Sooner Dead

by Mel Odom

  Scatter's face suddenly formed in front of her. "Ocastya is only a short distance from you."

  Hella dived and took brief shelter beside an overturned ATV. She covered her head as bullets smacked into the vehicle. The sharp tang of fuel filled the air. "Where are you?"

  "I am still locked in the electromagnetic field. Dr. Pardot has the key."

  "Where's he?"

  "A security team has taken him into hiding to protect him."

  Hella pushed herself up and ran. The ATV exploded just behind her. The heat washed over her, and the concussion almost knocked her from her feet.

  "You cannot shut down the field without Dr. Pardot's key. Please, Hella, take Ocastya. She is under guard, but she is not locked up."

  "Show me."

  Scatter's face darted ahead of her and cut left around a burning tent. Hella followed. Before she turned the corner, one of the hardshells lunged out of the smoke and brought up his rifle.

  The face shield looked alien and unforgiving. The amplified voice sounded mechanical and cold. "Stop where you—

  CHAPTER 28

  The hardshell suddenly lifted as a large-caliber round smashed into his chest and knocked him backward.

  Hella never broke stride, following the shimmery silver gleam that floated in the air in front of her. She knew that Stampede had taken out the hardshell. No one else was around.

  "Here." Scatter hovered over the entrance to one of the medical tents. Flames engulfed the back half of the tent and were already twisting inside.

  "Careful, Red. You're going to have chemicals all throughout that tent."

  Knowing Stampede had his eye on her made Hella almost feel protected, but she knew that was false. Until both of them got clear, they were at risk. Still, it was good hearing his rifle boom almost constantly. Two of Trazall's men went down around her as they spotted her.

  She ducked into the tent and discovered she could barely see through all the thick smoke. On one of the tables, chemical vials exploded in quick succession, unleashing bright colors, different-colored smoke, and detonations loud enough to hurt her ears.

  Ocastya lay on one of the collapsible examination tables the expedition had packed in.

  Scatter hovered fretfully over her. "Here. She is here."

  "I see her." Hella hurried to the fractoids side. Ocastya looked a lot better than she had the day Hella had pulled her from the swamp. Nearly all of the blackened metal had turned pristine silver again. Evidently the fractoid was healing even better than Hella. Memory of the burns she'd suffered and the horrid thing her arm had been turned into kept Hella back. "Can she move?"

  "Not yet. Soon."

  "She moved back at the swamp."

  "That was reflex. A conditioned response from the near-death experience." Scatter's floating face turned to Hella. "Please help her."

  Reluctantly Hella approached the table and the strange being lying on it. An explosion outside the tent hurled shrapnel through the material, shredding it instantly.

  "Hella?" Stampede sounded tense.

  "I'm fine."

  "Get out of there. I don't have eyes on you, and I'm starting to attract attention."

  Knowing she didn't have time for indecision anymore, Hella slipped her knife from her boot and sliced through the restraints holding Ocastya to the table. The fractoids head turned smoothly toward Hella, and she lifted a hand. Blades sprang free of her fingers.

  Hella lifted her knife and morphed her other hand into a weapon.

  Scatter's face slid between Hella and Ocastya. The harsh, screeching machine language filled the smoke-laced air. The chemicals burned Hella's eyes strongly enough to bring tears.

  Ocastya's knife blades disappeared. She swiveled her attention to Hella. "I am to go with you."

  "Yes." Hella let out a breath, but her newfound calm was shredded when another rocket struck the earth outside. "You can't move?"

  Ocastya bent at the waist effortlessly and looked at her legs. "I am still damaged. I am unable to walk."

  Great. I'm not exactly the one to sling her over my shoulder and take off with her.

  Scatter turned to her. "One of the ATVs is nearby."

  "Won't help." Hella shook her head and felt helpless. "I've never driven one." Opportunities to drive something like the ATV hadn't come along, and she'd always preferred traveling on Daisy.

  "Easily remedied." Scatter hovered close to her then wrapped his face over hers with a suddenness that startled her into stepping back.

  Hella thought her brain was overheating. She felt as if she had a fever. Then, in the time it took to blink, she knew how to drive an ATV.

  Scatter peeled off her and hovered in the air again. "Hurry, Hella."

  Pushing her curiosity to the back of her mind and focusing on survival, Hella sprinted through the tent flap and turned left, automatically knowing the ATV's location as well. She clambered onto the vehicle as though she'd been doing it all her life. The engine caught when she pressed the start button. She put it in gear as one of Trazall's warriors spotted her and brought up his weapon. Before he could shoot, his head exploded in a geyser of blood.

  "Move." Stampede's voice cut through all the chaos.

  Hella drove the ATV into the medical tent, ripping through the opening. She got off only long enough to slide Ocastya from the table onto the rear of the vehicle. The cargo space on the four-wheeler was limited, but Ocastya folded up a lot easier than a human being would have. Hella used the cargo straps to tie the fractoid into place. "It'll help if you can hang on."

  Ocastya gripped the rear roll bar with her two hands. "I will."

  Clambering back aboard the ATV, Hella revved the engine and drove forward. There wasn't enough room in the medical tent to try turning around. Putting her arm across her face, she drove the ATV through the flaming back wall. The weakened canvas gave way at once. The flames clung to her only momentarily; then she was speeding through the campsite.

  A pair of hardshells vectored in on an intercept course. Hella heard Stampedes rifle roar, and one of them went down as he brought his weapon up. She drove over a dead Sheldon, probably one of the men Trazall had brought with him, and the ATV's front wheel pulled up as the vehicle vaulted into the air over the armadilloid's body.

  The hardshell managed a short burst from his weapon. At least one of the rounds struck the underside of the vehicle, and Hella hoped it didn't do any lasting damage. The man tried to duck away, but he got slammed by a hail of bullets from an approaching insectoid. The ATV hit him in the chest and knocked him backward.

  Hella drove with desperation, amazed that she wasn't already dead. Stampede laid down covering fire all around her, knocking down gunners and driving others to shelter. Most of them had their own problems staying alive without giving her chase. Hella took advantage of that.

  Amazed at her dexterity and familiarity with the vehicle, Hella tried not to think too much about her actions and just let them flow. She blew through the campsite and roared up the hill toward Stampede. She was surprised at how little attention she drew once she was out of the camp, but most of Pardot and Riley's people were in full retreat. Trazall's crew was more interested in claiming what they could of the expedition's goods.

  When she reached the promontory where she'd left Daisy, Stampede was at her heels. She unstrapped Ocastya, and Stampede threw her up onto Daisy's back. The mountain boomer pawed the ground in protest.

  "Easy, girl." Hella patted the lizard on the side of the neck, but she stood on one side of Daisy and secured Ocastya while Stampede did so on the other side. "Where do we go?"

  "North." Stampede didn't hesitate. "We can lose ourselves in the mountains. At least have a chance of escaping."

  Hella vaulted into the saddle and took a last look at the campsite. Smoke hovered over the area, but occasional gunfire announced the fact that the confrontation still continued. Flames burned patches of nearby forest.

  "Let's go." Stampede slapped Daisy on the rump, and the mountain bo
omer dug her claws in, muscles bunching as she raced forward.

  Hella stayed low over the creature, riding her effortlessly, becoming one with her mount as Daisy careened through the wilderness. She gazed down at her left palm. Scatter had dropped back into place there, but she couldn't help thinking of the fractoid being held captive somewhere.

  Hours later, hurting from the action and the hard riding, Hella tended the small fire in the cave she and Stampede had been fortunate enough to find an hour or so before dawn. The pot of stew hung that over the fire smelled almost ready. She lifted the lid and poked her knife in to skewer a chunk of squirrel. She tasted the meat and decided it was cooked enough.

  Stampede sat over to one side of the cave and cleaned their rifles with respect and care. Ocastya sat beside him, still paralyzed from the waist down. So far, Scatter hadn't put in an appearance.

  "Stew's ready." Hella poured most of the pot's contents into one of their tin plates and handed it to Stampede along with a spoon.

  "Thanks." He set the rifle aside and took the plate.

  Hella poured the rest of the stew into her plate took her spoon. She leaned back against Daisy, who had stretched out on the other side of the cave and gone to sleep. The ride had been long and hard, and the lizard wasn't a nocturnal creature by nature. She lived for warmth and the sun.

  For a time they ate in silence while Ocastya watched them. The fractoid had talked with them some, but her language skills weren't as good as Scatter's. Hella was also fairly certain there was something wrong with her. She would trail off in the middle of sentences and be unable to return to her train of thought, and she sometimes looked afraid of them.

  She asked about Scatter a lot.

  Stampede had gotten tired of answering the same questions over and over again. It was like being around a mentally deficient child, annoying and sad and unsettling at the same time. Some of those children had carried weapons, but none of them could spring blades out of their fingers the way Ocastya could.

  "We're running low on ammunition." Stampede spooned stew up and ate it with obvious relish.

  "Considering how we've been burning through it, that's not surprising."

  "So are you." Stampede gestured to her special backpack. "I've loaded up the last of your supplies."

  That stopped Hella for a moment. With the way her body processed raw materials and turned them into bullets, she sometimes tended to take ammunition for granted. "There's a trade camp a day from here."

  "That's traveling by day. By night it will take even longer. And I don't want to try to travel by day because Trazall knows as much about this area as we do. If he's looking for us—and we still don't know that he isn't—he'll know where to find us."

  "If we go to another trade camp, we run the same risk. Even if we get through, we're too far out. By the time we get back, Trazall, Pardot, and Scatter will all be gone."

  Ocastya looked at them and said something in the machine language.

  Hella looked at her. "I can't understand you if you don't speak like this."

  The fractoid waited a moment then nodded. "Where is my mate?"

  "I don't know." That was the truth. Hella didn't know if Pardot still had Scatter, or if Trazall had him. There were no guarantees Scatter had survived the attack. The thought of the fractoid's possible death depressed her, and she worked hard not to think of that.

  "Will he be here soon?"

  "I don't know."

  Ocastya looked troubled. "If he does not come soon, I may forget myself." She'd said that a lot too.

  "He'll be here as soon as he can."

  "All right. May I sit in the sun?"

  "Sure." Hella put her bowl down and crossed over to the fractoid. She picked Ocastya up and carried her into the sunlight. The fractoid's useless legs dragged.

  "Thank you." Ocastya stared out at the world as sunlight beamed down on her.

  "You're welcome." Hella returned to her meal and watched the fractoid.

  Stampede watched as well. "We don't have a lot of choices, Red."

  "Do you think we can lie low and keep out of sight long enough for Trazall to pass on by?"

  "Maybe."

  Down in the valley below them, sporadic gunfire echoed. The erratic, staccato noise made the bright day seem frightful. Death walked the hills.

  Stampede grinned coldly. "We wait long enough, maybe Trazall and Pardot will kill each other off."

  High-pitched piercing woke Hella from a dreamless sleep. Her left hand was a weapon before she opened her eyes.

  Stampede hovered over Ocastya. His size dwarfed the fractoid. Ocastya shook and shivered. She fought against Stampede, slapping at him and trying to escape. His nose and mouth were already bleeding.

  Hella rolled to her feet and grabbed a stun baton from Stampede's pack. With the baton in hand, Hella trotted over to them just as Ocastya broke free of Stampede and hit him hard enough to drive him back. Her legs still didn't function, and that was the only thing that kept her from getting away quickly. Even without the use of her legs, she started hauling herself out of the cave with her arms.

  "Ocastya." Hella stood behind the fractoid.

  "She can't hear you." Dizzily Stampede pushed himself to his feet and wiped at his bloody snout.

  The high-pitched keening continued echoing through the cave. Hella started to feel certain that her eardrums were about to explode.

  Scatter suddenly manifested in the air in front of her. "Stop her, Hella. Pardot and Trazall must not find her."

  Hella thought either of the others might be in more danger from Ocastya. The injured fractoid had hurt Stampede, and that wasn't an easily done thing.

  "How do I stop her?"

  Scatter hesitated but Ocastya was already at the cave mouth. "Use the baton. It is the only way."

  "Will it hurt her?"

  "I do not know. I hope not."

  Unable to wait any longer, Hella darted forward, touched the baton to Ocastya's back, and pressed the firing stud. Electricity crackled and flickered along the batons length before spreading out across the fractoid's body. She froze, straining forward, and when the charge finally exhausted, Hella was afraid Ocastya would resume her escape.

  Instead the fractoid slumped forward. Her face clanged against the rock floor of the cave.

  Hella rushed to her, afraid to touch her in case the electricity was running through her. She wanted to check to see if she was still alive, but she didn't know how to do that either. Ocastya didn't have a pulse, didn't require respiration.

  "She lives." Scatter's face floated in front of her. He looked tired and sad.

  "Where are you?" Hella gazed at him and tried to get a clue to his location.

  "I do not know."

  "Are you with Pardot?"

  "No. I am with Trazall."

  "Do you know where he's taking you?"

  "No. Not for certain. I have heard some of the men talk about an encampment that is not too far away. They say there is a laboratory there with a working generator and that Dr. Trammell is happy about that."

  "Trammell?" Stampede growled. "She's there?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "She is in league with Trazall. From what I have gathered, she is the one that told Trazall where Pardot planned to meet the zeppelins."

  Stampede shook his shaggy head, and his ears twitched. "Why would she join forces with Trazall?"

  "I have not heard." Scatter's floating face turned to regard Stampede. "I am sorry."

  "It's not your fault." Stampede wiped blood from his mouth. "We're in a bad situation." He glanced at the unconscious fractoid. "She's getting worse and she's more than Hella and I can handle. Even if Ocastya was behaving, she's paralyzed from the waist down. Hella and I can't pack her out of here while dodging Trazall and Pardot."

  "The only answer, then, is to repair her." Scatter shifted his attention back to Hella. "In order to do that, I need your help."

  Hella shook her head. "I don't know anything a
bout fixing her."

  "Together, Hella. Together you and I can save my mate. I cannot do it without you, but it will be hard and possibly dangerous."

  Hella knew what he was going to ask of her, and that made her afraid. The experiences she'd had with Scatter being inside her mind, even when he'd given her the skills to ride the ATV, hadn't been good. Whatever Scatter planned to do to his mate, it would probably be horrifying. She tried to think of the best way to say no.

  "If you do not let me help her, then it would be better if you put her out of her misery quickly." Scatter's face hovered in front of Hella. "I cannot bear to think of all the suffering she is going through now. She is scared and alone, and she has never before been those things."

  "Red." Stampede's voice was soft and hesitant. "You don't have to do this. Probably you shouldn't."

  "I know." Hella swallowed then nodded. "Okay. Just tell me what I need to do."

  CHAPTER 29

  Cross-legged, Hella sat on the hard rock floor of the cave and steeled herself as Scatter's thin, metallic face floated close to her then touched her and wrapped itself over her features. She closed her eyes and sucked in her breath at the chill that pricked her flesh.

  "Everything will be all right." Scatter spoke calmly.

  "When did you learn to lie?" Hella tried to make light of the situation, but the fear that knotted her belly wouldn't go away.

  "Only since I have been among your people. I have found that it is a most useful tool. Does it help?"

  "No."

  On the other side of the cave, Stampede stood at the ready but looked lost. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, and he was clearly unhappy about that judging from the frown and the twitching ears.

  Daisy sat in the back of the cave with her snout in a feedbag.

  Ocastya lay on the floor in front of Hella. The fractoid's face was relaxed, but her eyes stared up at the cave roof, clearly not seeing anything.

  "We will begin."