Sky Raider, page 22
As the teen tossed away the crossbow and pulled out his Colt, J.B. squeezed off a short burst from the Uzi just as the sec man brought up the longblaster and fired. Something big hummed past the companions, and the sec man dropped the blaster to clutch his belly before toppling over sideways.
“Close,” Jak snarled, easing the pressure on the trigger of his blaster.
“Too close,” Mildred added, firing two rounds at something moving in the shadows. But there was no answering cry of pain. Damnation, the firelight was throwing off her aim!
“Jak, you and J. B. go free the slaves and get them out of here!” Krysty ordered, firing into the night. A man cried out in pain. “Mildred and I will find Tregart’s tech journal.”
The men grunted in acknowledgment and moved off into the night.
By now, blasters were starting to sound all across the airfield and somebody was shouting near the gate. Mildred glanced that way just as the night was split by thunderous flame and the shouting abruptly stopped.
“No mistaking Doc’s LeMat.” Krysty snorted, starting forward at an easy lope. “With him covering our back, just watch for the crossfire, and we may get out of here still breathing.”
“That is the plan,” Mildred replied, trying to imitate Ryan’s deep voice.
Women screamed in one of the tents, followed by the sound of the hooting of stickies. Both Krysty and Mildred prayed the cages holding the muties were made of metal, and not wood.
A secondary explosion came from behind the line of tents, and a shrieking man dashed into view dripping flames. Ignoring the human torch, Krysty ducked to fan her blaster a fast three times at the silhouette of another man aiming a crossbow their way. He staggered from the .38 bone shredders, but still launched his weapon. The arrow appeared out of the darkness to violently slam against the rocky ground directly between the two women, the shaft breaking into splinters.
Cursing, Krysty grabbed her bloody cheek and Mildred fired twice. This time, he dropped permanently.
“You okay?” Mildred asked, easing out the spent clip from Ryan’s borrowed blaster and inserting the only spare.
“I’ll live,” Krysty said tersely, looking at her wet fingers, then wiping them dry on her pants. “Just a scratch.”
Cracking open the cylinder of her blaster, she took out the spent shells to insert live rounds, then almost dropped the weapon as something painfully lanced through her head, going from ear to ear. Gaia!
“What the frag was that?” she demanded, looking frantically around. Krysty gingerly touched her ear, half expecting to find more blood from additional splinters. But there was no damage that she could find.
“What happened?” Mildred demanded in confusion.
“Something went through my head like a big nail,” the redhead said with a tight throat. “I’ve never felt anything like that before in my life.”
“Well, I can take a guess,” Mildred said, pulling out the Czech ZKR target pistol with her left hand. She turned in a fast circle, the two blasters sweeping for targets. “That must have been an ultrasonic whistle. Get ready, they’ll be here any second!”
“What?” Krysty demanded, noticing something moving in the darkness of the open airfield. No, several things.
“Dogs!” Mildred cried, firing both of her blasters at the slavering killers.
AS THE HOT LEAD from the biplane chewed a double line of destruction along the ground, Ryan veered sharply to the right, arcing around a pile of loose rocks and weeds. The Beamer slipped in the gravel for a moment, and the one-eyed man tasted fear before the tires bit into solid earth again and he lurched ahead.
Already past him, the Sky wag was circling around once more to make another strafing run. As Sandra moved alongside, Ryan savagely braked to a halt and worked the jam out of the breech of the Steyr. Raising the longblaster, he put a shot into the tail of the machine with no visible results.
Grunting in annoyance, Ryan worked the bolt to chamber a fresh round. Yeah, he expected that. Ryan didn’t even know where the fuel tank was on the biplane! On the crashed drone, the tank had been on the upper wing. But on this predark machine, the wings were clear of anything like that.
Wheeling to the right, Ryan ducked under some trees, braked, turned and shot again on an angle. Reaching open sky, he couldn’t see the Sky wag anywhere, and so just sat there pretending to fiddle with the engine until she returned and he darted away again.
Being the bait in this trap was a bitch-risky gambit. The problem was to keep Tregart just interested enough to stay after him, but farther enough behind that the woman didn’t nuke his ass. Or worse, go back to the airfield and ace his friends. It was a walk on razors either way, but the only way anybody had been able to figure out how to get Tregart to the kill zone. If it was still there!
Reaching a patch of level sand, Ryan stayed his course for several dangerous seconds, taking advantage of the precious stability to reload the Steyr. That gave him five rounds in the longblaster, with two more clips in his jacket, along with six loose rounds. He had also taken along a gren in case he needed a diversion, but a fat lot of good the mil charge would be against a fragging Sky wag!
Passing a clump of juniper bushes, Ryan gained a good mile before locating a rotten tree stump. Heading past it, he crouched over the hot engine to lower the wind resistance and gain more speed. In spite of the rough terrain, the speedometer hit 60 mph as the Beamer went straight over the edge of a gully. Flying above the ravine, Ryan caught a brief glimpse of a babbling creek below before he landed hard on the other side. Yes! But then the front wheel of the bike slipped out from underneath the man on a patch of green grass and he almost went over the handlebars.
The Sky wag started hammering lead again, as Ryan struggled to bring the wobbling bike under control. Turning into the skid, he got the wheels aligned and poured on the juice. The rpm hit the red line on the dashboard as he outran the hail of lead and then banked the wheels hard. Kicking out a leg, his boot hit the ground with a jarring impact, but Ryan kept the tilting Beamer angled away from the gully. If he took a spill now, it was the last train west without a doubt. Tregart was out for the chill this night, and he was the target in her scope.
A spreading tree loomed directly ahead of Ryan and he ducked low. But a branch banged his elbow, sending pain shooting through his arm from the glancing impact. Momentarily his hand went numb, and Ryan fought to control the runaway motorcycle with only one hand. He was almost to the edge of the gully again, when he regained control and shot back toward the original course.
Gaining another mile, Ryan risked a fast look upward and scowled when there was no sign of the Sky wag. Damn! Where had the bitch gone? This whole fragging deal was going straight into the shitter unless Ryan could keep the woman constantly on his tail. Time for a recce.
Heading for a hillock, Ryan bounced along the ground, dodging holes and fallen tree limbs until reaching the crest. Squealing to a halt, the man quickly scanned the sky with his good eye. And there she was! Diving straight out of the moon, using the silvery light to hide her approach. Nuking hell!
As Ryan frantically peeled away, the biplane swooped down along the hillock, its rapid-fire delivering short bursts. Streaking down the sloped ground, Ryan veered to the right and a second later a Molotov exploded just where he had been. Glass shrapnel peppered the man’s jacket, and he felt the wave of heat on his neck for a long moment before he went out of range. Darting between two boulders, Ryan jounced over a fallen tree and splashed through a shallow creek before reaching the flat grassland. In the sideview mirror, Ryan could see the hillock coated with flames. Tregart was getting bastard good at tossing those bombs.
Accelerating to full speed, Ryan climbed on top of the mesa as the Beamer flashed through the night, the bright headlight giving him only seconds to dodge exposed roots or chunks of predark ruins that would have sent the bike and rider tumbling to the death.
The buzz of her engine rising and falling on the wind, Tregart winged around in a graceful circle to swoop down once more, the rapid-fire chattering in short bursts. As the Sky wag went past, there came a whistling sound and the top of a nearby tree stridently exploded as if hit by lightning. TNT!
A hail of splinters peppered his back with stinging force, and Ryan braced himself for the fenderless rear tire to blow. But as he gained another mile and nothing happened, he eased the tension in his arms and looked around to find the Sky wag. A mile went by through the sparse grasslands with no sign of the machine anywhere. Slowing his speed, Ryan started to worry the woman had lost him, when he caught the sound of the engine again. Nuking hell, was she leaving?
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Ryan growled, braking to a halt. Bringing up the Steyr, he cut loose three fast rounds, and then two more. As if she had been waiting to see the flashes of his longblaster, Tregart rolled the Sky wag over and came out of the aerial maneuver heading straight for him again.
Reloading for the last time, Ryan checked the dashboard, noting that the engine temperature was running dangerously high. But there was nothing he could do about that right now. Flexing his hands, the man revved the engine and rolled forward to build speed until the ground was only a blur beneath the purring bike.
Switching tactics, Tregart moved ahead of the man and tried attacking from directly in front. That almost worked, and Ryan had to switch off the headlight to dodge her bombs and bullets. But escape wasn’t the plan. The moment he was in the clear, Ryan turned on the light again and sent two 7.62 mm hollowpoint rounds at the machine as it passed by the moon.
Incredibly small-caliber blasterfire was returned from Tregart as she shot at him with a handblaster.
He shouted a laugh at that, hoping that she might hear and get even more angry. It seemed to work because suddenly the Sky wag was flying only yards off the ground, the rapid-fire chattering nonstop.
Letting go of the handlebars, Ryan used both hands to steady the Steyr and gave her back two directly between the muzzle-flashes of the predark rapid-fire. Instantly she did a barrel roll and climbed into the air. Her handblaster fired away, but no bombs fell this time. Mebbe she was out? Ryan scowled in disbelief. More likely, Tregart just wanted him to think that she was out to lure him closer.
As the Angel circled, Ryan rummaged in his jacket pocket for the loose rounds and started thumbing them into an empty clip. Five miles remained, and the bike was getting low on fuel. Less than half a tank. But that would just have to be enough.
Removing the partially used clip and inserting the full one, Ryan tucked the old clip into his shirt pocket, along with the last live round. Just then the hairs on Ryan’s neck stood up as he heard a scuffle in the dirt from nearby. Instantly he turned and fired. A man cried out, dropping his spear, but another threw his and the wooden shaft flashed by to smash into the windshield, breaking it to pieces.
Swinging the barrel of the Steyr to the new target, Ryan fired again just as two more spears came out of the darkness, one grazing his neck and the other slamming harmlessly against the engine block of the Beamer.
In the brief illumination of muzzle-flash, Ryan saw several half-naked men coming his way. Each was wearing a necklace of white bones, their heads were shaved, their muscular bodies covered with swirling tattoos. What the…It was the desert cannies! They had to have been following the tracks of the Hummer all of this distance to get revenge. Unfortunately, Ryan was using the same tracks as a guide to take him back to the forest!
Even as Ryan fired twice more, he could see the cannies were carrying blunt spears, the sharp stone tips removed. His blood went cold when he realized why. These spears weren’t for chilling, but to knock a victim unconscious and take them alive. Alive for the cooking pot.
As the cannies broke into a rush and converged on the man, the buzz of the Sky wag began to get louder as Tregart started to commence another strafing run, bullets impacting everywhere.
Chapter Twenty
Writhing flames from the burning tents illuminated the night as the guard dogs attacked.
“Gaia!” Krysty shouted, firing from the hip as the animals spread out to circle the two women. “Quick! Go back-to-back!”
Shooting both of her blasters, Mildred rushed to join the other woman. The booming round from the ZKR missed, but the 9 mm slug from Ryan’s SiG-Sauer grazed a dog across the belly. Yelping from the pain, the animal seemed puzzled how it got injured, and Mildred fired both weapons again. This time she got a double strike into the face of the beast and the dog’s head literally exploded.
The rest of the dogs began to snarl savagely and race faster around the two women, looking for an opportunity to strike. Already down to four rounds, Krysty pulled her knife and kept the blade swinging to distract the animals from rushing.
Something exploded in the distance and there came the telltale chatter of the Uzi.
“John’s shotgun is what we need,” Mildred stated, shifting her posture to try to keep facing the dogs. She chanced a shot from the SiG-Sauer and only hit the ground. Damn, they were fast! “Any chance you have a gren?”
“Gave it to Jak!”
“Shit!”
A dog started toward Krysty, and as she aimed her blaster, the animal froze and a different dog charged in from the side. Quickly the redhead ducked and thrust out the blade, catching the dog directly in the throat. Gushing blood, the dying beast jerked away and took the blade along just as the first dog eased a foot closer. Krysty brought her blaster up and the animal froze, but its eyes never left her face.
“Gaia, these are hunting dogs!” she said hoarsely. “Trained to attack prey as a group!”
“Any suggestions?” Mildred demanded, watching nervously as two of the animals started edging in for her from the sides while a third crouched low, ready to leap. Mildred knew that the moment she fired at the two, the third would go for her throat. She flicked her eyes to the left for just a second, then back again to see the middle dog was closer.
“Got a knife?” Krysty asked tersely.
Mildred nudged her with a hip. “My left side,” she said.
Warily, Krysty changed hands on her blaster and reached backward. She found the sheath and pulled the blade free. Instantly the dog began to growl deep in its throat, as if understanding what a blade could do.
“Get ready,” Krysty said, flipping the knife over in her hand to grasp the blade instead of the handle.
As the middle dog started closer, Mildred crossed her arms to point at the animals at her sides again, went back to her original position, then crossed her hands at the wrists. The dogs shifted in response to the moves, and always kept their eyes on the women.
“On your right,” Krysty said in forced calm. “Here it comes.”
“Go,” Mildred said, tightening her grip on the weapons.
Keeping her blaster pointed at the crouching dog, Krysty flipped the knife over a shoulder. The blade went tumbling through the night and landed with a metallic ring on the hard ground between two of the dogs facing Mildred. Both of the animals darted their heads toward the unexpected noise, and she instantly fired. One dog yipped as a 9 mm Parabellum round smacked it in the chest, the other merely crouched as blood starting arching from a hole in its muscular neck. The third dog leaped.
Bringing up both of her blasters, Mildred fired into the chest of the animal and it slammed into her, the paws raking strips off her denim jacket. Firing blindly, Mildred shoved the dog aside as it snapped for her face, its sharp teeth closing only inches away, its hot, fetid breath blowing into her open mouth.
Turning sideways, Krysty fired her S&W .38, scoring two blood hits before the last dog charged. Raising an elbow to protect her throat, Krysty slammed the animal down and it fell, sprawling, only to scramble back onto its paws to try again. The woman twirled to get out of the way and rammed a boot into the belly of the beast. The dog was lifted off the ground, landing hard to snarl in mindless fury. Taking the blaster in both hands, Krysty carefully took aim and pumped a single round into its head. The dog yipped as it dropped limply, and Krysty spun, seeking a fresh target.
The last dog had closed its jaws around the bulbous silencer of the SiG-Sauer, and Mildred was pistol-whipping the animal to no effect. As Krysty took aim again, Mildred shoved her Czech ZKR wheelgun into its ear and stroked the trigger. The animal released the silencer as brains and blood blew out the other ear into the dark night. Already chilled, the beast flopped to the rocky ground and exhaled once before going still.
Watching for any more dogs, the women quickly reloaded and then retrieved their knives.
“You okay?” Krysty asked, sheathing the blade.
“Only some scratches.” Mildred panted, tucking away her own knife before drawing the SiG-Sauer once more. “How about you?”
“Been better.” Krysty grunted, touching her side.
Reaching out with the blaster, Mildred swept back the shaggy fur coat and frowned at the crimson stain on the woman’s shirt.
“Does it hurt?” Mildred demanded, holstering a blaster and reaching for her med kit.
“Like fire, which means it’s only a flesh wound,” Krysty replied, starting for the tents again. “Come on, minutes count. If Tregart returns to find us out in the open…” She left the sentence hanging.
By now the flames were rising high into the sky, and wild hooting was coming from one tent covered with flames. Mildred paused, wishing there was something she could do for the poor stickies. Nothing deserved to die like that. But if she sent the muties free, their first act would be to try to tear off her face. Turning her back on the death screams, the physician moved onward, feeling another small part of her humanity dying.
“Look!” Krysty cried, pointing with her blaster. “There’s nobody defending that tent!” The woman’s other hand was under her coat, pressing on the bleeding gash.
“Which means there’s nobody there,” Mildred said grimly. “So it’s either the barracks or Tregart’s private tent.”
“Let’s go.”
The two women moved fast along the hard ground, firing sporadically at any distant figure with a shaved head. Dodging around the body of a man holding a pair of predark binocs, the two companions reached the abandoned tent and drew their knives. Slashing vents in the cloth, they did a recce through the openings before rushing in through the flap.
