The Saffron Malformation (77 page)

              That was as far as he got before a single shot cracked across the waste and took the back of his head off.

             
The group watched on the holoscreen on the second floor, gathered around the bank of computers behind where Ryla sat, as the man went limp and collapsed.

             
“What the fuck?” Reggie asked.

             
“Who fired?” Arnie wondered.

             
“I don’t know,” Ryla answered, typing dexterously and causing windows to open on the holoscreen to her left.  Data streamed through them but it was nothing Quey could understand.

             
Quey looked toward the ceiling and said, “I have a pretty good idea.”

             
They looked around and mentally noted who wasn’t there as a second shot rang out and tore a hole through the throat of one of the broodlings standing in front of the rig.  That got the bastards moving.  The broodlings who were on foot hurried back into the rigs trailer as the engines revved and they began making their way closer to the building.

             
“Guess the hornets are buzzin now,” Reggie said.

             
Quey looked to Ryla, “Can you handle this?  I mean, that seems a lot against your two guards.”

             
Ryla touched the screen and activated the turrets near the front door, bringing the machine guns up from underground.  A set of bikers rolled ahead of the pack and chucked grenades at them.  The turrets began to fire but only managed to wing one of the broodlings before the grenades sent them flying into shrapnel.

             
“That’s not good,” Natalie pointed out.

             
“Should we be leaving?” Arnie asked as five Broodlings moved toward the compound with fire in their hands.  Rachel took aim, smiling from her perch on the rooftop and dropped two of them, their cocktails spilled fire down the hill in front of the compound while the remaining three lobbed theirs toward the building.  The bottles crashed against the wall and fire spread across it. 

             
“It feels like we should be leaving,” Arnie continued.

             
Ryla took a deep breath and went to work.  “The building won’t burn from the outside,” she assured them.

             
“You got something for this?” Quey asked, “Cause if you don’t now's the time to start considering the rabbits path.”

             
A window appeared in the center of her screen asking for her confirmation.  She entered a password and clicked continue.

             
“Level three basement active,” a voice announced from the speakers overhead.  “Primary defenses initiated.  Please select target designation parameters.”

             
Ryla began to type again.  “Manual input,” the voice announced.

             
“What’s in the level three basement,” Natalie wondered with a bit of uncertainty.  A low vibration trembled through the building as massive hydraulics clicked into motion.

Ryla watched the screens with
focused, unblinking eyes and answered, “My doom ships.”

             
Rachel took a shot at one of the men standing on the back of the rig but the bullet ricocheted off his machine gun and sent him ducking behind it.  She was looking for another shot, for another mole to peek up from its hole when the ground began to open off the north side of the building.  Two massive metal doors swung up slowly, displacing the dust of the waste, and continued until flat against the ground.  She looked into the dark well those doors had been covering and a moment later something began to rise from within.  She watched as the brood watched, listening to the hydraulic hum creeping closer to the surface.

             
“What the fuck…” is as far as Rachel’s thought got before the platform rose up and settled flush with the ground.  Sitting atop it was a… boat, she guessed.

             
The brood was as stunned as she was, staring slack jawed at the bizarre vehicle.

             
Inside the rig Render broke the silence.  “This bitch is fucking crazy.”  The men in earshot looked to him and he went on, “She’s got a fucking boat where there ain’t no water.”

             
The doom ship came to life, vibrating the air with a low hum as it rose from its platform and hovered.  Slats opened along its sides and gun barrels emerged.  In the compound Ryla touched the rig displayed on her holoscreen and the voice announced, “Target selected.”

             
The ship opened fire, sending a massive spray of fifty caliber bullets at the rig.  The two men perched atop the trailer dove off the far side as the scream of metal colliding with metal rang out over the roar of the guns, four in all.  The bullets slammed into the side of the rig, hammering deep dents in the armor and tearing through the hull in three different places.  The rig rocked back on its far wheels until the guns went quiet and then it fell violently back into place.

             
Render, holding on to the handle above his head and ducking down in the cab of his truck, knew the armor couldn’t take another blast.  The device attached to his dash reported a half dozen incoming calls.  He conferenced them all and said, “Back off!”

             
Without hesitation the cars reversed and pulled away from the compound, the bikers revved their engines and spun their wheels in the dust before rolling back toward the road.  Render called one of his men into the cab and ordered him to drive.  It was a young broodling, whose handle might have been Popshot, but Render wasn’t certain.  Regardless, whoever he was, he shifted the rig into reverse and guided it backward with a shaky hand.

             
“What are we going to do now!” one of the broodlings shouted into his sheet’s microphone.

             
Render swallowed hard.  He wasn’t about to let these assholes make a fool of him again.  His men were already shaky in regards to his leadership, especially since they sent him running with his tail between his legs at the motel.  He’d rather die than let that slide and it sure as fuck wasn’t going to happen again.  Of course he wasn’t suicidal either.  “I need to make a call,” Render announced and disconnected from the brood.  He tapped the screen and brought up his contacts.  Then he placed the call to Sticklan Stone.

             
As they watched the brood back away from the compound Quey said what everyone was thinking with a voice sapped of emotion.  “Holy shit.”

             
“How many of those things do you have?” Reggie asked, resting his hand on the back of Ryla’s chair.

             
“Three,” she replied without a glance.  “Though only Mort is currently active.”

             
“Why’d it stop?” Leone blurted urgently.

             
Ryla tapped a portion of the screen that was scrolling through equations and said, “Probability of success and failure are equal.”

             
“What about the other two ships?” Quey asked.

             
“One requires a replacement of the hover drive on its left side, new coolant coils, and power cells.  The other requires a reworking of its electrical systems.”

             
“How long to fix them?”

             
“If I devoted all repair resources to the task it could be completed in sixteen hours, approximately.”

             
Quey nodded.  “That’ll have to be good enough.”

             
“What are you thinking?” Natalie asked.

             
“He’s thinking they’re calling for backup,” Reggie said, solemn.

             
Quey nodded again, once.  “If they meant to run there’d be nothing but dust out there.  We flashed our ass at ‘em and gave them the slip and the run around for nearly a year, and the bounty on us could only have gone up.  They mean to collect here and now.”

             
Reggie watched the cars move into position, forming a circle around the rig that the bikes parked in side of.  “They’re setting up a defense perimeter,” the big man said.  He looked at the others and added, “They mean to stand.”

             
“Can we run?” Natalie asked.

             
“Not faster than them,” Arnie told her sadly.

             
“I mean… isn’t there an escape tunnel or anything?” she added.

             
“No,” Ryla replied simply.

             
“Plus, we need this place,” Quey said.  “If we mean to finish what we set our mind toward this place has the gear to do it.”

             
“I think we should focus on living first,” Natalie told him, draping her arm over Ambers trembling body.  The girl was terrified and Natalie was also.

             
He spun on her and said, “I am.  That brood out there isn’t lingering about on a whim.  They’re here on the dime of Blue Moon, looking to put us down, and its not just Rain or Leone or even me they’re after anymore.  They’re not making those distinctions.  So where would you go?  How far can you run?”  He stepped toward Natalie and looked hard at her.  “Make no mistake, I mean to live.  Live, Nat, not just survive for the day.”

             
Rachel entered through the double doors across the room, rifle slung over her shoulder and a hand draped across the small bulge of her belly.  She walked tall toward where the others had gathered.  “I agree,” she said.

             
“So the question remains,” Arnie said.  “What now then?”

             
“I’ve already begun repairs on Doom ships Ludwig and Wendy,” Ryla informed them as she tapped keys.

             
“Then there’s nothing to do there till its finished, I take it,” Rachel implied.

             
“Correct,” Ryla affirmed.

             
“I guess its you and me back at the networks.”

             
“Reggie and I need to know what this place has,” Quey said to Ryla.  She looked up at him.  “I know this is your home but we need to know, food, ammo, vehicles, everything.  All the little toys you have.”

             
“Okay,” Ryla said hollowly and began typing.

             
“What about Rain?” Leone asked.  “Where is she?”

             
Quey turned to Ryla, “You find out about our vehicles?”

             
She looked up at him and spoke softly, “The blue car is missing.”

             
He nodded, expecting as much.

             
“She wouldn’t abandon us,” Leone protested.

             
“She didn’t,” Quey said.  “It’s worse than that.”  The boy was looking at him, eyes shimmering.  He knew it already but he needed to be told if he was going to believe it.  “She went home.  She means to get to Richter Crow’s terminal.”

             
“What are we going to do about that?” Natalie asked, looking to each of them.  “I mean… we can’t just let her...”  She trailed off when she looked over at Leone.

             
“I didn’t mean to,” Quey sighed, “But that choice has been taken from us.  No way of us making it to her with that brood about.”

             
“There has to be something we can do,” Leone protested.

             
“Yeah and what’s that?” Quey snapped slightly.  “I’d really love to know because I can’t figure it.”

             
“I put out word to my brother.  Should hear back from him soon,” Rachel told him.

             
Quey nodded slowly, thoughts bouncing around his brain like ping-pong balls.

             
“Might be he can help,” she added when she noticed the eyes on her.

             
Quey felt his sheet begin to vibrate inside his pocket and he pulled it free and looked at it.  ‘Incoming Brood,’ was displayed across the middle.  His face furrowed as he read it a second time.

             
“What do you think?” Reggie asked.

             
“Think there’s no harm in taking it,” Quey said and clicked the tab that unfolded the sheet to its fullest then answered.  Render appeared clearly—and clearly pissed—in his screen.  “Quey Von Zaul,” he said exasperated.

             
“Good day to you too, Render.”

             
The man sighed and said, “You know when they offered me one and seven zeroes to hunt down a lowly moonshiner I thought, this is too good to be true.  Money falling into my lap this easy has to be a dream, right?”