James Axler - Desert Kings

“Or aced,” Doc rumbled dangerously, the LeMat held in a white-knuckled hold. “I do not honestly know which I would enjoy more, seeing him deceased or doing the job myself!”

“Bloodthirsty old coot,” Mildred shot back.

“And you have never been his captive, madam,” the time traveler growled. “While, sadly, I have.”

Gathering around the huge wag, the companions now could see it was in poor shape. The treads had several shoes broken off or missing entirely. There was some sort of box on top reduced to little more than twisted wreckage, and the opaque windshield was badly cracked. The normally smooth white hull was badly pitted in spots, tiny rivulets of silvery steel congealed along the sides.

“That was his LAV,” Doc stated in his stentorian bass.

Tilting back his fedora, J.B. gave a whistle. “Well, somebody kicked his ass, that’s for trip damn sure,” he said happily. “Mebbe he is dead. That’d sure solve a lot of problems.”

“He was probably trying to get the LAV into the garage for repairs,” Krysty guessed, running a hand along the armored hull. “Anybody know a way inside this thing, so that we can check?”

Almost too soft to hear, there came a low click and then a section of the hull jutted slightly. Quickly the companions stepped backward, bringing up their weapons, as the hatch cycled downward forming a short set of stairs.

Wordlessly, Ryan pointed to the left and right, J.B. and Krysty heading around the machine to attack from the other side.

Then his heart skipped a beat as a long, black, metal leg extended from the interior, closely followed by two more and the globular body of another droid. It took only a nanosecond for him to see this machine did not have a cyborg chiller mounted to its belly, but something else, a sleek, ferruled tube with pulsating fiber-optic cables and a narrow red lens that glowed like the eye of a demon from Hell.

“Las!” Ryan bellowed, throwing himself to the side and raising the Kalashnikov as a shield.

The same as before, he was still airborne when the beam stabbed outward. But this time it was a brilliant red beam the color of burning blood. Ryan felt the rapid-fire get hot in his hands, and when he hit the floor, he threw it away only a moment before the ammo detonated.

The blast rocked him, but he went with the force of the concussion, rolling away until hitting the wall. There was a pain in his side and another along his neck, but Ryan ignored those and pulled the SIG-Sauer as he stood, tracking and firing.

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.