by John Shirley
Three more defenders went down, spinning into death. Lucky was rushing toward the invaders, shouting defiance.
The Psycho soldiers shouted maniacally, “Time to play, time to play! I’m gonna eat you when I’m done!”
And then Roland and Gong were among them, Gong picking up a fallen jackhammer as he came. Firing his Cobra—aiming carefully so as not to hit a settler—Roland knocked down two of the Psychos.
The Badass cut his weapon at Lucky, screeching, “I’ll take pleasure in gutting you, boy!” Lucky ducked under the sweep of the Badass’s axe, shoved a shotgun up into the huge Psycho’s mouth, and pulled the trigger, blowing his head off from within.
“Good work, kid!” Roland shouted, as he swung to blast a hulking, goggle-eyed Bruiser Psycho, this one firing at Gong.
The big miner took a round in his arm, didn’t even twitch in response to it—as he and Roland fired at once, cutting the Bruiser down.
Roland looked around. All the Psychos who’d slipped through the gate were cut to pieces by the miners—and the gate was closed. The first penetration of Psychos had been repelled, but misery stayed behind. Men lay dying, or wishing they were dead, on the blood-soaked ground. Glory was kneeling by an elderly miner, trying to stanch his gouting neck wounds. She burst into tears as blood gurgled from his mouth and nose and, convulsing, he died.
Lucky went to her and helped her stand. He tried to comfort her, but she shook her head, smiled weakly at him, and went to find another fallen defender she might try to help. The bandages in her hands already dripped with blood.
Dakes was there, surveying the scene. “Lucky, Muddflap, Gannon! You three stay close to that gate! They’ll try it again for sure!”
Roland strode up to the gate. “I’m gonna make a request you’re not going to like, Dakes. Open that gate for me.”
“What?”
“I’m going out with Gong in an outrunner . . . if Gong’s still up for it.” He glanced at Gong, who was using Dr. Zed and spraying his wound with closer. Gong gave him a thumbs-up. “We’re going to see what we can get done on a quick sortie—we’ll circle the settlement, then come back in. While we’re out, you’ll keep the gate closed. Open it just enough when we come back—if it looks safe.”
“And suppose it doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll take our chances out there.”
Dakes shook his head. But then another Psycho Midget came shrieking over the wall, laughing as he fell among the miners, spraying with a submachine gun. He didn’t last long, but he took two miners down.
“We’re going to run out of defenders pretty soon,” Dakes muttered. “All right. When?”
“Right now!” Roland declared. “Time is bullets!”
• • •
Five minutes later, Gong driving and Roland at the turret gun, the outrunner rolled up to the gate, which creaked open, under Dakes’s control, just enough to let the outrunner get out.
Roland got a good grip on the turret as Gong accelerated through the gap and roared toward the enemy.
Both men—and the outrunner—were defended by shields, but there was so much firepower out there Roland wasn’t confident the shields would last long.
The outrunner gunned through the wall of smoke where the “moat of flame” had been, and then they were on the open plains, looking at a line of Psycho soldiers just thirty meters away.
“Cut hard left for that catapult!” Roland yelled, pointing.
Gong twisted the wheel, and the outrunner cut left so hard it almost turned over, going up for a moment on two tires. Gunfire roared, bullets cracked, and energy blasts flashed by. Roland felt a powerful jolt to his shield, on his right shoulder, and had to hold hard to the turret to keep from falling over.
Then the vehicle banged down onto all its wheels, Gong flooring the accelerator to slam through a line of four Psychos trying to keep them away from the catapult. The Psychos screamed as the vehicle plowed through, blood spraying like a wake around a speedboat’s prow, and then they were clear and within ten meters of the giant mechanical slingshot. Two guards close to the catapult fired submachine guns at him and Gong. His shield held—for now.
Roland aimed carefully—the catapult was primed with a Psycho Midget sitting in the cup, waiting to be flung into the air, cackling to himself. Roland fired at the crude metal cup holding the Psycho Midget first and blasted the Midget with the shell from his turret cannon. His next shot was at the wires holding the catapult’s arm down, knocking them away so it flung its load of Midget remains into the air. It flew sloppily to splatter against the settlement’s outer walls.
Then Roland blasted the support beams of the catapult, and it collapsed onto the two guards firing at him from its base.
“They won’t have that workin’ anytime soon!” Gong crowed, as he swung past the wreckage toward the settlement. A burly Psycho soldier loomed up, tried to jump onto the outrunner. Gong jerked the wheel so the man fell clear; then he bumped the vehicle over another Gynellan soldier, the smaller man howling with pain as the outrunner crunched his rib cage.
Eridian rifle pulses zinged past, making the air smell as if it had been cooked in chemicals, and then they had reached the nearest corner of the settlement’s boxlike wall. They gunned past it, for the moment no longer a clean target for the Psychos behind them—but in seconds they’d passed the back corner and were facing another phalanx of Gynella’s soldiers, arrayed around the other catapult at the back of the settlement.
A Psycho Midget was loaded up in this catapult too. Roland aimed carefully and shot out one of the stretch wires under the catapult’s arm, so that when it released a moment later, its living missile went crookedly and fell short, smashing on the very top of the metal wall, then dripping down both sides in a wet mass of bones and entrails.
Bullets cracked into the outrunner, Roland’s shield flickered, and then he saw that the machine-gun turret firing at him was right under the catapult, and its gunner had a big box of ammo handy. He grinned and shouted, “Mess with the bull and you get the horns!” as he fired at the box of ammo. It exploded, blowing up the machine-gunner and the catapult team, pieces of them trailing blood into the morning light.
“Mowin’ ’em down!” Roland yelled.
“What now?” Gong shouted.
“That’s it! Back to the front gate, Gong. We’ll take out what we can on the way.”
Gong drove past a clutch of Psycho soldiers, and Roland fired a cannon round at their feet, knocking several of them down, killing one. Then the outrunner veered around the corner, roared up past the wall toward the front of the settlement; it whipped, skidding, around another corner, then headed for the opening gate, its shield fading as bullets cracked into it—until . . .
A rocket launcher round hit the outrunner squarely on the front end—there was a gush of fire and flying dirt, and the outrunner flipped up and back. Roland let go of the turret and jumped free, rolling himself into a tight ball before he hit the ground, grunting with the impact on his right shoulder, rolling, then coming down flat on his belly, skinned up but not badly hurt.
This was as dangerous a spot as he’d ever been in—especially now that his shield had gone dead.
He jumped up, ears ringing from the blast, and saw his Cobra lying nearby. Bullets kicked up dirt at his feet as he ran for the weapon. He scooped up the Cobra, kept running, looking for Gong. Then he saw him crawling out from under the overturned outrunner. Gong’s face was masked in blood, but he didn’t seem too badly hurt.
Roland reached the outrunner and threw himself down behind it, as bullets slashed through the place he’d been a split second earlier, just missing him. He growled with pain as he skidded on his belly, already raw, then got to his knees, looked over the smoking wreck. He saw about thirty Psycho soldiers running toward him from their lines, weapons in hand, howling for his blood, shrieking about how they were going to kill him and eat his flesh raw.
“Well, ain’t that just dandy,” he murmured, glancing at th
e gate.
It was at least forty meters away.
The miners on the tower fired furiously, trying to give him and Gong cover. Gong got up behind the outrunner, firing at the oncoming Psychos with a pistol. Roland fired several rounds, but he was running short on ammo.
There was nothing for it but to run for the gate. It seemed suicidal, as metal rounds cracked on the outrunner and spanged into the air, and Eridian blasts seared past. Another rocket sped toward the outrunner, but it flew too high and exploded on the metal wall behind him. Shrapnel screamed by from the explosion.
This wasn’t looking good. He and Gong had to cross a lot of open ground to get to that gate. How were they going to do it before that wave of Psycho soldiers mowed them down with gunfire or just overran them and cut them to pieces, up close and personal?
“We’d better give it a shot, Gong! You ready to run for it?”
Gong gave him one bobbing nod and then seemed to freeze in place, staring. He pointed, and Roland saw a red outrider come roaring across the open ground, from the west, as if bent on colliding with the wreckage of Roland’s outrunner.
There was only one occupant of the outrider. Roland couldn’t make him out clearly yet, but he saw that he was driving with one hand and firing explosive shells from his turret gun with the other.
And the outrider was firing at the Psycho soldiers. Flame blossomed, smoke plumed, Psychos were flung left and right.
Confused by gunfire from one of their own vehicles, the charging Psycho soldiers slowed down, tumbling into one another, gawking at this new adversary.
The outrider gunned up to the outrunner, and Gong jumped up to take a shot at it.
“Hold your fire, Gong!” Roland shouted. Because now he could clearly see Bloodwing clinging to the seatback of the outrider’s driver.
Mordecai spun the wheel and hit the brake, skidding, so the outrider did a donut and screeched to a stop within a meter of the wreckage, turned sideways to it.
“Jump on fast, dammit, right now!” Mordecai yelled, as bullets started to hum past from the Psycho soldiers.
Roland and Gong ran to the outrider, jumped onto the running boards, and held on tight. Mordecai spun it about and, fishtailing, almost losing control, managed to turn it toward the gate. The gate was only one-third open—Dakes had stopped it there, to discourage the Psycho soldiers from rushing it en masse.
Roland was distantly aware that someone—a Gynellan officer of some kind—was shouting from the top of the catapult’s ruins, urging his men to storm the open gate. The Psychos started toward it, close to a hundred of them surging that way, but then the kill-mechs rumbled out of the gate, one following another, and rolled full speed at the front lines of Gynella’s legion.
Mordecai drove past the kill-mechs and through the gate, into the settlement. The gate closed behind them.
And three minutes later, all hell broke out.
More precisely, hell broke in.
“So, what were you doing out there in one of their bony-ass hot rods, Mordecai?” Roland demanded, as they stepped from the outrider. Roland was feeling bruised, contused, and shaken by the narrow escape, and he kicked at the skag skull on the front of the outrider, knocking it loose. “Where’d you get this thing?”
“Where do you think?” Mordecai said, stretching. He accepted a cup of water from Glory. “Thanks. Need this.” He drank the water and went on. “I came out of the cavern, after I went through the mine, and there were some of Gynella’s bunch, scouts maybe, looking for a back way into the settlement. Arguing over whether the cave could be it. So I picked them off—only one of them even had his shield charged—and I took the outrider. I came to warn you guys that they’re snooping around back there. And, you know, see how you were . . . if anybody . . . well, I was just passing by.”
“Bullcrap!” Roland snorted, rubbing Dr. Zed’s salve on some pretty extensive scrapes. “You were worried about us! You were coming back to help, you damn fraud! You’re as softhearted as any—”
“Softhearted!” Mordecai interrupted, glaring at him. “Me? I tell you I was just passing, and I thought I’d let you know that, uh . . .”
Dakes had been listening to all this as he walked up. “You think they’re coming in the back way?”
“Not from what I can figure,” Mordecai said. “I got rid of those scouts. Still, that robot you’ve posted down there isn’t much use. And, uh, I had to kill that Thresher watchdog of yours. Way things look now, you ought to get your injured, your kids, anybody that’s not in the fight, and get ’em into that mine.”
Dakes shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought maybe the kill-mechs would drive ’em off, but two of them are down already—rocket launchers. We took out maybe a dozen of the bastards first, but . . .” He wiped blood and soot from his eyes. “I just don’t know.”
Roland said, “Mordecai’s right. Be ready to head out through the mine if it’s—”
A painfully clangorous triple explosion, clang-boom, clang-boom, clang-BOOM, made the ground shake, and they all looked toward the front gate.
It was buckling inward, and badly cracked.
“I was afraid of that,” Mordecai said, as Bloodwing landed on his shoulder. “When I drove up, I saw ’em moving in some more rocket launchers. They’re concentrating fire on that front gate! You’d better get your people under cover!”
Dakes was already turning, shouting to Glory to get children and any women not prepared to fight into the center mine. He tossed Roland a shotgun. “You’ll need this for close fightin’!”
Roland nodded and turned to Mordecai, as another clanging boom announced the demolition of the front gate. Now it was breached, bent inward like the lid of a roughly opened tin can. Miners rushed to the gate, firing at the oncoming Psycho soldiers. Guns roared, the marauders shouted their obscene challenges, and men screamed in pain.
“So are you staying here or what, Mordecai?” Roland asked, having to shout over the racket.
Another ear-shattering clang-boom, and the gate shattered completely, in an explosion of spinning, fragmenting metal and a gush of smoke.
“Looks like I’m not going out that way,” Mordecai said, staring at the smoking breach, where Psycho soldiers were already rushing in. “Guess I better stay. I sure as hell hope you gotta plan!”
“Get in the driver’s seat of the outrider. I’ll get on the side; we can nail some of these bastards up close and still be hard to hit!”
“Okay, but the outrider’s shield is almost dead, man!”
“It is what it is!” Roland yelled, jumping onto a running board. “Let’s do it!”
Bullets were whining overhead as Mordecai jumped in, Bloodwing still on his shoulder, and Roland grabbed a hand-hold bar with his left hand, his right propping his new weapon on his hip, an Atlas Hunter’s Hydra, one of the most effective combat shotguns around.
Gong jumped onto the other running board with a Torgue Boomstick in his left hand, and they were off, Mordecai gunning the outrider straight at the twisted wreckage around the gate. Bloodwing took to the air, flapping furiously overhead, working hard to keep up. They passed between two buildings, then crossed an open area, driving full-bore at the gate. Mordecai reached up with his right hand and tilted the turret gun on the red outrider’s hood, the small rocket launcher aimed toward three Psycho soldiers clustered to the right of the gate. Mordecai fired, and two well-placed shells knocked them up into blood-splashing backflips. Bloodwing darted down and slashed at two other Psychos, keeping them distracted, ruining their aim, so that Mordecai was able to drive past them without taking fire.
Mordecai spun the wheel, and the outrider whipped about, Roland and Gong white-knuckling on the grips to hold on. A big Bruiser—with a black mask, red goggles, a Mohawk, and Gynella’s face tattooed right on his chest—came rushing toward Roland, leveling a combat rifle. Roland fired the shotgun propped on his hip, three rounds in less than a second, two of the powerful shotgun’s big loads slamming through Gynella�
�s tattooed-on face, the third shot blasting the goggles off the Bruiser’s eyes, blinding him.
Roland lost sight of the Bruiser as the outrider continued its turn, making a complete circle, Gong firing at another Psycho, Mordecai shooting at a blue outrider coming through the gate, blowing the driver’s head off. Two Psychos clinging to the outrider lost their grip as the vehicle spun out of control. It rolled, crushing them, as Bloodwing circled overhead, cawing.
Roland was only peripherally aware of this carnage. He was gritting his teeth as he tried to hold on to the red outrider against the tug of inertia, firing the shotgun again and again at vault-masked Psycho faces flashing by. Mordecai brought the outrider around again, and Roland sent his last few rounds through the still-smoking gap in the gate. He caught a glimpse, as they sped past, of the last kill-mech, on the plains outside, using its jackhammer to slam a Bruiser to pieces, shooting another with its rifle arm—before exploding as three grenades hit it at once.
“I’m outta ammo!” Mordecai shouted, firing a last round. He angled the outrider toward the back of the settlement, and bullets cut the ground just to Roland’s left. Then they drove behind the cover of several low rusty-metal outbuildings near the mines. Mordecai pulled up, and Roland jumped off, having to skid to stop his momentum. Mordecai whistled, and Bloodwing flapped up, landing on his shoulder. Gong was no longer on the outrider.
“Whew!” Roland said, breathing hard. “Some ride. You should sell tickets.”
Roland looked for Gong—and saw him lying facedown about ten paces back. He jogged back, alert for Psychos as he went, and was relieved to see that Gong was alive, getting dazedly to his knees, but shot through the back of the left shoulder.
“I couldn’t hold on, with that bullet in me,” Gong said, shaking his head in self-disgust.
Roland helped him to his feet. “Come on, get into the mine. You’ve gotta keep an eye on the families, help Dakes get them through.”