Hell's Maw. James Axler
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The boxy bulk of the unit was long and narrow, curved along its sides with the opening aperture located dead center, the twin railguns situated to the sides, slightly below the center—presumably geared for ground-based attacks rather than air assaults. There was a bank of windows above the heat-ray aperture through which Brigid could see several figures silhouetted. Beneath the cab was a cylinder running the length of the box, welded beneath it and bulging along its length in a series of metal rings. Brigid guessed that this housed whatever was generating the heat beam that their attackers were using to devastating effect.
Two legs were positioned on either side of the cabin box, running higher than the box itself so that they pivoted above it as it walked, swinging the cab where it hung between them by thick lengths of chain. The whole thing had been left in raw metal, giving it a homemade appearance and blending perfectly with the overcast sky.
Brigid watched as the machine blasted again, counting the seconds between each fiery burst. Thirty seconds between blasts, she timed. It’s taking that long to achieve full power again. That’s our window.
She flicked the safety on the left-hand machine gun and pressed down the trigger, sending a stuttering burst of bullets at their fast-moving pursuer.
* * *
WRONG-FOOTED, DOMI dropped and started to roll across the bed of the rearmost wag as it began to glow red with heat. The wag careened off the road again, and this time the driver could not fight it. Suddenly they were cutting through open fields of ash and soil, a clutch of birds taking flight as they were disturbed.
The box on legs followed, stamping across the field in pursuit of the struggling wag. Bullets were hammering against its armored surface from the middle wag, but the distance was too great—too few were scoring hits, and none of those hits were making any difference.
Domi flipped herself back to her feet, snatching up her blaster where it had slipped out of her hand. Then the wag was bathed in that flickering red-amber light as their attacker launched another volley of heat at them.
The rear of the truck heated in a second, a faint glow of red appearing in the center of the drop-down gate at the back. Then, with a clap of bursting tires, the back of the truck sank down into the ground where the back wheels had melted under the assault. Domi was jerked left and right as the wag began to spin out of control, bumping over the uneven ground.
“We’re losing it!” the driver yelped from up front.
Waves of dirt were kicked up as the wag continued forward for a few seconds, ripped from the ground by the ruined axles, before the wag came to a spinning halt.
Domi leaped over the glowing side of the wag as it came to a stop, landing on the churned soil with catlike grace.
Despite her youth, Domi was a seasoned veteran of combat and in peak physical fitness. She scrambled to the front of the wag as the box-on-legs began to power up its heat beam for another blast.
“Get out of there,” Domi shouted, wrenching open the driver’s door. “Get out of there before—”
Both driver and passenger—a man and a heavily tattooed woman—were slumped against the dashboard, blood on their faces and splattered against the windshield.
Domi reached for the driver, a dark-skinned man in a gray undershirt wearing a .44 in a chest rig. “Are you…?” she began, but her words died on her lips as she received no response from the man. He was alive but unconscious.
Before Domi had any more time to act, a stream of 15 mm bullets rattled against the side of the cab, churning up dirt and kicking against the wag’s side like a kicking mule. It was her that they were targeting now, Domi realized as she ducked behind the front of the cab. No doubt these road pirates didn’t want to ruin the crop that would be their haul.
* * *
CRIPPLE THE VEHICLE, disable the crew and then steal the goods—it was a pretty simple plan, Kane saw.
“We need to circle,” Kane told Brigid over the Commtact. “Get behind these scavengers and take them off the board.”
“Roger that,” Brigid agreed. A moment later, Kane saw Brigid’s wag bump off-road in preparation of making a circuit around their attacker. He only hoped that Domi was all right.
Brigid’s and Kane’s wags were both off the track now, splitting left and right to come around and challenge the mechanical assault vehicle. The wags bumped over the fallow fields, dropping down into potholes before rearing up again like scared stallions, their mounted guns blazing.
The wags were rugged, but they were not designed for this kind of treatment. Their cargo shifted and shook on their beds, and Kane’s companion wailed in frustration as one of the guy ropes tore and three sacks of grain went tumbling over the side.
“Leave ’em,” Kane instructed. “When we survive this, we can go back for them.”
The gunner looked at Kane with raised eyebrows. “When?”
“Stay positive, boy,” Kane told him. “No point losing the fight before you’ve entered it.”
Bullets spit from the turret, finding their distance now as the wag closed in on the striding behemoth. In the opposite field, on the far side of the broken strip of road, Brigid was working one of the tripod guns while one of Ohio Blue’s troops took the other, sending short bursts of bullets at the towering monstrosity trudging across the fields. Suddenly, the box-on-legs turned, slowing its stride as it brought its aperture to bear on Brigid’s wag.
“Baptiste!” Kane shouted into his Commtact, unable to do anything else.
Brigid had been counting off the seconds in her head. It had been twenty-five seconds since their mystery attacker had last fired that cataclysmic ray—and she knew she should have thirty before it could do so again.
As Kane’s warning came, Brigid reached across to the other gunner, a woman in her forties with prematurely graying hair and the deeply tanned complexion of a Native American. “Get down!” Brigid instructed.
The gunner didn’t stop to query the instruction; she just let go of the tripod gun and dropped to the deck behind it. Beside her, Brigid was doing the same.
Then the ray blasted, zapping a melting beam of incredible heat toward the wag, bathing it in boiling red light. Brigid turned her head away from the blast as it washed over the back plate of the six-wheeler. She could feel the warmth running down her right-hand side as the periphery of the beam lashed against her, her shadow suit compensating instantly. Beside her, the red-skinned woman fared less well, spitting a curse as the tassels of her jacket caught fire, then tamping the flames down with swift pats of her hand.
As soon as the beam faded, Brigid was back up to work the guns again. The wag was still moving, bumping across the uneven ground of the fallow field, and it took Brigid a few seconds to adjust her aim.
“Kane, it’s taking them thirty seconds to power up that heat ray,” she said as she drew the tripod cannon around and squeezed the trigger. “That’s how long you have to drop it.”
* * *
“COPY THAT,” KANE acknowledged as his own wag went caroming over the bumpy field. “Hey, Paul,” he called to the driver while his partner worked the turret gun. “Get us closer!”
“Closer? You want closer?” the driver sounded outraged.
“Just do it!” Kane snarled back as he scrambled to the edge of the wag’s flatbed. A moment later, as the wag sped past the towering machine, Kane leaped over the side, dropping into a tuck-and-roll as he stuck the soil. Above him, the boxy construct began firing with its secondary railguns, sending a swift burst of bullets in the direction of the scrambling wag that Kane had just disembarked, drilling 15 mm shells across the