by John Shirley
“Really it should be you with that sniper rifle up on the rim,” Roland said, starting the truck.
Mordecai shrugged. “Daphne seems to be as good . . . well, nobody’s as good, but almost as good as I am with a weapon.”
Roland laughed and put the truck into gear, slammed on the accelerator, and they were rolling. He had the truck on manual and drove it himself—the time would come for the self-drive.
“They’re going to see those headlights,” Mordecai pointed out.
“I think it’s okay for a while—we’re a quarter-klick from the canyon. I’ll turn ’em off in a minute, but it’s damn dark down here, I don’t want to drive in a hole.”
Up ahead, something grotesque reared up in the headlights—the clacking pincers of crabworms, three of them, pretty damn big too—but Roland simply put the truck in a higher gear and stamped on the accelerator, and the truck took care of them, the enormous vehicle smashing over the crabworms, crushing them into pulp.
Another minute, and Roland switched off the headlights. Up ahead he could see the outline of sentries against the firelight beyond them. At this distance he could just make out a couple of weapons, in the sentries’ hands—and was that a rocket launcher? He’d try to nail that guy fast—the rocket launcher just might be able to stop the dump truck, thick and heavy though its metal chassis was.
Bumping over rocks and lumpy ground, the men in the back of the truck cursing, the dump truck roared toward the enemy lines.
Bullets cracked into the windshield; it chipped, but the armor glass held up, for now.
“Too bad this truck hasn’t got a real shield,” Mordecai muttered, rolling down his window. He shoved the shotgun muzzle out, checked the load, angled it toward the enemy. He wouldn’t be able to shoot directly ahead, but he could cover their right side pretty well.
Roland heard the familiar deep cough of a rocket launcher, tensed to try to evade the missile, but he saw it rocketing too high, going over the top of the truck. So the launcher had done him a favor—now he had to reload, as Roland accelerated and ran him down, crushing two other sentries in the process. One of the sentries, a tall Psycho, was flipped up by the impact, back broken, and ended lying across the hood like the wild prey of some sportsman coming back from a hunt.
Bullets slapped into the dead Psycho on the hood, as Roland plowed under another group of Psychos and turned the vehicle to the left, so they were running down the middle of the canyon—and right down the middle of the encampment.
Pulse banging like an alarm bell, Roland shouted, “Tailgate going down!” out the window, to the guys in back. He hit the switch that lowered the tailgate, and Dakes, Lucky, Brick, Gong, and Scobold, lying on their bellies with their automatic weapons pointed out the back, opened fire at the Psychos trying to fire at the truck. They had good shields cadged from the dead platoon, and they were hard to hit, lying down in the back of the swerving, bouncing truck.
Roland rolled up his side window, just in time for the bulletproof glass to deflect a spatter of shotgun pellets, as Mordecai blasted his own shotgun through the face of a Bruiser trying to leap onto the truck, Mordecai’s second shot shooting the top of a Midget’s skull off.
A spurt of machine-gun fire ripped through the Psycho carcass on the hood, cutting it in half; one part fell to the right, the other to the left. Bullets hammered into the windshield, and now it began to crack . . .
But the truck raged onward, engine roaring, wheels spraying mud and blood. The dump truck’s six big wheels crunched over still-sleeping Psychos. Sentries and furious Gynellan soldiers behind them fired at the dump truck; bullets ricocheted from the metal, thumped into the solid-synthetic wheels, doing no appreciable damage. Bullets ricocheted around in the back of the dump box, but the shields worn by Brick and the others held, and they fired effectively on the Psychos behind them, bullets breaking the bones, bursting the brains, gouging into the guts of the unprepared soldiers.
Engine roaring, shotgun booming, rifles rattling, the dump truck crushed its way through the camp, leaving red puddles of men garnished with bone fragments and mashed entrails; it smashed mortar emplacements and sent the dozens of Psychos running in a panic of confusion. Men shouted and argued and screamed and bellowed in their wake.
It was the panic, the bewilderment, that best worked to their advantage. The waves parted for them—waves of men getting out of the way. Bullets came their way, but so far ineffectively. Mordecai had to draw his weapon back in, though, as two rounds came through the window, one of them hitting him in the right shoulder, the other striking the right side of Roland’s seat.
Adding to the panic was the fire from up on the promontory overlooking the canyon, where Daphne was raining deadly sniper fire down, often able to hit nearby ammo boxes and barrels of fuel, exploding them, killing the enemy and keeping the Psychos back from Roland and Mordecai. Half a dozen other Bloodrust gunmen were ranged along the top of the cliff, firing into the canyon, spread out to give the impression that there were more of them than there were.
Roland jerked the wheel to the right to slam the right front fender into a Psycho trying to run up to them with a grenade. The grenade exploded—under the fallen soldier. It rained body parts on the truck. Mordecai had to toss a bloody hand out the window.
Mordecai rolled up the window, shouting over the boom and rattle, “I’m almost outta ammo!”
Another punishing spurt of machine-gun rounds thudded and rattled over the truck. Roland spotted the source, a turret gun on an outrider, and he jerked the wheel toward it, accelerated over a campfire, so that sparks and flame mushroomed around the truck, and then rolled right over the outrider, turret, gunman, and all, crushing them under the truck’s six big wheels.
“Ha!” he shouted, swept away in vengeful glee. “This big hunk of steel really digs in and gets it done! I shoulda been a dump-truck driver—I like it! And there goes a Badass, his bad ass going under the wheels! Uppin’ the kill count!” He took particular pleasure in knocking down and running over the poles holding up Gynella’s banners.
Roland heard a groan from Mordecai as they bumped over a big rock, and the whole truck shuddered. He glanced over, saw that Mordecai was trying to stanch the wound in his shoulder. “You’re hit, huh? There’s Dr. Zed in that glove compartment!”
“Better save it for something worse—look out!”
Mordecai pointed, and Roland saw, not far up ahead, a big one-armed Psycho, one of the biggest Roland had ever seen, a muscle-ripped specimen with high spiky Mohawks and a white and red vault mask, aiming a rocket launcher square at them. Roland couldn’t turn—that would present a better target, at this range. All he could do was accelerate, but the front end ran square into the flashing rocket, and the truck rocked like a junk heap in an earthquake, Roland’s teeth clacking together, his stomach lurching, the grille of the truck consumed by a ball of flame. They drove through flame and smoke, and then the Psycho with the launcher was there, bashed by the flaming front end of the dump truck, knocked onto his back, first the front right wheel, then the two right rear wheels of the multiton six-wheeled dump truck rolling, thumping, bumping over him—by the end he was a human tire track, mere roadkill.
The front end of the truck was smoking, on fire, with scrap metal twisted up like horns, but the engine was still intact, and the dump truck rolled on and rolled over two more Psychos, and the men in the back kept up their fire—and then a big Bruiser leapt onto the left side, pounding at the driver’s-side window, cracking it.
Roland had been about to start the second half of his planned run, a turn back the way they’d come, so now he swung hard into a sharp leftward U-turn, hoping to jolt the Bruiser off. The wrenching turn flung the Bruiser back so that he had to flail to keep a hand-hold. One more punch, and he’d punch right through that window, Roland realized. He turned to Mordecai, who was already offering him the shotgun. There was blood on it, but it was ready to fire, and as the Bruiser, cocked his right fist to smash the window, Ro
land turned the shotgun so it angled left across his body, pressed the muzzle against the badly cracked armor glass, and, with the butt in the crook of his right arm while his other hand operated the wheel, squeezed the trigger. The shotgun blasted through the glass and right into the driving fist of the Bruiser, shattering knuckles and fingers, the load flying back into the Bruiser’s face. He screamed and fell away.
Coughing from gunsmoke, Roland kept the auto shotgun aimed out the side window—there were three shots left in it.
They were driving back through the rut they’d cut through the Psycho army encampment, a road of blood, guts, and wreckage—more than once the wheels of the dump truck spun in slick human remains, and he almost lost control.
He angled to the right, off the truck’s blood-soaked rut, to get more traction, and ran into a cluster of tents, one of them getting stuck on the twisted metal at the front, a man tangled inside the tent dragged along and then pulled shrieking under the wheels.
“Ooh, that’s gotta hurt,” Roland murmured.
“Wait—what the fuck is Brick doing?” Mordecai demanded. “Look at that lunatic!”
Brick was leaping from the cab roof onto what remained of the hood, then down onto the ground to the truck’s right. Roland slowed to give Brick time to get back to them. He hoped to the Angel that Brick knew what he was doing.
Brick had no weapon on him that Roland could see, but the big warrior laid out two Psychos with two swipes of his big, mailed fists and then grabbed a three-meter metal pole from which flew one of Gynella’s banners. He used the pole as a pike staff, swinging it to bash heads in, stabbing the upper end, flag and all, through the middle of a large, big-bellied Psycho. Then he rushed past his screaming victims and into a tent—he emerged almost immediately with a box in his arms. DR. ZED was stenciled on the side of the crate. So that was it—someone was hurt in the back.
The truck was only just moving, and Roland saw two Midgets running at it with firebombs in their hands, on the left. “I’ll toast your balls and eat ’em!” one of them shrilled.
Roland squeezed off his last shotgun rounds, aiming at the firebombs—and the bombs exploded, covering the Psycho Midgets in flaming liquid. They fell to the ground, rolling and babbling.
Another hailstorm of bullets rocketed into the windshield, and its cracks spread; it wasn’t going to last—but there, up ahead, was the cut into the dry riverbed. Roland accelerated, going at it full bore, crashing through a group of sentries, then over a Scorpio. As the windshield flew apart under a shotgun blast, they jounced up onto the rising riverbed and headed east, with Gynella’s army behind them. But Roland had known there’d be pursuit.
He tapped the screen on the dash for rearview and saw a digital image of two outriders in the gray dawn light, rushing after him. One of them was firing a machine gun. He heard the bullets smacking rat-a-tat into the tailgate. The other was trying to get into position.
He activated his ECHO and spoke into it. “Daphne? You there?”
“I’m here. We’re moving into position two as planned.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear—one of those outriders has a cannon turret!”
“On it!”
A quick series of unnerving detonations sounded from behind—the cannon, firing at them. The truck was hit, low on the right, and it sounded as if one of the wheels had been blown off. The dump truck fishtailed, and he fought for control of it, desperately trying to keep it from flipping over. He was so caught up in this he hardly noticed that he’d crushed two crabworms on his way.
The swerving made him a tough target to hit, and the next two cannon rounds missed.
“That’s my girl!” Mordecai said.
Roland glanced at the rearview screen and saw the lead outrider spinning out of control, the driver leaning over, limp, his head a red mess. Daphne had nailed him with the sniper rifle. The outrider hit a rock, flipped over, burst into flame—and the other outrider crashed into it.
“Good work, Daphne!” Roland laughed. “All right . . . we’re pulling over, and I’m gonna move to the next phase.”
He slowed on reaching the gentle slope, on the right, that led up to the cliffside overlooking the canyon. He turned the truck around, aiming it at the encampment. It was almost two-thirds of a kilometer back. There was smoke rising thickly from the wreckage they’d left.
“Looks like we made an impression,” Mordecai said dryly.
But he was pale and drawn, Roland noted. He’d lost some blood. “Use that Dr. Zed in the glove compartment—Brick got a whole case of the stuff. We can afford it, Mordecai.”
“You talked me into it.”
Roland pressed the switch to drop the tailgate, then said, “I’ll be right back.” He opened the door—blood-spattered broken glass fell off it when he pushed the door—and stepped down to the ground.
Brick was standing by the tailgate, frowning. “We lost that Dakes guy. Too bad.”
Roland looked into the back. Scobald was applying medicine from the crate—he’d been shot in the upper left arm. Dakes was clearly dead, still lying in the belly-down rifleman position the men in back had used, shot through the top of his head.
Roland felt his gut twist at that, thinking about how Glory would feel. Lucky, climbing out, had a chest wound, but it looked as if it was already healing thanks to the Dr. Zed that Brick had fetched.
“Hey, uh, Brick,” Lucky said, uncomfortably. “I’m, uh . . . listen, thanks. Risked your ass getting that stuff for me.”
Brick shrugged. “We already lost Dakes here. Needed to keep you around for the firepower.”
Roland looked at Brick in surprise—clearly he was covering up, embarrassed he’d gone out of his way to save the young man’s life. Not the kind of thing Brick was known for.
Brick turned away, his hand going to the mummified dog’s paw around his neck.
Scobald and Lucky gently removed Dakes’s body from the back of the truck.
Mordecai joined them, shaking his head on seeing Dakes. “I liked that guy. Even if he did call me a vagabond.”
“You are a damn vagabond,” Roland growled. “Yeah. He was a good guy. He’ll be hard to replace.” He felt maybe this was his fault—it had been a pretty cockamamie plan. But no one had forced Dakes to sign on for it.
Lucky sighed. “Yeah. I don’t know how I’ll tell Glory. Well . . . we’ll carry him upslope; better get him strapped over an outrunner, take him out east and bury him. Gotta get out of here before the Gynellan bunch get organized again.”
“They’ll be here pretty soon,” Mordecai said.
“Yeah—run up and get the outriders rolling,” Roland said. “Have Brick drive my outrunner. I’ll be right up. We all wanna book outta here fast as we can—we’ll catch up to you.”
The others, up above, were already on their way, he knew, in the settler’s outrunners and the stolen outrider.
Roland turned back to the dump truck, and, humming tunelessly to himself, he climbed up into the cab and turned the engine on. He tapped the dash controls, activating the self-driving feature.
A woman’s voice said, “Self-driving mode. Awaiting directional input. Mapping the area.”
Using the local global positioning system, beamed from the Study Station in orbit, the screen on the dash lit up with the local coordinates. It showed the canyon from above, in simulation, and the streambed, including his own position.
“Beautiful,” Roland murmured. “There I am, and there they are . . . okay.” He tapped the screen’s menu, designating the dump truck’s destination, the center of the camp, and its course thereafter. He put it on a four-minute start delay, climbed out, taking the toolbox from under the seat. He got down on his hands and knees, looked under the truck, and flattened and crawled under, dragging the toolbox.
Roland found a small flashlight in the toolbox, held it clamped in his teeth so he could see to use the autoscrew. Its gripper field quickly removed the bolts holding the powerplant cover—when the thick metal c
over came off, it nearly pinned him to the ground.
He could hear the sound of vehicles coming, way down the riverbed to the west. Not much time . . .
He forced the heavy steel cover to one side, then wriggled out from under the truck, rolled, jumped up to look into the truck cab at the timer. He’d cut it close—only thirty seconds left.
Roland chuckled and ran up the slope toward the others. It was coming on dawn now, the gray light taking on golden tones.
Behind him, the dump truck started moving, picking up speed—it rammed the three oncoming outriders, crunching them under it, and kept going over the wreckage and the maimed Psycho soldiers.
Roland rushed to the cliff edge, got there in time to look down on a satisfying sight: the dump truck was smashing through more Psycho troops, driving in the circles he’d programmed, over and over, crunching equipment and bones.
And then some idiot, as he’d hoped, threw a grenade under the truck. The grenade exploded, blowing through the unprotected powerplant—the subsequent explosion was almost blinding. He walked quickly away, wanting to get gone before the radioactive dust pattered down on the area. It was mostly just a “dirty bomb” effect, but it was nasty—the entire truck had been turned into one big hand grenade.
Must be one big ugly mess down there.
“Well,” he said, climbing into the outrunner, with Brick at the wheel. “I do warn them, pretty often, and they just don’t listen to me.”
“What warning?” Brick asked, turning the outrunner east.
“Mess with the bull, and you get the horns.”
“Devastated, you said?” Gynella asked, walking up to the cliff’s edge. She had come in person to survey the damage. Now she and Smartun stood on the edge of the cliff—her new, hulking bodyguard, the Badass Psycho, Spung, looming behind her. The three of them looked down on the encampment from the spot where the snipers had been posted when the truck had begun smashing its way through the camp.
“As you see,” Smartun said glumly, as they stared down at the wrecked camp, the bodies, the tire tracks thick with blood, and the crater in the midst of it all. “Devastation.” He licked his lips. “We lost about half the division. A great many were maimed—we didn’t have enough Zed to go around. We had to put most of them down.” He sighed. “Fwah volunteered for that, of course.” His heart banged as he went on. “I . . . submit myself to your judgment. I ask only the mercy of a . . . a relatively quick death.”
