still feeling nauseated, Hella followed.

  Only a few 'Chine remained topside. Evidently most of them had been lost overboard. A few lay inert on the deck, rolling in loose sprawls from one side of the deck to the other as the ferry rocked and rolled on the rushing river.

  Hella fired at one of the 'Chine that tried to aim an assault rifle. The large-caliber bullets stitched the creature from the left hip to the right shoulder and blew her over the side into the dark water.

  Stampede charged the remaining two 'Chine only to discover his weapon was empty. He swung the rifle like a club, catching one of his adversaries in the face and knocking it out of the ferry then grabbing the other one by its human arm and heaving it over the side.

  "Downstairs."

  Hella read Stampede's lips more than she heard him. The roar of the river drowned out all other sounds. She followed him, a little steadier on her feet but still struggling with her balance and the drenched metal deck.

  CHAPTER 18

  Three 'Chine popped out of the passenger compartment doorway at about the same time Stampede stepped from the stairs to the deck. He stomped his foot, and the deck quivered, causing the ferry to jerk like a fish at the end of a line in the river.

  The three mechmen went down in a tangle of arms and legs, and Stampede shot them to pieces at close range. Growling, he kicked the remains away from the door, paused at the edge, and peered inside.

  Falling into position on the other side of the door, Hella looked inside as well. She wondered if Pardot's cargo had survived the incendiary blast then reasoned that anything that could crash to earth as a meteorite couldn't be harmed by anything they could throw at it.

  A handful of 'Chine remained active inside the compartment, and they shot wildly, obviously still in distress over the EMP grenades. The fire had all but gone out, but flames still clung to the wooden tables and chairs bolted to the floor. The garish light the flames provided rendered the burned and twisted mechmen even more horrible.

  Bracing herself in the doorway, Hella fired into the surviving creatures and watched them go down, glad that they didn't have to use another EMP grenade. She didn't know if she could keep her senses about her if they did.

  Satisfied that the opposition was all dead, Stampede took out his comm link and shoved it into his ear.

  Hella did the same.

  "All right, Red, let's see if we can save what's left of this tub." Stampede went back through the door, and Hella followed, grateful to have his voice back inside her head.

  The river had gentled out some as they got farther from the falls. Hella gazed out at the turbulent water and couldn't believe they'd survived the assault. The ferry remained at risk, though. A sandbar or a riverboat sunk during the flooding or any time before, and they would be in the current themselves. Hella didn't think she had the strength to save herself if she ended up in the water.

  Stampede led the way to the ferry's stern. Hella couldn't remember which stern had faced the north and which had faced the south bank. In fact, if it hadn't been for knowing that the river ran west, she'd never have known north from south. All along the banks, trees and brush grew rampant.

  At the railing, Stampede opened a compartment built into the wall, ignoring the blood that stained most of it, and pulled out an anchor and chain.

  "If you try to drop anchor in the river, the current will tear the ferry to pieces." Hella hung onto the railing and willed her stomach to be more settled.

  "I know. But our luck isn't going to hold forever." Stampede let the metal, three-forked anchor drop to the deck and fed a length of chain out after it. When he was satisfied, he started swinging the anchor overhead. A moment later, he threw the anchor into the trees lining the north bank.

  The chain jumped and juddered in Stampede's hands like a live thing, and in the forest it ripped through trees and brush. Just when Hella was certain the anchor was about to tear loose a final time and drop into the river and maybe become a hazard for them, one of the tines hooked something solidly.

  Stampede grunted in pain and effort as he held on to the chain. He set himself and Hella knew he was using his power again to tie himself to the ferry's deck. Anyone who didn't have Stampede's power would have slipped. Anyone with less than his strength wouldn't have been able to hold on or would have had his arms torn from his sockets. Anyone less stubborn wouldn't have endured the agony that he went through.

  Screaming in pain, Stampede held the chain in a death grip. The ferry stopped rushing forward and started slipping sideways in the current, edging closer and closer to the bank. Finally, after several minutes had passed and Hella didn't think that Stampede could hang on one second longer, the ferry's bottom touched the riverbed.

  Then Stampede hauled on the chain, fighting the current till it finally bucked them to the side and the ferry rested wedged up against the bank.

  "Tie the chain to the cleat."

  Hella slid across the deck on her knees, grabbed the chain, and wrapped it several times around one of the mooring cleats passengers used to tie onto when they needed to float vehicles that wouldn't fit on the ferry across. "Okay." She scooted back as Stampede let go the chain. She half expected the links to slither free and whirl around in lethal arcs.

  Instead the chain remained taut, and the ferry stayed in shallow water.

  Stampede slumped to a sitting position on the deck and flexed his cramped hands.

  For a long moment, Hella and Stampede just sat there and listened to the river race by them. She checked the magazine in her rifle to make sure nothing had jarred loose. "Do you think any of the 'Chine are still alive?"

  "Not on this ferry." Stampede pulled his rifle around and slipped in a fresh magazine.

  "What about the ones in the water?"

  "Even if there were any that could swim, they either drowned by now or they're a long way from here. Even with the hive mind powering dead bodies, they're not getting out of the river any time soon." Stampede looked at her. "Those EMPs do anything to you?"

  Only because Stampede would know that she was lying if she said no, Hella told him the truth. "They made me sick."

  "You still sick?"

  Hella sat quietly and took stock, but the weakness and nausea she'd felt were more memory at that point than anything noticeable. "No."

  "Not like you to be sick."

  "I know."

  "Anything permanent?"

  She shook her head because she didn't think that was the case.

  Stampede forced himself to his feet. "Let's go see if Pardot's cargo survived the trip. I don't think he's going to be happy if we're the only ones that made it. And I wouldn't know where to start looking for it if we lost it overboard."

  Inside the passenger compartment, a canvas-covered object lay in the middle of a group of dead 'Chine. The mechmens cause of death was a mixture of things: antipersonnel flétchettes, bullets, and burns from the incendiary grenade. Stampede and Hella dragged the dead things away; then Stampede slipped his belt knife into the rope that held the canvas in place.

  Gingerly they pulled the canvas back and found a metal man lying there.

  Stampede cursed and stepped back. His hand slid around the grip of his rifle in smooth reflex, and he pointed the barrel at the metal man.

  "Wait." Hella slid forward for a closer inspection. "This isn't 'Chine. Look at it. This thing looks more like a man than any 'Chine I've ever seen. There's nothing human about him."

  In fact, the figure was beautiful. Every feature, every limb, everything about the man was perfect. His silver skin glistened in
the glow of Stampede's flashlight. He was bald, his head perfectly shaped, and he was more handsome than any man Hella had ever seen. He was curled into a fetal position, as if he'd gotten afraid during the recent battle and had willed himself to go to sleep. He had no garments, and he wasn't immodest in spite of his nudity because there were no obvious genitalia, but Hella recognized him as male.

  "Do you think it's some kind of statue?" Stampede sounded irritated.

  "I don't know." Cautiously Hella prodded the metal man with her fingers. When she made contact, her whole hand buzzed, like she'd touched something carrying electrical current. She jerked back and Stampede dropped a big hand on her shoulder and yanked her back further.

  "What happened?"

  Hella gazed at her hand but couldn't discern any damage. "Shocked me."

  "It's carrying voltage?"

  "Yes. Not enough to hurt you, but it got my attention."

  Stampede gazed around the bobbing ferry. "Nothing aboard this thing carries voltage."

  "The Wroths use it back at their house. A waterwheel to turn a generator so they can use metal lathes and other tools."

  The metal man remained inert.

  Puzzled, Hella reached for the thing and touched it again. She was prepared for the shock and didn't immediately break contact.

  "Current still there?" Stampede peered at her.

  "Yes."

  Stampede dropped a hand onto the metal man then frowned. "I don't feel anything, and I'm as soaked as you are."

  Hella took her hand back and felt the residual tingle. She curled her fingers into a fist then morphed her hand into a gun. Everything worked perfectly. She looked at Stampede.

  He shook his head. Drenched and covered in blood and 'Chine fluids, he looked bedraggled.

  A beam of light suddenly blazed through the window.

  Hella and Stampede slid into positions at the door and peered out into the night.