by James Axler
"We're not going to blast our way through, either," she groused, levering out the dead shell. It hit the carpet and sizzled on the material.
"Range," Ryan snapped, undoing his seat harness.
She looked. "Less than a thousand yards."
"We can go back," Doc suggested, the lion's head on his cane peeking between fingers. "Be-damned tank probably only wants Leviathan. It might not even recognize us as suitable targets. We could hide in the bushes and leave on foot after it goes.
"And then how do we get across the gorge to reach the next redoubt?" Mildred demanded hotly.
"Fly?"
"Climb."
"A thousand feet? Straight down? We might as well jump."
The beeping on the radar was coming fast, almost a steady tone.
"Spam in can," Jak muttered, snapping the bolt on the big .50-caliber machine gun.
"Can't run, can't hide," J.B. muttered. "Gotta fight."
Striding to the rear of the vehicle, he replaced Dean and prepared the .40 mm rapidfire. "I'll try for the laser again. Doc, back me up."
The old man nodded.
"Thought you said it was pure luck that worked last time?" Dean admonished.
"Got a better plan?" the Armorer snapped.
"Yeah," Ryan stated. Busy in the dim light of the dashboard console, he activated the missile launch controls. "We'll hit it with everything we got. Mildred, see if you can angle a fifty to fire straight backward."
"Okay." The physician grunted, struggling with the rubber antivibration blocks of the breech to align the vented barrel. "It doesn't want to, but yes."
"Jak!" Ryan snapped. "Get the port blaster."
Turning off the interior lights to allow them to see into the darkness outside better, Krysty then killed the keening of the radar.
"It's here," she announced, resting a hand on the forward 75 mm rifles. Pointed toward the earth embankment, they were utterly useless for this fight. "Ryan, give me your SSG-70. I can snipe from the outside."
Grabbing the bolt-action Steyr off the floor, he tossed it to her. "Take Dean with you."
"Why?" the boy demanded suspiciously.
His father faltered at a reply, but everybody knew why. So that somebody might survive the battle.
There was a movement at the side door as it closed.
"Hey, where's Shard!" Mildred asked, glancing around.
"There he is!" Doc said, pointing out the louvered slots of the rear door.
Visible in the headlights reflected off the sides of the pass, the wounded man was sprinting for the bridge, a bulky satchel strapped to his back.
J.B. checked the floor of the tank, then looked outside again. "He's got my bag of explosives!"
"What's he doing?" Dean demanded. "Running away?"
"No," Jak said, and he touched two fingers to his temple as a salute. "Crazy son of bitch."
"He's trying to save all of our lives," Krysty answered soffly. "And I doubted the courage of a slave."
"Free man," Ryan said.
Mildred started for the side door. "We have to stop him!"
J.B. took her arm. "It's too late."
STOPPING IN rim middle of the bridge. Shard crouched amid the churned greenery as the Beast rumbled out of the bushes from the other side of the gorge. Its laser cannon immediately pulsed once, and the missile pod on top of Leviathan was vapor.
"Twenty," Shard said, dashing out of concealment. He only hoped what Mildred had told him was true, or else this was for nothing.
The Ranger paused before the bridge, as if consideiing the matter, then rolled onto the structure.
The bridge actually bowed under the robotic tank, small girders snapping.
"Fifteen," Shard panted. leaping on the back of the big tank and scrambling across its angular hull. Perfect for deflecting incoming rounds, the irregular hull offered good handholds.
"Ten!" he screamed as electricity crackled over the hull to dislodge the intruder. Limbs shaking, wounds reopening, Shard climbed across the turret, straddling the cannon with his bare legs.
A flurry of metal crabs scurried out of an opening, their razor-sharp pinchers snapping wildly. The Beast was almost off the bridge, Leviathan sitting there in plain sight. The tiny drones covered his body, ripping at his flesh, as Shard reached a count of one and stuffed the bag of explosives directly into the side exhaust vent of the laser cannon as it pulsed again.
For the briefest instant, Shard saw his hand vanish, then blackness took his vision and the whole world erupted.
THE MASSIVE EXPLOSION engulfed the Ranger completely, swamping the bridge in thunderous flames, the supports twisting like warm taffy. Its laser gone, multiple internal systems destroyed, the Ranger tried to backtrack for safety but Leviathan cut loose with its own firepower, aiming at the bridge, not the adamantine hull of the predark tank. Struts snapped, columns buckled. In a deafening cacophony of tortured metal, the bridge broke apart and dropped out of sight, taking the Ranger with it. Rushing to the edge of the broken roadway, the companions watched as the robotic guardian disappeared into the distance.
Ryan snapped binocs to his face and dialed for clarity. The Ranger and the pieces of bridge were still tumbling through the misty air of the gorge when he found them. Then they hit the river simultaneously. The bridge stabbing into the bed like the skeleton of a knife, the Ranger punching through the shallow stream and hitting the granite riverbed like a triphammer. Its hull burst into pieces, the mechanical guts spilling out. Something inside the wreckage detonated, finishing the task, and as the smoke cleared, the river waters were flowing over the impact point and there was nothing to be seen.
"It's dead," Krysty stated, her hair moving constantly from her conflicting feelings. "Kind of hard to believe, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Jak said quietly.
"He saved us," Dean added, his chest tight with emotion, but his face was a stern battle mask.
Krysty walked closer to the boy. She could feel his anger at the loss, his frustration and rage. "It's the cycle of life," she told him gently, "and he died a free man. That was more important to him than anything else."
Dean kicked some pebbles over the edge of the cliff. "I suppose," he muttered, not sounding very convinced.
Keeping a hand on top of his hat to stop it from blowing away, J.B. scrutinized the other side of the gorge. "You know," he said slowly, "we should have grabbed those depleted uranium rounds back at the ville. Those are probably the only thing in existence that could have easily stopped the blasted machine."
"A man stopped the machine," Ryan said, turning his back to the destruction. "Not armament or science. Just a man."
In silence, they walked to Leviathan. The remains of the missile pod on top of the craft were still glowing from the heat of the laser beam. The companions stopped at the open side door, but Ryan continued on to the blast crater in the mound.
He took a handful and rubbed it between his fin-gem. "Soft dirt. Mebbe we can blow steps into it with the recoilless rifles."
"Not get high enough angle," Jak said, rubbing his cheek.
"Sure can," Dix countered. "We'll use the tire jacks to boost her up a couple of feet."
"It should work," Doc added. "We can brace the undercarriage with the tires not on the wheels."
"Good idea."
"I better start making backpacks." Mildred sighed, climbing into Leviathan. "Looks like we're walking out of here."
Shivering slightly, Krysty crossed her arms.
"Sure, only a couple hundred miles till the next redoubt."
"Better than being dead," Ryan stated, feeling oddly tired. "Come on, let's get to work."
Epilogue
Through the fuming, smoky ruins of Novaville came the scavengers. Erect bipeds, they stood hunched over, their skin deathly pale, animalistic fangs filling their wide mouths. They wore only loincloths of untreated hide, and carried clubs of tree branches with the bark removed.
The destruction of the ville was near absolut
e. The wooden palisade that marked the boundary of their territory was burning out of control, and the formidable stone wall smashed in countless places. The harder-than-stone black gate was melted.
Blasters lay everywhere, but they avoided those, knowing that when they barked they killed. But there were sleeping horses for them to gather, and there was food aplenty. The dead and the sleeping sec men were piled on litters and dragged back to the dwelling place to be cooked for dinner, or smoked in the great lodge and saved for winter. The unconscious slaves they respectfully detoured around. The Beast had slain hundreds, but not harmed the slaves. Clearly, they were his chosen people and to eat one would be to invoke terrible consequences.
In the crumbling base of a brick tower, the muties found a mighty altar of silver and jewels with a wizened old man sitting in the chair. His skin was wrinkled and tanned as leather, his eyes blank glass orbs, his mouth sewn shut. Some of the stitching along his neck had popped, allowing the cotton stuffing inside to burst out in wads. On his head was a crown of gold and jewels. The scavengers bowed deeply to the totem and left immediately, fearing to disturb the god of the ville. None wished to chance negating their great good luck this day.
The hated norms with their barking things of smoke were dead, the walls blocking their land were down and they had a banquet of meat, enough to feed everyone for months to come. All hail the Beast! Generous was the one-eyed god of the desert, and the muties happily sang its praise as they began the first ritual cuts into the screaming food.
It would be a good winter this year.