by James Axler
The pervasive odor of decay had forced Gabhart and the rest of his team to make their permanent camp a good distance from the site of the massacre, on the farthest edge of the faint gridwork of the development's streets. That was where Ryan and the others had left them.
The camp was still there, but nobody was home.
"It looks like our friends have already moved on," Ryan said, lowering the rifle.
"Question is," J.B. said, "where did they go?"
"And did they go willingly?" Krysty added.
"No way of figuring that out from up here," Ryan said, "If we check the arroyo, we can see if they dug up the gyroplane and chilling gear. That would tell us something."
"Walk across canyon no good," Jak said, his red eyes glittering. He raised an arm and pointed around the top of the rim. "Hides for shooters along summit. Go down there we're in bastard cross fire."
"He's right," Mildred said. "Once we're in the middle of the canyon floor we've got nowhere to run. All the enemy has to do is seal off the mouth and start pushing us back. We'll end up pinned against the canyon's rear wall, facing a firing squad."
Ryan eyeballed the expanse of unprotected ground below. He couldn't argue with what Jak and Mildred had said. The trouble was, they had run out of completely risk free options. "I'm going to go check the arroyo," he said, shouldering his scoped longblaster's sling. "Anybody wants to stay here, that's okay."
Whether they wanted to or not, none of the others stayed behind.
It was midmorning by the time they had descended the rim and safely crossed the canyon. The burial spot was in a dry creek bed that followed the sweeping S-curve of the canyon wall. From a long way off, they could make out the hatching of black scorch marks on the rock face. As they got closer, they could see the deep cuts in its surface, as well.
"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc exclaimed when the arroyo finally came into view.
The creek bed looked as if it had been systematically dynamited. It was an obstacle course of scattered mounds and deep pits of discolored dirt. The chapparal and sagebrush that had lined the dry channel was uprooted and fire blackened.
"Some of the gear's been dug up, that's for sure," J.B. offered.
"Not get far, though," Jak said. He bent and picked up a half buried piece of black armored material, the end of which was shredded into a fan of stiff fibers.
"That's part of a gyroplane's main rotor," Ryan stated.
"More pieces of it are scattered all over the place, but they're a lot smaller than that," Mildred said. "Looks to me like it absorbed a direct hit from a missile."
"Another gyroplane landed and took off over here," Krysty said. She pointed at deep parallel marks made by an aircraft's skids. "And look at these wheel marks…"
Ryan knelt beside the tire prints. They were a yard wide and sank eighteen inches into the dirt.
"Big suckers," J.B. remarked as he looked over Ryan's shoulder. "I make it three wags. And from the boot prints all around, twenty-five or so ground troops."
Ryan nodded. The jury was still out on whether Gabhart and the others had left as recruits or as prisoners. "Spread out and let's see what else we can find," he said.
They fanned out along the edge of the disturbed area and then set off in a search line across the creek bed's unnatural ups and downs. It quickly became clear that all of the other world battle gear had been recovered, but not by whom or why. Then Dean let out a shout.
When Ryan and the others joined the boy, he was standing on the edge of a blast crater. He stared down at a black gauntleted hand and arm sticking out of the sand.
Mildred nudged it with her boot and it toppled over. It was severed at the elbow. She picked it up by the wrist.
They all gathered around for a better look at the stump end of the grisly relic. The battlesuit material had been sliced through cleanly.
"That's a laser cut," J.B. said.
"An Achilles' heel!" Doc exclaimed. "It would appear that our foes can be harmed by then: own terrible weapons. Their armor isn't invincible, after all."
"Something else there," Jak said. With that, he hopped into the bottom of the pit. When he climbed out, he was carrying the lower half of a battlesuit helmet. It had been cut twice crosswise by a laser beam, once at the neck where it joined the suit's collar, and again just below the point where the wearer's nose would have been. The upper part of the helmet, the visor and the wearer's skull were missing, perhaps carried off by some animal.
"Found this at the bottom, too," the albino said. He showed them a red brimless cap with the word FIVE stitched on the front.
Mildred took the cap from Jak and examined it more closely. The inside was caked with dried blood. "This was Ockerman's," she said, referring to Gabhart's systems engineer. "It looks like at least one of our friends didn't go back to the dark side."
"Where's the rest of him, though?" Dean asked.
"Let's keep looking," Ryan said.
They never did find Ockerman's body, or his head, for that matter, but a few minutes later they came across another corpse. It, too, was missing numerous parts.
Pedro Hylander had been the biologist on Gabhart's expeditionary team. His armless, legless, battlesuit clad torso sat propped up against some boulders at the base of the canyon wall. He was without a helmet, and the vultures had been at him. They had emptied his eye sockets and torn off his lips and cheeks. Fat black flies crawled over his ruined face. Ryan could tell that the poor bastard had been alive when the birds got to him. Blood had crusted all down his chin and neck and the battlesuit's chest plate. His heart was still pumping when the vultures ripped out his tongue.
"They could've chilled him clean if they'd wanted to," J.B. said. "They messed him up like that and let him die slow for a reason."
"Could have been payback because Gabhart's team went renegade, or because they fought back when they were found," Mildred suggested.
Ryan stepped over to the cliff to examine the score marks on the rock face more closely. Up to this point, he had only seen the laser weapons cut through thin material—wood, steel, bone. From the shallow gouges in the sandstone, it appeared there were limits to the penetrating power of the laser weapons. The beams removed a few inches of rock at a time, but couldn't cut through more than that in a single swipe.
His curiosity satisfied, he surveyed the battlefield again. After a minute or two, he gave the others his conclusions. "It looks to me like Gabhart and the others had some advance warning," he said. "They could have seen the satellite track across the sky like we did, or mebbe they spotted the troops at a distance, or came across their wheel marks and knew what they meant. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they had enough time to get back here and recover some of their gear before the enemy showed up. We know at least two of them got into their battlesuits."
"They must've put up a hell of a fight," Krysty said, "but it doesn't look like they did any damage to the opposition."
J.B. shook his head. "Even if they'd gotten all their gear up and running," he said, "they still didn't stand a chance. They were cornered, and then hit by a combined air and ground attack."
"How long ago did it happen, Jak?" Ryan said.
The albino brushed aside the surface of one of the blast pits until he came to damp sand. "Three days," he said. "Mebbe less, not more."
"And from the boot tracks we know the unit that hit them was around twenty-five strong, three wags, and at least one gyro," Ryan said. "It could have been a roving scout force, but it's hard to believe that their finding our friends was an accident. There's just too much country to hide in around here. Seems to me the attackers had to have scanned them from satellite, or they left sensors here that got tripped when Gabhart and the others came back to pick up their battle gear."
The companions had already encountered some of this remote sensing technology. They were surrounded by a terrain littered with loose rocks of various sizes, any one of which might have been a camouflaged motion or sound detector.<
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"Correct me if I'm wrong, my dear Ryan," Doc rumbled, leaning on his swordstick, "but if your assumption is valid, then the die is already cast. In all likelihood, the enemy has tracked us here in exactly the same manner."
"Fraid so."
"Which means that even as we speak, they are probably on their way to intercept us."
Ryan didn't try to refute Doc's conclusion.
He couldn't.
After they had all recrossed the creek bed, J.B. took another look at the tire tracks. "The opposition didn't make camp after the assault," he said. "They just hit and git. From the tracks, it looks like they towed the missile gantry truck out of the hole we dug and drove it away with them."
"We better get a move on," Ryan said. "If we head out the canyon mouth, we can see which way they came from."
Jak nodded. "I'm point."
As the companions started to follow the albino, Ryan put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Wait a second, son," he said softly, drawing him aside. "We need to talk."
The boy looked up expectantly.
"Dean, listen close. Doc was right. Our situation is very bad, and it looks like it's only going to get worse. If the enemy is on their way, it may be a matter of minutes before they wipe us out. Your best chance to stay alive is to leave now with Krysty and Jak. To head back to the gateway with them and make a jump. To get as far away from here as you can."
The boy was incredulous. "Dad, you want me to leave?"
"What I want has nothing to do with it, Dean."
Ryan said gently. "This is about you. About what you want. It's your life that's on the line."
"If I run with Krysty and Jak, they'll still find us, won't they? With that satellite and all the other whitecoat gear they brought with them, we'll never ever be safe, will we? Not even if we ran to the other side of the world?"
"I can't answer that for certain, but I won't lie to you, son. The chances are good they will find you sooner or later."
"And they will chill us when they find us?"
"Yes."
"Dad, are you telling me to go?"
"No. That's your choice."
The expression in the boy's eyes hardened; for Ryan it was like looking into a mirror. "Then I'm staying to fight."
"Are you sure that's what you want?"
"I'm sure, Dad. Come on, the others are getting a big lead—we'd better catch up."
As Ryan watched Dean run ahead, conflicting emotions surged through him. Even as his chest swelled with pride, he was crushed by the thought that his son had signed his own death warrant. Inwardly, he raged at the dire circumstances they found themselves trapped in, and at his own powerlessness to change things so far.
Rage was good.
Rage had helped him survive a thousand pitched battles. And every battle had tempered his body, his instinct and his spirit. If Ryan knew anything for certain, he knew this: if there was a way to win this struggle, he would find it.
He took up the rearguard position in the file as Jak led them along the rows of wheel tracks that paralleled the northern arm of the canyon wall. As Ryan walked along, he kept his eye out for defensive positions they could retreat to quickly—places to make a stand, the more enclosed the better, with entrances they could control. He wasn't the only one doing this; his companions knew the routine by heart.
When they reached the mouth of canyon, they could see the direction of the tire ruts leading in and leading out. J.B. pulled his hat brim down to shield his glasses from the sun. "All the tracks head toward Slake City," he said. "The base for the invasion force must be that way."
"Not much between here and there," Krysty said. "No safe water, that's for sure."
"Trouble!" Jak cried. "Gyro coming!" He pointed at the horizon.
A single black gyroplane swept in low over the desert, flying out of the sun. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Far behind it on the plain, Ryan saw the spiraling pillars of dust that meant heavy vehicles were rolling toward them at high speed.
"The snake cave!" he shouted. "Triple red, let's go!"
The companions broke and ran for the side of the canyon. As they sprinted for cover, the whine of gyroplane's turbines grew louder. They were within twenty yards of the rock wall when a whistling shriek split the air. Oily desert shrubs blossomed in a line of fire to their left. Then a second beam of emerald light squealed over their heads and ripped into the sandstone cliff in front of them, making cascades of white sparks erupt from the red rock.
The warning shots didn't slow the companions, and none of them stopped to return fire. They knew that bullets were useless, and that their only hope was making the cave. They were almost to the wall when a blast of prop wind whipped dust into their faces. Behind them, engines howling, the gyroplane hovered, its rotor wash forcing them up against the wall in a swirling cloud of dirt.
Jak reached the entrance first and helped to pull the others into the angled slit in the cliff. Inside was cool darkness. Coughing and gasping for breath, the companions leaned against the crumbling sandstone.
The air attack broke off at once, but they could hear the gyroplane still hovering outside. Gradually, the rasp of their breathing slowed and their eyes adjusted to the cave entrance's dim light. From deeper in the cave came rustling sounds.
The rustling became a rattling.
"Shit!" J.B. snarled as he fumbled for a match. Light flared from the end of his small rag wrapped torch. All around them the floor moved, uncoiling into dozens of thick bodied, slithering shapes.
Mildred and Krysty instinctively drew their handguns.
"No bullets in here!" Ryan warned. "Ricochets. Stay back."
His panga knife scraped leather as it cleared his leg sheath. Grunting with the effort, Ryan cut a frantic, bloody path through the mutated rattlesnakes. This cave had kept the companions and Gabhart's crew in vittles—big, juicy, snake steaks—for better than a week. There was no choice now but to waste the rest of the nest—the rattler venom was agonizingly lethal. In the flickering torchlight he isolated, cornered and slaughtered the stragglers, using the flat of the blade to stun, followed by a quick backslash to decapitate.
With J.B.in the lead holding the torch, they crossed the sandy floor, stepping over headless, still thrashing bodies, moving toward the back of the cave. As they advanced, the ceiling and walls necked down, forming an archway that J.B. had to duck to pass under. Beyond the arch, the space widened into another domed chamber.
As Ryan approached the arch, his head brushed the ceiling. Pieces of loose rock and dirt came showering down.
"Watch out!" Mildred said, covering her head with her arms. "The roofs rotten."
Ryan ducked low to clear the arch. J.B. and the others were already examining the cave's back wall. On the floor a jumble of S-shaped snake tracks led up to it, then vanished. "There's a rad-blasted snake hole here!" the Armorer said, dropping to his knees. "Could be a way out!"
Jak fell to his knees beside J.B. and they both dug madly with their hands to deepen and to enlarge the hole.
From the mouth of the cave came the sound of heavy vehicles pulling up outside.
"Cover the entrance!" Ryan said.
Their weapons up and ready, the others took defensive positions on either side of the arch.
Ryan looked over his shoulder to see Jak squirming under the overhang of rock. J.B. passed him the torch through the hole, which plunged the cave into darkness.
From the cave's entrance an electronically amplified voice boomed, "You are trapped. Come out now and it will go much easier on you. If you make us come in after you, we will hurt you…badly."
Sounds of a scuffle and cursing came from the hole behind them. Moments later the torch popped back out and Jak scrambled out after it. "Dead end," he said, spitting out a mouthful of sand.
A beam of whistling green light speared through the middle of the cave, striking the back wall above Jak's head. He rolled out of the hole, out from under showers of fat sparks as the sandstone hissed and m
elted.
The companions drew back behind the curve of the archway, shielding their eyes from the green glare.
"You are outnumbered," said the electronic voice, much louder now to compensate for the piercing squeal of the laser beam. "There is nowhere to ran. Surrender now or we will make this very unpleasant for you."
It already was unpleasant.
The laser beam was making the middle of the back wall glow like a huge ember. Sweat had already started to pour off the companions, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
Dean looked up at his father, eyes bright in the torchlight.
Ryan made a decision.
"Okay, okay!" he shouted. "We give up! Turn off the fireworks. We're coming out." Ryan signaled for everyone to keep their heads down.
The green light immediately winked off, but the red glow behind them continued. The rock wall was almost molten hot.
Boot heels crunched heavily on sand. The enemy had entered the cave. "Throw down your weapons," the electronic voice said.
Ryan looked at J.B. and pointed at the ceiling. "You know what to do, J.B.," he whispered.
As the one-eyed man started to step out from behind cover, J.B. stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Nah, let me do this one," he whispered back. He handed Ryan his M-4000 shotgun. "It'll make us even for all the times you've saved my sorry butt."
"Better screw on your hat," Ryan said, softly racking the pump gun's slide.
The Armorer grimly adjusted his fedora, then said to the others, "Everybody get ready to yell…"
His hands up, J.B. stepped into the line of fire, ducking under the archway. "Now, take it easy," he said to the tall, backlit figures just inside the cave entrance. "You know we can't hurt you. You don't have to prove anything more to us. We're giving up. See?"
He dropped to his knees in the sand and held his arms lifted high over his head.
Black figures approached with their laser rifles pointed at his head. One of them came within ten feet of him before it stopped. "Where are the others?" it said.