by John Shirley
“Why don’t you quit him?” she asked.
Fluron hesitated, then turned back to her. “Oh, the great brute—” He glanced nervously at the door. “The great man, I mean, Reamus . . . is very . . . ah, possessive. And if he doesn’t have a use for something . . . he kills it. So one must feel useful around here, if one wants to live.”
“I’ve heard Handsome Jack’s the same way. They have some kind of association?”
“Well, yes, they—but why am I talking to you?” He shook his head in amused exasperation. “You’re my prisoner.”
“I just wanted you to know, I can get you safely off planet. If you stick with me, Fluron.”
“Shh!” He looked at the door. “Just accept your fate. There’s nothing I can do.”
And Fluron hurried out.
She sighed and tried her bonds. They were some kind of strong synthetic material. She couldn’t break them, but she might be able to stretch them, just enough, if she kept at it. It was something to keep her occupied. Better than thinking about her situation. Strapped down inside something called the Crusher, surrounded by enemies. And no way to get in touch with Mordecai.
Really, chances were, Mordecai was dead. Reamer had probably killed him.
• • •
Daphne was dead. Mordecai was sure of that. But one thing he could make certain of.
He could see to it that she would be avenged. Fury was simmering in him—fury at himself, and at Reamus for killing her, and that fury only needed a target.
Mordecai’s target was directly in front of him. Trouble was, it was impregnable.
It was getting dark out and now and then a little snow straggled down from the charcoal-colored sky, but the land battleship was easy to see.
The gigantic land-going vessel was parked in the midst of the tundra that stretched endlessly beyond the ice-flecked hills. It was motionless except for the shifting of spotlights on its deck, scanning the sky and the plains for enemies, and the movement of crew and sentries on its decks.
Mordecai and Brick had hidden the outrunner on the darker side of the hill, out of sight of the huge armored vehicle about an eighth of a kilometer away. Now they were flattened on the cold hilltop, Mordecai and Bloodwing both shivering, while Brick seemed forever unaffected by the cold.
All three of them were assessing the vehicle. “Looks like they’re taking on supplies, over there on that southeastern side,” Mordecai said. “They’re lifting something up in a net.”
“Scouts going out, too.”
“They must be preparing to hit another target.”
“Maybe Sanctuary.”
“Don’t see how. They couldn’t get that thing up onto that mountain. Couldn’t fit through the canyons. It’s designed to hit towns out in the open, like Fyrestone and Bloodrust Corners. That’s where it’ll go—places like that. He’ll probably demand they bring him all their loot and slaves, or he’ll destroy the town. Hard to imagine anyone putting up much resistance after seeing that thing.”
“Good place to hole up, too, if an enemy’s looking for you.”
“And Handsome Jack’s gonna send Reamus out to stomp on anyone who stands up to him . . . long as the damn thing can get to them. Even if it can’t, it makes a great troop transport to get an army close to its target. Then he lowers some kinda ramp and they all tramp out and . . .”
“They could go after Sanctuary that way.”
“Yeah. They could. I’ll have to warn Roland. If I have to. Only I’ve got an idea how I might be able to stop that thing.”
Brick looked at him with something that almost resembled incredulity. “Really? You?”
“Yeah. What, you think I’m gonna go after it head-on, with a crowbar or something? No. I’m gonna set up a trap for it. Maybe. Depends on . . .”
“Oh Mordecaiiiiiii!” came a piping voice, behind them.
Mordecai groaned, and slipped down the hillside a ways, turning to see . . . just what he was afraid he’d see. Extra the Claptrap was leaning forward as it trundled slowly up the steep rocky hill toward him, its wheels occasionally slipping on patches of ice.
“Whoa there, robot!” Mordecai hissed. “Keep your voice down and keep away from me!”
“I’m here to help you! Don’t worry! I’m safe now! I won’t blow up! Hardly at all!”
“What do you mean ‘hardly at all’?”
“Did I say that? I mean I won’t explode at all! Probably.”
“Don’t get any closer! You’re probably already close enough to kill me if she detonates you!”
The robot stopped partway up the steep hill. “I’ve definitely, almost certainly, cut off her access to the detonation program! I’ve stopped the countdown! No one can detonate me but me! And why would I want to detonate me? Would you want to detonate you? I hardly think so.”
“Just don’t get any closer!”
“I have my rocket launcher here. I could blow the thing up,” Brick suggested.
“That might set off the bomb in it. And from what I can tell that bomb is powerful!” Mordecai tugged in irritation on his beard as Bloodwing squawked in irritation on his shoulder.
“I can be helpful!” Extra called. “I have some information about the vehicle you’re following!”
Mordecai slid down a little closer to it, so he could hear the robot better. “What information? How’d you get it?”
“I’ve been monitoring its transmissions! They’ve been talking to that space station in the sky, there—they’ve been getting topographical data from it! Planning its movements!”
“Where are they going?”
“They’re resupplying for a couple of days, and then they’re heading toward Fyrestone . . . and a series of other settlements after that one!”
“A couple of days . . . might be enough if that thing is going the way I think it’s going . . .”
“They call the vessel the Crusher! It’s going to crush anyone who might resist Handsome Jack and Reamus!”
“Yeah? We’ll see about that. Hey—you can detonate yourself, right? How about if you do me a big favor, and go down there to the Crusher and detonate yourself underneath it? You could at least wreck a couple of its treads.”
“That is actually not an appealing idea. While I’m committed to obeying you within certain parameters, I’m afraid I must decline.”
“Well then—stay out of my way.”
“Did I not give you useful information?”
“Sure. You were useful. But I don’t trust that psychotic program mixed in with your circuits.”
“I’ve got her under control, honest!”
“Just—stay a good long distance from me, okay?” Mordecai turned and crept back up to Brick. “You hear all that?”
“Yeah. We have a couple days. Maybe we can get aboard and just kill everyone we find.”
“The idea has the virtue of simplicity, like so many of your ideas, Brick, but we’d be crazy outnumbered and besides, I saw some SlagSlugs on the damn thing’s deck. One mistake with those things and you’re screwed. Plus, just getting close to the Crusher—that thing’s got weapons pointing out in pretty much any direction. We’d be blown up before we got close. But if we can cripple it, damage it, we can find a way to get closer with some hope of not getting our asses shot off. I figure we need some allies. Specialized allies. The allies I have in mind are . . . you’re gonna have a hard time believing we can work with ’em. But I figure this fight’s in their interest, too. Problem’s going to be convincing them of that before they decide they’d rather kill us.”
Mordecai turned and looked down the hill, made sure that the Claptrap was nowhere near. The sad little robot was a fair distance off, now, skidding down the icy hill toward its outrider.
He shook his head, watching Extra go, almost feeling sorry for it.
Come on, robots don’t have feelings . . .
“Let’s go, Brick,” Mordecai said. “We have a battleship to take down.”
“I’m an idiot,” Daph
ne said, mostly just to hear her voice echo in the steel-walled room. She was alone in the small space, feeling like she was sealed into a coffin. The room was even coffin-shaped. And she needed to pee.
But she did feel like an idiot. First she’d gone off half-cocked out of her home, chasing Mordecai, and not paying attention to anything else. Or she might’ve spotted those Buzzards, and the outriders. Ended up in Jasper’s “custody.” Now she had stumbled into Reamus, and she was his prisoner.
“Did I miss anybody?” she asked herself, aloud. “Anybody else want to take me prisoner?” She was half hoping that someone would hear her talking, and at least come in to talk to her.
Try shouting, then.
“Hey! Fluron! Reamus! Somebody out there! Come in here and deal with me!”
She waited. There was no response. There were sounds of footsteps from somewhere overhead; there were clattering machine noises, and winch squeaks from time to time. Nothing more.
“I’m an idiot,” she told herself again.
Okay, to be fair, she’d been dazed and exhausted, after leaving Gunsight. She hadn’t been able to find an intact vehicle. She’d wandered on foot, looking for a place to pick up an outrunner. Maybe an ECHO to try calling Mordecai. Nothing but the gigantic tracks of the monstrous machine that had destroyed Gunsight, and the occasional pile of useless wreckage where it had run over something.
“Still . . . should’ve been more alert . . .” She’d walked around a boulder and that worm thing had reared up, hissing . . .
And here she was.
She sighed and went back to stretching out the restraints. So far, not much progress. But it was better than just lying there trying not to pee on herself.
• • •
Perched on Mordecai’s shoulder, Bloodwing seemed to sniff the air nostalgically as they went down the stone pathway into the quarry. She craned her head to look at the moonlit bones scattered out toward the middle—bones she’d been gnawing on a few days earlier. Most of the meat she’d left was gone. Other carrion eaters had been there.
“Our allies are here?” Brick asked with surprise as they walked across the snow-coated rock of the old quarry to the mine entrance. “How you know which mine to go in?”
“Look at the tracks,” Mordecai said. “Those weirdly narrow boot tracks—that’s them all right. I killed a few of them when I camped here not long ago. Bloodwing had a nice snack . . .”
“They like allies that kill their friends?”
Mordecai looked at Brick—it was one of those moments when it was hard to tell if Brick was joking or not. There were a lot of those moments.
“We’ll see if we can make up with them, Brick. Bloodwing, you wait here and keep watch. Come screechin’ after me if anyone comes in behind us.”
“Errr.” Bloodwing hopped off his shoulder and settled onto a chunk of rock just inside the entrance, peering out into the night.
They walked into the mine, going cautiously on the downward-sloping stone floor of the shaft. Mordecai had the corrosive submachine gun strapped over one shoulder, and an autopistol on his left hip. Brick was armed with grenades and a flame-modded assault rifle that Moxxi had left in the outrunner for them at the arena.
Aiming his small flashlight into the darker corners of the mine shaft, Mordecai led the way, stepping over piles of rock fallen from the ceiling. “Looks like this rock’s fallen recently,” Mordecai said. “From the color of the breaks . . . which might be a good thing . . .”
“How is that good?” Brick asked, not unreasonably. “Means this place could fall in on us. I don’t like tunnel collapses. You can’t kill rock. I’ve tried.” He seemed to think about it, and added, “You can break it, but you can’t kill it.”
“I’ve noticed that, too . . .”
They were about fifty meters down the shaft when Mordecai smelled it. It was cold here, and the air smelled of minerals, dust, and—something else. There was a harsh tang of rankness that seemed to be increasing the deeper they went: rotting flesh, sweat, and smoke.
They went another ten meters down—and Mordecai held up his hand warningly. They stopped within ten feet of a shaft that went straight down. If they’d been in a hurry Mordecai would probably have walked into it. The rank smell was strong here.
“They cut this here,” Mordecai said, examining the chisel marks on the gray stone. “Bastards must have a colony down there, using the quarry as a back door.”
“Tunnel Rats,” Brick said. “I hate Tunnel Rats. They hate me, too.”
“Everyone hates Tunnel Rats,” Mordecai said, shining the light down the shaft. “And they hate everyone. They’re just mutated people but . . . they’re vile. You still got that flash-bang grenade?”
“Yeah. Here.” Brick handed it over, Mordecai set the timer on the grenade, activated it, and dropped it down the shaft.
He lost sight of it quickly, in the thick shadows below—but after about ten seconds he heard it strike the bottom. A few moments later a flash briefly illuminated the lower part of the shaft. Someone screeched.
“They don’t like bright light,” Brick noted. “You sure know how to make friends with Tunnel Rats.”
Brick actually uses irony sometimes . . .
“Had to get their attention.”
“There’s a ladder over there. Should we go down?”
“Are you crazy? I hate Tunnel Rats. We’ll wait here . . .”
The Tunnel Rats didn’t come at them from the vertical shaft, though there was a ladder carved in its rock. Beyond the shaft the mine continued on its slight incline downward. And in a few minutes several pale, ratlike human faces appeared there, in Mordecai’s flashlight beam, as if the faces were floating bodiless in the air.
“Scouts,” Mordecai muttered. A black bolt, an explosive arrow of some kind, flew from the darkness and hissed between Mordecai and Brick. It exploded a dozen meters behind them. What weapon was that? Mordecai wondered. “Hold your fire, dammit!” Mordecai called. “We’re here to parley! We wanta make a deal with you guys!”
The floating faces looked at one another and back toward him. One of them grinned nastily and called out in a raucous, hissy voice, “Go down the shaft! Take the ladder down! If you’re not terribly delicious, perhaps we’ll talk down there!”
“Not likely!” Mordecai said. “We’d only end up killing a lot of you, if we did that—before you killed us. We’d probably account for twenty or thirty of you . . .”
“More than that,” Brick said.
“We don’t mind if you kill a few of the slower ones!” said the Tunnel Rat, sniggering. “More meat that way! Lots more to go around!”
Probably they were the carrion eaters who’d gotten the rest of the meat off those bones up in the quarry, Mordecai guessed. They thought nothing of eating their own dead.
“Look, you shoot at us again, I’ll open up with this corrosive submachine gun!” Mordecai shouted.
The faces receded a bit, hissing as they went, almost lost in the darkness.
“Wait!” he shouted. “Tell your leader, your headman, your . . . what the hell do you call it . . . your Chief Engineer! Tell him I’ve got a chance for him to destroy an enemy before that enemy destroys him, and he’ll get hundreds of fresh bodies to eat! Hundreds!”
“Liar!” said the last visible Tunnel Rat, his face snarling, receding—gone. “Lying dinner, you are!”
“Dammit . . .”
Then came a screech from behind, and a flapping sound. Mordecai turned to see Bloodwing flying through the darkness to him. She used echolocation to find her way in tight places.
“What is it, girl?”
She flapped to his shoulder and made a low squawk that meant enemies near.
“Yeah? That could be a good thing. Come on, Brick!”
It was a long trip back up the tunnel to the surface, and they were in a hurry. Mordecai was out of breath when he got there.
“We giving up on those stinky things down there?” Brick asked, just inside t
he entrance.
“No . . . Keep your voice down.” He leaned out of the entrance just enough to see what Bloodwing had been trying to tell him. “Look there,” Mordecai whispered. “Some idjits searching for us. Must’ve seen our outrunner, think we’re camping in a mine shaft.”
Three Reamers were walking side by side, just about ten meters away, each one armed with an autoshotgun. They were looking toward one of the other mine entrances. Two of them had shields flickering around them.
“Errr?” asked Bloodwing, from Mordecai’s shoulder.
“No, thanks. I’d rather you kept away from them,” he told her. He turned to Brick. “Grenades, I think. We don’t want to burn the bodies with a lot of chemicals. Tear them up good instead. Roll the grenades in close, should go up under their shields. The old underhand pitch . . .”
Brick grunted assent, and he and Mordecai activated frag grenades. Standing side by side, they pitched them underhand toward the three Reamer scouts.
The group of Reamers were standing close together, so the grenades had maximum impact, blowing them into the air.
One of the men died immediately, the other two, flipped over, were injured but largely intact thanks to their shields.
That didn’t last long. “Brick is here, bringing the pain!” Brick roared, thundering out of the mine entrance at the two men. He jumped on one, the force of his stomping boots going through the shield and crushing the man’s chest. The other was trying to bring the shotgun into play—Brick kicked it from his hand, then picked the man up by the ankles and slammed him down again, kept smashing his head on the ground till the shield blinked off and the man’s head shattered.
“That’s one way to do it,” Mordecai said. He went out to Brick, and took the first dead Reamer by the neck, dragged him by one hand toward the mine shaft. “Bring the other two, will you Brick?”
Brick dragged the other two by their collars, and they returned to the mine, trekking once more into the bowels of Pandora. Bloodwing rode on the body of the one Mordecai dragged, pecking a small snack for herself as they went.
