Death Drop (34 page)

“Okay, okay!” he said as he put his palms up and shook them emphatically. “You wanna know the deal?” he said as a smug grin crossed his round face, “I’ll tell you the deal, you stupid bastard! You don’t stand a fuckin’ chance—that’s the deal! The portmaster controls this whole goddam place: cameras, doors, not to mention the great gate. He can send anyone or anything to kill you anytime he wants! The only way you’re leavin’ here is in a fuckin’ body bag! He planned this entire thing—he set you up! You gettin’ the picture now, tough guy? And the bot? He’s gonna rip you a new”

Buego’s eyes shifted nervously toward the entrance of the bar and then back to Dezmara as four rugged travelers emerged from under the sign and looked up and down The Boulevard. “Seems like I’m not the only one with fans,” Dezmara said as she stepped to the side of the bike. “This looks like a Crenollian with tridalanium racing heads.” Buego looked at her with confusion at the change of subject and then nodded dazedly in agreement. “Good,” she said and then lowered the pistol and squeezed a round through the top of the motor. The chopper coughed and sputtered as chunks of shattered metal ground inside the churning engine. The sound of the shot and the resulting clunks and pings of the devastated power-plant caught the attention of the four gamblers looking to collect on their payday, just as Dezmara hoped it would.

“You sonofabitch!” he said as he slid his fat backside from the seat of the bike and dropped to the street. Buego turned to look at the ruined motor as he pulled at his hair with both hands. “You goddam bastard! You shot my baby!” He spun around to direct his foul tongue-lashing at Dezmara but he never got the chance. A loud popping sound exploded from his nose, and yellow blood splattered across the shiny Crenollian. Dezmara’s straight left knocked Buego off of his feet and he toppled over the bike. The gamblers came to a stop around the machine as he crashed into the gutter. They all looked at Dezmara in shock for a moment and then glanced down at Buego’s unconscious body.

“I believe you’ll find two hundred tolocs inside his vest,” she said and then turned, bracing her aching ribs, and sprinted away toward The Boneyard.

Chapter 26: Massacre

D
ezmara tried several more times to raise Simon but got no response. She desperately hoped that he had cracked the encryption to open the great gate; if he hadn’t, her maneuvers were just prolonging the inevitable. Without the chance of escape from Luxon, she and Simon would be overrun and eventually captured or killed. The
Ghost
was seriously outgunned by the arsenal that lined the outside of the port; and besides, the ship could only fly around the dockyard dodging gunfire for so long before it ran out of fuel. Without the code to the gate, Dezmara and Simon were as good as dead. “He’s the best there is—a genius—he’s figured it out, you’ll see…” she said to reassure herself between panting breaths.

Her right hand pumped the air, gripping the little gun loosely but ready to level it and fire at any moment. Glancing up at the cameras that dotted the various buildings on the strip, she expected a flood of the portmaster’s henchmen to wash into the street and attack her as she sped up the lane, but none came. The Boulevard continued to buzz with the routine sounds of commerce and the casual speech of strangers greeting each other and talking among themselves. It was business as usual in Luxon, and she had a feeling that she was being toyed with as she approached the inlet to The Boneyard.

The preacher-bot would be armed—Dezmara was certain of that—but she wondered what position it would take to engage her. A tactical military bot facing an enemy with minimal firepower would simply open fire from the other end of the tunnel. It was a straight shot and a hail of bullets fired in a spread pattern couldn’t miss. However, if Dezmara was correct, the portmaster was a control freak, and that meant he was steering the bot remotely. She also assumed that part of his plan was to play with her, rather than kill her quickly and collect his reward, and that was fine with Dezmara—her fingers were crossed that he was still in the mood for games.

Her breathing was ragged and heavy as she dashed into The Boneyard. The streaks of light beaming from the glass lit up her body in an odd patchwork of undulating colors as she flew past each column of windows. The kranos flashed a warning. She dove to the ground as the sound of machine gun fire snapped through the chamber, and a storm of bullets peppered the monuments just inches above her head. Chunks of gray stone fell in trickling taps around her and a haze of silt hung in the air. The impact of her broken ribs with the hard floor felt like a million glass slivers in her side, and she searched for her breath in short, agonizing gulps. Dezmara could hear the bot’s churning gears as it repositioned itself and came to a stop. In the silence, she heard the strange, chanting music still playing in the background. She slid forward, and as she peered quickly over the nearest gravestone another barrage of bullets chipped away at the cenotaphs shielding her, leaving them jagged and gnarled like strange keys sticking through the bedrock. It was a close call—the kranos counted seven bullets that had passed within a few centimeters of her head—but Dezmara had the data she was after.

The bot was back thirty yards and he had two thirty-millimeter machine guns with several canisters of ammunition attached in his wiry hands. His motor and drive-gear were well protected beneath the wide, single track under his black coat. “Shit. Five bullets against two machine guns!” she said as she unlocked the cylinder from the revolver and let it fall to the side. “That’s what I get for palmin’ a goddam six-shooter!” Dezmara didn’t think an extra shot would do her much good, but she wished she could take back the round she had put through Buego’s bike just the same. She removed one bullet and lined the cylinder up so the last four chambers would fire in a row. “I hope you’re having too much fun to count—here goes nothin’!”

She blocked the pain of her broken ribs from her mind as best as she could and rolled on the floor past one row of headstones and then another. At the second row, she popped to one knee and fired toward the heavily armored bottom end of the machine. All four bullets found their mark but bounced harmlessly off the reinforced metal as Dezmara dropped and rolled past three more rows. The preacher-bot returned fire in a sweeping arc, and four hot bullets stitched the outer edge of her flight jacket as she spun for her life.

Dezmara stopped on her back, chambered the round she had saved and spun the cylinder so it would be the last to go and then whipped it back into place with a loud click. If the portmaster was still playing along, the preacher-bot would realign itself with her position while keeping its distance. If he was tired of the ploy, he would simply roll the machine to her exact location and blast away—she was outgunned, there was nowhere to hide and the portmaster knew it. Either way, Dezmara was willing to bet every toloc she had ever won that his endgame would come in The Boneyard.

The portmaster couldn’t risk losing her in the crowd still buzzing in the marketplace. She was playing a deadly game and betting her life that he would take one more opportunity to prove he was still in charge, one more round of fire to show that The Ghost had finally met her match. She rolled to her stomach and listened. Dezmara waited for the sound of humming cogs and spinning gears followed by silence as the machine moved to mirror her position. But the game had taken a turn for the worst. She heard the clunking of metal start…but then it continued, humming faster and faster, building into a deathly scream as the preacher advanced on her with uncanny speed. “Shit! Shit! SHIT!”

Dezmara jumped from behind the pocked and brittle gravestones she was hiding behind with both hands held high above her head. She was still gripping the little revolver in her right hand with the barrel pointed toward the elaborate ceiling, and she immediately began squeezing the trigger as she pleaded for her life.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! “Please, I’m outta bullets—see.” CLICK! “Please, I’ll give you anything—just don’t kill me!” CLICK! The bot adjusted its aim on her as she broke into the open.
“This is it,”
she thought to herself.
“If he’s smart, he’ll just open fire and rip you to shreds, but if he’s like every other asshole in the universe on a power trip, he’ll have to make some smart-ass comment before he kills you.”

The preacher-bot rolled to a stop ten yards from where Dezmara was standing, and she couldn’t help the tiny smirk that tugged at the corner of her lips. She brought both hands down to shoulder level but left her palms facing outward to keep a submissive appearance.

“I guess I’ll be collecting a rather large donation from you after all, brother Ghost!” the preacher-bot laughed demonically.

“I’ll be happy to make a donation,” Dezmara said meekly. “If I remember correctly…YOU TAKE IT IN THE HEAD!” She extended her right arm and fired the revolver. The small caliber bullet was no match for heavy armor or even exposed gears, but it crashed through the bot’s green eye in a spray of lens glass and splintered optics. It took the portmaster a few precious seconds to realize what had happened, and when he finally switched to a wall mounted camera inside The Boneyard, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Dezmara’s jacket disappearing into the cave and heading toward the market.

The bot howled in frustration and sent a stream of bullets into the chase behind her as he stormed for the exit. Dezmara’s trick had lured him to the right of the tunnel, and instead of precisely navigating the grid of monuments as before, the preacher’s tumbling, metal tread smashed through the stones in crazed pursuit of his prize.

Broken ribs or not, Dezmara couldn’t remember ever running so fast. She flinched only slightly as thirty-millimeter slugs skated along the walls and floor around her in streaks of angry sparks. The kranos flashed and told her that the preacher was closing at an alarming rate. She didn’t have much time to analyze it, but somewhere in the back of her mind, Dezmara was grateful the portmaster seemed to have more brawn than brains. A smart killer would have simply reversed the bot in a straight line until it was even with the exit, turned, and opened fire. She wouldn’t have made it ten yards. But here she was—lungs on fire, ribs screaming for her to stop, leg muscles burning—because the portmaster couldn’t see past his rage.

The display in the helmet was joined by a beep that increased in frequency as the killing machine zoomed toward the entrance of the bore.
“You’re not home free yet,”
she thought as she wrung every last ounce of speed from her body. The pulse of the warning beeps was quickly becoming a constant screech as the darkness turned to gray and the light of the big plaza reached out and softly touched her. The kranos flashed zero and the beep drew out in one long, horrifying tone. The preacher-bot had reached the tunnel. Gunfire erupted in the distance, piercing the air directly behind her.

The market was the same as when Dezmara had bounded into The Boneyard just an hour earlier: crowded and noisy. Merchants and travelers still wheeled and dealed for various goods; greasy cooks with smoke-stained aprons still turned succulent meats over open pits of fire; and hikeons still dropped their organic payloads on unsuspecting targets from high overhead. Activity never completely stopped in the market; after all, attackers had never breached Luxon, and up until this very moment, the beating, kidnapping, robbing, and murder of travelers by the portmaster and his cretins had always been committed very quietly. But today was different. Today the detonation of guns above the staircase of King Gamuun echoed over the bazaar like a coming storm. Suddenly, as if twisted by an invisible puppeteer, every body and head snapped to attention then froze as innumerable sets of strange, alien eyes stared in awe at the black and burgundy form that launched from within Gamuun’s ribcage and hurtled, head first, over the staircase.

Dezmara jumped with everything she had as the preacher reached the tunnel entrance and let loose with his big guns. Dezmara saw the tracer rounds split the air beneath her as she drifted past the top of the stairs and felt her feet begin to float precariously up toward the roof of the cavern. The sharp ridges of the stairs loomed dangerously below her, and she knew the impact was going to hurt like hell. She tucked her right forearm in tight across her broken ribs and reached out with her left hand as she plummeted, but her preparations turned out to be premature. She cried out as burning hot metal ripped through the flight suit, spraying bits of flesh and blood onto the path several feet below.

“AAAAAHHH!” she screamed just before crashing onto the stairs. Her momentum carried her downward, her body thrashing in violent cartwheels against the stone. Her head, hips, and shoulders were taking a beating, but she barely noticed. Each collision with the stairs sent tormenting pain across her chest and around onto her back. Somehow, she saw that the view through the kranos had turned right-side-up, and she threw out her left hand like a clawed anchor to scratch and dig at the steps.

She slid to a stop, her body lying like a battered plank on the unforgiving points of each stair. Her torso heaved with pained, exhausted breaths as she struggled to sit up and quickly take inventory of herself. She was lucky on three accounts. First, although she couldn’t see the damage, Dezmara was certain the kranos had saved her brains from being turned into pulp. Second, even though her side was throbbing, she had done a good job protecting her ribs from further damage. Third, the vambrace had saved her from breaking her left arm in the fall.
“Ten tolocs well spent,”
she thought as she flexed the fingers on her hand and then touched her left leg. She inhaled sharply.

Dezmara had been grazed by two bullets. Lacerations started at each side of the quadriceps muscles at mid-thigh and ran for several inches toward the hamstring. The wounds were moderately deep and they burned like someone was holding red-hot irons to her skin. But she didn’t have time to fashion a tourniquet. Her helmet, once again, announced the approach of the machine gun-wielding preacher-bot. Dezmara turned and sprang to her feet and immediately felt the room begin to sway. The wound to the inside of her thigh was flowing freely, and if she didn’t stop the hemorrhaging soon, she could bleed to death.