The vehicle shook violently as the driver pushed it through a series of chuck holes. McCade swayed, apparently in response to the motion, and fell forward in the woman's lap. By doing so he blocked both her handgun and legs. That's when Phil went into action.
With twenty-five percent of the opposition momentarily immobilized, the variant brought his feet up and kicked as hard as he could. Because guard number two had turned to look at McCade, Phil's boots hit him in the side of the head and snapped his neck like a dry twig. The ice-worlder caught the man's body as it slumped forward, felt for the gun, and couldn't find it.
McCade was having trouble too. Still woozy from the earlier beating, and something less than a hundred percent, it was hard to keep his opponent under control.
First she tried to throw him off and, having failed at that, brought her forehead down on the top of his head. Darkness swirled and threatened to roll him under.
The weapon! She'd try to use it. McCade's hands found hers and fought for the gun.
The driver heard the commotion in the back, saw it from the corner of his eye, and stood on the brakes.
As the command car started to slow, the third guard yelled something incomprehensible and looked for an opportunity to fire. With the vehicle skidding, and the bodies swaying to and fro, it would be easy to hit the wrong person.
The driver, a rather ruthless individual known to his friends as Snake, saw the flaw in this approach and said so. "Shoot, you idiot! Shoot
all
of them!"
Unfortunately for Snake, the third guard wasted precious seconds analyzing the order and understanding the logic behind it.
So, by the time the guard had made the decision to obey and had started to squeeze the trigger. Phil had located the second guard's gun and freed it. There was no time to bring the weapon up, align it with the third guard's face, and fire, so the variant did the only thing he could. He pointed the gun toward the front of the vehicle and squeezed the trigger.
The weapon made a dull thumping sound as the slugs ripped through the second guard's already dead body, the thin partition behind it, and hit guard number three in the abdomen.
Guard number three looked surprised. Something hurt. What the hell was going on? Then he toppled over and crashed into Snake just as he brought the command car to a complete stop.
Meanwhile, with the gun trapped between them, McCade and guard number one were still struggling for control. She had wiry little fingers and they moved in and around McCade's to pull the trigger.
McCade felt the weapon jerk under his hand and felt the impact of a slug punching its way through his left arm. Damn! McCade twisted the gun barrel in what he hoped was the right direction and felt the weapon go off again.
The woman stiffened, tried to say something, and slumped sideways.
Phil swore as Snake bailed out of the driver's side door, slipped, fell, and got up running.
The variant flexed massive muscles, snapped the durasteel chains on cuffs and leg irons, and tried the door. It was locked and the handle came off in his paw.
It took a moment to find the key card in guard number two's pocket, slide it into the proper recess, and push the door open. Once outside Phil saw that the driver had a huge head start. A really well-aimed shot might bring him down, but why bother? They were free, and that was the important thing.
Now, with the adrenaline draining away, McCade's arm was starting to hurt and he felt dizzy. He tried the door and found it was locked. He was just getting ready to search for a key card when Phil pulled it open from the outside.
McCade swayed and Phil grabbed him. There was blood all over the place. "Whoa, Sam, you took one through the arm. Sit down and keep some pressure on it while I look for a first-aid kit."
McCade did as he was told and felt a little better. His arm still hurt but the dizziness began to fade. He heard a flight of aerospace fighters scream by overhead.
The restraints fell away at the touch of the electronic key that Phil had retrieved from guard number one's pocket. McCade rubbed his left wrist where the handcuffs had chaffed his skin.
Phil found a well-stocked first-aid kit under the driver's seat, cut McCade's sleeve off, and examined the wound. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the bicep and missed the bone. Both the entry and exit wounds were reasonably small.
The variant cleaned both holes, ignored the things McCade said when he poured half a bottle of antiseptic over them, and used butterfly strips for closure. The strips weren't as good as sutures but were better than nothing.
After that it was a simple matter to apply self-sealing dressings, bind them in place with gauze, and slap an injector against McCade's good arm. The bounty hunter couldn't feel the antibiotics going to work, but the pain killers made a big difference, giving McCade a warm fuzzy glow. He stood up and rotated his left arm.
"Good work, Phil, I feel good as new."
"Well, you aren't," the variant replied sternly, "so don't get carried away. You could do a lot of damage to that arm."
McCade nodded absently as he fumbled around for a cigar and eyed the horizon. They were exposed as hell, sitting right in the middle of the open desert, only miles from Pong's HQ. The camp was a clearly visible smudge from which a variety of aircraft came and went on their various errands. A makeshift spaceport sat slightly to the south, clearly marked by fingers of flame as ships landed and took off.
McCade found a cigar butt and lit it. The words came out with puffs of smoke. "Phil, we need to tidy up. Take what we need, lose the bodies, get our act together. We'd look real suspicious to a patrol or a recon drone."
The variant nodded, as if expecting something of the sort. "And then?"
McCade's eyes narrowed. "You heard him, Phil. The bastard has Molly. You can do whatever you want . . . but I'm going after her."
Phil snarled. "You mean
were
going after her. I'm her godfather remember?"
McCade nodded soberly. "I remember. But the odds aren't very good. You've done more than your share already."
Phil gave a disapproving snort. "What a lot of bull. Let's clean up. We've got work to do."
Two hours later the command car rumbled up to the outermost checkpoint and came to a stop. The spaceport was a temporary affair, little more than fused sand and a collection of prefab buildings.
It boasted some impressive defenses though, at least three rings of them, and the checkpoint was the first. It was little more than a break in the huge antitank ditch that surrounded the complex. A ditch that had been sown with mines, was preregistered with Pong's computer-controlled artillery, and could be flooded with burning fuel.
The corporal was reluctant to step out from under the square of plastic that protected her from Drang's sun. She bent over to look in the driver's side window and eyed the tabs pinned to McCade's collar. The bounty hunter had ripped his right sleeve off to match his left, a practice that was nonreg, but winked at in Drang's heat. He figured the battle dressing was safe enough this close to the front. A transport rumbled into the sky behind her. She waited for the noise to drop off. "Good afternoon, sir. Can I have your pass please?"
McCade smiled reassuringly. "Of course. Here it is."
So saying McCade gave her the plastic card that they'd recovered from guard number three's body. Phil had seen him use it as the command car made its way out of the main compound two miles to the north. With any luck at all the card, and the password that went with it, would work here as well. Their plan depended on it.
But what if the spaceport used different codes? Or the driver had warned Pong's MPs? Or a million other possibilities?
The sentry smiled politely. "Thank you, sir. I'll be back in a moment."
As the woman walked toward her rectangle of shade, and the computer terminal that rested there, McCade eyed the boxy-looking vehicle that sat a few yards away. He could hear the hum of its auxiliary generator and found himself staring into all four of its automatic cannons. Just one word from the sentry and those black holes would burp sudden death. Within seconds he and Phil would become little more than meat frying on what had been a command car.
"Sir?"
McCade jumped. The sentry had approached from his side this time. She handed his card through the open window. "You're cleared all the way through. Today's password?"
"Trident."
"Thank you, sir. Have a nice day."
McCade croaked something appropriate, and for the first time noticed how pretty she was.
The vehicle jerked as Phil stepped on the gas, then rolled through the checkpoint, and roared toward the next checkpoint.
Though even more formidable than the antitank ditch, the second and third lines of defense were even easier to pass through, since they'd already cleared the computer checkpoint.
In each case Phil simply slowed down, growled the password, and was waved through. In fact, the worst danger came from the hover truck convoys that were headed in the opposite direction. The trucks were heavily loaded with supplies and highballing for the front more than ninety miles away.
They took up two thirds of the gravel road and their fans stirred up miniature dust storms that peppered the command car's windshield with flying debris. The dust made it hard to see, and by way of adding insult to injury, the drivers took great pleasure in hitting their air horns.
McCade breathed a sigh of relief as the command car rolled off the access road and into a large parking area. Another convoy was forming up and a small army of specialized robots was whirring back and forth as they loaded the last few trucks. They looked strange in their desert camouflage, like huge insects, gathering food for their nest.
The combined noise of hover truck engines, auto loaders, and spaceships was almost deafening.
In the middle of all this, striding about on a stiltlike walker, was a stocky-looking officer. His face was concealed by a bulbous command helmet. From the way the officer moved, and the robots scurried around him, he was obviously in command.
McCade was still debating the merits of asking the man for information when the decision was made for him. The officer took two giant steps and blocked their way. His voice boomed out of twin loudspeakers mounted on the exoskeleton's ten-foot-long metal thigh bones. Noisy though the area was he had no difficulty in making himself heard.
"Hey, you in the command car! What the hell are you doing in the middle of my loading zone?"
Based on the officer's belligerent tone, McCade assumed he carried lots of rank, or was some kind of a mean S.O.B. It seemed like a good idea to humor him either way.
McCade triggered the command car's PA system. "Sorry, sir . . . we've got an important package for General Pong. Could you direct us to his ship?"
A beam of red light shot out from the walker to touch a distant ship. McCade did a quick count and found it was sixth in a row of eight. The light vanished.
"You see that?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's the general's ship. Now get the hell out of my way before I load your car on a truck and send it to the front."
"Yes, sir."
Phil tromped on the gas, swerved around a train of power pallets, and scooted onto the burn-blackened surface of the spaceport itself. Here there was even more activity as maintenance crews swarmed over ships, robotic fuel hoses snaked their way between pieces of equipment, and ground vehicles dashed in every direction.
McCade hoped the hustle and bustle would help cover their activities.
They passed ship after ship, boxy-looking freighters for the most part, until Pong's lay just ahead. It looked like a greyhound sitting among mongrels. Slim and obviously fast it crouched low on its landing jacks as if ready to leap off the ground at any moment. The main lock was open and a short set of metal stairs reached down to touch the ground.
Seeing the command car, and assuming it contained at least one officer, the single sentry popped to attention and delivered a rifle salute. He wore light armor, a combat helmet with the visor pushed back, and looked very warm. The sun was blistering hot, and the heat radiated off the surrounding ships, plus that reflected off the surface of the landing pad itself, made things even worse. Sweat rolled off the sentry's farm-boy face.
The command car screeched to a halt and McCade jumped out as if in a big hurry. The sentry knew his lines. "Sir, this is a class-three restricted vessel. Please present your class-three authorization code."
McCade summoned an officer-type frown. "At ease, Private. Tell me, is the general aboard?"
"No, sir," the sentry answered uneasily, "but he's due soon."
Good! McCade felt downright jubilant. Things were definitely looking up. The sentry was their only remaining obstacle.
McCade smiled disarmingly. "Excellent. I made it just in time. I have an important message for the general's pilot. Is the pilot aboard?"
The sentry remembered the somewhat arrogant cyborg who'd gone aboard earlier and shuddered. He didn't like cyborgs. "Yes, sir, the pilot's aboard, sir, but no one goes aboard without the correct code."
McCade nodded understandingly. "Of course, but this is an emergency. Why don't
you
go aboard, tell the pilot I need to see him, and enjoy some of that nice cool air-conditioning? That way you obey orders, I get the message through, and there's no harm done. I'll stand guard in the meantime."
The sentry's face worked along with his thoughts. This was a difficult situation. This was a captain and therefore a deity. The private didn't wish to offend such a lofty being. But lofty or not, the captain was minus the necessary code, and other even higher gods must be taken into consideration. Their commands left no room for doubt. What about the captain's proposal? Surely that was permissible.
The sentry would enter the ship, careful to enjoy the air-conditioning for as long as possible, and find the pilot. The pilot would emerge, get the emergency message, and everything would be fine.