Chapter Ten
"Kind of a piss-poor shot, isn't he?" was
J.B.'s comment after the cannie missed for a second time with the
stolen longblaster.
Ryan squinted through one lens of his binocs. "It sure isn't the
rifle's fault. At that range, he should be able to drive nails with
it."
"Our friends in black down there don't seem to be much bothered by
what he's doing," J.B. said. "Either that, or they're scared
stiff."
"Don't look scared to me." Ryan said.
"Nah, to me neither," the Armorer admitted. "More like they
couldn't give a rusty rad-blast."
"Hey!" Mildred exclaimed. "Did you see that?"
"Where?" Dean asked.
Mildred pointed to the left of Main Street. "A brilliant green
flash, over between the big houses," she said. "Just there for a
second, bright as day, then it was gone."
"Like stun gren flash, no boom," Jak agreed. "I see."
The Steyr firing a third time brought everyone's attention back to
the heart of Moonboy. The gunshot echoed off the walls of the
ridge. The five in black armor remained standing, like statues in
the middle of the street.
Another miss.
"See where the slug skipped?" J. B. said. "That guy can't hit the
broad side of a barn. Kind of humorous or mebbe
pathetic."
"Pathetic is more like it," Mildred said. "He's probably got the
oozie shakes so bad he can't keep the sights on target."
"If our cannibal colleague is not cautious," Doc said, "he will
anger those black-clad folk."
"Already has, Doc," Dix said. "One of them's moving."
Ryan watched the figure in black climb up on the trailer and
disappear into the windowless aircraft.
After a few seconds, its rotors began to turn. First the rear one,
then the one on top, both spinning faster and faster, until a dust
storm began to fly in the street.
"Got a real bad feeling, Ryan," Krysty said.
"Mebbe we should pull back."
"You seeing anything?" The one-eyed man asked. His concern was
real. He'd had enough experience with her mutie premonitions to
know they had to be respected.
"No," she said. "That thing just scares me."
"It's not after us," J.B. assured her. "Not yet, you mean," Doc
said. "Perhaps we should take a lesson from our flesh-eating friend
down there. Discretion is the better part of valor, John
Barrymore."
Below them the cannie sniper, valorous or not, was sprinting across
the rubble field with the Steyr.
Before the companions could retreat from the edge of the cliff or
the fleeing cannie could make good his escape, the aircraft lifted
off the trailer.
"Well, I'll be fireblasted," J.B. muttered as it shot up to the
level of the ridge top in the space of a couple of
heartbeats.
Browning Hi-Power in hand, Dean stood gaping as the unnatural
flying thing hovered high over the ville. His eyes widened in
amazement as it abruptly wheeled and dived on its prey like a mutie
war eagle. At the climax of the screaming dive, a bolt of light
shot from the weapons pod in the nose and cut a fiery trench across
the earth, a line that seemed to graze the running cannie. A graze
was all it took to put him down.
"What was that?" Krysty asked. "It gave off the same green flash I
saw before," Mildred said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it was
some kind of a laser beam." For Krysty's benefit, she added, "A
laser's a high-energy light that can cut through plate steel like
butter."
"This one chopped through solid rock," Ryan said.
"If it was a laser," Mildred told him, "it was a good ten thousand
times more powerful than any we had before skydark. None of the
really powerful ones back then, the ones that could generate enough
energy to create nuclear fusion, could fit into something as small
as a helicopter. Took a complex the size of Moonboy to do the
trick."
"So you're saying what?" Ryan prompted.
"I'm saying we didn't have the technology to make something like
that in 2001. Somebody, somewhere has been pushing the research
envelope. Contrary to reports, science isn't dead, after
all."
"Lightning without thunder," Doc said, clucking his tongue. "My
dear Ryan, this development does not bode well. Sadly, my fear that
we are overmatched seems more and more justified."
The aircraft figure-eighted to come around again. The cannie lay
sprawled on the ground and showed no interest in getting up. To
Ryan it looked as if he'd dropped the Steyr, and he hoped it wasn't
badly damaged. The aircraft made a low pass over the unmoving
figure, checking for signs of life, then with a roar of its engine
and a blast of dust from its propwash, it rocketed back up to
ridge-top level. Hanging in the air directly over the center of
Moonboy, it turned a slow, clockwise pivot.
"What's it doing now?" Krysty asked.
"Looking," Jak replied.
"Looking for us," Ryan said. "Nobody move, not a muscle."
When the nose of the aircraft swung past them, they all breathed a
sigh of relief. The machine continued to turn, climbing higher as
it did so, then from the peak of its spiraling ascent, it suddenly
banked and dived on them at incredible speed.
"By the three Kennedys!" Doc cried. "It has seen us!"
Ryan shoved J.B., hard. "Go! Everybody, head east! I'll make it
follow me."
There was no time for argument. Their last best hope was to
scatter. Ryan already had drawn his SIG-Sauer. He led the diving
aircraft, aiming well below it, and squeezed off three shots in
rapid succession. He didn't expect to down the machine with 9 mm
bullets, but he did expect to see them send sparks flying off its
black skin.
There were no sparks. The craft had soaked up the slugs like a
sponge, or he'd missed it altogether.
The gunfire did draw the attention of the pilot, who immediately
angled the craft's dive toward him.
With a glance at the others, who were already taking cover behind
the row of spires to the right, Ryan bolted across the jagged
terrain, back the same way they had come. As he ran, he fired his
pistol in the general direction of the aircraft.
Ryan didn't know what the range of the plane's laser blaster was,
but he had a sixth sense when it came to being locked in someone's
sights. At that moment, his alarm bells clanged. With a monumental
effort he dived headlong, throwing himself behind a man-sized horn
of rock. In the same instant there was a blinding flash of light, a
wave of intense heat and a rocking explosion, which was followed by
the whipping suction of a violent gust of wind. Over his shoulder
he saw the black ship zoom past. The stone that had been his cover
had been destroyed. Three feet of its tip sliced off clean. Nothing
was left of the missing part. The light beam had detonated it like
a gob of plastic explosive.
Ryan took a two-handed grip on the SIG-Sauer and, as the airship
turned, he punched out four evenly spaced shots. He knew the
capabilities of his hand-blaster and the limits of his own skill.
At a range of fifty yards, with a steady hold, he could just about
guarantee where the bullets would fall. And that was certainly
inside a circle smaller than ten feet in diameter.
Yet he scored no visible hits.
"Fireblast!" he snarled, jumping up and ducking between a pair of
towering spires.
With the others no longer in sight, Ryan was free to think about
his own survival. It was a safe bet that he couldn't outrun the
flying machine. Experience had taught him that he couldn't outshoot
it, either. His only chance was to outthink its pilot.
The black ship approached his position, then stopped at a distance
of seventy feet. Maintaining its altitude, it jockeyed first one
way then the other, trying to get a decent shot angle on
him.
Ryan pulled back behind cover as the laser cut loose again. This
time the flare of light didn't wink out. The beam was sustained.
The wave of heat made him groan. Smoke started to curl up from his
hair. As the beam gnawed at the rock, it gave off a painfully
shrill tone and he could feel the massive monolith vibrating. The
rock crag weighed in the vicinity of two hundred tons. At its base,
the circumference was probably twenty feet. Ryan was glad to learn
that there were some things the aircraft's weapon couldn't shoot
through in a single blast.
Then it got noticeably cooler. Shielding his eye from the glare,
Ryan saw that the pilot had switched his point of aim to the
pinnacle of the spire above him, a place where the rock was much
thinner.
Time to move.
As he leaped away from the base, high overhead there was a
thunder-crack explosion and the huge pinnacle came crashing down in
a golden rain of sparks. The impact raised a cloud of dust that
enveloped him.
Since running away from the machine was futile, Ryan dashed toward
it. He had to have surprised the pilot as he burst out of the dust
cloud, because he ran directly beneath the weapons pod without
drawing another burst of green fire. He passed under the sleek
belly of the craft and into the confined hurricane of its prop
wind.
Fifteen feet below the middle of the aircraft, Ryan raised his
pistol high overhead and fired straight into its guts. Though the
range was no more than five feet, there was no clank of impact
punctuating the flurry of gunshots, only the whine of deflected
slugs as they ricocheted on the rocks around him.
Impossible, he decided as he raced onward, out from under the
machine's tail propeller. Impossible but true. Bullets had no
effect. His hopes for living through this encounter were sinking
fast.
Before him yawned the cliff overlooking the mud lakes. He guessed
he was very near to the gully they'd climbed in order to reach the
ridge top. There was no time left for him to make major adjustments
in his jumping-off point. If he had guessed wrong, the drop was
going to be a lot longer than thirty feet. The airship wheeled
around behind him, swooping down for the chill. Straining, he
sprinted for the edge.
As he took the last, desperate stride and his right foot came down
on nothing, he thought he'd blown it. Down was a long, long way.
Legs flailing, he dropped below the ridge top. Above him there was
a flash of light and blistering heat as the laser cannon blasted a
new cleft in the bedrock.
Ryan hit the pile of loose gravel at tremendous speed. The impact
with the ground knocked the wind out of him, but he didn't stop. He
couldn't stop. Because of the gully's steep angle, he continued to
fall down the chute, skidding, sliding. He covered his head with
his arm as he started to tumble, end over end. With no way to
control his descent, he was just another boulder, rolling
downhill.
Buffeted, bounced, battered, he came to a shattering stop behind a
big rock. Momentarily unable to breathe, he struggled to rise. But
as he regained his feet, he found himself face-to-face with the
hovering black ship and the multiple barrels of its weapons'
cluster. The aircraft was positioned to block any further movement
on his part. He had nowhere to go.
Ryan raised his handblaster and opened fire. He didn't have a hope
in hell of doing damage to the craft; he was buying a few precious
seconds of time for his friends. The pistol spit out several more
shots before its slide locked back. Tossing aside the empty pistol,
he reached for his right boot and yanked the panga from its
sheath.
"Come on, you fireblasted bastard!" Ryan shouted at the windowless
craft. He slashed the heavy knife blade back and forth in the air.
"Come out of there and I'll cut you a new one!"
Ryan expected the green flash any second.
He expected it to be the last thing he ever saw.
The ship moved in a little closer, as if the pilot wanted to get a
better look at him. Without warning, a cloud of clear mist shot
from one of the tubes in the aircraft's nose. Ryan gasped in
surprise as the mist billowed, wet and stinging, around him. His
involuntary intake of breath sucked tiny droplets into his lungs.
He tried to close off his throat, but it was already too late. His
knees buckled.
Before he hit the ground, he was out cold.