Desert Kings

The beamed stabbed the wall next to him and he could feel the terrible heat radiating outward, it was so close. Ducking, he fired the SIG-Sauer twice, then spun and fired twice more.

Gotta keep moving, Ryan realized. Can’t let it get a bead, or I’m the last train west! Move, Cawdor, move!

Firing and weaving, he got behind the egg-shaped wag and the droid went out of sight. Then it rose above the vehicle, the dead eyes searching for him. He locked gazes with the machine, and the smooth hull of the wag turned yellow, orange, pink…and the laser cut through the vehicle less than an inch away.

Raising his blaster, Ryan cursed. With the machine on the other side, he couldn’t shoot through the LAV to hit it! Using the wag as a shield had saved his life, but now he couldn’t fight back!

Suddenly there was a thundering detonation from the opposite side of the tunnel, and the droid dropped from sight as a hot wind breathed around the armored treads underneath, the metal pinging and cracking from shrapnel.

That had been a gren! Knowing this tunnel was the best place to bomb the droid, he yanked out his gren, pulled the ring, flipped off the spoon and lofted the bomb over the wag. Then he ducked.

If possible, the second blast sounded even louder than the first, and something heavy slammed into the LAV, making it shake.

Glancing upward, Ryan saw a cloud of smoke billowing in the tunnel, then Doc appeared from around the first turn in the passage and waved him on. That was all he needed. Breaking into a sprint, Ryan charged around the wag and across the empty space. Friendly hands grabbed his clothing and yanked him behind the metal wall just as the laser cut through the smoke, missing him by less than a hair.

“Everything!” Ryan commanded, holstering the SIG-Sauer and pulling the second gren from his pocket. He armed the charge and threw it hard at the opposite wall. The mil sphere hit and bounced out of sight into the next section.

The rest of the companions did the same, and the tunnel shook from the continuous bombardment of high-explosive plas. The lights went out with a crash of glass, the explosions casting distorted shadows as they went off.

Then the droid lumbered around the corner only a yard away from the companions. One eye was gone and a leg was bent, but it still moved with grim resolve.

“Dark night, the nuke sucker is armored!” J.B. shouted, throwing the unprimed gren in his hand with all of his strength. The metal sphere hit the remaining eye of the droid and bounced off harmlessly.

Then Jak and Doc fired together, the .357 Colt Python and the .44 LeMat sounding like chained thunder. Even as the droid came closer, the eye shattered, and it froze, motionless.

Moving around the corner, Mildred took a full second to aim, then gently squeezed the trigger on her AK-47. The fiber-optic cables of the deadly laser were ripped from their couplings and the housing bent slightly.

But as they watched, something rose from the top of the droid, a flexing cable with a tiny light at the end. It pointed at them, and the body rotated, the legs extending and contracting as the war machine glided forward.

Gaia, the thing had a spare eye? Krysty cursed bitterly as she moved away, dropping a clip and reloading fast. One droid to capture, a second to ace. Somebody wants Delphi eating dirt even more than we do, she thought. Now that it was out of the LAV, the robotic machine had them in a chilling zone, with nowhere to hide. Some dim recess of her mind rationalized that this was probably why it had laid in waiting inside the broken wag just like a real spider, waiting for the flies to get close before it pounced.

Retreating fast, Jak and Doc fired again, throwing more smoke than lead, with the others firing away with the Kalashnikovs. The combination was nearly deafening, and it became impossible to shout any suggestions as the desperate group ran along the zigzag tunnel, getting only a split second of respite before the droid appeared once more seeking fresh targets, the lethal energy beam constantly flashing out to punch small molten holes in the metal walls and floor.

Tossing grens, the companions scrambled around the last corner, then broke for the lines of parked wags. As the charges detonated, the laser cut through the swirling dark smoke, shattering the rear window of an SUV and exploding the front tire on a compact foreign car.

Ryan and the others barely got behind cover before the droid stepped out of the tunnel looming high, almost brushing the ceiling. Obviously it was trying to stay away from the grens, and with just cause. Two of its legs dangled uselessly from its armored body, a third was badly bent and there was a crackling electric display crawling around the ruin of the second eye.

At the sight, Ryan impulsively touched the patch covering his own damaged orb and bizarrely felt a instant of sympathy. Then cold reason took over and he swung up the Steyr to fire at the busted section. That would be the best chance to reach the minicomp inside the machine. Holding his breath, Ryan put two rounds directly into the charred opening, then the laser impacted on the other side of the convertible he was behind. The beam sliced through the fabric as if it was mist and moved along the side in a sweeping maneuver. Ryan ducked and felt the heat of another near miss. Then he stood and fired again into the eyehole.

This time he was rewarded by a fresh geyser of sparks. The machine titled slightly, but then righted itself and advanced once more. Moving among the civilian wags, the droid stabbed out the laser again and again, breaking windows and mirrors as he tried to track the scurrying norms.

Ducking behind a sedan, Krysty got a clear view of the machine and rose to shoot at the laser. Already weakened, the casing was slammed away, exposing the delicate crystals and wiring. As the droid turned toward her, the woman stood her ground and fired again. In an explosion of crystal, the laser winked out, chips and wires sprinkling to the floor.

J.B. and Jak whooped in triumph. Then the dead laser dropped off the droid, a hatch flipped open on the left side and another weapon cycled into view—larger, covered with smooth metal, with a small hole at the end of the barrel instead of a crystal.

“Needler!” Mildred cried in warning, firing her Kalashnikov. The physician hit the weapon twice, the 7.62 mm rounds ricocheting off the dense housing as if the rounds were thrown gravel. Then there was a low hiss from the droid and the Cadillac the physician was hiding behind violently shook from the barrage of 1 mm fléchettes.

Ordering the companions to get down, Ryan threw a gren high to detonate in the air above the machine. It shook from the blow and hosed a stream of fléchettes in his direction, almost tearing the front off the battered old pickup.

By the Three Kennedys, this weapon is even worse than the laser! Doc realized, triggering the LeMat and AK-47. Internally, the man struggled to recall if he had faced such a device before. Most of how he escaped from the Chronos whitecoats was lost in foggy memories. There was something, a symbol, some sort of a circle within a circle…

Reloading the rapid-fire, Doc shook off the useless recollection. But even as he shot again, the old man made a mental note to tell the others about the symbol. It could be very useful later on. A circle in a square? A triangle…? It was gone, like so much of his past.

Mildred threw another gren and the droid picked it off in midflight, the plas creating a fireball directly above a limousine bearing mil license plates. The blast crumpled the vehicle, and incredibly, the theft alarm began to bleat.

Unable to shout directions again, Ryan made a decision and threw his last gren at the limo. It hit the floor and rolled underneath before exploding, the blast flipping the wag over to crash on a small compact car. But thankfully, the alarm ceased to sound.

Popping up into view, Jak snapped off two rounds from his Colt Python, then ducked down, a blurry stream of fléchettes going through the air exactly where his head had been a split second ago.

“This is my last gren!” J.B. shouted from somewhere among the parked wags, letting everybody know it was anything but a gren. Then a pipe bomb appeared, flying through the air, a dangling fuse sizzling and spitting.

But as if recognizing a superior threat, the droid moved sideways and walked over several wags to take refuge behind the fuel pumps. The pipe bomb fell on the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle and started to roll of when it cut loose. The wag was blown sideways off the floor and tumbled over a dozen other wags, breaking windows and headlights until it came to rest against the workbench, rattling the assortment of tools for a hundred feet.

Fuming with impatience, Ryan scowled at the droid and wiped his hands dry on his pants. With the droid poised above the fuel pumps, Ryan knew there was nothing they could do. Only grens seemed to damage the blasted armor of the thing, and if they used one now, it could ignite the stored supplies of condensed fuel, filling this entire level of the redoubt with a tidal wave of flame that could chill all of them for sure.

His mind whirled with a dozen battle plans and settled on the best. “Take it out!” Ryan shouted, and threw an unprimed gren.

A valley of grens sailed toward the droid. They landed, the tape still holding the arming lever firmly in place. But the machine responded anyway and hurried away from the potential firestorm.

“Run for it!” Ryan roared, and started for the door to the stairs.

Crawling over the lines of wags, the droid tried to cut the companions off, launching short bursts from the needler. But this time, they threw live grens and gained precious yardage with every blinding detonation.

Ramming open the door with a shoulder, Ryan rushed in and held it aside for the others. As they charged through, he slammed the door shut and dropped to the floor. Almost instantly, it shook violently all over, the hard metal denting from the incoming fléchettes. There was a brief pause, followed by another burst. Then silence. Something fumbled with the door latch. Another burst of fléchettes, and more silence.

As the seconds ticked away, Ryan crawled to the others and explained his idea.

Suddenly they heard the sound of the elevator starting to descend.

Moving fast, the companions rushed back into the garage level. Grabbing a fire ax off the wall behind the workbench, Ryan slammed it into the double doors of the elevator and twisted with all of his might. There was a metallic creak, a sharp crack and the portals slid aside, exposing the dark shaft.

Glancing down, Ryan could see the elevator cage slowly descending the shaft. Perfect.

Turning, he saw Doc arrive, dragging a thick hose connected to the fuel pumps, with Krysty at the controls.

Grabbing the nozzle, Ryan pulled the handle to maximum flow as the redhead threw the main switch. For a stomach-twisting minute, only air hissed from the hose, then the pumps sluggishly engaged, the hose went stiff and fuel gushed from the end to cascade down the dark shaft.

Out of breath, J.B., Mildred and Jak arrived with their arms full of the unprimed grens. Setting them down, they started to yank off the safety tape and pull pins as fast as they could.