by James Axler
They were prophetic words.
Chapter Eleven
Night fell on the carnage surrounding the Gate encampment. The chilled corpses of the stickies had been gathered and piled together along with kindling to start two large blazes that would cremate the remains of the muties and also act as warning beacons for any who might still be lurking in the woodland. Gloria was aware that the flaring fires would alert anyone watching as to their position and camp, but as she told Ryan, "If the stupidworks don't know where we are by now, they're no danger anyway!"
And so the camp was set for the night. The canvas and plastic sheets that acted to keep in the heat and reflect light were set up around the small city of tents and wags. Forming as they did a barrier of darkness against the moonlight that reflected across the plain, they were useless as camouflage, but then, that wasn't their intent. They enclosed the camp and allowed the sentries to keep guard at all points while the rest of the tribe and the companions rested within. The guards themselves were exposed to the elements and to any threat of attack, as there was nowhere to hide or cover on the flat plain, but there was nowhere for any approaching enemy to cover and make a sneak attack.
It seemed that the Gate warriors were assured of a quiet night's rest after battle, before continuing their journey back into the woodland and toward the seemingly deserted settlement.
But it wasn't to be. In fact, it was on the third watch, deep into the night, when the attack came. The best time for any night maneuver, as the opposition were almost certainly assured to be in a state of unpreparedness. Even more so as the crematory fires that had lit up the dusk had now died down to little more than embers deep within the piles of ash and fat that comprised the remains of the mutie hordes.
The third watch saw Margia, J.B., Dean and Tammy covering the four points. The Gate queen had been unwilling to let her sister stand watch with the Armorer, considering that her now forgotten infatuation with him had been the original source of the feud between the blonde and Jak. J.B., however, had been unconcerned by this, reasoning that as long as he and the blonde took diametrically opposed areas to cover, then there would be no chance of friction.
In this he was correct, yet even the laconic Armorer, with his sense of the bizarre that all too rarely broke the surface, couldn't have foreseen the irony that was about to occur—for it was both he and Margia who simultaneously raised the alarm.
For J.B., it happened when he was squatting about twenty yards from the plastic and canvas wall joint of the camp. He was looking out in a southwesterly direction, back across the path they had traversed along the plain. The night had been cold and quiet since he had been roused from sleep to take his turn at the watch, and the boredom was lulling him toward sleep.
He wore only a shirt and camou pants, unwilling to wrap up too warmly against the night cold lest he should succumb to the desire to nap in the boredom. The chill edge kept him awake and alert.
Nonetheless, as he squatted with one hand resting on the cold earth, the short grass bristly beneath the pads of his fingers, the fingers of his other hand rubbing at eyes raw from sleep and the dryness of the air, he became aware of a vibration that ran up through his fingers and along his arm. Perhaps, in the business of day, he wouldn't have noticed something this slight. But in the absolute still of the night, it took just that to make him aware.
J.B. rested his other hand on the ground, palm down. The vibration was faint, but growing harder with every second. Straining his ears, J.B. could hear a faint rumble that he was able to identify immediately: the tone and pitch of a diesel engine powering a wag that had tracks on the back, possibly an old military sec wag, or at least one that had bastardized pieces of such equipment.
Rising smoothly to his feet, the Armorer could no longer feel the vibration—not through the soles of his boots. The faint rumble was still there, but not growing appreciably louder.
Turning, he ran back toward the encampment, not wanting to raise the alarm by shouting, in case there were scouts ahead of the wag who were on the fringes of the woodland who would hear him.
As he reached the hooded entrance to the plastic and canvas wall, he almost ran into Margia. The woman was grim faced, her white teeth and blond hair shining in the reflective light of the moon against the dark of her tanned flesh, barely covered even in the cold night.
"Something's up, honey," she said to the Armorer. "Some way off, but—"
"A wag? Mebbe old predark sec?"
She nodded briefly. "How d'you know, sweets? Same your end?"
"Yeah, so it's at least a two-pronged attack."
Margia looked around. Dean and Tammy hadn't yet joined them, and so were presumably at their posts. "The young ones aren't here, so unless they're not as aware—"
"Unlikely," J.B. cut in.
"Precisely. I guess they're just going to try to pull us in opposite directions. One from where they come from, and one from where we came from."
"That's assuming that they come from the settlement," J.B. pointed out.
Margia shrugged. "Good assumption as any. Anyway, stop arguing and let's get everyone up."
Inside the camp, all was still and quiet, the fire that warmed the camp now dying, the lamps now stilled apart from the muted lights that prevented the camp being in total darkness. Both armorers moved toward the queen's tent, joined on the way by Tammy and Dean.
"Guess you know what we're here for," the young Cawdor said wryly to J.B.
"Anyway, we could see you and Margia move past us, so we knew before it became obvious," Tammy added with a toss of her auburn curls, catching the dim light and making her eyes sparkle with the light of oncoming battle.
The Armorer assented. "Need to get everyone together as soon as possible."
Margia arrived at the tent first, where Petor rose from out of the shadows. As always, he was guarding his queen and mentor.
"Trouble?" he asked, already wide awake and alert.
"Wags approaching on the southwest and northeast," Margia said briskly. "Not much time, boy, so tell Glo I said we need to move—"
"Nobody tells Petor what to do, even me," Gloria snapped as she emerged from her tent, interrupting her sister's officious flow. Despite only being awakened by the discussion outside the tent a few moments before, the warrior queen had already brought herself around to full consciousness, and was pulling on her clothes as she emerged. She smiled at Dean as she caught his expression on seeing her firm breasts before they were covered. "When you're older, son," she said to him before returning her full attention to J.B. and Margia. "How big are the wags?"
"Hard to tell for sure," J.B. mused. "I'd guess they were at least six-tonners because of the tracks. The rumble was low enough to suggest they were really digging into the ground. Could mean a lot of men—or a lot of firepower."
"How come they're getting through that jungle?"
The Armorer shrugged. "Could be old rail cattle grids to move the foliage. It wouldn't be that dense under that much weight. I've seen it done before. But that will make them harder to attack, give them some serious armor."
"Blind-side gren attack," Margia said dismissively.
"If you get the blind side," J.B. murmured.
But the blonde didn't hear him. Her attention was taken by the sight of Jak Lauren coming out of Gloria's tent, not fully clothed and checking his Colt Python.
"Still playing, then, Glo?" she mused.
The woman shot her sister a warning look, her blue eyes icy and piercing, even in the dim light of the camp.
"Leave it, Marg," she husked in a low voice that carried all the more menace and authority for being quiet. "We'll sort this between ourselves…later. Now we've got more important things to see to."
"They always are," Margia said dismissively, turning on her heel. "I'll get the armory opened up— that's if you can spare at least one of your little proteges…"
Petor colored at this parting shot and looked at his queen.
"Ignore the bitch. You and Jon know what
to do," Gloria said, inclining her head to indicate that he should follow the blonde.
As Petor left, Ryan and Krysty approached. They were closely followed by Doc and Mildred. The companions' tent was near enough to Gloria's in the new camp for them to be awakened by the exchanges, and they were already partly aware of what was happening. J.B. filled them in on the rest while Gloria dispatched Tammy to wake the other warriors and prepare them for battle.
By now the air outside the encampment was carrying the sounds of the wags as they approached. Sentries posted by Tammy called back in relay that the wags were approaching at speed now they were on the plain.
"Plan?" the one-eyed warrior asked the Gate queen. He was prepared to follow her lead until such time as they were out on the battlefield and initiative became imperative.
"Rock and a hard place," she replied. "If we stay in here, we're sitting targets, and if we move outside, then we're in plain sight to be picked off. At least outside we can scatter and distract."
"Mebbe a pincer movement with the fastest outriders to act as fire drawers," Ryan mused.
"It'd be a suicide mission," Gloria replied.
Ryan shrugged. "Mebbe, but not necessarily. If each group then splits and maintains a zigzagging pattern, they can draw fire into empty spaces. After all, chances are that whoever this is hasn't had a real combat situation, unless you count coming up against their own experiments in the woods."
Gloria considered this for a moment, then nodded decisively. "Eh-la, eh-la," she called, once again adopting a different tone and intonation for the syllables that acted as a call to her warriors.
The roused and alert women drew close to their leader, and Gloria outlined the situation in a few words. There was no shortage of volunteers for the outriders, and the fastest were soon dispatched, while Margia, Jon and Petor passed among the warriors, handing out extra blades, blasters and ammo to those who requested them.
Ryan gathered his people around and spoke while they all checked their personal weapons and took grens passed out by J.B.
"You know the plan. It's the only one that's possible for any of us right now, but I don't think any of us like it. So stay frosty, and look for ways into the wag." He fixed his good eye on Jak. "You've got the best throwing aim of any of us. If you can get a gren in any gaps they may leave…"
"No need to say," the albino muttered. "One hole, many dead…"
Ryan nodded. "Okay, let's do it."
NOW THAT they were both clear of the woodland and out in the open, it was possible to see that the wags were six-tonners—as J.B. had surmised—with armor plating and caterpillar tracks behind the radials of the front wheels. The front of each wag carried a large, shaped metal grid that formed into a point and was sharpened in order to cut through and disperse the foliage of the woodlands. A clear path was visible behind each wag as it sped out of the woods and onto the flat plain.
Despite the sudden lack of obstruction, neither vehicle noticeably increased its speed, preferring to maintain a steady pace. It would seem to the observer that the intention of both drivers was to arrive simultaneously at the Gate encampment. This was to the tribe's advantage, as it enabled them to get their outriders onto the plain and toward the wags before the vehicles themselves were in a position to begin an attack.
Ryan and the companions were the next party to leave the encampment. Where there had been only the one entrance originally, two had been cut into the sheeting by the men of the tribe to enable access onto those northeasterly and southwesterly sides of the camp from which the danger threatened.
Splitting from the middle of the camp, Dean followed J.B., Mildred and Doc onto the southwesterly side, in company with an Amazon group that included both Margia and Tammy. His father, Jak and Krysty went in the group that was led by Gloria. As soon as they emerged, it was obvious why there had been a lack of firefighting from the outside of the camp. The outriders were proceeding at pace toward the approaching wag without meeting resistance.
"Stupes!" Ryan breathed. "How the fuck do they expect to attack head-on with a wag that has any possible blaster points on its front blocked by something like that?"
That was true. To Ryan's amazement—and that of the others—the grille that had cleared the woodland for the wag was also so large that it precluded any positioning for a machine blaster on the front, making a head-on attack risky at the best of times.
"Don't knock that stupidworks piece of ironmongery, sweets," Gloria breathed. "I'm all in favor of it if it evens our odds."
Would it even them enough, though? Ryan thought to himself. Certainly the wag coming toward them was heavily armored, and even if it was unable to blast at them from the front, it was well enough secured to make any access from the outside virtually impossible.
The initial party of outriders had now reached the wag, and was circling it with a zigzag movement, the riders making themselves as scattered and difficult to hit as possible.
Then the firing began.
"Fuck! The swords of light," Gloria breathed, stopping momentarily in her tracks as a beam from a laser rifle cut through the night air, drawing a straight line of brilliant light in the darkness, scorching the earth around the feet of an outrider with a crackle that raised small plumes of smoke. Fortunately the aim was poor, and the woman at whom the beam had been aimed was able to dive easily out of the way.
But the sudden entry into the fray of the pulsing beams of light caused confusion in the outriders, who began to lose speed and falter in their maneuvers. Gloria saw this immediately and put her hands to her mouth, shaping her lips into a piercing whistle that changed tone three times. It was a signal and reminder to her warriors, and was possibly the spur they needed to bring them back into focus.
"If they fire out, must be way in," Jak barked at Ryan and Gloria before breaking away from them and heading at speed to join the outriders. Gloria watched him go, streaking low across the plain, cutting between the Gate warriors, his pale skin and stringy white hair showing against the darkness both of his clothing and the surrounding night. Her face betrayed the mix of emotion within her.
Ryan's concern was much more simple. He was concerned at what would happen should Jak get hit by a laser pulse before he had a chance to pitch a gren into the wag. Jak was far and away their best chance to immobilize the wag in this way. The one-eyed man couldn't see there being another option.
After all, it was unlikely that the Illuminated Ones would be stupe enough to leave the security of the wag.
ON THE SOUTHWESTERN side of the camp, the outriders had followed a similar pattern, moving out ahead of the main parties on a zigzagging course. And they, too, had been taken aback by the laser pulses.
J.B., Mildred, Dean and Doc were in the main party with Margia. In the heat of the battle, all animosity between the blond armorer and Mildred had been forgotten as they pulled together in this common cause. And as the first pulsing beam of light shot from the side of the wag, Margia hissed in a mix of admiration and fear.
"Sweet mutie fucker, that's one hell of a blaster, whatever the fuck it is!"
"Seen them once before," J.B. said, "in action, and found some that were inoperable. Weird old tech, but erratic."
"No accuracy?" Margia raised an eyebrow. "Why use them, then?"
"Why not when they're such an unknown quantity?" Mildred answered. "The shock value alone is worth it…and when they hit home, they're really nasty."
"Is that so?" Margia mused.
J.B. and Mildred exchanged a look. The thought of the blond armorer in charge of a laser blaster wasn't a pleasant one, and J.B. made a mental note that if they got through this in one piece, then he would try to make sure she was unable to get any of the weapons.
But first they had to fight off the attack, something that seemed to be an impossibility as the first Gate casualty was claimed by the laser blasters.
The outrider was small, even by the general standard of the Gate tribe, and she had a mane of black hair that flowed
down her back as she ran. She was stocky and moved close to the ground, seemingly too fast for the erratic laser fire to hit. But there were always moments of fate, turning points, where one wrong move could change destiny. And perhaps the moment when her ankle turned on a divot of loose earth was such a turning point. As she went down, a pulsing beam of laser fire shot along the earth in a line, scorching all in its path. Reaching her as she tried to rise to her feet.
She was too late. The beam of light scored into her body, touching her outstretched foot and searing the flesh, making it burn and blacken beneath the beam. Her scream of fear and agony cut through the noise of the attack, growing in pitch and intensity as the beam reached up her leg, roasting flesh and raising smoke as the tendon and muscle crackled obscenely, like roasting meat. By the time the beam had reached as far as her torso, the cries had ceased, as she passed out from the pain, the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness sparing her the agony of her own chilling.
"Shit," Margia whispered, "what I could do with one of those…"
Mildred and J.B. exchanged another look. The outriders had stopped dead, losing their momentum in seeing one of their own fall. If they didn't start moving again, they would be easy meat for the Illuminated Ones, and the notion of Margia gaining a laser blaster would be complete fantasy.
"Dark night, we need to act fast, Millie," J.B. snapped.
"Already there, John," Mildred replied shortly, beginning to run toward the wag as the Armorer started into motion. Dean, sensing their plan with an instinct born of his heritage as a Cawdor, followed them. Only Doc held back a little, and merely because he knew he was unable to match their pace at that moment.
It seemed a bizarre sight on the battlefield. For a second, it was as though only four people were moving, and a certainty that the Illuminated Ones would be able to wipe out the Gate from the safety of the wag.
Then, on both sides of the camp, something happened that changed the course of the firefight. Something that Ryan, reflecting afterward, could only put down to the one weakness he had hoped for in the opposition. They had no practical battle experience. It also confirmed his suspicions that their tech was in good order, as there had to have been communication between the two wags.