by Mel Odom
And she knew how much she would miss Stampede if something happened to him. She closed her hand and hoped that would erase the guilt. It didn’t.
“I know, Red.” Stampede’s voice was soft. “I don’t know what Pardot has in mind for Scatter, but I’m sure it’s not good.” He took a breath and let it out. “So are we going to do this thing?”
Hella rode Daisy toward the intersection while Stampede loped behind her, using the mountain boomer’s massive bulk to break the path for him. Branches lashed Hella’s head and shoulders repeatedly. She lowered her head and peered under the uncertain protection of her arm, though occasional branches made it through her defense. Thankfully she kept everything out of her eyes, but her cheeks stung, and she’d gotten a bloody lip.
Even moving as quickly as they could, they arrived too late. The ambushers rushed their trap, moving down to intercept the expedition ahead of the tall hill where the zeppelin pilots had chosen to approach from. The aircraft moved slowly. With darkness gathering, lights flared to life around the gondolas. The expedition had set up some of the camp, mainly the medical tents and food supplies. Evidently they intended to leave some of their equipment behind and had wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of and fed before the rendezvous.
“The hill.” Stampede raced ahead of Daisy then scrambled up a rocky promontory that overlooked the ambush area and sat adjacent to the zeppelins.
Hella guided Daisy up the incline. The mountain boomer’s long claws dislodged small avalanches of rocks and uprooted young trees and brush. Hella pulled the lizard up short, stopping her twenty meters from the site she knew Stampede would choose as their stand. Daisy snorted in protest, certain she was in a race with Stampede.
“Not now, girl. Down. Lie down.” When the mountain boomer did as she instructed, Hella patted Daisy on the neck then slid her rifle free and threw on an extra ammo rack from their supplies. She leaned into the incline and ran up the hill to join Stampede.
He already lay prone, rifle aimed at the ambush area where muzzle flashes and lasers winked like fireflies. The harsh reports of the weapons were muted and indistinct. He took up trigger slack and fired. “First we help out; then we try to scare the aircraft off. Leave the expedition stranded here. If they get Scatter into the air, we’ll never see him again.”
Hella didn’t respond. She found a good area for her rifle and sighted in. The range finder revealed that the distance to the targets was five hundred eighty-three meters. Her rifle was calibrated out to eight hundred meters. Stampede could shoot and kill at more than twelve hundred meters.
His rifle banged loudly again.
Sighting in, Hella dialed the night scope into play and watched as the world turned into myriad shadings of green. The hardshells stood out against the ragtag armor worn by the ambushers. She sighted on the head and shoulders of one man and squeezed the trigger. Not waiting to see the results of her shot, she moved to the next target.
Before she could squeeze the trigger, the new man suddenly leaped into the air, and flames jetted from his feet. His hair caught on fire, and flames blazed in his hands. He opened his mouth and spit a conflagration over the hardshell in front of him.
Wreathed in flames, the hardshell jerked back and tried to beat the fire from his body. He managed only a few stumbling steps before the heat, burns, or the lack of oxygen claimed him.
“That’s Silence.” Hella struggled to pull the pyrokinetic into her sights, recognizing the profile. “Trazall is behind the ambush.”
“Find the roach if you can.” Stampede slammed a fresh magazine into his weapon. “Kill him when you do.”
Hella squeezed the trigger and rode out the recoil. She kept the scope on her target. She spotted a brief flare only a few centimeters from Silence’s body and knew that his fiery aura was hot enough to act as armor. Her bullet had vaporized before touching him.
In the next instant, several other bullets vaporized as well. A hardshell narrowly missed Silence with a laser, and that instantly drew the pyrokinetic’s attention. Shifting in midair, Silence spit another stream of incendiary death. The hardshell with the laser rifle spun away, covered in fire.
The green-haired man, Jack Hart, gestured toward a four-man squad of hardshells. Wavy, purple-black force, almost invisible, spread outward from his hand movement. In the next instant, the hardshells jerked sideways as if their servos had suddenly gotten corrupted. Then the men fell, arms and legs splayed helplessly as increased gravity pinned them to the ground.
Hella put her sights over Hart’s chest and squeezed the trigger. At first she thought she’d missed. Then after three more shots, she knew she couldn’t have missed every time. She noticed one of the purple-black blossoms around Hart and realized that his power was pulling bullets to the ground before they reached him.
She shifted her attention to the normal thieves among Trazall’s crew and punched bullets through them as quickly as she could. When she exhausted one magazine, she plugged in another.
“The zeppelins are closing in.” Stampede rolled to one side, and a bullet cored through rock where he’d been. “And one of Trazall’s snipers has a bead on our position. It won’t be long before others do too.”
Glancing back toward the airships, Hella saw they were moving toward the quagmire of fighting men. She rolled to a fresh position as well just ahead of a shot that notched the rock she’d been using as a rifle stand. “Did you see Trazall?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
“That scans. Trazall is usually the one behind the scene. He’s not there when things head south.”
A moment later, Hella peered back down her rifle. Movement through the brush drew her attention. She used her peripheral vision against the darkness and spotted two men racing toward their position. “We’ve got company incoming.”
“Where?”
“Three o’clock. Do we hold or move out?”
“Pull back. Take up a new defensive line. And keep Daisy out of the fire lines. We go to your right to intercept those gunners. We need to keep this hill clear as we can.”
Hella checked her rifle. “Ready.”
“Go.”
Turning, Hella rose to a half crouch and ran to the right. She used her right hand to vault over a large boulder then hunkered down low as the brush again. Tracer-equipped bullets sliced through the brush after her. “They see me.”
“Go to ground. I’ve got one of them.”
Hella dived to the earth. Rock kissed her cheek hard enough to break the skin. She stayed flat, her heart beating frantically, as bullets combed the brush for her.
The familiar basso bark of Stampede’s rifle rolled over her. Thirty meters away, a shadow jerked suddenly sideways and fell in a loose sprawl. The shadow didn’t get up again, and the second rifleman quit firing and faded into hiding.
“Flush him, Red.”
Shoving her right arm out, Hella blasted the trees where she’d seen the first man fall, gambling that the two hadn’t wanted to get separated in all the confusion. Her bullets scored white scars on the tree trunks and chopped down branches and bushes.
The second man broke cover, heading back the way he’d come and managed two steps before Stampede fired. The heavy-caliber bullet caught the man from behind and pitched him forward. He didn’t move again.
Stampede pushed himself up from the ground. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Get closer if we can. If we can’t, we hold back and hope we can pick up the pieces.”
Hella gazed at the two approaching zeppelins. “If Pardot manages to get aboard the airships, we’re going to lose Scatter.”
“If we get killed, we’re going to lose Scatter anyway. We do what we can, Red. That’s how we’ve always worked it.”
In the dark sky, the zeppelins suddenly opened fire. Machine guns and small cannons pounded the earth and the ambush party. The devastating onslaught created a line between the ambushers and the expedition. The no-man’s-lan
d created by corpses and pieces of corpses widened from a few meters to nearly twenty in as many heartbeats.
Scatter’s face lifted from Hella’s palm to the air. “Hella.”
“We’re here.” Hella ran to cover behind a tree and knew it would be poor cover against one of the zeppelins’ cannons.
Sadness pulled Scatter’s face down heavily. His face shook. “This is too much. I do not want you and Stampede to die.”
“We’re not dead yet.” Blood trickled down Hella’s cheek as she peered around the tree.
“The two of you should go somewhere else. Be safe.”
“If we have to, we will. Dead heroes don’t do anybody any good.” That was another one of the sayings Stampede had first taught her, but it sounded really dumb saying it to Scatter. She just didn’t know what else to say.
The zeppelins cruised closer then hovered over the battleground a couple hundred meters up.
“They’re idiots getting that close.” Stampede shook his head. “If Trazall brought any—”
A rocket streaked into the sky atop a chemical burn tail. When the rocket first crashed into the zeppelin, Hella thought nothing was going to happen. Then a secondary round exploded inside the bag and ignited whatever gas had been used to fill it. A series of successive detonations ripped through the bag.
Almost instantly, a pool of fire hung in the night sky then began the long fall to earth. The gunners aboard the second craft fell silent, obviously overcome by what had happened to the other ship.
Hella wondered if the zeppelin crews had ever before been in battle, and she thought again of the perfect world Riley had taken pains to describe to her. They weren’t living in peaceful times. Stampede had taught her that. He’d trained her to be a warrior because that was the only way she would survive. He’d trained her to be a scout because being on her own was safer than trying to exist within the shifting allegiances of towns and trading posts.
The wreckage of the first zeppelin hit the ground ahead of flaming bodies as survivors of the explosions tried to escape. The mass indiscriminately killed Trazall’s people as well as the expedition members while they fought. Another rocket launched and narrowly missed the second zeppelin, though Hella had no idea how a target that big could be missed.
Evidently the commander of the surviving vessel had decided on discretion as the better part of valor because the airship started pulling away. Before it got more than fifty meters away, a third rocket slammed into it amidships and burst it open in a fiery gush. As the zeppelin fell, ammo cooked off in a hail of bullets and rockets. Fiery debris lay spread across the treetops.
Eyes stinging from all the smoke and smarting from the bright explosions, Hella looked around for Stampede. He stood behind a copse of trees with the big rifle held before him. Flames wreathed the trees behind him.
He nodded. “I’m fine.”
“I’m going to look for Scatter.” His visage had disappeared again, and the silver film covered her left palm.
“We’ll go.”
“No. You’ll stand out.” As far as Hella had seen, there wasn’t another bisonoid in either of the two groups. “I’m depending on you to cover me.”
Stampede hesitated. “In and out. Don’t try to get cute with this.”
Hella plunged through the trees and brush before he could change his mind.
Chaos spread out as far as Hella could see. Fire cast uncertain light and weirdly twisting shadows. Smoke poured in all directions and stayed low in the brush rather than rising above the trees. She ran and even after only a short distance felt her lungs, throat, and nasal passages burning from the smoke-laced chemicals. She hoped she wasn’t breathing anything lethal.
Skirmish groups still battled. Gunshots rang out singly or in rapid-fire bursts as she vaulted over dead bodies. She thought of Colleen Trammell and hoped the woman was still alive. Of everyone in the expedition, Colleen had seemed the most kind.
One of Trazall’s warriors strode out from behind a flaming tent. He was barely visible in all the smoke. Hella raised her left hand and fired into his face. The body was still falling when she sprinted past him. She knew time worked against her. Eventually one side or the other would claim supremacy on the battlefield and she’d stick out.
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 fractoid’s 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 fractoid’s 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 brin
g 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.”