by James Axler
Jessica cried out and fell backward into the salt mud, a millipede clinging to her boot, the pincers sawing away. Kate slashed out with her bowie knife and cut off a dozen of the creature’s legs. Hissing in pain, it stopped attacking Jessica and turned to snap at the Trader. Shoving her blaster into its mouth, she squeezed off a burst and the bug erupted from within, guts flying everywhere.
As the fighting slowed, the people turned to inspect the transport, firing a round here and there, extracting millipedes from inside the barrels of the 40 mm gren launchers, an exhaust pipe and an unmanned machine-gun blister. As a bug hit the water, the nearest person would stomp on it with a boot in the middle of the body where the pincers couldn’t reach, and somebody else would blow off its head. Once the tactic was worked out, the slaughter continued relentlessly until there were no more of the monsters to find.
“That should be the last of them,” Kate said, removing a spent clip from her blaster and pocketing the empty to slide in a fresh clip. “Anybody hurt?”
A few folks had gotten bitten, or scorched from a muzzle-flash of a friendly blaster held just a touch too close to unprotected skin. But the damage was minor, and when Jinx came out of the war wag carrying a bag of medicine, he seemed pleased.
“With all that firepower going off, I expected a lot more damage than these scratches,” the healer said, walking among the crew. “Nothing important here. All right, everybody get inside. I’ll want good light to clean those bites.”
As the people sloshed back into the vehicle, Kate stayed in the mud, with the hot barrel of her rapid-fire resting on a gore-splattered shoulder.
“Okay, Roberto, let’s get some dry land underfoot,” she directed. “Roll her out, nice and slow. We’re still checking for passengers.”
The big man nodded and climbed inside. Soon the engine rumbled into life and the wag started forward at a stately crawl. Walking alongside the transport, the Trader watched the machine and the waters underneath just to make sure they had cleaned off every last mutie. For a moment, she thought one had escaped detection, but it was only a hollow body, the guts blown out by a large-caliber round. Good enough. As the war wag drove onto the dry sand, the woman relaxed and joined the group of soaked people panting in a huddle.
“Are you…” a man asked reverently, clutching a bundle to his chest, “are you the Trader?”
Nearby, a young woman kept a skinny arm around a small boy who alternated between looking at the bald man and the bloody woman with the blaster. There was some fear in his young face, but also a trace of defiance. These were ville people, not runaway slaves. Too bad. She always gave slaves preferential treatment.
“I’m the Trader,” Kate stated, looking over the motley group. “Where the hell are you folks from? There’s nothing closer than Rockpoint that I know about.”
“That is our ville, my lady. Or rather, it was,” the bald man said. He quickly added, “Thank you for saving us.”
Kate waved a hand to cut that short. “Just call me Trader.”
“Of course.”
“And tell me about this water,” Kate said, jerking a thumb at the muddy field. “Was there an earthquake? Some sort of river washing in from the mountains, or what?”
“No, my…Trader. There was an outlander,” the man said hurriedly, rushing the words. “A man called Ryan Cawdor. He and some coldhearts snuck into our ville and started a riot. Chilled everybody they could and stole a bunch of horses.”
According to the ancient laws of Texas, that was a hanging offense. Horses were infinitely more valuable than wags. They ate wild grass and reproduced themselves. No wag had ever learned that trick.
“Ryan Cawdor,” Roberto said in a flat, emotionless voice from the open doorway of the wag. “The name is familiar. And you say he has turned into a cold-heart.”
The bald man nodded vigorously. “Yes! He—”
“That’s a triple-damn lie!” a new voice shouted angrily.
Lifting the blaster off her shoulder, Kate watched as this new person shoved his way through the other people. He was heavily muscled, missing a couple of fingers on the left hand, and his left eye was marled white, with a long scar going from his forehead, across the dead orb and down to his dimpled chin.
“No, it is not!” the bald man retorted, starting to reach under his clothing.
Moving with astonishing speed, the newcomer punched the first man straight in the face. Teeth went flying, and the bald man staggered from the blow, but came back in a crouch and whipped out a blaster. But it was aimed at Kate, not the one-eyed man!
“Look out!” the mother cried, shoving the boy behind her for safety.
That was when the sky seemed to shatter as a dozen .50-cals from the war wags and cargo vans all spoke at once, the combined rounds almost blowing the man to pieces. As he spun wildly, his blaster discharged, the slug smacking into the sand between Kate’s boots. The tattered body was shaking as the woman lowered her rapid-fire and put a single round into the back of the dying man’s head. He twitched as it hit, then went still, the sands slowly turning red around his ravaged face.
“Thanks for the warning,” Kate said, cradling the smoking blaster in both hands. “You were fast. I like that. We’re shorthanded after some business down south. Want to join? We got space.”
“Really?” she asked, hope brightening her care-worn face, then her features went blank again. “No, please, I don’t do that anymore.”
Kate understood, and her hatred of Gaza increased. “We got no gaudy sluts here,” the Trader stated gently. “If you ride, then you’ll work, just like everybody else. But not on your back. My word. That good enough for you?”
Hesitantly, the woman nodded in agreement.
“Can you cook?”
“Some,” she admitted. “And bake a little, too.”
“Even better.” The Trader smiled, then whistled sharply and lifted a hand.
From the doorway of War Wag One, Roberto tossed over a holster containing a revolver. Kate made the catch and handed it to the young mother, whose eyes went wider at each passing moment of comprehension.
“Mine?” she asked in a whisper.
“Everybody goes armed in my convoy,” Kate said firmly. “Now, get your ass to the kitchen and start on dinner.” She left the sentence hanging.
“Matilda,” the young woman said, buckling the gun belt around her waist. “And this Avarm.”
The boy peeked out from behind his mother, then hid again.
“Welcome to the convoy,” Kate said, then gestured at the war wag with her chin. “Get on board. The kitchen is in the rear. Help yourself to anything you want. The cooks always eat first, or else they eat everything. Right?”
Matilda almost smiled. “You’ve done it yourself. I can tell.”
“Yeah, but not for a long time,” Kate agreed.
“Roberto, they’re now in your charge. Find them bunks and some shoes for Avarm.”
“Check,” he said, and led the new recruits into the war wag and out of sight down the central corridor.
Noticing the bloodstains on the big rig, Kate pulled out the hand comm and hit the switch. “It’s me,” she said.
“Roger, Chief,” Eric replied with only a faint crackle. “I’m way ahead of you. Got the ears turned up to max. Any more bugs come our way, you’ll know it before they do.”
“Good man,” she said, and tucked the unit away.
Now the rest of the crowd was staring at her with expressions of awe. To most of them, a radio was only a legend.
“Could we get some food, too, Trader?” another man in the group asked, shuffling in the dust and salt. “It’s been days since we last ate. Even longer since we had fresh water.”
Glancing at the acres of muddy land, Kate frowned at that, then remembered the water was flowing over salted sand. Even if it started fresh, that stuff wouldn’t be fit for a mutie to drink after ten yards.
“You didn’t say or do shit when he tried to get the drop on the Trader
,” the guard announced from the doorway. “Now zip it, and speak when you are spoken to, outlander.”
The words hit harder than the presence of the deadly blaster. Outlanders. They were now wanderers, people without a ville. Outcasts were the natural prey of any coldheart with a blaster.
“Everybody will get a meal,” Kate said, releasing the bolt on her Ingram to ease their apprehensions some. “But nothing is free. I barter for a living.”
“What do you want?” the big one-eyed man asked bluntly.
“Information,” she said, crossing her arms. “That was a good punch. Why did you throw it?”
“He was a stinking priest!”
“Priest?”
“High priest, actually.”
Kate gestured for more. The man was eager to talk, his rage almost palpable, radiating like heat from a foundry.
“The name’s Red Jack,” he said, thumping his chest with a hard fist. “Used to be the bartender at the ville tavern. Ryan and some folks came into town—that much the priest said was true. Anyway, Gaza jacked one of Ryan’s people as a sacrifice to the Scorpion God.”
“And Ryan got him back,” Kate said. It wasn’t a question.
Red Jack grinned, displaying a gold tooth. “Damn straight he did, that’s a bullet in your blaster for sure. Blew the temple to hell, releasing this river of water. Son of a bitch Gaza had an ocean hidden away while telling folks he was squeezing it out by the drop. Made us obey or die, plain and simple. Used to say that blood made the water flow faster.”
Awkwardly, the bartender hid the mutilated hand behind his back. “If you broke his rules, sometimes, the payment was flesh,” he added with a grimace.
“So Gaza is aced?” Kate asked.
“Hell no. He escaped in a wag of some kind. Big thing, eight wheels, loaded with blasters and grens.”
Eight wheels, could be a LAV 25. “Any rockets?”
He frowned. “Nope. But Hawk stole the ville 25 mm, along with a shitload of shells.”
Kate frowned at the choice of words. Shells, not rounds or bullets. Damn, that was real trouble. The armor plating on the war wags was as thick as they could make it without slowing the vehicles and eating excess fuel. They were tough, but not indestructible. A functioning 25 mm cannon could tear open the war wags like a rusty tin can.
“Now, Gaza has the big wag, but Hawk has the twenty-five, is that it?” she demanded. “You sure?”
“Ya got my word,” Red Jack stated.
The Trader had half expected that, and had to accept his oath. If you give your word, it was meaningless unless you also accepted the word of others. At least, to a point.
“Any chance they could join forces?”
“No way!” an old man in the crowd snarled. “Just before leaving, Gaza shot Hawk, and that sorta made Hawk mad.”
“Damn well think so,” Roberto said from the doorway. “Okay, food is coming. Line up by the other wag and you’ll each get a meal and canteen of water.”
“After that,” the first man asked hopefully.
“After that,” Kate repeated, “you leave.”
As the hungry people tramped over to get an MRE pack and hot water from a steaming kettle, Trader kept turning the news over and over in her head. Hawk, Gaza and Ryan in Core country. What a shitstorm this was becoming.
“Imagine Gaza with that 25 mm cannon,” Roberto drawled, walking closer, then standing alongside the woman. “Shitfire, Chief, that would change everything. Mebbe we should leave. There’s nothing holding us here. No treaties, or blood kin at risk.”
“You want to go?” Kate asked.
The big man barked a laugh. “Fuck no. I say we take Gaza down once and forever. End it here and now.”
“Agreed,” Kate said, removing the Stetson to brush back her hair and then replacing the wide-brim hat. “Okay, after they’re fed, we’ll head out.”
“Which way? Toward Rockpoint?”
“Straight for the nuke cloud,” she said grimly, watching the sunlight play on the rippling salt water lake. “If they’re anywhere out there, that is where we will find them.”
“The only good point was that Gaza and Hawk would never join forces.”
“Yeah, thank God for that.”
Chapter Eleven
With its antennae quivering in battle frenzy, the sec hunter droid paused in the middle of the littered street, battered and damaged, but nowhere near chilled.
“Head to the left!” Ryan shouted, waving toward the right with his handcannon.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, the companions obeyed, and the machine started going in the other direction, then stopped and spun fast. But by then, the companions had gained valuable yards of safety.
Moving carefully over the corpses on the sidewalk, Ryan noted the actions of the droid in grim satisfaction. Blind, but not deaf, eh? The man thought as much. Okay, he could use that.
Using hand signals, Ryan had Jak throw a knife and smash the windshield of a distant car. As the machine rushed over to the noise, the companions crept through the windowless front of a large liquor store. Ryan would have preferred a paint store, or gas station, but this was the only useful place in sight.
Soon discovering the trick, the sec hunter returned to exactly the same spot it had been standing with machine precision, then started doing a circular recce pattern through the vehicles. As the droid swung past the store, Ryan fired once, hitting it from behind. Immediately, the machine rushed inside with its remaining buzz saw slashing the air.
Firing again, Ryan busted a magnum of champagne on the counter, the popping cork and gush of bubbling wine masking their movements in the store. Then Ryan and J.B. both threw a case of whiskey at the droid. But it heard the clinking bottles coming its way and slashed the box open in midair, shattering the contents and drenching itself completely.
Now the rest started bombarding the machine with bottle after bottle of pungent alcohol. Going behind the counter, Mildred and Dean toppled over a tall display rack to crash a hundred bottles of vodka and rum onto the confused droid. Deafened by the noise, the machine attacked wildly, only managing to shatter more bottles and increase the volume of booze on the floor.
As the machine went berserk trying to find its prey, the companions used the shattering glass to cover their retreat to the rear door. While J.B. oiled the bolt and hinges, the companions kept cover with their blasters as Ryan took a mop from an empty bucket and dabbed it into the liquor covering the floor, then used his butane lighter to set the stringy head of the mop on fire.
The droid paused at the sound of the crackling flames, and Ryan threw the burning mop like a spear across the store. It landed near the front door with a clatter, and the droid attacked as blue flames rose from the igniting alcohol and began to quickly spread, soon covering the droid in flames. As it spun about mindlessly, more bottles began to explode from the spreading conflagration.
Easing out the back door, the companions raced away for several blocks, before climbing the ladder of a fire escape to reach the top of a motel. Then they hurried across the salty roof to jump to the next structure, and then did it again. Several blocks away, the friends finally paused to catch their breath and frantically reload weapons.
“Mother always did say that alcohol was bad for your health,” Doc muttered, starting the laborious reloading process of the LeMat. It took about five minutes for the man to properly purge all chambers in the cylinder, then compress black powder, ball and wad using the attached hand-press.
“No sign of the machine,” J.B. announced, lowering the Navy longeyes and compacting the tube. He tucked it into his munitions bag and began reloading a clip for the Uzi from a box of spare rounds.
“Thank Gaia that worked.” Krysty sighed, then suddenly realized she was still carrying the Holland & Holland. With virtually no chance of ever finding more ammo for the elephant rifle, she placed it gently on the roof and checked the load in her .38 S&W revolver.
“This just bought us some time,
nothing more,” Ryan growled, thumbing fresh single rounds into a spent clip. Tucking the clip away, he started on the next. “You know these machines are triple tough to chill and never stop hunting their prey. If the machine comes after us again,” Ryan went on, working the slide on the SIG-Sauer to chamber a round, “aim for the other blade. Once that’s busted, we’ll have a better chance to escape.”
“Escape, not chill,” Jak said with a frown.
“We’re going to need something other than blasters to stop this droid,” Ryan stated bluntly.
“I can make us some Molotovs,” J.B. suggested, removing his glasses to clean them on a pocket rag. “But those only confuse and don’t do any real damage.”
“Pipe bombs?” Dean suggested.
The Armorer replaced the glasses. “Unless we find a National Guard armory, I’d say that was our best bet.”
“A sec hunter in a civilian city,” Doc said thoughtfully in his deep bass, holstering his piece. “There must be something here of military value.”
Furrowing his brow, Jak got the idea. “Means mil blasters.”
“Unless it was for a missile silo outside the city,” Krysty suggested pragmatically. “Or an escort for some big gov type riding through.”
“True enough, dear lady.”
Somewhere distant there came the sound of cannons, or mebbe only a series of fast explosions.
“Trapped in a burning city, with no way out, and a sec hunter on our ass,” Mildred grumbled. “Plus, the Core and Gaza waiting above.”
“Mebbe not waiting,” Ryan said, studying the edge of the cliff rising above the city. “We’re going to do this by the numbers. First we get more ammo, then we try for the big stuff.”
Moving with a purpose, the companions hit the streets. Finding a bank with unbreakable Plexiglas windows, they located a phone book not eaten by the salt and got the address for a sports store, since there didn’t seem to be a military base or National Guard armory in town. A police station was useless, as cops never kept their extra ammo sealed to make it easier to use in case of trouble. Which meant the dead air would have corroded every round. But sport stores usually kept their stock of ammo sealed in plastic wrapped boxes to prevent pilferage. Moving fast and silently, they reached the store without incident and found a wealth of ammo under the counter, securely behind a steel lattice. J.B. easily unlocked that and everybody filled their pockets, taking a few spare boxes of a size used by some mil blasters, just to be sure. In the camping department, they found some MRE packs in acceptable condition, a lot of dehydrated food completely inedible, plus some underwater flares and other items that J.B. happily tucked away into his munitions bag.
