Desert Kings (16 page)

“One down,” Mildred said, working the pump to chamber another 12-gauge cartridge. Then rapid-fires spoke from within the waving forest of plants and something hummed past her head. Ducking, the physician rose again a foot to the left and fired the S&W randomly into the plants before ducking back down again to reload.

Ignoring the sound of blasterfire coming from the fortified flatbed and the millet, J.B. decided that the radiator was cool enough to make the repair. Placing the dirty canteen on top of the manifold, he wrapped his hand in a thick wad of cloth and pressed down hard to twist the radiator cap. If it was too hot, the man knew that he would be hit in the face with a geyser of boiling coolant and probably go blind, but he was running out of time. As the cap came free, there was an exhalation of trapped gases and some mixed gurgling, but nothing else.

Grinning in victory, J.B. quickly got one of the clean canteens, unscrewed the cap and poured a little of the redoubt tap water directly into the copper-lined mouth of the radiator. As it sank into the interior there was some burbling and a little steam. Careful as if mixing a batch of plas, the Armorer added more water in small amounts. Almost there…

S
PRAYING A LONG BURST
from the AK-47 in a flat arc across the plants, Ryan moved the muzzle back and forth. Clipped-off leaves formed a whirlwind in the air, and a cannie cried out shrilly. A musket boomed and a miniball slammed into the planks near the one-eyed man, sending out a spray of splinters. He burped the blaster twice toward the musket’s discharge, then turned to send a long burst in the opposite direction. This time he clearly heard the rounds hit the steel cage and somebody bitterly curse.

“Fuckers smart,” Jak drawled, inserting a fresh slip. “Shoot on move, hard track.”

Not bothering to reply, Ryan cut loose toward what he hoped was another of the speedsters, and the weapon stopped cycling with a misfire jammed in the ejector port. As the man worked to clear the port, a clay jug sailed into view with a short sizzling fuse.

“Incoming!” Doc roared, swinging the Kalashnikov toward the bomb. The ceramic container broke apart in the air, raining black powder and what looked like human teeth onto the green plants.

Another jug flew toward the Cyclops and Krysty got it with a single round. Then a speedster zoomed past the rear hatch and the portal shuddered from a hammering miniball.

“Fireblast, this was their wag and they know every bastard inch!” Ryan cursed, putting a burst into the disappearing speedster. A nuke battery in the rear split apart and there was a gushing roar of chem and electricity, but the driver still seemed alive and the caged wag was still moving as it wheeled out of sight.

Two more jugs were airborne, and the companions fired every weapon to just take them out in time. There came more double booms from the massive flintlocks, then a long pause, closely followed by loud banging from the primitive handcannons. The leafy green stalks were brutalized by the heavy miniballs, and the wooden planks bucked from the impacts. The homemade armor stopped most of the lead, but one miniball punched through and grazed past Krysty, missing her by a couple of inches.

Going pale, the woman dropped the Kalashnikov, her face contorting into a rictus of unimaginable agony as a fistful of her animated hair floated down to the dirty floorboards. Reeling blindly, Krysty collapsed to her knees, shaking and moaning.

Caught by surprise, Ryan stopped shooting for a moment at the sight, then put his back to the woman and kept firing. Getting that much of her hair clipped had to have felt like having all of her fingers hacked off. Eventually, Krysty would be okay, but she was out of the fight until further notice. Come on, J.B., he railed. Get this fat wooden bitch moving again!

Bullets and miniballs zigzagged through the smoky air constantly, and the tattered stalks were starting to fall over to create an open space around the war wag, which was the last thing the companions wanted. Switching tactics, the companions started tossing the grens, trying to make the field impassable for the speedsters. But the companions had done their work too well and the stubborn little speedsters merely jounced over the rough ground plowing down more of the bedraggled millet.

Night was starting to descend and J.B. thanked his lucky stars that the headlights were turned on. This half-ass repair was tough enough without trying to do it in the dark! Flinching as he accidentally put some weight on his wounded leg, J.B. suddenly noticed the tiny rivulet of blood running down his leather jacket to drip into the marsh water below. A dozen or more solies were down there lapping at the life fluid and snapping at one another to get more.

Grabbing the roll of gray tape, he wrapped it around the stained bandage on his leg, ignoring the pain that caused. When there was no more seepage, J.B. put the roll aside and, with a shaking hand, started pouring some more water into the radiator. It steamed less this time, the water bubbling up and over the rim to flow down the sides and drip into the muck below. That sent the solies scurrying away, but they came back again sniffing for the source of the delicious red fluid….

Running low on grens, Ryan got a box of Molotovs and pulled out one, lifting the oily rag tied around the neck of the bottle as a fuse. Lobbing it gently onto the soupy ground, it landed with a smack, and then he fired a single shot. The bottle shattered and the chems inside ignited to form a pool of fire that brightly illuminated the area. Hissing in rage, the solies scurried away from the blaze.

Coming out of the millet, a speedster veered away from the flames, and Jak took out a headlight with his Kalashnikov. Mildred got the other, and the snarling cannie driver turned away to speed into the thickening darkness.

The rest of the companions followed Ryan’s example and soon there were a dozen fires dotting the green plants. The noise of the speedsters lessened as they withdrew, but the companions knew they’d be back as soon as the flames died. And there were only a couple more Molotovs, nowhere near enough to erect another ring of fire. Right now they had the advantage, but when the Molotovs were gone, the cannies would highlight the eighteen-wheeler with their headlights, blinding the people inside, and that would be the end of the matter.

The muskets and rapid-fires sounded once more and the wooden armor of the front cab was hit several times. Then a miniball glanced off the hood and it shook wildly. Moving fast, J.B. jumped off the engine into the marsh and missed getting decapitated by the thickness of a prayer. The hood was still vibrating when he jumped out of the water and grabbed the splintery wooden planks just as solie snapped at his boot. Kicking the mutie in the head, he heard bones crunch. As the body toppled over lifeless, the other solies converged on the twitching corpse to rip off gobbets of flesh. Scrambling frantically back onto the battered hood, J.B. swung around his Uzi and put a spray into the marsh, chilling a score of the little monsters.

Suddenly the field was alive with answering cries, squeals, grunts and trills coming from every direction at once, and a wave of solies attacked their dying brethren. Catching his breath, J.B. desperately looked around, trying to figure out how he was going to get back under the hood that he was currently standing on top of without becoming chum for the insanely carnivorous solenodons.

Deciding that this was his chance, Ryan kicked aside the locking bar of the hatch and jumped into the mud.

“Are you mad, sir?” Doc bellowed, rushing forward to haul the man back inside.

But Ryan took off at a run, zigzagging past the fires and piles of fallen plants. It was time for the cannies to get a taste of their own medicine.

As he sloshed through the muck, solies rose from the cloudy water trilling and hissing. Immediately Mildred’s ZKR target pistol barked repeatedly, and several of the fat muties burst apart, spilling their guts into the mud. The other solies turned away from the man to consume their fallen brethren, and Ryan pulled the SIG-Sauer and kept heading for the bobbing headlights.

Zooming around, the speedsters had plowed crude roads through the millet, and he stayed along the side of one, ready to dive for cover if one of the wags appeared. The shadows were becoming black, and the man was starting to question the judgment of his plan when he came upon a speedster sitting in a small clearing, the cannie inside the cage laboring to load a musket.

Ryan fired once and the cannie toppled over, his brains splattered across the dashboard.

Backing away from the engine, Ryan put two more slugs into the fuel tank. As the juice poured into the mud, he fired again, the muzzle-flash igniting the fuel fumes with a whoosh. Quickly, he ran into the millet as the flames raced back into the ruptured fuel tank inside the cage.

Still moving, Ryan heard the speedster explode into a fireball, the blast illuminating the night.

A curse came from the plants to his right, and Ryan bent low to sprint that way through the sticky mud to find himself looking directly into the face of the big cannie. Jerking back in surprise, Hammer paused in confusion before going for his handblaster. But the delay was fatal, and Ryan sent a whispering man-stopper directly into the cannie’s left eye. The man barely reacted, sitting there as if trying to decide what to do next, then sighed and went motionless, one hand still on the steering wheel. Repeating the performance with the gas tank, Ryan was yards away before the second speedster detonated.

Back in the cab of the Mack, J.B. yanked out the clip from a Kalashnikov, then worked the bolt to make sure there weren’t any live brass in the chamber. Slinging the empty rapid-fire across his back, the Armorer pulled a gren from his munitions bag, primed the charge and tossed the bomb just ahead of the war wag. The blast shook the millet for yards, and a dozen solies screamed in death, the fiery blast sending a score of the muties sailing away, the bodies burned, broken and bleeding.

Instantly jumping from the cab, J.B. raced to the front of the vehicle, raised the hood again and crawled back on top of his leather jacket over the engine. Only moments later, a swarm of solies arrived to savage the chilled carcasses of the dead. Whew! That had been close, he thought.

Shoving his Kalashnikov between the battery housing and the hood, J.B. checked to make sure it was firmly in place, then got another gren ready and lobbed it into the field as far as he could. The blast flashed bright and the solies around the wag paused at the noise, then scampered away in droves.

Free for a few minutes, the man lay down again and went hurriedly back to work. Drying the damaged hose with a handkerchief, J.B. carefully closed the rent as if it were a wound in living flesh, placed the piece of rubber floor mat, then began to wrap gray tape around the opening. There was a terrible clang as another miniball hit the hood, punching cleanly through the rattling metal. Ducking low, J.B. hoped for the best as he continued to work.

When J.B. had enough layers in place, he added a few more purely as a precaution, then used his teeth to rip the roll. Trying to ignore the sounds of battle from all around, the Armorer started lashing the twine around the tape in neat rows. He didn’t know if this sort of jackleg fix would be able to take the pressure of a big Detroit power plant, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

K
EEPING A SHARP WATCH
for Ryan in the darkness, Krysty was shoving one of the last clips into her AK-47 when the tattered plants parted and a speedster rolled into view, the big tires crushing solenodons into the soapy mud. The animals squealed as they were chilled, sending out a wave of trilling from the other muties.

Dropping the AK-47, Jak whipped out his Colt Python handblaster and started banging away at the cannie as the man lit the oily rag fuse on a Molotov. Then a wave of solies came boiling out of the marsh, climbing all over the fat man, their claws and teeth slashing at his rawhide clothing.

Cursing in shock, Pig dropped the firebomb and tried to yank one of the snarling muties off his chest, but they were already burrowing into his flesh, red blood streaming down his body and onto the Molotov. Squeezing one of the muties in both hands, Pig crushed the creature until its spine audibly snapped, but that only made the others scamper over his face, snipping at his mouth and eyes. Shrieking in pain, Pig blindly swatted the creatures when the Molotov shattered and flames filled the speedster. Flailing madly, the burning cannie could only scream as the solenodons kept digging into his chest, the torrent of blood tinged green with the venom from their sharp fangs.

Aiming for the cannie, Jak changed his mind and went back to loading the Kalashnikov. This was not the time or place for mercy. They weren’t out of this nuking field yet, and might need every round they had to escape alive.

“Chill you all!” Dragon snarled, firing a hogleg pistol. The weapon boomed loudly, flame lancing out through the billow of smoke. A tire on the flatbed blew and the machine titled slightly.

As the companions tried for the driver, the muzzle-flashes of the Kalashnikovs bloomed in the blackness. Dragon killed the headlights and took off, the tires spinning freely as he zigzagged through the slick mid. Shouting impossible threats, the cannie leader began circling the war wag, firing his musket, then switching to his predark wheel gun.

As another tire blew, Mildred realized what the cannie was doing and cursed his intelligence. If he took out enough of the tires, the big wag wouldn’t be able to move, trapping the companions among the solies forever.

As Dragon swung past the cab, the Uzi chattered, the 9 mm rounds ricocheting off the cage throwing out bright sparks. Then the cannie smashed a Molotov on a dented bumper and the burning liquid engulfed the left front tire.

Stepping into view from the plants and smoke, Ryan kicked a solie out of the way and swung up the Steyr to fire once at the speedster perfectly silhouetted by the flames licking at the front of the war wag.

Dragon was slammed backward into his seat from the 7.62 mm rounds, blood gushing from his shoulder, the wheel gun firing skyward to hit nothing.

Ryan dived to the side as the speedster raced past, veering out of control. Then Dragon slammed on the brakes, shifted gears and executed a sharp turn to come straight back again. Crouching in the filthy water, Ryan squeezed off a shot. It clanged off the steel cage, and Dragon thrust out an arm to raise a throwing ax, the dancing firelight flickering off the polished steel as if it was already coated with blood.

Firing twice more, Ryan ducked below the ax and put a round directly into a spinning tire. The rubber exploded off the rim just as Dragon turned to make another sharp turn and the speedster flipped over, tumbling along the swampy ground to finally stop upside down.

Tangled inside the cage, Dragon tried to reach the hatch when the first wave of solies arrived, the blood dripping from his shoulder a clarion call to the little muties. Trilling in delight, they poured through the openings of the cage and covered the man, biting and clawing.

Snarling curses, Dragon crushed the animals in his hands and threw aside the pulped bodies. But more and more of them came out of the millet, tearing open terrible wounds and then tugging out the intestines of the still-living man. The cursing changed to insane shrieking as the cannie fell to his knees into the bloody mud, the solies burrowing inside his chest cavity with only their lashing tails visible.

Yanking out the Kalashnikov that held up the hood, J.B. swung around the hood and onto the roof, then kicked it hard with a boot. The hood crashed down with a noise like metallic thunder and for a split second, every solie in the field stopped making noise.

Scrambling back into the cab, J.B. tried to remain calm as he twisted the ignition switch. The diesel sputtered and died. Pumping the gas pedal, he tried again.

Sheet lightning crashed overhead to silhouette a figure at the passenger-side window. Swinging up his Uzi, J.B. nearly fired until he saw it was Ryan trying to get inside the cab.

“Move this piece of shit!” the one-eyed man roared, firing his SIG-Sauer downward. A solie squealed.

More rodents appeared to converge on the partially consumed bodies, white bones gleaming from the bloody tatters of the clothing. Muskets lay useless in the gory mud, and one speedster lay on its side, the engine still running, the rear wheels spinning freely an inch above the mud. A solenodon climbed on top the warm machine and began to slash the leather seat.

Twisting the ignition switch once more time, J.B. was rewarded by a roar of power and the wag lurched forward. It jerked into the field of millet, the flames dying on the left front wheel in the watery mud before the tire loudly blew and the cab titled hard to the left. Struggling to control the massive war wag, J.B. alternated between the brakes and the gas, constantly shifting gear. Speed was their only hope now, but the faster they went, the less control he had.

Dark night, J.B. thought. This fragging thing has eighteen wheels and the cannie had to ace one of the two tires that mattered.