Their shots weren't even hitting him. They were bouncing harmlessly off some sort of force field flickering a few centimetres from his body. And as he drew nearer, they were being deflected towards the Strontium Dogs themselves.
"Cease fire!" Johnny shouted. No point wasting ammo. And no point letting their shots reveal their position to the enemy. As soon as Johnny had loosed off his last round, he backed up and ran, hunched, to shelter behind another rock. He only hoped the others had the sense to do the same.
He peered out cautiously from behind his cover, but found that the figure of O'Blarney had suddenly faded into its background. For a moment he thought it might be some camouflage field of the robot's. Then he realised that the sun had finally finished setting over the lake. What light there was left was being blotted out from the masses of grey clouds roiling down from the mountains towards them. In the distance, he could see blue flickers of lightning.
"What, not gonna come out and say hello?" O'Blarney shouted. He was revealing his position - Johnny could just make him out now, only twenty metres away - but he obviously didn't care. "Well, like they say, if Mohammed won't come to the mountain..."
He saw O'Blarney reach down and press some sort of switch on his chest. Instantly, Johnny felt an invisible, incredibly powerful force pull on the barrel of his blaster. He braced himself on his heels, tried to drag the weapon backwards, but it was useless. He felt his feet being wrenched through the sand. If he resisted much longer, he'd be pulled into the open, an easy target for O'Blarney.
The second before it could pull him from cover, Johnny let go of the gun. It flipped a somersault through the air then clanged against O'Blarney's chest where it hung, quivering, until the robot pulled it away and gazed at it with feigned surprise.
"Stone the crows! If that isn't a Westinghouse variable cartridge blaster. Which means, if I'm not mistaken, that Johnny Alpha must be hiding somewhere behind those rocks."
O'Blarney turned to face him, and Johnny snapped his head quickly back round behind the shelter of his rock. He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to run for new cover. He was sure that was exactly what the robot wanted him to do.
"Dearie me, Johnny. Guess you should've had a gander at the design specs of your little weapon. See, not many people know this, but the central core is made of solid steel. Which means getting it to stick to my turbo-magnet here was as easy as falling off a log. Though definitely a lot more fun."
Johnny used their enemy's long speech - the snekker certainly did like the sound of his own voice - to sneak round to the other side of the rocks. His gut was clenched in a tight knot, and not just because he'd lost his best weapon. O'Blarney knew who Johnny was. He knew what weapon he carried. He knew, in fact, far more about Johnny than anyone who hadn't met him before had any business knowing.
Johnny peered round the rocks to see that O'Blarney has also moved during his speech, sneaking forwards another few steps towards Johnny. The sky overhead was pitch black now, even the stars blotted out by the heavy banks of clouds. The only thing illuminating O'Blarney was the inhuman green glow of his eyes. Then a spear of lighting lanced down only a few hundred metres behind him, and for a moment he was silhouetted by a brilliant blue light. It made him appear taller, more menacing and more jagged, like an illustration of an evil spirit in the kind of children's book that used to scare the socks off Johnny when he still thought he was a normal little boy.
In the same flare of light, Johnny saw a strange, many-limbed shape leaping towards O'Blarney's back like a giant spider. After a moment, Johnny realised what it was. Min Qi Man had finally outflanked the robot and was launching his attack. His two swords were outlined in a fierce white glow which left vapour trails of colour behind as they streaked through the air. They looked sharp enough to cut through anything, even O'Blarney. And they were heading right for O'Blarney's head.
When they were less than a metre away from their target, O'Blarney reached back with a gesture so casual it almost looked slow and pulled the swords from Min Qi Man's hands. Min Qi Man himself, thrown off his balance by O'Blarney's move, sailed through the air above the robot's head. He no longer looked graceful. His arms and legs were flailing in a useless attempt to stop or slow his flight towards a large heap of granite rocks. And towards Middenface, who had just crept round the same rocks, prepared to launch his own assault on O'Blarney.
Min Qi Man flew into the Scottish mutant with a bone-crushing thud. Middenface's head was thrown back against the rocks behind him. His body went limp, and he slid down the rocks to sit slumped at their base. Min Qi Man sprawled beside him, twitched a moment, then went ominously still.
O'Blarney, though, wasn't finished yet. He held the swords for a moment, seeming to admire their clean lines and lethal sharpness. Then he flung his arms wide and sent the two weapons soaring away from him, one flying as straight and deadly as an arrow, the other spinning end over end like a metal boomerang.
The first sword landed point-first in the sand, in the exact spot where One-Eyed Jack's head had been three seconds before. Jack had rolled away the moment O'Blarney began to move, as if knowing exactly what he was going to do. Which, of course, he did.
Durham Red wasn't so lucky. Slinking in the shadows as she did best, she too had begun to make her flanking attack on the robot, inching over the sand on her stomach, her Burstin Auto-Chetter held before her, ready to release its lethal barbs against O'Blarney as soon as she was in range. The sword, hilt-first this time, struck the hand holding her weapon with the force of a sledgehammer. Red cried out in pain and clutched the wounded hand to her chest. Her gun flew into the air, landing some five metres behind her along with the sword.
Johnny saw the remaining three members of Team X, who had been readying themselves to make a frontal assault of their own, cower back down behind a rock. They looked terrified, even the Sloth. Johnny knew how they felt. Nothing prepared you for your first real battle, for the almost unbelievable knowledge that the person in front of you really was trying to kill you. And that they might succeed - that these horrible, bloody, sweaty noisy minutes might be the last few minutes of your life.
Of the Blimp there was no sign at all. Maybe she was off working herself up into her berserker rage somewhere. Johnny wasn't going to count on her. He never counted on anyone but himself.
Another lightning strike forked down, closer now. The thunder followed immediately after, echoing out over the still waters of the lake.
O'Blarney waited for silence to return before he spoke. "Blimey, that's better. Thought we'd never get a moment's peace."
Johnny still didn't reply. He'd been goaded too many times in his life by scum like O'Blarney to rise to the bait now. Instead, he pulled the Electronux over his hand and prepared to slug it out with O'Blarney at close quarters. He braced himself. The moment he saw an opening, he would launch himself at O'Blarney, hoping to get inside the reach of his weapons before O'Blarney could react. His legs quivered with tension, the adrenaline of a fight coursing through him, making everything sharper, brighter, clearer.
The lightning strikes were almost continuous now. One jagged white line struck a tree just twenty metres away. It burst into flames, lighting the scene of battle with an incongruous, homely glow. The air was filled with the smell of plasma blasts, ionised air, burning wood and sweat.
"You know what, I don't like these long distance relationships," O'Blarney was saying now. "I like to do my business boat race to boat race, know what I'm saying? Why don't you just come out and we can talk this through like gentlemen."
Even as he spoke, every single weapon in his very impressive arsenal was trained on Johnny's position. The green glow of his eyes had intensified, perhaps with anticipation of a kill, illuminating the smooth metal planes of his face. His voice was filled with amusement, but his face remained immobile, serene.
After a moment, O'Blarney shrugged. "Oh well, don't say I didn't ask." Somewhere in his left arm, a servo-motor whirred, and a missile smalle
r than a gnat and more deadly than a swarm of giant bees shot out.
The rock in front of Johnny disintegrated into a million tiny pieces. The force of the explosion knocked him from his feet. The tiny shards of rock scratched harmlessly against his body armour but left deep painful gouges in his face and hands. He kept his eyes screwed shut, protecting the one weapon he couldn't afford to lose.
When he opened them, O'Blarney was standing right over him. The robot shook his head. "Sorry about that, don't know my own strength sometimes."
Johnny glared up at him, preparing to roll, to spring, to do whatever he could - however futile - to survive the inevitable attack. "Never gloat before the fight's over, scumball."
O'Blarney laughed. "I like a man who doesn't know when he's down," he said. Then his laughter cut out sharply. "'Cause that means I get to kick him some more."
He pointed his arm at Johnny. From the end, a thin, lethally sharp blade snicked out. It was cruelly serrated, clearly meant to hurt as well as kill. "Scream if you want to, mutie," he said. "It'll give me a buzz."
Another lightning bolt flashed down, but O'Blarney's eyes were glowing brighter even than the awesome power generated by the storm.
"Here, snecker," Johnny said. "Catch."
He threw his beam polariser gently towards O'Blarney.
Reflexively, O'Blarney caught it in his free hand. He looked at it, puzzled, for a second. "What..." he said.
And then the full force of the storm tore into him with a ferocity only untamed nature could manage. Drawn irresistibly by the beam polariser, ten different lightning bolts struck, not where they had originally intended, but straight through O'Blarney himself.
The robot let out a very small sound, almost like a cough.
A microsecond later it was drowned out by the incredible roar of the thunder. Johnny clapped his hands over his ears, afraid that his eardrums would burst.
O'Blarney didn't move. The electricity surged through him, penetrating past every defensive barrier he had. It burned out circuits, fried weapons guidance systems. Johnny saw the knife still protruding from O'Blarney's arm soften and bend like putty. Molten metal dripped from its end into the sand.
Johnny, at last, managed to struggle to his feet.
After the thunder, there was the loudest silence Johnny had ever heard. Then, slowly, a creaking sound filled the air and O'Blarney began to topple. He wobbled forward, back, forward. His knees, fused by the lightening, remained rigid and straight. Finally, he fell backwards and kept on falling. When he landed, he made a soft thump, and small cloud of sand flew up into the air.
Johnny moved to stare into his fallen enemy's eyes. They were still glowing a very faint green.
"There's just one thing I want to know," Johnny said, "With a name like O'Blarney, what are you doing talking in that damn stupid Cockney accent?"
O'Blarney's lips moved, but it took a second for any sound to emerge. "I was manufactured in Kilburn..." he whispered. Then the light in his eyes died completely and the only illumination left on the beach was the erratic blue flash of the thunderstorm.
12 / PARTY LIKE IT'S 2179
There's no party like the party people have when forty minutes earlier they all thought they were going to die.
Amazingly, O'Blarney hadn't managed to kill even one of them. Min Qi Man was the worst off. He was still suffering the after-effects of concussion, his speech making even less sense than usual. The little mutant had also clearly broken a couple of ribs, and Middenface guessed he'd bruised everything that wasn't broken, but the hairy wee guy wouldn't admit it. Maybe it was some sort of zen nonsense.
Or maybe he really hadn't hurt himself too badly because Middenface had managed to cushion his fall. Middenface rubbed his own sore noggin and winced. Nature had given him enough lumps already without any need to go out and collect some more.
Still, there was one thing he knew that could cure everything that ailed them, and Middenface was in the process of making a huge great vat of it.
Booze. Maybe not the Famous Grouse, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and Middenface thought his idea was pretty bloody brilliant, even if he said so himself. For once, he'd found a way of using this godawful planet's ways against it. If everything was speeded up, he'd reasoned, if every natural process got accelerated, then if there was any justice in the world that had to apply to fermentation too, didn't it?
It, as it turned out, did. With the help of the pile of fruit which the Blimp had harvested from the village trees, and a pile of sugar which had come out of Middenface's own supplies, he was brewing a bowl of hooch big enough to knock out the entire Scottish rugby team.
He stirred the evil-looking concoction and grinned in anticipation. "Here, Johnny, come an' ha' a taste o' this," he said.
"In a minute," Johnny said absently. He was still staring grimly down at O'Blarney's body. One-Eyed Jack had inspected it carefully before declaring it lifeless. Then Johnny, who never was the most trusting mutant in the house, had done the same. But there was no denying it, the robot really was dead. Time to celebrate, Middenface reckoned, but Johnny didn't seem to agree. He looked like someone had just run over his puppy.
Still, at least everyone else seemed to be in the party mood. And if they weren't now, they certainly would be after a dram or two of this wee brew. Middenface's eyes drifted over to the Blimp. Not that he'd ever use booze to get a lass in the sack, you understand, but it never hurt to relax them a little...
The Blimp, who was deep in conversation with Min Qi Man, was looking the least damaged of all of them. She'd told Middenface that she'd been sitting under cover, trying to work herself up into a useful rage, but there simply hadn't been enough body mass on her. Or maybe she just wasn't feeling angry enough, she hadn't been able to tell. She caught Middenface's eye now, and smiled, then returned her attention to the slightly glazed-eyed mutant beside her.
The rest of Team X were all laughing and congratulating each other. Rather too much, Middenface thought, for folks who'd actually sat out of the whole fight. Enigma had somehow, in the brief time since the fight, managed to brush her hair and reapply her make-up. She looked like she was about to be taken out on an expensive date, at the end of which she'd let the man pay, then kiss him on the cheek, tell him she'd love to see him again, and never return any of his calls. Middenface knew her type. Woman Man was female again, and was talking to the Sloth. They were standing slightly too close to each other, as people who are in love will. Every so often, the Sloth reached out and lightly touched Jo with his hand, gently resting his fingers on her arm, or brushing a lock of hair from her face. Middenface smiled: they were good kids, he thought. Worse than useless in a fight, but their hearts were in the right places.
One-Eyed Jack, catching his smile, sauntered over to him. Unlike Team X, he'd actually seen some action in the fight, and had the wounds to prove it: a deep, jagged gash on his left cheek where a rocky shard of shrapnel had grazed him, and a bruise on his right, livid and swollen. "Young love," he said to Middenface, nodding over at Woman Man and the Sloth.
Middenface glanced up briefly at him before returning his attention to the crucial matter of his hooch. "I'm fer it myself."
"Yeah?" One-Eyed Jack looked surprised. "Didn't have you pegged as a romantic."
Middenface looked round at the Blimp then leered jokingly at One-Eyed Jack. "Who said anything aboot romance?"
The other man laughed, a surprisingly girlish giggle.
Middenface dipped a ladle into the vat before him and poured a generous dram into his mouth. A second later, he doubled up, coughing. The stuff was stronger than firewater, searing down his throat to settle in his stomach like a burning lump of radioactivity.
It was ready, all right. He began to drain the alcoholic nectar from the fruit mulch which had produced it. They didn't have any proper glasses, but Min Qi Man had used his swords to whittle away some containers out of the bole of a tree that had been struck by lightening. As Middenface poured the liquid
in, he saw that Min Qi Man had delicately carved the shapes of dragons and other exotic creatures into the sides of the goblets.
"C'moan an' get it!" he shouted out. "It's nae the Famous Grouse, but it'll dae the trick."
Before the others arrived, he handed a goblet to One-Eyed Jack and took one for himself. "Cheers!" he said, clinking goblets with Jack.
"Here's luck to us and painful deaths to our enemies," Jack said, before draining his entire draught in one.
Middenface, impressed, refilled his goblet. "I think we've aready got the second yin o' those."
Jack looked over at the fallen body of O'Blarney, its perfect silver surface now cracked and blackened, the handsome face twisted into an expression that looked almost like real pain. "You can run out of most things in life," he said, "but if you're a Strontium Dog, you'll never run out of enemies."
"Too true," Middenface said as Jack wandered off and the rest of the group arrived to pick up their drinks.
"This isn't too strong, is it?" Jo asked. "Only I've never been very good at holding my drink." She took a gulp of the liquid and immediately spat it back out, choking and coughing.
"Don't y'all worry now," the Sloth rumbled affectionately, patting her on the back until her coughing stopped. "I'll look after you."
"Yeah," Enigma said acidly, "Right up until the point he changes back into a man, starts drinking like it's going out of fashion, picks a fight with everyone in sight, then staggers over to me and tells me he's always loved me before throwing up and passing out unconscious on the ground." She took a goblet of her own and sipped at it delicately. "Cheers, by the way."
Team X walked away, the Sloth and Jo casting sour looks at Enigma as they went.
The Blimp was the next to approach, gently supporting Min Qi Man, who was still a little unsteady on his feet. Middenface felt a flash of jealousy, until he saw the warm smile she sent his way. "Here," he said, offering her a dram. "Get yer jaws round this. It'll put hairs on yer chest." He glanced at Min Qi Man as he handed him his own goblet. "Fer those that need them, anyway."
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