Outlanders 11 Armageddon Axis, page 6
Chapter 5
Kane heard no sound of a crash, but electricity crackled in dazzling blue skeins all over the metal hull of the vehicle, weaving a web of voltage. For an instant, he felt the current swarming all over him, like a million ants biting him simultaneously.
The rear end of the hovertank tilted sharply upward, then it dropped. The entire vehicle settled down on the ground, as if it were an animal that had suddenly decided to take a nap. The drone of the lift fans ceased. The only sound was the faint creak of the metal skirts as they came to rest on the sand.
Pushing himself to a crouch, Kane noticed the deck beneath him no longer vibrated with power. The hovertank was dead. He turned toward the control compartment and saw the instrument consoles were black.
Howse hitched around in his seat. Blood flowed from both nostrils, the result of slamming into the steering yoke. Baring red-filmed teeth in a grin, he said, "We're in a shock field, Kane. It automatically activated when the intruder alert went out. It kills all the power of anything with an electrical system that crosses it."
Howse chuckled, blowing little droplets of crimson from his lips. "You may have gotten in here alive, but you sure as shit ain't gonna leave the same way."
Kane repressed the wrathful urge to put a 9 nmm bullet into the middle of the man's smirk. "Get out of there," he commanded.
As Howse unbuckled his seat harness, Kane repeated to his companions what the man had said about the shock field. Grant experimentally worked the triggers of an MG emplacement. When they clicked impotently, he slapped the barrel in frustration, swinging it around on its swivel mount. "Batteries are dead."
"There must be some kind of voltage carrier beneath the sand," Brigid declared. "Probably like a carpet or a net."
Kane scanned the dark terrain ahead of them. He estimated their Land Rover lay hidden only a mile or so away. "If we parked our wag on the field..."
It wasn't necessary to complete the sentence.
As Howse emerged onto the deck, Brigid demanded, "How far does the field extend?"
The man shook his head. "I don't know."
"What will it do to a person if we walk on it?" asked Grant.
Again, Howse shook his head. "I don't know that, either."
"Let's find out," Domi snapped.
She rushed forward, head tucked against her shoulder. When she hurled her entire body weight against Howse's midriff, the air left his lungs in a surprised grunt. He stumbled backward against the raised rim of the deck and tumbled headlong over it. He hit the sand hard with a crunching thud.
They watched curiously as Howse climbed unsteadily to his feet. He looked up at them and spit, "Fuck you." Then he began a shambling sprint in the direction they had come.
Domi drew a bead on him with her Combat Master, holding it in a two-fisted grip, finger lightly touching the trigger.
"What are you waiting for?" Grant rasped angrily.
"Wait till the bastard thinks he safe," she replied, ruby eyes glinting with malice. "He'll get a big-time surprise."
Brigid uttered a wordless murmur of disapproval, but she knew better than to intervene when Domi's uncompromising Outland code demanded a bloodletting. She watched the girl's finger curl around the trigger.
A sheet of blue energy burst up from the ground, completely engulfing the running man. His figure became an indistinct shadow, frozen in midstride. A sound like the cracking of a monster whip rolled across the desert. A mass of fire swallowed Howse's head, and his clothes burst into licking flame. He dropped stiffly, body locked in a posture of running. The stench and reek of scorched flesh and hair filled their nostrils.
"My, that was a big-time surprise," Kane remarked mildly.
Domi blinked repeatedly, unwilling to lower her pistol, as if she couldn't believe her prey had escaped her by dying.
"The same thing will happen to us if we leave the field," said Brigid grimly.
"What caused it?" Grant asked.
She shrugged. "A negative charge coming into contact with a positive one, more than likely."
"So we're trapped," said Kane darkly "Like flies on flypaper."
They scanned the skies and saw the lights of the Deathbird growing larger. "And here comes the swatter," Grant stated.
For a long, tense tick of time, all eyes turned upward, fixed on the blinking running lights of the black chopper. All four people retained exceptionally vivid memories of two former land-to-air battles with the gunships.
"No point in trying to use the Dragon," Grant commented dourly. "The targeting and launch systems are electrically controlled."
"If they want us dead," said Brigid, "they can just hover out of range of our handblasters and use their own missiles to blow us to pieces."
Kane eyed the armor of the vehicle critically. Though thick, it couldn't withstand a prolonged bombardment of 57 mm high-ex warheads. "And if they want us alive?"
"They can just trap us here until troops arrive to take us into custody." Brigid untabbed her hood and pulled it down. "I have a feeling this will be one of your all-time favorite one-percenters."
Kane smiled without mirth, then his eyes narrowed with a sudden thought. Removing his own hood, he inquired, "You said the shock field is like a carpet?"
Brigid nodded. "Or a voltage-conducting net."
"And even if we managed to reach the Land Rover, we couldn't start it?"
"Not if we parked within the field's effect perimeter. And even if we didn't, we couldn't leave the field without ending up like—" she nodded toward the blackened, smoldering scarecrow "—Howse."
Grant removed his gaze from the approaching Deathbird. The sudden gleam in his dark eyes showed he had caught Kane's train of thought. "If the field is like a net, why can't we tear holes in it and interrupt the flow of current?"
Brigid's lips pursed contemplatively. "Since sand is an extremely good conductor of electricity, the carrier field wouldn't need to be close to the surface. It's probably buried deeply. The grens we have don't have the power to punch much beyond the topsoil."
Kane whirled toward the 75 mm deck cannon. "I wasn't thinking about grens."
Bolted below the breechloader of the heavy weapon, Kane found the artillery shells he was looking for. He shoved his Sin Eater back into its holster, knowing he wouldn't be able to unleather it again until—or if—they left the shock field.
Carefully, Kane removed three of the projectiles from the belt-feed mechanism, cradling them in his arms. They were heavy, approximately twenty pounds apiece. They clinked together and Grant winced in apprehension.
"Don't worry," Kane told him. "They're anti- structure. It'll take a hell of a kick to set off one of these."
Domi hefted her Combat Master. "This has a hell of a kick."
Kane smiled thinly "My thoughts exactly."
The two-foot-long streamlined shells had perforated cartridge cases allowing for a proportion of the combustion gases to escape the rear of the cannon as backblast. Without the mounted howitzer's breech to vent the backblast along certain parameters, he could only guess at the radius of the shell's explosive power.
The outline of the Deathbird acquired sharper shape and definition, its searchlight beam cutting a white swath toward them. Kane began clambering over the side of the hovertank. "Let's not be such convenient targets until we know if they mean to chill us or capture us."
Grant, Brigid and Domi vaulted off the combat deck. Grant shook his right hand repeatedly, as if it pained him. "Damn Sin Eater won't unleather."
"The shock field is dampening the holster's electric motor," Brigid told him.
They pressed up against the tank's hull, waiting and watching. The chopper took up a hovering position several hundred yards away, about twenty yards in altitude, far outside the range of their handblasters.
The search beam swept over Howse's body, then tracked along until it haloed the tank. The color of the light suddenly shifted, from white to yellow.
"Here we go," Brigid declared flatly. "They've got their stroboscope working. That means they want us alive if possible."
The color of the light washing over the tank changed to red, then yellow, and shifted to a greenish violet. The strobing pattern covered the entire spectrum of visible light. The stroboscope was the method employed to pacify unwilling organ donors. When the light strobed fast enough, the vibratory cycle synchronized with normal brain-wave patterns and the witnesses lapsed into trances. A form of pseudo- epilepsy occurred, triggering the photic-driving response.
The flickering, strobing cycle increased in speed and brilliance. None of them looked at the light directly. Brigid said quietly, "They may be too far away for it to be efficient. I guess they figure there's no harm in trying."
"Not to mention it's like a flare, fixing our position for another patrol," commented Kane.
Squinting her light-sensitive eyes against the flashing radiance, Domi raised her Combat Master, rested the barrel on her forearm and squeezed off a single shot to no effect.
"Don't burn any more rounds," Grant told her acidly. "They're at least a hundred yards out of range."
He glared at the Deathbird as it hung mockingly in the sky.
"Why would they want us alive?" Kane wondered aloud.
"If not as a source of genetic material," Brigid declared, "then for information. Where we've been hiding, how we've eluded capture for so long."
"After what we just did to this place," Grant stated flatly, "revenge is probably a factor, too."
Kane recalled the blank, passionless faces of the hybrids he had seen and doubted Grant's comment. Visceral emotions did not seem to be part of the new human race.
"If we hoof it, nuke-shitting Bird will just follow us." Domi's voice held a note of frustration and anger.
"The hell it will," Grant said in a tone hard with conviction.
Resting the barrel of the Barrett rifle on a projecting flange of the hovertank's skirts, Grant seated the stock firmly against his right shoulder. He pulled away his hood so he could breathe easier.
"I make the range out to be around seven hundred yards," Kane said.
"More like nine hundred," retorted Grant dismissively.
Kane did not respond. He stepped away from Grant, gesturing for Domi and Brigid to do the same. The man needed no distractions.
Grant placed his eye against the twenty-power scope and centered the crosshairs on the Deathbird's tinted foreport, above the flickering stroboscope. He preferred a clean shot at the fuselage since the massive wrecking power of the .50-caliber round would obliterate the delicate inner workings of the machine. But, under the circumstances, the cockpit would have to suffice.
Taking a deep breath and holding it, he called on his training, achieving a form of autohypnosis known as the Mag mind, a technique that emptied the consciousness of nonessential thoughts. It allowed his instincts to take over. The sounds around him faded to nothing, and he closed his awareness even to the presence of the three people behind him.
The image of the Plexiglas port behind the scope's crosshairs leaped into clear, sharp focus. He squeezed into the trigger pull. The crack of the sniper rifle shattered the brooding night air. He moved his shoulder expertly, taking the recoil, not otherwise shifting position. Through the sniper scope, Grant saw a white star appear on the Plexiglas.
The Deathbird performed an abrupt, almost frantic figure eight from west to east, banked sharply to starboard, then veered wildly up and away. Lifting his head from the rifle, Grant announced quietly, "Tagged him."
He couldn't be sure if the steel-jacketed bullet had penetrated either the pilot or the gunner when it pierced the cockpit, but the black chopper maneuvered clumsily, listing from side to side. Vanes and rotors beating the air, it lost altitude, gained it and flew away from them. Within seconds, its running lights merged with the stars and the Deathbird was lost from view.
Although everyone strained their ears, they did not hear the sound of a crash.
Shouldering the rifle, Grant turned to face his companions. His expression was set in a deep scowl, which meant he was exceptionally pleased with himself. "Time to go home."
The four people broke into a sprint, Kane stumbling slightly under the weight of the artillery shells. Sand hissed and grated under their feet.
Eyes on their backtrack, Domi said, "Nothing else. Bird gone to nest."
"Don't get too happy." Grant panted. "They may have an ace on the line waiting for us."
Kane was too busy trying to maintain a steady pace to respond, but he silently agreed with Grant's assessment. The crew of the Deathbird wasn't tracking them for one of two reasons—they expected them to be flash-fried when they left the shock field, or they had turned their apprehension over to someone, or something, else.
As they topped a gently rolling dune, Kane's eyes picked out a humped irregularity in the terrain two hundred or so feet ahead and to the right. The Hussar Hotspur Land Rover rested where they had left it, covered by a neutral-colored tarpaulin bearing a pattern of black camo stripes designed to approximate shadows. For good measure, Domi had scattered uprooted scrub brush around the vehicle.
The four people stumbled to halt. Grant gulped air before wheezing, "The question is if we're parked on the field or not."
"If we are, we won't be able to start it," Brigid said, not even breathing hard. "If we aren't, we won't know that because we'll get cooked."
Kane laid two of the shells at his feet and hefted the third one, moving his arm back and forth as if preparing to launch a javelin. Then he whipped his right arm and upper body forward.
The shell arrowed through the air, arced down and landed point first in the sand, less than thirty feet away. "We need to ignite the propellant." Turning to Grant, he asked with a grin, "Think you can hit the primer pin from here?"
Grant glowered at him for a moment, realized he was striving to be funny and brought the Barrett to his shoulder. He sighted through the scope and shifted the barrel a fraction to the left.
Kane began, "I think we'd better—"
Grant squeezed the trigger. The report of the shot was immediately swallowed up by the thunderclap detonation of the artillery shell. The explosion dazzled their eyes, stunned their ears, the concussion slapping them flat and coating their bodies with a fine layer of pulverized sand granules.
Through the tongues of flame, the clouds of smoke and grit, Kane glimpsed a giant blue spark. It popped like the handclap of a giant.
Kane snorted grains of dust from his nasal passages. "—move back a little," he finished.
Chapter 6
Grant cursed in surprise, his right arm jerking convulsively. The Barrett rifle flew from his right hand, knocked away by the barrel of his Sin Eater as it sprang into his palm.
"That obviously shorted out the field," Brigid said, her voice husky from inhaling dust. "The holster's actuator is working again."
Domi picked herself up and examined her blaster, working the slide mechanism. Kane arose, grabbing the other two shells. "Let's not stand around admiring Grant's marksmanship."
As they skirted the smoking crater the explosion had punched in the desert floor, they saw tiny blue flashes dancing and arcing at the bottom of it. The hole was at least four feet deep, and Kane saw a ragged metallic mesh sandwiched between the layers of the sandy soil. He briefly wondered if the defense measure dated back to the twentieth century or was a postskydark addition.
They reached the Land Rover and yanked off the camouflage trap. The Hussar Hotspur was one of two overland wags kept and maintained in the Cerberus redoubt. The six-wheeled vehicle was outfitted with three-inch armor plate, a barricade remover and metal-shuttered windows. A number of gun ports perforated its dull gray chassis.
The four people climbed aboard the Land Rover, Domi taking up a position in the rear cargo compartment, opposite the four 50-gallon airtight containers of diesel fuel bracketed to the bulkhead.
Kane slid behind the wheel, Grant taking the shotgun seat and Brigid climbing in the back. The V-8 turbocharged engine caught on the first try, throbbing with a muted power. Engaging the gears, Kane steered the wag in the same direction they had come early that morning.
On all sides of them they saw a trackless sea of sand overlying rock and gravel, a barren wasteland rimmed by craggy hills. The Hotspur skirted the rolling dunes. The ground looked solid but it was deceptive. Even the wag's six wheels might not be able to free them if they bogged down in a dry quagmire.
They rolled in silence for a few minutes at a moderate speed, all of them alert and peering through the ob slits, Kane constantly checking their backtrail in the side mirrors. He didn't turn on the headlights, relying on the uncertain illumination provided by the moon and the stars. The terrain began to incline gradually as it approached a gully, which slanted down to the old streambed they had followed earlier.
Kane was looking into the mirror and didn't see the vehicle rocketing into view over the crest of the ridge ahead of them until Grant growled, "Fucking fireblast."
The open-topped ATV had huge knobby tires and an extremely broad wheel base. An M-60 machine gun was mounted on the roll bar, giving the wag a top-heavy appearance. The four black-coveralled men, all armed with spidery-looking assaults, clung to seat straps as the vehicle jounced full-tilt over the terrain. All of them wore goggles to protect their eyes from the powdery dust, their lower faces concealed by strips of cloth. The wag traveled at such a high rate of speed its tires left the ground when it topped the rise and it flew for twenty feet until it hit the sand on a course that would intersect the Land Rover's.
"Rent-a-Road-Warriors," Domi sneered.
"Now we know why the Deathbird tried to keep us pinned down," Brigid remarked, sounding not in the least fearful. "They were waiting for this group to get here. Took them long enough "
"Better late than never," Kane grunted.
The barrel of the M-60 spit a tongue of flame. The machine gun trembled as the cartridge belt writhed. Little spouts of dirt sprang up well to the right of the Land Rover. The overstimulated triggerman had fired before he had established the correct range.
