Thunder Road (26 page)

J.B. had been pulling Doc along with him, feeling the older man struggle. Doc was a fighter, pushing himself, but he was frail in some ways, and his mind was still clouded by the effects of the sound and light blasts. He had strength and speed, but he was unsure as to direction, and would have wandered in circles without the Armorer’s guiding hand. Which was as well, as a missile landed nearer to their party than to any other, and both men were flung forward with a force that pumped the air from their lungs.

Gasping for breath, thankful that they were past any tower wreckage that they could have landed on with fatal effect, J.B. raised his head in time to see the blur that was Rounda fly past his head, landing with a sickening thump. No time to check if she was okay right now. He could see that Doc was stirring, but what of the last member of their party?

J.B. turned, adjusting his spectacles, his vision clearing. The black man was to their rear. He was kneeling, but even without seeing his eyes behind the swirling goggles, J.B. could tell there was something wrong. He seemed too stiff, too unnatural.

He had to have been alive enough to see J.B. looking at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Blood dribbled down his chin, then poured out in a gushing wave. He pitched forward, and the Armorer could see that a large fragment of shrapnel had struck him in the back, down by the kidneys. It stuck up obscenely as the sand around his body darkened.

It was too late to help him now; there was nothing to do except forge forward. J.B. pulled up Doc after him, and they scrambled toward Rounda. She was still, but as they approached they could hear her groaning as she began to stir.

“Feel like I’ve been kicked by—”

“No time to talk,” J.B. snapped. “We’re a man down. Got to keep moving.”

She rose tortuously to her feet and joined them in moving forward, J.B. glanced across the empty expanse of sand. He could see Jak and Robear to one side, but only them. Three down overall, then, an estimate confirmed as he looked in the other direction to see Ryan and Mildred, along with Bryanna and her man. A surge of relief swept through him that Mildred had survived the first wave. He would rather he bought the farm than her. Come to that, he’d rather they both made it.

He concentrated on that as they moved forward.

“N
O, NO, NO
…This can’t be happening,” Howard said softly, a hard edge making his voice appear all the more sinister, echoed by his face bathed in the glow of the monitors.

Krysty, on the other hand, wanted to punch the air and yell. It was a bitch that three people were chilled, and two of the parasails were gone, but at least her friends had made it through this far.

She wanted to, but she didn’t. Sid was taking too long working out the fail-safe. She would have to take action of her own. Krysty reached deep within herself. She was still weakened from her last use of the Gaia power, and had still not fully recovered from the ordeal of being kidnapped by force. She was nowhere near her optimum strength, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to channel the Gaia force if she called upon it. She tested herself, but could not be sure, and she had to be certain if she was to use it that it wouldn’t burn her out before she could achieve her aim. For the only option she could see left open to her was to fight Howard, and if necessary tear out his arm by the socket if it meant being able to put his bastard thumb onto the keypad. But she would have to take him out immediately, before the coldheart could bark out an order that Sid and Hammill would be forced to obey.

She was poised to act when Howard turned to her.

“I don’t understand.”

She was so taken aback by the complete confusion in his voice that any thought of action fell by the wayside. All she could do was stand there and say, “Understand what?” Aware with every syllable that she sounded as confused as he was.

“Why this is happening. Why they are attacking us. Who these other people are, and why they want to attack me, too. All I want to do is make it a better world. It was so simple in the old days. People understood what was happening, and they did things the right way. Why aren’t they doing it like that? Why is it different?”

“Howard,” she said softly. Then, catching herself, “Thunder Rider, you have to understand that those things you want to be like aren’t real. They’re stories. Things were never really like that, even back before the nukecaust.”

“Never?”

“No. They were just stories of how some people thought things should be…” All the while she kept half an eye on the monitors behind him. The remaining attackers were making good ground. From where they were now, they should be able to see the lip of the valley leading to the ruined ranch house. If they could get past the defensive gun emplacements, then they would have a chance of gaining access. If she could keep his attention for just long enough…

But the pause was too long. It gave him enough time to think about what she said.

“No,” he yelled, “that can’t be true. Those things happened. They’re real, they’re the history of the world when it was good. I haven’t lived my life for a lie. It’s you who lies. You say you’re Storm Girl, but you’re just like them, sent to test me.”

He whirled, taking in the progress of the remaining attackers and the two parasails overhead.

“Sid, ready and fire SMG defenses. Hammill, ground-to-air capability deployed, lock on airborne targets. Blast them out of the sky.”

Krysty knew that Sid and Hammill had no choice but to obey, and she had delayed too long waiting for the optimum moment. There was no such thing. She had to make the best of what she had right now. Without a sound to give herself away, she took a step forward and wrapped an arm around Howard’s neck, closing around his throat as she pulled him to her. If she could break the bastard’s neck, if she could crush his windpipe to stop him issuing any more orders.

Taken by surprise, he stumbled back into her, knocking her backward and off balance. She crashed against the wall, and the jarring impact made her grunt. But she did not weaken her grip. She was aware as he pushed against her of how strong he was, and simultaneously of how weakened she was, still, but she could not lessen that grip. He was trying to speak, but nothing except a strangled yelp emerged. She had to cling on, throttle him and stop him issuing orders at all costs….

Q
UIET
. O
MINOUSLY QUIET
. That was the only thing that kept going through Ryan’s head as he continued forward. He had expected some kind of opposition beyond a few light and sound weapons, and he was sure he was going to get it. But when? The heat of the afternoon sun was making them sweat. Every step on the treacherous surface of desert soil sapped yet more from their weary muscles, and the expectation made their hearts race, adrenaline pumping and spurring them on yet making their guts churn in time with their pace.

They were nearing the ruined house that Corwen had spoken of. It had to be the way into the redoubt. The ridge of the small valley that enclosed it was now clear to them. The two remaining parasails were gliding over the top. Corwen’s voice came strong and clear over the comm.

“It’s deserted. If there’s a way underground from here, I can’t tell from this distance. No sign of any life, or of any defenses.”

“Keep triple red—that goes for everyone,” Ryan rasped as the heat of the day and of his exertion took its toll on his parched throat. “They’ve got to have something waiting for us.”

But even as he spoke, two things happened. The first, and lesser, was the thought that flashed into his mind: what if the reason they had seen no other sec was because there was none? What if they were facing just one man, the mysterious rider himself? It wouldn’t be the first time they had come across a redoubt manned by just one lone crazie, albeit one who, in this case, knew the tech backward. If it was just the one opponent, alone with Krysty, then it may be that the situation was very different from their initial assumptions.

The second thing to happen made any such train of thought irrelevant: it was a danger that needed immediate facing.

As they trudged double-time across the expanse of sand, they were suddenly surprised to find themselves in the center of a rising swarm of gun emplacements. Rising from beneath, threatening to make their footing even more uncertain as the very earth seemed to move, a series of SMG emplacements—two or three mounted on each emplacement—rose aboveground.

Before they had a chance to assimilate what was happening, the SMGs had started to rotate, spraying the surrounding area with fire that was angled into the ground. The obvious aim was to eliminate anything at a level of under two yards, the downward sweep of the SMG fire plotted so that anything at that level would be eliminated, the fire falling short of sweeping an adjacent emplacement but covering the area between.

Jak grabbed Robear and hauled him into cover. If the fire did not reach the emplacement, then the safest place was in the emplacement itself, beneath the roaring SMGs but in an angle that they could not reach. J.B., Ryan and Mildred had much the same idea. Bryanna was caught out, and took a hit in the lower leg as she moved a fraction too slowly and was raked by fire. Her screams could be heard cutting across the chattering roar of the SMGs nearest to her, Ryan and Mildred. In the shelter of the emplacement, with the deafening noise above their heads, Mildred attempted to patch up the icy blonde’s leg as quickly as possible. Ryan tried to see what had happened to the others. Rounda and Doc were huddled together beneath an emplacement.

The T-shirted man whose name they had never learned was not so lucky. His reactions were just too slow, and as he was caught by a hail of bullets, the force of their striking him threw him into the path of another rain of lead. His body was tossed, now long-since devoid of life, kept upright for some time by the momentum of hits until a fine mist of red blood seemed to form an aura around him. Gravity eventually claimed him, but in the interim it was a terrible sight.

The experience seemed to continue for some time, but in truth it was little more than a few seconds. Corwen, gliding above, could see what was occurring almost before it had hit those on the ground. Switching frequency to cut out the noise of the SMGs as their chattering was picked up by the comm equipment on the ground, he ordered his other craft to circle and bomb the ground below, knocking out a line of emplacements and allowing the remaining warriors a clear path to the ruined ranch.

Ryan could see the intent, but it still left them the problem of getting away from the emplacements under which they sheltered. There was only one course of action that he could see. It was risky, but then again, what wasn’t? He took a gren from one of his pockets, looked across to where Jak and Robear were sheltering. He gestured, and they understood immediately. Although neither of them carried grens, Robear had the explosive heads on his crossbow bolts. He produced one, nodding.

Ryan then looked across to J.B. The Armorer was grinning, light in his eyes and a gren in his hand.

They had to be ready, they had to be fast, and they still ran the risk of being cut to ribbons or hit by blast shrapnel.

As the explosive charges detonated, they were—all of them—propelled forward into the hail of fire. They kept low, almost scuttling across the sand. The fire from the SMGs changed angle as the emplacements exploded, and this was the edge Ryan had counted on, that crucial few inches, becoming yards as the blasters angled to the skies before dying as the circuits connecting them to the base were shattered.

The SMGs still roared around them, but they were now free of fire, running full-pelt, pushed harder by the blast at their tail, toward the ruined ranch.

They were past the defenses, and almost onto the redoubt.

K
RYSTY’S GRIP WAS
beginning to weaken. She didn’t want to risk calling on the Gaia power, but knew that she couldn’t hold on much longer. Howard was capable of a strangled grunt, but no speech. She knew that she did not have the strength as she stood to chill the bastard, but if she could just…

On the monitor screens, she could see the SMG emplacements get blasted, and the remaining force charge forward. There were still eight of them, more than enough to finish this, if only they could find their way in.

“Machine-gun emplacements in sector five eliminated. The enemy is past exterior defenses and through to the entry. Interior defenses remain inactive until authorized.”

Hammill’s voice could not hide the gleeful note of triumph. Until he was ordered, he could keep the defenses inactive without contravening his programming. If the outsiders got in, they would have a clear run.

Howard struggled against Krysty. His elbows and feet jabbed at her, trying to make her break her grip. She was weary, but grim determination made her cling on. If she could just…

She gasped as a lucky blow caught her in the solar plexus, driving the air from her. Her grip loosened reflexively, and it was enough for Howard to struggle away from her. He turned, coughing and choking, his eyes blazing hate.

“Why…” he gasped.

“Krysty, I have the code. Activating numbers now,” Sid’s exultant tones came flooding out. “Numbers input…processing…fail-safe activated. We’re free, Krysty, free…”

Howard glared at her, anger and bemusement fighting for expression on his face. “Sid, activate interior defenses.”