Thunder Road

by James Axler

  Ryan’s set face cracked into a grin. Bryanna and her people, he didn’t entirely trust, but this man he did. “You could say that. We’ve already explained it once to this stupe—” he indicated the black man “—and I figure that she got the idea,” he added, indicating Rounda, who nodded. “But for the sake of the rest of you, I guess I’d better go over it again. And quick, ’cause mebbe we don’t have a lot of time.”

  Taking a deep breath, Ryan began to explain again.

  “SPYCAMS READY FOR LAUNCH?” Howard asked.

  “Four are primed and in the launch bay,” Hammill replied. “Two are undergoing maintenance, and the remaining four are currently being prepared.”

  Howard nodded to himself. “Four should be fine. Pull the workers off the maintenance and prep. I may need them for other things.”

  Krysty didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Other things?”

  He turned to her, a sincere, almost puppylike expression on his face. “I fear that we may have to defend ourselves.”

  Krysty moved toward him. “What do you mean? I thought the idea was that I got the chance to talk to them and convince them of the truth behind your mission.”

  He took her by the hand. “I wish it were that simple, but it’s possible that they misunderstood my intent, and will attack.”

  Krysty tried not to let the consternation and puzzlement show on her face. “I thought that to harm them was the last thing you wanted.”

  “It is. But it may be unavoidable,” he said, turning away.

  Dammit, Krysty thought, this was the erratic behavior his sister-aunt had warned of on the vid. There was something going on here that she couldn’t quite grasp, perhaps because she wasn’t on the borders of sanity, and so couldn’t follow his thought processes. If she had been privy to them, and had known the way in which he had been torn between enlisting Ryan’s help, and jealousy over his relationship with Krysty, then she would have understood in an instant, and perhaps been able to form a plan of action.

  She stood back, trying not to let the confusion show on her face while she tried to work out what she should do next. Meanwhile, Howard seemed to forget about her as he turned back to the console and barked his orders.

  “Launch spycams, lock on target area, program holding pattern.”

  “Launch sequence activated, command implemented,” Hammill replied.

  Krysty watched as the monitors switched to the launch bay. The spycams were small, round objects with foils to guide their flight. They looked as though they had no camouflage on them, which made her sure that they would fail to pass the term “spy” on at least one count. And which would make them easy prey for the crack shots of her friends when they were sighted.

  Which would only frustrate Howard all the more.

  He reached behind him, without bothering to turn, and beckoned to her. Even though it made her stomach turn, she acquiesced and moved beside him. She knew a little about comps and, looking at the desk, she knew that the flip of a switch or two, a couple of taps on a keyboard and she could stall, divert, or even destruct the spycams. But all it would take was one word from Howard, and the systems’ defenses would be instituted by Sid and Hammill, no matter how much they wanted to resist. And what would happen to her then, and to those on the outside? Much as it gnawed at her, there was nothing she could do.

  “We’ll soon get a better idea of what condition they’re in, and what their plans are,” he said in what he believed to be a reassuring tone.

  As she watched, the small propulsion units on the four spycams sparked into life, fumes from the fuel filling the chamber with a light smoke that made the lens of the sec cam semiopaque. It began to clear as the air-conditioning kicked in, and the spycams lifted vertically, banking in the enclosed space before hitting the exit shaft.

  The monitors switched as the chamber became empty. An exterior cam showed them breaking surface and streaking up into the night sky, their trails hardly showing in the infrared.

  Krysty was torn. On the one hand, she would love it if her friends shot down the spycams in an act of defiance. And yet, if they did, she knew that Howard’s rage would be so childlike and incandescent that he would be capable of anything.

  And she doubted that she would be able to stop him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ryan finished his tale. The tech-nomads had listened in silence to what he had to say, and as his words died away he could only wait in expectation.

  “Not our fight,” Bryanna said simply.

  “What the hell do you mean, lady?” Mildred exploded. “Haven’t you listened to a word Ryan said? Or did you just hear it and go ‘blah blah blah’ so you could block him out?”

  “I’ll ignore your comments, and put them down to nothing more than concern for the red-haired one. But the fact remains that this rider has done nothing to us. In truth, we could claim him as one of our own. Fact is, he only ever seems to attack mundanes, and the truth is that they have no love for us, and neither do we for them.”

  “Stupe bitch,” Jak muttered.

  “Hey, Whitey, you watch your mouth,” Robear said, bristling. His barely controlled aggression was spoiling for an outlet, and as he took a step toward Jak, Ryan could see the albino palm a knife from one of the concealed hiding places in his jacket. He moved to stop him, but was beaten to the punch by Rounda, who put her bulk between Robear and Jak.

  “Yeah, that’s about right, Robear. You give that twat your brains when you signed up?” She indicated Bryanna, before continuing. “Say she is right about this fuckwad only being interested in mundanes. We’ve heard about the kind of shit he’s got, and not just from ol’ One-eye, here.”

  She turned to face them all in turn. “Corwen, you said yourself that you’d been hearing things. Well, so have I. You can’t travel around these parts without seeing the signs left, and hearing from people when you hit a ville. The rider’s got a lot of tech, and he’s not afraid to use it.”

  “So mebbe that’s what we should be doing. Mebbe he’s got a point,” the black man said quietly. “Mebbe it’s only his way of looking after himself, like we should be doing.”

  “Is that what she’s told you? That’s her big idea, is it?” Rounda said, hands on hips, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “Well, that’s just how we like to keep to ourselves, isn’t it? Yeah, we like to be left alone, so let’s go and bomb the fuck out of some shit-poor ville and leave them mostly piles of meat.

  “Look, you might think it’s fun to play at being a rebel army like in those old vids and comics I know she makes you watch, but look where that got us before…How long you think it’s gonna be before some smart-ass mundane adds two and two, makes a hundred and two, and figures that we’re behind it all. Tech is tech to them, and it’s something to be scared of. So then they start to come after all of us, and they ain’t gonna be asking questions. Is that what you want, Cedric?”

  She addressed the thin, balding man who had been on the last of the land yachts. He looked at the woman beside him, then at Bryanna—shrugging slightly as he did—and then at Rounda as he answered.

  “It’s true that I don’t really care about what this guy does. I have no love for those who wallow in the shit. But I like that they leave us alone. Mebbe you’re right. Mebbe they’re stupe enough to think that he’s one of us, and start hunting us down. And I don’t think any of us want that.” He looked around at the others.

  “The first time we were dragged into their affairs,” Bryanna said, “it was bad enough. That was something that many of us would rather have avoided. Okay, so that happened and it can’t be changed. But that doesn’t mean they can just call on us whenever they want and expect us to get them out of trouble when they can’t do it themselves.

  “You shouldn’t have used that signal, and you’ve got no right to expect us to assist you with just a few words of emotional blackmail.”

  “Aw, I dunno…” The thin guy with the T-shirt of the bearded Garcia shuffled his feet, as t
hough afraid to speak against his leader. “I think they’ve got a point, Bry. I mean, we are here, now, and—”

  “Time for argue later,” Jak interrupted. “Incoming.”

  The sound of the spycam propulsion units had reached his sensitive ears before anyone else’s, the frequencies curling around the speech and alerting him to both speed and direction. Before anyone else except Ryan and J.B. had even had the chance to react, Jak was already halfway up the dune, scrambling against the falling sand, his .357 Magnum Colt Python in his fist. As he reached the rise, he slowed, then cautiously raised his head so that he could get a view.

  Against the yellow, orange and blue hues of the newly dawning day he could see the four dark shapes of the spycams. They were like black specks to begin with, growing larger by the second. Even at this distance he could tell that they were small, and were unmanned. Missiles, perhaps?

  He slithered below the surface and reported.

  “Triple red, people, we need to take them out before they reach us.”

  Corwen had already directed his people back to their parasails. “Aerial threat, we can deal with it,” he barked.

  “No, don’t risk yourself unnecessarily,” Ryan returned rapidly. “Mebbe they’re armed. Let us pick them off.”

  And without giving the green-haired man a chance to argue, Ryan turned away. J.B. and Mildred had already joined Jak at the summit of the dune. Ryan was hot on their heels. Doc remained at the foot, turning to Bryanna.

  “I hope, dear lady, that you are a hotter shot than your icy demeanor would suggest. For it is our job to wait, and take out any that our companions may miss…though this is unlikely.”

  “Better be,” she murmured with ill grace.

  She and her people readied their blasters. Doc noticed that Rounda had taken from her bike a squat blaster with a disproportionately wide barrel, to which she was attaching a stock.

  “Madam, it strikes me that your weapon could take out a whole ville, let alone a small flying craft.”

  “There ain’t nothing like making sure.” She grinned and winked as she snapped the stock into place.

  Up on the ridge, the four friends were lined up, blasters trained on the rapidly approaching black craft.

  “Take it from the left as we lie,” Ryan murmured.

  They nodded, and each sighted the craft assigned to them by this order. It was only a matter of seconds in which to sight and fire, but they worked together with the kind of timing that comes only from living and fighting together as a unit for a long, long time.

  “Now,” Ryan whispered.

  It was all the cue they needed. As one, shots cracked and roared from their blasters into an amorphous blast of sound. Ryan had shouldered the Steyr, J.B. opting for the M-4000 Smith & Wesson shotgun.

  The results were instant. The spycam hit by J.B.’s barbed metal fléchettes splintered and exploded in a shower of metallic fragments. At their combined speed of the spycam and the load, it was as though the craft had flown into a solid wall of spikes. Similarly, the heavy slug from the Colt Python demonstrated why its firepower kicked like an angry mule into the albino’s shoulder. The soft metal spread on impact, the initial contact penetrating the metal skin of the spycam, allowing the spread to infest the delicate mechanics and circuits of the craft, shattering the tech within and rendering it useless. The craft was momentarily thrown off course, but only for a moment, before the delicate mechanisms protested, the propulsion unit was ruptured and the spycam followed its companion into oblivion.

  Mildred was more considered with her shooting. She knew she had only one chance, and that the caliber of her Czech-made ZKR was less than that of either J.B. or Jak’s blasters. Their ordnance could just hammer through any protective shell that the oncoming projectiles had covering them. Hers could not. It was an accurate and deadly weapon, but it had to be used with skill and care.

  So it was that Mildred waited until the projectile was almost upon her, until she could see details on the rapidly approaching outer shell. It was dark, smooth, the only protuberances being the fins that guided its flight; even the propulsion—whatever it may be—was housed internally, any external exhaust emerging at the rear.

  But there was one potential weak point. At the front of the projectile, currently angled up, was a smooth, dark surface that was of a different consistency. It was a small circle. A lens of some kind? She had no idea how close to the truth she was, but at that moment it didn’t matter. Whatever it might be, it was like glass—maybe armaglass—but it was the only possible weak spot.

  She aimed, squeezed and loosed a shot. Maybe the smooth surface was as hard, or harder, that the skin of the projectile. Maybe she’d guessed wrong. But it was the best she could do.

  In truth, she didn’t have time for any of these thoughts to consciously cross her mind. They were there, but only as an unconscious blur. Her conscious mind was focused on only one thing: hitting that bastard object flying toward her.

  She had been right to select that as her target. And her eye had not let her down. The smoothness was cracked by impact, then shattered as the shell entered the projectile. The momentum was barely enough, compared to the thrust of the projectile, to alter its course. But that didn’t matter. Whatever was inside was easily damaged. A few yards and the projectile began to falter; it spun on its axis, seemed to slow. Smoke leaked from the gap at the front. Sparks were visible as the projectile slewed to one side for no more than a second or two before exploding in a shower of flame and broken metal.

  Three down, one to go.

  The projectile in Ryan’s sights veered at the crucial moment. Or he did. Whatever, it had the same result. The Steyr was a good blaster. He felt the familiar pressure as he squeezed, and he felt the familiar kick of the recoil against his shoulder. Like Mildred, he was aiming at the smooth circle in the front of the projectile, just to maximize his chances with a lesser caliber.

  But his aim wasn’t as true as hers. The bullet from the Steyr cracked the glass, but caught also on the metal casing surrounding the more fragile material. Its course was altered, the ricochet carrying it away from the inside of the projectile. Damage was done, but not enough. Shards of the glass shot into the interior of the projectile, rupturing the delicate circuitry. Shorting electric impulses sparked, causing small flames to brood inside the machine, building slowly.

  But not quick enough to destroy it before it reached its intended target.

  Cursing loudly, Ryan rolled onto his back as the projectile rocketed overhead, trying to bring the Steyr around so that he could sight and fire once again. But on the sand, rolling too quickly, the rifle seemed clumsy and heavy. With a mounting frustration and anger, he watched the small, round black object shoot over him and into the space behind the dunes inhabited by the tech-nomads and Doc.

  From the way in which the other projectiles had exploded, he knew that they weren’t flying bombs or missiles of any kind. That was okay, because it meant that it wouldn’t blast them into oblivion. But the only conclusion he could draw was that it was some kind of sec camera, an intel device to report back to the redoubt on who was waiting out there for them.

  There was no point in recriminations. He had to make amends. The one-eyed man brought the Steyr around and settled it into his shoulder, taking the weight and balancing the barrel as it stood upright. Simultaneously, he focused on the moving object, its course harder to track now that it was damaged and flying erratically.

  Before he had a chance to get his sights set, the projectile exploded into a multitude of fragments, a simultaneous roar signaling that someone else had taken up the slack and fired.

  Ryan looked around, and could see Doc at the bottom of the dune, the LeMat percussion pistol held firmly in a two-handed grip. Smoke drifted idly from the barrel that carried a shot charge, and from the depth of sand around the old man’s boots, Ryan could see that the recoil had driven him into the soft surface. With a predatory grin that showed his white teeth, and a visible twinkle
in his eye, Doc winked at Ryan.

  “Damn good shooting, sweetie,” Rounda said, unable to hide her admiration. Her own snub, wide blaster had been raised, but Doc had preempted her.

  “It was a pleasure,” Doc said. “I could not let a lady do the work, could I?”

  “Damn long time since I was called a lady, but I appreciate the sentiment.” She chuckled.

  “Not so great, was it?” Bryanna interrupted. “That could have taken us out.”

  “But it didn’t,” Corwen replied before Ryan had a chance to speak. Although he looked strange, with his green hair and pointed ears, and his voice was quiet in the stillness that followed the explosion of both blaster and projectile, he carried with him an authority that made even the imperious Bryanna stop and turn to him.

  “Three of them were destroyed from the ground with relatively small weapons,” he said. “You, of all people, should know how difficult that is. The last was damaged. Yes, it continued, but only as far as the old man, positioned as a rear guard. And he eliminated it before any of your people had a chance to move. Even someone of Rounda’s skill was beaten to the punch. I call that impressive. More impressive than you could manage. I think that, perhaps, you are looking for fault because you don’t want to get involved.”

  “Too right,” Rounda agreed, taking the stock off her blaster now that it wasn’t needed. “You only want to get your hands dirty when it suits you, but I figure these guys are right. If it don’t suit you now, it won’t be long before it comes a time when you won’t have a choice whether it suits you or not…it’ll just bite you in the ass. Now me, I’d like to see that, but I figure that if you’re getting bit in the ass, then there’ll be a whole load of us who are getting the same. And me? My ass is too big for some asshole to come along and bite it. I like it too much the way it is. I’m figuring that we should help these guys. That redhead? She was okay. These guys are, too. And we’ll be covering our own backs as much as theirs.”