Desert Kings (28 page)

As Cotton swung up the BAR, she pulled out the sawed-off 12-gauge and started forward grimly. The smoky cloud was starting to thin, and the woman scowled at the unexpected sight of two men on horseback riding toward the fight. For a single moment, Cotton thought they might be coldhearts, but then she saw that their clothing matched and that they were packing rapid-fires. They had to be sec men! But where had they come from? There wasn’t a ville around for a hundred miles! But it didn’t really matter. If they weren’t her men, they had to be chilled. That was a lock.

Staying low, Cotton tried to get a bead on the newcomers when something metallic came into view trailing after the two big men. Nuking hell, she thought, it was a predark machine of some sort! The large cylindrical body was made of shiny steel, and there were armored treads underneath, rocketing the thing forward almost as fast as a horse could run. Which meant it was a lot quicker than any person on foot. There was a smooth dome on top bristling with antennae, and the thing sported two crazy red eyes that spun around in every direction. Flexing metal arms extended from the sides, each of them tipped with spinning buzz saws.

“Mother of night, a sec hunter droid!” Delphi gasped, firing the HK needler and the laser at the war machine.

The sizzling red beam struck the droid and seemed to be absorbed, but the stainless-steel fléchettes bounced off wildly, some of them coming back to impact the cyborg’s shield. In the gloom, a distant figure cried out, his intestines slithering out of a tattered belly like a tangle of oily snakes. Focusing on the fellow, Delphi cursed when he saw it wasn’t Tanner or Ryan.

Just then, two horseback riders galloped past the cyborg, firing M-16 assault rifles at point-blank range. But the 5.56 mm hardball rounds rebounded harmlessly from his force field, and he shot one of them in the arm with his laser, the other with the needler, before they vanished into the billowing cloud. How bizarre, the cyborg thought. One of them resembled Edward Rogan. But that was impossible. The Rogan brothers had all been chilled and buried long ago. He paused. Or had they? Quickly, the cyborg set the laser to full-power, minimum aperture, and swept the battlefield, trying for a quick chill.

Incoming lead and steel pounded the shield from several directions, and another rain of grens was augmented by a large homemade pipe bomb. The combined detonation rocked the cyborg, almost making him fall, then inspiration hit, and Delphi reached out with his EM implants to seize control of the droid and turn it against the outlanders. But try as he might, there was no answering signal from the droid. It spun around and charged directly for him, as if locked on to his broadcast.

Standing his ground, Delphi stabbed out with the laser and needler, the duel weapons savaging the droid, removing an arm and melting an eye. But the machine kept coming, as unstoppable as the rising moon.

“The metal thing is after the chief!” a trooper bellowed, swinging up his BAR and firing a tri-burst at the machine. “Chill the fucker!” The hail of hot lead hit the chrome dome, doing scant damage. Then the machine saw the man, the twin saw swinging in opposite directions. They heard the horrible sound of steel cutting flesh. The trooper shrieked for a brief moment, then blood sprayed high as he fell to the ground in ragged pieces.

“Nuke-sucker aced Jimmy!” Cotton yelled. “Light it up!”

The servo motors of the LAV 25 whined into life as the 20 mm Vulcan swiveled on top of the war wag and then the blaster started vomiting flame. The shells hit the ground near the machine, throwing out gouts of sand. Nimbly, the droid dodged to the side, then grabbed the predark APC in a deadly hug. Sparks flew like fireworks as the spinning blades dug into the steel armor, slowing chewing a path inside the machine. Rounds poured from the blasterports, the muzzle-flames stabbing outward, but the angle was wrong and the BAR longblasters couldn’t get a bead on the attacking droid.

Withdrawing the blades, the droid wrapped its arms around the barrel of the Vulcan minigun and yanked the rapid-fire free to the sound of screeching metal. The sec man operating the weapon screamed as his hand came away minus fingers, life pumping from the ragged nubbins of flesh. Tossing away the minigun, the droid plunged the buzz saws through the unfortunate man.

Lurching into action at the ghastly sight, Cotton sprinted back to the LAV trapped against the dune. Clambering inside, she activated the flame-thrower and aimed the blazing column of jellied fuel at the sec hunter droid and fired. Covered in flames, the droid reached out to grab the fluted nozzle of the weapon and crush it tight. From inside the wag there came a rattling hiss, then the seals blew and the interior of the wag was flooded with burning chems. Cotton screamed briefly, then the fuel tanks ignited and the wag detonated along with the ample stores of munitions, the double explosion ripping the droid apart, the sparkling debris flying through the cloudy air along with the tattered norm counterparts.

The rain of destruction fell across the churned ground as a horse ran past Delphi without a rider, and the cyborg knew the two newcomers were now on foot. Fools. Trying to lure them close, the cyborg trained the Educator on a galloping horse. Galvanized as if hit by lightning, the animal went stiff, the muscular body shaking all over. Foam began to drip from its mouth, and its legs buckled as the stallion toppled over to commence jerking irregularly, some long plastic tubes sticking out of the saddle bags breaking apart and spilling out pieces of predark rockets. Turning off the device, Delphi saw the animal go limp as drops of red blood started to bead its hide.

“Hear that, Tanner?” The cyborg laughed. “You’re next, old man! And then I’ll go back in time to pleasure your wife!”

But the outrageous lie yielded no results. Either Doc Tanner had not heard the threat, or he didn’t believe it, which was much more likely. A blind fury boiled within the cyborg. Cotton was chilled, the LAVs were destroyed, time to end this now!

Expanding his force field to the maximum range, Delphi moved relentlessly through the swirling fumes, triggering his weapons at anything that moved, no longer caring if he aced some of his own troops.

K
EEPING THE SLAB OF BROKEN
plank in front as a shield, Ryan stayed low and fired the Kalashnikov at the small area of clean air that moved within the swirling, acrid fumes of the burning wag and tires. The damn cyborg never realized that the force field that protected him also made him easy to spot. The plan had been to try to lure Delphi to the cliff and throw him into the lake. Doc had said that his force field stopped working when it got wet. But the cyborg was crafty and was keeping as far away from the crumbling edge as possible.

A wounded trooper lunged for Ryan and he fired the AK-47, blowing away his throat. As the corpse sagged to the ground, the twitching hand triggered the BAR, a trio of rounds hitting the plank and slamming it out of Ryan’s grip. The wood went airborne and disappeared in a new volume of smoke from the three burning LAVs. Fireblast!

Working the bolt on the Kalashnikov to clear a brass jammed in the ejector port, Ryan found the clip empty and tossed the rapid-fire away. That had been the last reload. Now he was down to the Steyr, SIG-Sauer, a few grens and the panga.

A heated barrage of rounds told him that somebody had more ammo for their BAR, and Ryan stayed low as he moved across the sandy ground. His eye was stinging badly from the airborne salt, but there was nothing he could do about that right then except ignore the pain. Pieces of smoldering metal and steaming chunks of bodies lay everywhere, spent brass lying golden among the silvery grains of salt and sand.

The telltale boom of the LeMat proclaimed that Doc had also run out of brass for the predark AK-47. Then the Uzi chattered, a brief stutter of flame pinpointing the location of J.B. in the smoke. A red beam lanced across the battleground toward the Armorer, and he ducked, barely in time. Breaking into a full run, Ryan pulled out the panga. Come on, feeb, use that las just once more time, Ryan urged silently.

A dark shape rose from behind a chilled horse and steel flashed mirror bright as a trooper stabbed at Ryan with a BAR, the bayonet gleaming like polished death. The bayonet knocked the Steyr aside, and the one-eyed man swung the panga to slice his attacker across the chest. Lurching away, the trooper tried to aim the longblaster, but seemed unable to find Ryan even though the Deathlands warrior was only a yard away. Attempting to pull the trigger with shaking hands, the pale trooper staggered, drool flowing from his slack mouth.

Knocking aside the BAR, Ryan mercifully leveled the Steyr and shot the man in the forehead. Blood, brains and bone went flying.

The faceless corpse hugged the rifle like a child did a favorite toy for protection from the monsters in the night. Then a lambent energy beam stabbed out of the roiling smoke and hit the corpse. The clothing burst into flames, and Ryan jerked aside to throw a gren. It vanished into the gloom, and a few seconds later it detonated, the sound of the explosion mixed with a startled cry. Encouraged by that, Ryan prepared another gren and started forward, the Steyr leading the way.

T
HROWN BACKWARD
by the explosion, Delphi hit the ground hard and struggled onto his feet just in time for a roaring giant to charge out of the smoke. The startled cyborg recognized Edward Rogan and immediately shot the huge man in the chest with both the needler and the laser. But as the body collapsed to the ground, Delphi saw the sizzling fuse dangling from the canvas satchel strapped to his back, along with the clearly printed words
U.S. Army, C-4 plastic explosive, demolition charge.

Spinning around fast, Delphi tried to run when the world became solid white as the trip-hammer explosion engulfed him completely. Suddenly airborne, he seemed to float for a very long time through the moonlight before crashing onto the pebbled beach. The force field flared from the impact, but held, as strong as ever. Climbing to his feet, the jubilant cyborg laughed in triumph at the knowledge that he missed landing in the scummy water by less than a foot.

Glancing upward, Delphi saw Ryan and the companions standing on the cliff above, then a hail of dark objects flashed past the cyborg to splash into the polluted lake.

“Missed!” Delphi said with a sneer, raising the crystal rod to chill his adversaries when the barrage of grens and pipe bombs loudly detonated, throwing a foamy wave of dirty water over Delphi. Erupting into sparks, the force field visibly wavered and then vanished.

Horrified, the cyborg looked down at his dripping wet hands, then quickly aimed the laser just as the companions fired their assortment of blasters.

Pain tore through Delphi and his internal systems went into emergency function, closing off arteries and rerouting blood as microfilaments raced to close the gaping wounds in his chest and limbs. More grens hit the beach to roll into the lake, the explosions soaking him again and again, as he stumbled away, bleeding, unsure of where to go or what to do next. A LAW rocket streaked through the gloom, then a pipe bomb landed nearby. He kicked it away to bounce off a boulder and disappear into the thick green scum. The blast sent a column of steam and slime skyward, and he clumsily dodged the falling hail of hot filth, his strength returning with every beat of his artificial heart. The blood had stopped gushing from the bullet wounds, and his vision was clear once more. Breaking into a frantic run, the cyborg pelted along the pebble beach, thinking only of escape.

Bullets kicked up the stones along the shoreline, ricochets throwing out sparks as more grens detonated in the lake behind him. Only a faint spray reached Delphi, moistening his tattered clothing, washing away the red blood tinged with hints of yellow. His force field fluttered in response, struggling to come back online. Just a few more seconds and he would be safe. It flickered again, bright sparks dancing all around the cyborg. Yes, almost there!

Then something large fell from the sky, and Delphi instinctively ran away, trying to gain as much precious distance between him and it as possible. The thing hit the beach with a resounding thump, and he saw it was another satchel charge. The fools missed the lake entirely!

Then the awful truth hit Delphi one second before the twenty-four blocks of predark C-4 plas ex violently detonated. The satchel charge had been exactly on target.

Chaos ruled Delphi’s mind as he was blown sideways to splash into the lake. Floundering in the mucky water, the cyborg sank to the bottom as his struggling force field dropped completely. But the depth was only a few yards. He still had a fighting chance!

Struggling to hold his breath, Delphi clawed for purchase on the smooth pebbles lining the shallow water, grabbing hold of something round and full of holes. Panicking at the thought of another gren, the cyborg illuminated his eyes and stared in mindless terror at the charred skull. There was just enough tattered flesh left for him to identify Edward Rogan, the teeth grinning evilly in the dappled water. Then it hit him.
Teeth in the water!

Casting the horrid thing away, Delphi surged forward and broke the surface to desperately pull in a lungful of air. Brushing away the sodden hair from his face, the cyborg could not see anybody nearby, and he sloshed for the beach. Choppy waves were spreading out fast, and hazy gray smoke lingered over the turbulent water.

Lying on the shore were more pieces of Rogan, a boot with a foot inside, a bent machete and a gunbelt with an undamaged Webley still firmly in the holster. Excellent! Racing toward the beach, Delphi almost made it out of the water when he heard the sound of galloping hooves. Jerking toward the collapsed section of the cliff, Delphi saw two men riding a horse across the loose soil. Ryan and Tanner!