Borderlands: Gunsight (14 page)

A
boom
resounded across the sky as one of the outriders took a shot at Bloodwing. It was probably just a random potshot, the gunner thinking it might be a rakk.

He glanced up at the distant dot in the sky that was Bloodwing. She flew on, through the smoky ring of the shell burst, apparently unhurt. Mordecai chuckled. “Good girl.” Bloodwing had good reflexes. She watched enemy guns to see if
they were sighting in on her; she’d seen the shell coming and dodged it.

Those three vehicles were coming closer.

Bloodwing swept down over the outrunner, squawking in a way he knew meant “Negative.”

So they weren’t just Bandits, though they used Bandit vehicles—chances were, they were the mercenaries after Extra.

Well. Mordecai felt he needed the adrenaline rush anyway. He was dragged down by the tedium of the trip, and pissed-off; not yet ready to take on Tumessa. This would get him stoked.

“Bloodwing!” he called. “See if you can get in the face of the gunner on that side!” He pointed to his right.

Bloodwing squawked in assent and flapped up into the sky again, angling to the right.

“I do think those might be the mercenaries,” Extra said. “My scanners suggest it. The probability is . . .”

“I already figured that out,” Mordecai growled. “Keep your head down and shut up, I’m going to try to get past ’em.”

“I don’t have a head, in precise terms. I have an upper chassis, which is—”

“Just shut your yap then. I mean—be quiet. I have to concentrate, dammit.”

Mordecai was angling to the right himself. If he got past the right-hand outrider, the Bandit vehicle would provide a little cover from the others till he could get to that outcropping. Once there he could try to use the rock formation as a strategic advantage. It might work.

“Just keep telling yourself that,” Mordecai muttered.

“Keep telling myself what?” Extra asked.

“I wasn’t talking to—just shut up,” Mordecai said, switching the turbo on so that the vehicle roared into high-powered
acceleration. The sudden burst of speed took it past the nearest of the onrushing outriders. The merc only got one badly aimed shot off before Bloodwing dived into the man’s face, ripping at his eyes.

The driver’s scream came thin and clear across the tundra.

Mordecai glanced over his shoulder, saw Bloodwing climbing into the air, blood dripping from her claws, and the outrider flipping over, skidding, upside down, making mush of the riders.

“That’s one down, merely two more to go,” Mordecai said, grinning.

He was past the other vehicles—which were tearing around in tight U-turns to follow him. They’d probably spotted Extra beside him.

Mordecai squeezed all the speed out of the outrunner he could. He was racing full bore. The jutting formation was a hundred meters ahead. Then seventy, sixty, forty . . .

An outrider cannon boomed behind him, and a moment later a shell whistled by, so close overhead he could have reached out and given the missile a shove to help it on its way.

The cannon shell exploded on the rock just ahead, making chips fly that rattled against the outrunner as Mordecai drove by. He cut left as sharply as he could without overturning but still going up on two wheels. Then the outrunner stabilized, and he slammed on the brake, skidding to a stop—a long skid on the icy ground behind the outcropping.

He heard the technical and the outrider coming, could tell from the sound they were coming from behind and the front both, trying to catch him between them. He was aware of Bloodwing swooping close overhead, waiting for orders. He didn’t have to look to know Bloodwing was there.

“Extra,” Mordecai said, jumping out of the vehicle, “if I was you, I’d get out of this thing and hide in that crevice there in the rocks.”

Mordecai grabbed a bandolier of grenades and the rocket launcher, and fired a shot from the launcher within a second of having it in his hand. It hit the ground to one side of the outrider in front of him—he could see the flash of shrapnel off the shields of the driver and his mercenary companion.

The outrider spun out of control, stopped, ending up facing away from the rock.

Mordecai was already reloading, turning, firing at the armored truck coming from behind the outrunner—at the same moment as its huge machine gun fired, strafing the ground up toward him. Two rounds struck home but Mordecai’s shield held against them, and he staggered only a little from the impacts.

Mordecai’s hands were clammy, his heart was banging, his mouth dry as a stone on the moon—but he was radically alive, in that moment, full of energy, aware of things around him so keenly his senses seemed to glitter in his mind.

He felt exultation as the rocket launcher struck the onrushing armored vehicle square in the grill. The engine exploded—and the vehicle screeched to a stop as Mordecai turned away and rushed to the rocks. He was distantly aware of Bloodwing slashing at the machine gunner’s face, screeching to distract the mercenary, and the small robot trembling in the crevice behind the jutting boulders.

He ran around the corner of the outcropping as a shell from the outrider exploded on the stone behind him. He’d made it to cover with a split second to spare and vaulted onto a low slab of boulder, using his free hand, the other one holding the rocket launcher against his hip. He scrambled up,
jumping from slab to slab. He needed cover fast. The technical was no longer operational but the men in it were. And they would be coming after him, in seconds.

He jumped onto another slab of stone, and stared, for just a moment, seeing the remains of a fire at his feet, an abandoned camp, a wisp of smoke . . .

No time to wonder who that might be. He kept going, found a broken-off chunk of boulder to duck behind, just as a shell struck where he’d stood a second before. The shock wave caught him hard, shrapnel hammered him—and his shield sparked, fizzled out as he fell on his right side, onto the rocket launcher. “Dammit—more crappy gear!” He coughed in the smoke, pulling two grenades from his bandolier. He activated them both, a smoke grenade and a frag grenade, and tossed them together toward the sound of the outrider.

Someone yelled in consternation on seeing the grenades—the outrider was backing up, from the sound of it.

The grenades exploded,
bang
and
whoof,
and Mordecai got to his feet, readying the rocket launcher. A thick veil of smoke rose between him and the outrider. He heard someone yelling in pain—the grenade must’ve gotten close enough to penetrate the merc’s shield. But there were others, silhouettes in the smoke, coming toward the rock on foot.

He stood up, fired the launcher. The shell hit between the two men—the splash energy of its explosion knocking them down to the right and left, their shields sparking.

Mordecai loaded another shell and threw himself to the right as an Eridian blast whipped past his left ear from behind. He dropped the rocket launcher as he fell.

“Dammit, Skore, you missed him!” someone shouted. “You could’ve taken off his head with that blast!”

“Shaddup!” the other shouted back. “I’m getting another bead on ’im! Gah, shit—what’s that?”

That
, Mordecai figured, getting up, would be Bloodwing, going after the guy’s eyes.

No time to get the rocket launcher. With one hand, Mordecai plucked a grenade, and with the other he pulled his machine pistol as he turned to face the men behind him. Bloodwing was flying at the face of the Eridian rifleman.

Both of the brawny, heavily armed men were standing atop the rock behind him, about three meters above; both wore one-piece tight-fitting gray-black uniforms, without any other marking except, on each man’s right shoulder, an
H.

Mordecai was swinging his gun to center on his target as the other merc brought an enormous Eridian blaster up to point at Mordecai’s middle.

And then the mercenary’s head vanished from his shoulders. The headless body slumped over as blood, brain matter, and crushed skull material rained down on Mordecai—and as it continued flying by he caught a glimpse of the missile that had done the deed: a small boulder, about three times the size of the man’s head . . . had taken that head right off. It had to be . . .

“Feel it!” shouted a familiar, deep voice in blood-chilling glee. “Show me some blood! Brick’s here, baby!”

Brick stepped into sight behind the merc and clapped his massive hands shut, hard, on the man’s skull, crushing it between them like smashing a rotten gourd.

A second headless body slumped over.

And Brick was pulling a double-barreled shotgun from his hip holster, bringing it up in Mordecai’s direction.

For a moment, Mordecai thought he was the target. But as
he got out of the way he turned and saw Brick’s shotgun blast catch another merc in the middle. The mercenary was coming up behind Mordecai.

The man’s shield held, for a few seconds, but it was crackling with green energy, struck by a specially modified short-circuiting shotgun load, and as the shield went out, Mordecai fired his machine pistol, knocking the man off the outcropping with three solid rounds into his chest.

Another mercenary was coming up. Brick shot him the same way; Mordecai executed him the same way.

But there was at least one more, down below—who fired a rocket launcher that just missed Brick by a hair. Brick growled and turned to fire the shotgun twice more. Someone out of Mordecai’s sight screamed. Brick plucked a grenade, tossed it toward the dying man for good measure. There was a blast. Mordecai saw someone’s hand spinning momentarily into sight, from the explosion, as if the dying man were waving good-bye.

“That all of them, Bloodwing?” Mordecai asked, as she settled onto his shoulder.

She made a squawk of assent.

“Good. The robot still alive?”

She made the same squawk.

Brick scratched his close-shorn head with his gauntleted hand and asked in his gruff voice, “Can robots be really-true alive? I never could figure that out.”

“You’re not the only one.” Mordecai turned to Bloodwing. “Okay. Go on down and feed on the dead mercs.”

Bloodwing chirruped happily and flapped away.

Mordecai climbed up to Brick. As he went, he said, “Brick—thanks! I guess. I mean, I’d have taken those guys out okay without your help but—”

“Oh sure you woulda! How about how you and your buddies killed that Goliath I was fighting, when we were up against Gynella? I was just gonna kill that thing and you guys sniped its brains right out and cheated me outta killin’ it . . .”

“Hey—you know, that was Roland’s idea. He seemed to think you might not be able to . . . um, anyway, sorry.”

“See, now I got mine back! That’s why I knocked that guy’s brain out with a rock!”

“Okay, fair enough. And thanks, Brick. So that was your camp I saw down there? You need a ride? I didn’t see a vehicle.”

“Lost mine to a passel of Nitro Stalkers. I killed ’em but they wrecked me first, about ten klicks back. I was trying to get to that place.”

He pointed off toward Tumessa.

“You’re heading for Tumessa? Why?”

“Gonna work there! Heard that four-armed guy is hiring. Want money. Haven’t killed anybody much. Getting bored.” He looked at the bodies still bleeding out on the rocks between them. “We should check these over. Mercenaries. Hyperion guys. Could have money on ’em. There’s a good Eridian rifle, too . . . I got dibs on that . . .”

“All yours, Brick. And you can have that leftover outrider, if it still runs. If it doesn’t, you can ride with me. But see . . .”

Mordecai hesitated. Should he tell Brick what he was up to here? Brick had come to the Staggering Steppes to sign on with the man that Mordecai was supposed to kill.

When Brick took a job, he killed for whoever was paying him. He was businesslike about killing on a mission. Had he already made up his mind to work for Reamus? Was Mordecai going to have to take Brick on?

Not only was Brick an old friend . . . to the extent Brick had friends . . . he was also one of the most dangerous men on Pandora.

So it was important to find out . . .

Whose side was Brick on?

T
he bodies of the dead had already gone cold. The wind of the tundra was dropping from a mournful shriek to a disappointed sigh. The sun was low; the outcropping threw a long shadow. Flames crackled from the wrecked Bandit technical.

Mordecai and Brick were standing by the outrunner, and Brick was staring at the Claptrap, which was just now emerging from the crevice.

Brick was
big
. Though not much taller than Mordecai, he probably was at least four times Mordecai’s weight; he was thickly muscled,
truly
big boned. Brick wore a flak vest, revealing his enormous muscular arms—he didn’t seem to feel the cold out here—and his gloved fingers were made gauntletlike by the attachment of screws and bolts. Most of the screws sticking out from his gloves still had little dried brown bits of old flesh and blood stuck in their threads.

In all the time he’d known Brick, Mordecai had only observed a handful of expressions on the brawny Vault Hunter’s
chiseled face. One was a look of grim implacability. That was Brick’s default expression. Now and then, he could look puzzled, too. He had an expression that went with musing. And he had a couple of angry looks, either of which always were preliminary to bloodletting. One of them was an expression of standard rage; the other was sheer berserk rage, a look accompanying a state of kill-fury that appeared to manifest some form of mutation.