by James Axler
“Minefields end about five hundred feet from your current position. Paths are cleared. They just end, with no sign of what other defenses take over. Must be some. Looks like a small valley a thousand yards beyond. Nothing but a ruined building there. Could send one parasail to recce. End.”
Ryan stumbled as he fumbled with the unfamiliar device.
“Send parasail to recce, but be triple red. There must be other bastard defenses, and they must be well hidden. Keep frosty over the ruined building. Sounds like the perfect place to hide an entrance. Everyone else, keep going but keep alert. Now that the mines have stopped, they’ll send something else. End.”
The thing he had been trying not to think about was if they sent more gas, rather than men. Nerve gas would stop them if absorbed through the skin, and they had no goggles or protective eyewear for the tear gas. The black man had issued them all with nose filters from his people’s equipment, but the fireblasted things were doing little more than making it hard for him to breathe other than through his mouth, which defeated their purpose. He was tempted to just discard them and hope for the best.
“ANTIPERSONNEL HEADS, Hammill. Primed and ready to fire ASAP.”
“Workers in place. Estimated time to firing, 3.5 minutes. Enemy currently 4.2 minutes from end of minefield.”
“Good. It’s not a big margin, but it may be enough.” Howard turned to Krysty, his eyes shining. She could see madness in them. The time to act was approaching far too rapidly for her liking. Sid had shown no indication of cracking the code as of yet. Howard, taking her silence for complicity, continued. “The one thing I don’t understand is why they did that.”
“Did what? They were trying to break through your defenses. Why shouldn’t they do that?”
“Because it’s not the right way to do it,” he replied earnestly. “That’s not how it’s supposed to happen. They wait until it’s dark, then try to sneak past the minefield without alerting us to their presence. That’s how it’s always done. The proper way. You don’t just charge in, bulldoze your way past the defenses and give the opposition advanced knowledge of your presence. That’s the problem with this world,” he added with a sigh. “People have no idea of how they should behave. We’ll just have to show them the right way, I guess. You and me, Storm Girl. I must go and get changed, ready for the battle to come.”
With which, he turned and left the console room. She could hear him barking orders as he disappeared down the corridor.
“Sid,” she hissed, “what is taking so long?”
“Some of the numbers are obscured, no matter which camera or which period I choose. The analysis program is running as fast as I can push it, but there’s so much footage.”
“Well, you’d better hurry, or else I’m going to have to rip the fucker’s hand off and push his thumb in myself.”
“It crosses my mind that it may be quicker than searching for the fail-safe,” Sid said wistfully.
“Yeah, and revenge for you before your release,” she answered hurriedly, aware that Howard could return at any second. “Problem is, if he didn’t chill immediately, or if he could yell while we fought, he could order the destruction of the oncoming forces, and I’m not having them chilled for me or for the sake of that mad bastard. You run that override, and I’ll take pleasure in chilling the fucker slowly for you.”
Only just in time, for almost as soon as she had finished, Howard strode back into the room, dressed in full Thunder Rider uniform. He flashed her the kind of grin she could only imagine that he had seen so many times on the old vids.
“Hammill, missiles ready?” Howard said with a calm exactitude. The costume may have been nothing more than scraps of material and body armor, but it held a meaning for Thunder Rider that took him from himself and made him something other than Mad Howard, the lonely man-child of Murania.
“Primed and ready to fire,” Hammill’s voice came back. Was it Krysty’s imagination, or was there a tinge of regret, a hint of hesitation in it?
“Then fire them.” Howard smirked. “Sid.”
“Yes, Howard?” Sid replied after pausing as long as he—or his programming—could dare.
Howard breathed heavily. “Towers open fire.”
“AW, SHIT, I ain’t never seen nothing like that, and I hope to fuck it ain’t the last thing I’ll ever see, either.”
Rounda’s voice was the loudest, and her words cut across the empty space between the war parties, rising above the mutterings of others and the distant drone—registered only at that moment by Jak—of the just-launched missiles. But her words, no matter how apt, were just sounds that drifted over the heads of the others. They were soon drowned by the grinding and screeching that reached them from some distance, marginally behind the sight that was making them stumble and halt.
Ryan cursed softly to himself. Whatever he had expected—men, wags, missiles, gas—there was no way he could have expected this.
There, in a circle that stretched for a mile in each direction, rose a number of towers. Each was surmounted by a platform that had carried topsoil and sand, much of which now cascaded down the sides, falling to the ground in showers that made the central structure seem so alien.
Each platform was raised on a tower of solid metal, peppered with cones and boxes. Some of these looked like speakers, others like giant lamps. They were arranged in irregular groups and patterns. Their purpose was hard to explain, though the use of sonics and lights such as those possessed in limited supply by the tech-nomads was an obvious guess.
The ground beneath the war parties shook as the leviathan towers reached their full height. The cascades of sand and soil lessened, allowing them to view the towers in their full awe.
A few shots rang out as Rounda loosed a load from her snub-nosed blaster and J.B. gave an experimental burst with his mini-Uzi. Where Rounda fired indiscriminately, the Armorer aimed specifically at the cones and lights. No joy. The appurtenances remained intact.
The black man and Robear had similar ideas. Pulling up short in their respective parties, one loosed an explosive bolt from his crossbow, the other aiming a few pulses at the nearest tower. Neither made an impression. Cedric and Gwen fumbled with the laser equipment. It was obviously better used in a static situation, but they were faster than they at first appeared, waving away offers of help that would only hinder when the equipment was a mystery. They assembled it, aimed the laser focusing device and shot a beam at the middle of one of the towers. It was a powerful weapon, and yet even so it made little impression. It was like using a razor blade to cut down a giant redwood. There was the merest speck of damage on one tower. To cut down just that one would take more time and energy than they had.
Ryan barked into the comm device, “Press on—get past the towers! Mebbe the weapons only face one way. End.”
It was an astute observation. Made for defense, all the lights and speaker cones faced out. If they could scramble past, then they would be all right. But they were too far in front. Even as they ran, slipping in loose sand and soil, wading through an element that sought to restrain them, so the towers began to issue a sound that was almost beyond the range of the human ear, seemingly both too high and too low to hear. Was that possible? It seemed to drill through their heads, making it almost impossible to concentrate, to think.
They didn’t think to look away until it was too late, at least for some. You’d have to be a stupe to look at the lights, but when your head was full of a sound that made your skull reverberate, that’s exactly what you were…a stupe. Cedric and Gwen, still trying to train their laser on one of the towers, became transfixed as the lights began to strobe and pulse in irregular patterns that seemed to sap their will, to turn their brains inside out.
Both of them tumbled over, bodies racked by fits, muscles spasming, tongues swallowed. They choked to death in front of Jak and Robear, who had both had instinct enough to avert their eyes, but were still transfixed by their peripheral vision, enough to make their unresponding musc
les lock. Frustration overwhelmed them as they tried in vain to move, to stop their companions buying the farm slowly and horribly.
Ryan, unable to see what was going down, but guessing what was happening from the reactions of his own party, tried to use the comm. He could raise it partway to his mouth, but every movement was a struggle. Mebbe, he figured, only having one eye and so no depth perception in his vision had helped. Perhaps it lessened the effects. He tried to yell into the comm, unable to raise it any farther, willing himself to be heard above the noise. Why, he didn’t know, as the sound of the towers was not in hearing range. But it didn’t matter if his mind was losing its grip, as his voice refused to respond to the demands of his will. Nothing emerged except the hoarsest of croaks.
Fireblast, this was it. The sound and lights would gradually force them all into seizure: paralysis, choking, just lying in the heat of the day until they fried, or easy meat for the sec men who lay in wait at the redoubt. Whichever of these claimed them, they were as good as chilled.
He’d forgotten about Corwen’s people, cruising the air currents above them.
The green-haired man still had his comm channels open. As soon as the first sounds emanated, he had guessed what the towers were for, and had ordered his crews to switch to an alternate frequency while rising up into the skies. He figured—correctly—that the towers were intended as a ground defense, and so the light and sound emissions were specifically directed to that area both in front of the towers, and angled down to the ground.
With Cedric and Gwen chilled, and the others struggling to stay more than inanimate lumps of vulnerable flesh, Corwen took his parasail crews up and banked steeply, swooping toward the group of towers that lined up almost directly in front of the three war parties. Because of their spread, Corwen’s crews would have to knock out six towers. There were too many for all to be destroyed, but again he figured that the towers had a maximum range of effectiveness, hence the need to position them as they were. So if they could knock out those six, then there was a good chance it would release the war parties from their pernicious grip.
Ordering his crews to descend at speed, they made an initial pass, releasing a first load of explosives as they swooped overhead. The bombs were not intended to cut off the towers at base, as the platforms on their apex made it almost impossible to get a good aim. But they could angle the descent so that the explosives could take the towers out at the middle, cutting off the sound and light. The only drawback was that they had to hope the warriors beneath would be mobile quickly enough to dodge any flying rubble. It would be ironic to chill some of them in the process of liberating them. At any rate, it was better than buying the farm for certain.
The parasails rose steeply once more, pulling away from potential shock waves before their bombs exploded on contact.
They were successful on the first pass. All four craft had scored direct hits, the tops of the towers crumbling, the weight of the platforms accentuating any blast damage and causing the disintegration of the towers, the severing of connections as the weight of the buckling metal crushed the lights and speaker cones.
Four craft, six towers—two would have to make a return pass. Corwen opted to fly one himself, and nominated a second parasail. It was a dangerous mission, and as they flew in to take out the two remaining towers in the sequence, Corwen believed that he had allowed the fliers left circling some kind of respite.
He was wrong. As they hovered, they became aware of the rapidly approaching missiles. Absorbed in their immediate task, none of the parasail pilots had expected to be under attack from the air. So as the missiles approached, trained to land in the ground beyond the towers, where the warriors had been immobilized, the parasail pilots became suddenly aware of the missiles at their tails. In another time, another place, the parasail pilots would have been able to take evasive action. They would have been used to the concept of aerial warfare, and would have known how to get the best and beyond from their machines in moments of emergency. But they had been used to having the skies to themselves, to always being the ones with the advantage. Lack of combat experience in such a situation told. One craft turned too slowly, allowing a missile to catch it at the tail. The missile, primed to explode on contact, detonated. There was nothing left of the light craft or its crew to identify when the smoke and flame had cleared.
The second craft almost made it. The pilot banked steeply, seeking to avoid the two missiles whose path would cross him. He was successful, the missiles passing beneath him. But he was temporarily unable to see fully as the craft spun in the air, and a third missile flew into his blind spot. If the material of the sail had not momentarily obscured…But it was far too late for recriminations. The third missile hit his craft squarely, and he and his passenger were obliterated.
Corwen watched, speechless, as his craft and that of the other attacking pilot, came out of their flight course, climbing up behind the trail of the now-passed missiles. Two of his craft gone without his seeing the incident. And now the remaining missiles were bearing down on the warriors on the ground.
Ryan knew what was happening. The effects of the sonic and visual weapons were clearing now that the only towers transmitting nearby had been shattered. The farther towers made him feel uncomfortable, but their effects were so diminished as to make it possible to move. And quickly. Looking around, he could see that Mildred and Bryanna were struggling forward with him. The T-shirted warrior was also beginning to move, shaking his head as if to clear it, and stumbling.
Looking farther afield, he could see that Jak and Robear were moving, but Cedric and Gwen were down. J.B. and Doc were also on the move, Rounda lumbering after them. At the rear, weaving and disoriented but starting to move, was the black tech-nomad.
Two down. He looked up at the incoming missiles, so focused that he could not see the two remaining parasails. He only knew that they had to get out of there, and fast. Without having to consciously think about it, he knew the missiles were aimed beyond the towers. It made sense to immobilize, then blast the opposition. So if they could get past…
“Move forward, triple fast,” he barked into the comm, his voice still affected by the towers.
They had little time. The disorienting frequencies of the towers were now replaced by the screech of the missile propulsion systems as they approached. The warriors scrambled forward, none knowing where they went other than straight ahead. They had to keep moving and hope that they would pass the fallen towers before the missiles hit home.
Ryan was aware of the tower wreckage as he passed it. He could see Bryanna and Mildred from the corner of his eye, keeping pace with him. They were past by the time that first missile hit, the force of the blast flinging them forward into the sand. The grit forced its way into his mouth, making him choke. He had no idea of where his last man might be.
Jak and Robear were less affected. Lighter, faster, they had covered the ground with greater speed, and so were less in the line of the blast force. Still, they were knocked breathless.
J.B. had been pulling Doc along with him, feeling the older man struggle. Doc was a fighter, pushing himself, but he was frail in some ways, and his mind was still clouded by the effects of the sound and light blasts. He had strength and speed, but he was unsure as to direction, and would have wandered in circles without the Armorer’s guiding hand. Which was as well, as a missile landed nearer to their party than to any other, and both men were flung forward with a force that pumped the air from their lungs.
Gasping for breath, thankful that they were past any tower wreckage that they could have landed on with fatal effect, J.B. raised his head in time to see the blur that was Rounda fly past his head, landing with a sickening thump. No time to check if she was okay right now. He could see that Doc was stirring, but what of the last member of their party?
J.B. turned, adjusting his spectacles, his vision clearing. The black man was to their rear. He was kneeling, but even without seeing his eyes behind the swirling goggles, J.B. c
ould tell there was something wrong. He seemed too stiff, too unnatural.
He had to have been alive enough to see J.B. looking at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Blood dribbled down his chin, then poured out in a gushing wave. He pitched forward, and the Armorer could see that a large fragment of shrapnel had struck him in the back, down by the kidneys. It stuck up obscenely as the sand around his body darkened.
It was too late to help him now; there was nothing to do except forge forward. J.B. pulled up Doc after him, and they scrambled toward Rounda. She was still, but as they approached they could hear her groaning as she began to stir.
“Feel like I’ve been kicked by—”
“No time to talk,” J.B. snapped. “We’re a man down. Got to keep moving.”
She rose tortuously to her feet and joined them in moving forward, J.B. glanced across the empty expanse of sand. He could see Jak and Robear to one side, but only them. Three down overall, then, an estimate confirmed as he looked in the other direction to see Ryan and Mildred, along with Bryanna and her man. A surge of relief swept through him that Mildred had survived the first wave. He would rather he bought the farm than her. Come to that, he’d rather they both made it.
He concentrated on that as they moved forward.
“NO, NO, NO…This can’t be happening,” Howard said softly, a hard edge making his voice appear all the more sinister, echoed by his face bathed in the glow of the monitors.
Krysty, on the other hand, wanted to punch the air and yell. It was a bitch that three people were chilled, and two of the parasails were gone, but at least her friends had made it through this far.
She wanted to, but she didn’t. Sid was taking too long working out the fail-safe. She would have to take action of her own. Krysty reached deep within herself. She was still weakened from her last use of the Gaia power, and had still not fully recovered from the ordeal of being kidnapped by force. She was nowhere near her optimum strength, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to channel the Gaia force if she called upon it. She tested herself, but could not be sure, and she had to be certain if she was to use it that it wouldn’t burn her out before she could achieve her aim. For the only option she could see left open to her was to fight Howard, and if necessary tear out his arm by the socket if it meant being able to put his bastard thumb onto the keypad. But she would have to take him out immediately, before the coldheart could bark out an order that Sid and Hammill would be forced to obey.
