Desert Kings

by James Axler

  “Could have sworn…” J.B. started, squinting hard into the cloying smoke. Then he jerked back and triggered the Kalashnikov again. “Son of a bitch!”

  Before Ryan could ask, he saw it, moving through the smoke and flames like some impossible colossus. It was huge and irregularly shaped, the shell glistening as if wet and rippling with a rainbow of colors. Then the smoke parted for a moment, and Ryan looked directly at the huge thing. It was the droid from the redoubt, but the machine was radically altered. It had only four telescoping legs now, the body was the chassis of the egg-shaped war wag and there was a projector of some sort perched on top. In a moment, it was gone, left behind the racing Mack. Then something stepped onto the highway and started following after the war wag with remarkable speed.

  “Fireblast, the bastard thing must have fixed itself!” Ryan snarled, veering wildly away from the machine. “How is that possible? I smashed the comp!”

  “I don’t think it is the droid,” J.B. retorted, yanking a gren from the box. “But the war wag! Doc said the damn thing was almost sentient. Delphi talked to it like a person!”

  “Then the bastard thing was functional the whole time we were there!” Ryan snapped, dodging another throng of terrified creatures. “Fragging machine must have been playing possum, pretending it was aced to hide from the nuking droid!”

  “So after we aced the droid and left, it took all those spare parts and rebuilt itself!”

  “Either that, or this is another droid!”

  “No fucking way!” This was the same LAV, he recognized some of the burn marks from the redoubt. So the bastard machine had been tracking them all these miles, gathering parts and metal to make jackleg repairs. Ryan wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few pieces of the speedsters and the two-wheelers mixed in there by now.

  Striding purposefully behind the war wag, the LAV started lancing out shimmering beams of light. Wherever the scintillating rays hit, a tree burst into flames, the raging fire constantly building in intensity.

  With a guttural cry, Doc dropped down fast, and a beam hit the rear of the war wag, the new green planks smoldering, the pine sap popping and snapping. In a tick it was through and bored out the other side, just missing the cab.

  “Ryan, stay away from the maple trees!” Krysty bellowed, snapping off wild shots at the dimly seen machine. “If they’re juicy with sap and get too hot, too fast—” The woman was cut off as a maple tree violently exploded, the noise louder than a gren. A dozen other trees began to topple over from the unexpected blast, a hurricane of sparks swirling outward.

  “Fucker,” Jak cursed, instinctively reaching for his Colt Python, then releasing the checkered grip. There was nothing the handcannon could do against this sort of threat.

  Swinging up her ZKR target pistol, Mildred took a stance and snapped off three fast shots. Two of them ricocheted off the egg-shaped chassis, but the third directly hit the crystal lens of the laser. Instantly, the LAV answered back, the energy ray slicing through the thick smoke to punch a hole in the wooden planks, passing within a scant inch of the physician.

  “Son of a bitch must have reinforced the focusing lens!” Mildred spat, lowering her blaster. “If the smoke wasn’t lowering the coefficiency of that beam we’d all be aced for sure!”

  Uncaring about the tech talk, Jak and Krysty both put several bursts from their Kalashnikovs into the machine. But if the 7.62 mm hardball mil rounds did any damage it was impossible to say. The air was thick with smoky embers and the LAV kept constantly on the move, staying behind trees and only stepping into the clear to attack with the laser again. More than once it missed the bucking war wag completely, but every hit added more holes in the planks. In short order, the machine wouldn’t have to guess where the people were behind the wood; it’d be able to see them quite clearly.

  Off in the distance, another maple tree loudly exploded, the LAV pausing at the sound before continuing after the war wag.

  Digging into a pocket, Jak unearthed a spare clip for the AK-47 and whipped it at the approaching machine. The curved magazine landed amid some burning shrubbery. As the LAV walked past, the live rounds started loudly cooking off. Pivoting, the machine began peppering the shrubbery with the laser until there was no more banging.

  “Stupe,” the albino teen said, searching for another clip.

  Taking advantage of the brief distraction, Doc went to the front of the flatbed, thumped twice on the roof of the speeding cab and stuck out his hand near the passenger window. J.B. didn’t waste any breath asking what the scholar wanted. He simply passed up a gren.

  Returning to the rear, Doc guessed the distance, then passed the sphere to Krysty.

  Slinging the Kalashnikov over a shoulder, the woman took the gren and pulled the pin, but kept her hand tight on the arming lever until the war wag stopped bucking for a single instant. In a blur, she whipped her hand forward and the gren sailed high to disappear in the smoky air. A split second and it reappeared to bounce off the top of the LAV and explode thunderously.

  The machine rocked from the detonation, one of its spidery legs bucking. But then the LAV righted itself and surged forward, the laser flashing nonstop. A dozen more holes were scored through the planks, and a rear tire blew, throwing everybody to the corrugated floor, which gave Mildred an idea.

  Scrambling back to her feet, the physician grabbed a flat tire from a pile of rubbish they had been planning to fix, and heaved it over the side. The tire landed near a fallen tree and began to smolder, thick smoke coming off the burning rubber to spread out in a black cloud. Covered with the fumes, the LAV paused in confusion, and Jak threw another gren. Once more, the machine attacked the fiery bushes, all the time falling farther and farther behind the war wag. The laser stabbed out blindly and only succeeded in setting more trees ablaze.

  The heat was becoming oppressive, and breathing was a chore. But all the companions could do was dampen their cloths and keep firing.

  The horn sounded from the cab, and the companions looked in that direction to see Ryan waving an arm. Krysty rushed over, and he passed her a pipe bomb.

  “Curve up ahead!” Ryan shouted, pointing that way.

  “On it!” Krysty yelled in return, and went to the corner of the flatbed to find a likely candidate. She found one almost immediately. There was a huge pine tree covered with flames and leaning dangerously close to the road.

  As the war wag raced past, she gently tossed the gren right at the base. They were only a few yards away when the charge exploded, ripping apart the base of the giant pine. In a splintery crash, the tree fell across the roadway only moments before the LAV reappeared from the stifling chaos of the conflagration. The companions held their breath but the machine didn’t even pause as it headed past the fiery tree and took off in a new direction.

  “Fuckin’ stupe,” Jak said with a lopsided grin. “Whowee, that close!”

  “Amen to that, brother.” Mildred sighed, brushing back her beaded locks.

  Suddenly the flatbed jounced hard and the companions heard a gurgling splash. Clear water dripped through several of the laser holes, and looking over the riddled planks they saw that the Mack was forging through a shallow creek. The air was just a touch cooler here, and they all breathed easier while checking over their blasters.

  The sky above them was a solid blanket of gray from the rampaging forest fire, the noise of the burning woods deafeningly loud. In every direction, maple trees were detonating every few seconds now, throwing up geysers of flaming branches and shattered bark.

  Fighting to keep control of the big rig, Ryan twisted the steering wheel sharply to avoid a burning tree as it came crashing down into the creek. The water temporarily extinguished the flames and the charred branches scraped along the side of the vehicle as it passed by. The damp wood burst into flames once more, fed by the boiling sap inside the battered tree trunk.

  Hitting a mud hole, the cab listed and the front tires spun freely, then found purchase. The wag lurched forward
to glance off a broken slab of ancient concrete. Cursing steadily, Ryan brought the it back under control just in time. More slabs of concrete were lying on the shore, which offered an interesting possibility. Angling out of the creek, Ryan jounced the vehicle up the bank and the wag was soon shuddering along the cracked remains of a predark road. It was just one lane, not a broad highway like before, but the farther they got from the creek, the better the condition of the concrete slabs. Within minutes, the fire was left in their wake, the road surface humming below their tires.

  “No sign of the LAV,” J.B. said, craning his neck out the window to look behind. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It tracked us for a hundred miles, and waited a week for us to come out of that ville. For my taste, that’s just too bastard smart for any comp or machine!”

  Glancing into the dirty sideview mirror, Ryan said nothing. The fire was still coming their way, and the engine was close to overheating again.

  The road turned abruptly to the right, and the one-eyed man yanked the wheel hard to keep from going over the edge of a cliff. The tires squealed in protest, the flatbed fishtailing out to smash into the low wall of loose boulders that served as a safety fence. The rear of the wag rebounded as the impact sent a massive stone rolling for several feet, and then they dropped out of sight.

  Gaining the roadway once more, Ryan frowned to see that they were running parallel to a deep chasm. He listened for the boulders to hit bottom, but there wasn’t a sound. Only a soft whispering wind.

  “Dark night, that must be bastard deep,” J.B. observed sourly, craning his neck for a better look. “Better move off this quick and get us some combat room, just in case that LAV finds us a second time.”

  “No need,” Ryan declared, shifting to a lower gear. The transmission stuck, and he had to pump the clutch and shake the shift to get the grinding gears to finally engage.

  Squinting through his glasses, J.B. frowned then broke into a ragged grin. Less than a mile up ahead was a thin black line extending across the chasm.

  “Hot damn, a bridge!” J.B. cried in delight. “Now we’re cooking with microwaves!”

  Shifting gears once more, Ryan almost smiled at the twentieth-century expression. J.B. and Mildred were starting to sound like each other more and more these days.

  As the wag drew closer, Ryan could see the bridge was actually a box trestle made of riveted iron. Perfect. Even weakened with age, a trestle should still be strong enough to support the war wag. But soon the one-eyed man could see that the bridge was not designed for civilian traffic. It was for a railroad! There was no pavement, only rusty steel rails and wooden ties with open spaces between them that showed only air.

  Sounding the horn, Ryan warned the others just before ramming onto the railroad tracks. The wag shook wildly as if hit by a barrage of cannonfire, but he got it moving in the right direction, the tires scraping along the steel rails, bouncing from one wooden tie to the next. The needles of the gauges on the dashboard began to jump around madly, making it impossible to see if the rattling was doing any damage to the beleaguered diesel engine. The hood was shaking so hard, the man half expected it to come loose and crash into the windshield.

  But Ryan forgot about such minor considerations as the entire bridge gave a low moan, and a brown snowstorm of rust flakes sprinkled down from the quivering girders over the aged tracks.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As the rain of corrosion covered the windshield, Ryan activated the wipers. But only the passenger side worked.

  “So far, so good!” J.B. said unnecessarily loud, studying the tracks ahead for any obstructions. Bridges were a good spot for coldhearts to try to jack travelers. He’d seen it done many times before. “None of the wooden ties have fallen away yet, so I think we’re fine. Just keep moving!”

  Bracing himself, Ryan shoved the gas pedal to the floorboards and threw the transmission into high gear. The war wag promptly accelerated, and bizarrely the shaking eased somewhat. Must be going too fast to fall between the ties anymore.

  Halfway across the trestle, Ryan risked a glance outside and saw a white-water river at the bottom of the chasm, jagged rocks thrusting up from the turbulent cascade like the broken fangs of prehistoric beast. A few moments later they were through the trestle and Ryan banked the steering wheel sharply. The war wag lurched violently, and then was rolling smoothly along a flat grassy field.

  “Park anywhere. I want to check for damage,” J.B. said, releasing his death hold on the dashboard.

  “No prob.” Ryan braked to a stop.

  Throwing open the cab door, J.B. hopped to the ground and rubbed his sore leg. It still hurt a little from the graze he got back in the dunes, but only a little. Then a piercing whistle came from the rear of the wag.

  “Incoming!” Krysty shouted, and several of the Kalashnikovs started chattering.

  Slamming open the door, Ryan swung out of the cab with the SIG-Sauer in his fist. Just across the bridge, smoke was starting to pour out of the trees, announcing the arrival of the fire. And deep within the murky interior something large was smashing a path through the foliage. The LAV had found them again!

  Emerging into view, the spidery machine paused near the railroad tracks, sending out a white ray of some kind to play along the ancient steel.

  Switching blasters, Ryan worked the arming bolt on the AK-47, dismayed at how light it felt. Half a clip wasn’t going to stop that droid. Nothing they had would, except…

  As the machine advanced to the trestle, a flickering glow started coming from the woods, dark smoke rising to taint the sky. A scattering of animals burst from the forest to race past the LAV, but it completely ignored them, staying with the railroad tracks until they reached the bridge. Looking upward, the machine swiveled in their direction and the laser began to strobe, the rainbow beam lancing out to hit the gridwork of old beams and punching white-hot holes in the riveted steel. Moving fast, the companions took cover, but the crisscrossing girders of the box trestle offered no clear view of them from the other side.

  “We could run,” Mildred said loudly, “but there’s no place to hide. I see only open countryside for miles.”

  “Stand here,” Jak declared grimly, hefting a pipe bomb. “Finish now!”

  “Everybody out of the wag!” Doc bellowed. “Keep on the move! Do not offer a group target!”

  Advancing to the mouth of the box trestle, the LAV paused, temporarily stymied by the fact it was too large to enter the trestle, then it reached out with two legs and crawled on top of the bridge to scuttle forward, the laser needling out to stab holes in the ground all around the war wag.

  The fragging thing was trying to herd them back into the wag for a group chill, Ryan realized in cold certainty. Just how smart was this thing?

  “Nuke running,” he declared firmly. “J.B., we got no choice. Use it!”

  “Yeah, I know,” the Armorer said unhappily, digging in a pocket as he walked closer to the bridge.

  Pulling out a metal canister, he yanked the ring, flipped off the arming lever and heaved with all of his might. Tumbling through the air, the gren landed on top of the trestle, and promptly rolled through the gridwork of girders to land on the open array of rails and ties.

  “Gaia,” Krysty whispered, her hair flexing wildly. “Don’t let it fall through!”

  As if her battlefield prayer was answered, there came a brilliant white flash, followed by a hurricane of wind dragging the companions toward the bridge. They dropped flat and dug in their fingers to stay in place. Next there was a crumpling noise unlike anything they had ever heard…and then silence.

  Rising from the ground, Ryan adjusted his eye patch. The LAV was gone, and so was the entire bridge, along with large chunks of the cliff on both sides.

  “So that’s an implo gren,” Mildred said in low astonishment. “Never actually watched one explode…I mean, implode before. Impressive. I have absolutely no idea how the thing works.”

  “Nobody does anymore.” Going to the
edge of the cliff, Krysty looked carefully over the edge and saw only the rushing white-water below. Nothing could be seen in the river. The droid and bridge were simply gone, compacted to the size of pebbles in less than the tick of a chron.

  “Well, there’s no going back now, even if we wanted to,” J.B. commented dryly, tugging his fingerless gloves on tighter. “But without that implo gren, we don’t have a chilling edge on Delphi.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Ryan growled. “He doesn’t know we’re coming, and that’ll be enough.”

  “Unless he also has encountered a doomie,” Doc rumbled in dark consternation.

  There was no possible reply to that, so the companions said nothing as they clambered back into the wag. Starting the engine, Ryan headed west again. According to the map J.B. had checked, Bad Water Lake was about sixty miles away. With luck, they could be there by early dawn.

  Mebbe I’ll even get a chance to recce that white building, the one-eyed man contemplated. Although he had a gut feeling it’d be a triple-smart move just to blow the place to nuking hell.

  WITH BRAKES SQUEALING, the lead war wag of Dephi’s convoy came to a halt on the pebbled beach of the huge lake. A few moments later, the other three wags crested a low rise and stopped alongside the motionless wag, forming a ragged line. Some loose stones tumbled away from studded mil tires to splash into the scummy green water. They dropped through the thick covering as if it was mist and vanished from sight, the scum rippling outward for a few yards, almost appearing to be alive from the subtle disturbance.

  Jagged red rocks rose from the hidden depths of the lake like the teeth of a dragon, ancient and weathered. Sharp cliffs edged the huge lake most of the way around, leaving only a scant few breaks in the sandstone palisades where the sloping pebble shore could be easily reached. Several miles wide, the lake stretched across the horizon, a foamy vista of dark green, the thick layer of slime broken only by the occasional red dagger of rock or the bleaching bones of an aced traveler. There was no sound of birds in the air or of waves on the shore, the scum making the water too thick to lap against the hard stones.