The Orphaned Worlds (33 page)

‘It was a small group of Uvovo,’ the Seer said. ‘From the condition of what they left behind, they could have been among the first groups to make the shuttle crossing to Umara, to Darien. Very sad – they dug into the old soil spill down there …’ He pointed. ‘Unfortunately, the upper slope must have shifted one night, cascaded down and buried them alive.’

Shots rang out again, much closer this time.

‘Quick, this way!’ Chel scrambled down into the dark heart of the crown. Greg and Alexei’s torch spots wavered as they descended crude, mossy steps in the bark till they reached a gap in the wood about four feet high. Crouching, they followed Chel in and down a dark, damp passage, all dripping roots and unexpected protrusions. They came out on a big jutting root, then crept down through a tangle of stems to where Chel paused in the shadow of a huge, cracked boulder, one of several grouped in a rough line. From beyond it came shouts and shots. Chel pointed and Greg nodded, gesturing silently at Alexei and the others to stay low and space themselves along the boulders. Greg took out the Gustav 9mm, checked it, and when everyone was in position he straightened his posture, pressing against the rough boulder, edging higher to get a look over the top.

Shots were coming from up on a rocky outcrop about fifteen metres high, around whose base an immense, gnarled root had grown. Six, perhaps seven Brolturans in forest camouflage had the defenders hemmed in on all sides. And unfortunately one of them spotted Greg out of the corner of his eye, swung round his rifle and started blazing away. Greg ducked as energy bolts impacted the other side of the boulder and shouts went up.

‘Alexei, take the others along to the far end,’ he said. ‘I’ll draw their fire further back this way …’

‘What kind of an idiot are you?’ Alexei growled. ‘Hey, I had tae to go to university to become this kind of idiot! Now get …’

Alexei shook his head, muttering inaudibly in Russian as he grabbed one of the others and shoved him towards the other end of the wall of boulders. Greg peered over the top and fired a couple of rounds, then moved back the way they had come, with Chel at his back.

‘Friend Gregory, I can draw their fire also,’ the Uvovo said, picking up a stone and weighing it for a second. Then to Greg’s utter surprise Chel leaped up from a low crouch, feet leaving the ground as he hurled the rock, all in one lithe motion.

Someone cried out in pain. Greg raised his eyebrows in approval then popped up, snapped off a couple of shots and dived back down.

‘There’s one off to the left, one closer in the centre and another off to the right,’ he said.

Chel shook his head. ‘Two off to the right.’

Greg grinned. ‘Think so, do ye? Okay, together this time.’ Both altered position slightly then leaped up and let fly. Return fire struck splinters from the boulder and there was a smell of hot stone. Over by, Alexei was gesturing furiously and incomprehensibly. Greg shrugged then looked back at Chel.

‘Swap places?’ he said.

‘If you think it will help.’

‘How can it not?’

The third time he almost died, slipped as he jumped up and felt the stark heat of an energy bolt sear past his chin. He managed to fire off a single wild round before he landed on his side, knocking the air out of his chest. His chin felt hot and tender and there was a horrible burning odour coming from very close. He experienced one moment of pure dread before he realised that it was the lapel of his leather coat giving off acrid vapour from a charred hole. He looked round at Alexei, waved and pointed at the coat’s collar as a small object sailed over the sheltering boulder.

In the next instant Chel sprang up, picked it out of its midair trajectory and flung it back. Greg heard one Brolturan yell out in fright before the grenade went off with a deafening slam of sound.

‘Now!’ he yelled at Alexei, then peered over the boulder and began firing into the spreading cloud of smoke.

Alexei and the rest concentrated their volleys on the two Brolturans off to the right while the defenders on the outcrop joined in. For a moment the Brolturans’ resolve seemed to hold until a fist-sized rock struck the one on the left, forcing him from cover long enough for someone on the outcrop to target him and shoot him dead.

That was it for the remaining attackers, who began to pull back while trying to lay down suppressing fire, a wildly inaccurate scatter of energy bolts that ceased as they disappeared into the tangle of roots and undergrowth. Greg laughed, checked his autopistol then glanced at Chel.

‘That’s quite a flingin’ arm you’ve got there, Chel. Have you been practising?’

‘All my life, Gregory. Even this may have been practice for something yet to happen.’

‘Very profound. So all we have to do is live long enough to benefit from all this practice, am I right?’

‘Not the way you go about it,’ said Alexei as he drew near. ‘Be more careful, Greg, and you might live as long as your uncle did.’

Greg smiled bleakly. ‘Still don’t think he’s dead, Alexei.’ He clambered round and over the boulder, paused to inspect the blaster damage on the other side, then strolled over to the out-crop, hands empty and waving.

‘
Dobry dyen
, my friend! How are you … ?’

He was cut off by a horrifying scream that came from the direction of the Brolturans’ retreat. Everyone looked that way as sounds of fighting came through the gloom, then more screams, cut off suddenly.

‘Up here, quickly!’ said one of the outcrop defenders. ‘All of you, now!’

Something was crashing through the dense thickets of foliage towards them. As they all made a dash for the rocky outcrop Greg snatched up the big rifle lying next to a dead Brolturan while Alexei retrieved another. Clambering the rocky pile, they were near the top when the source of the cacophony burst into view. As Greg suspected it was a combat mechanoid but this one was taller than any of the others, broader and more heavily armoured. Strangely, it bore dark red and green patterns all over its exterior.

For a moment he expected it to unleash a bombardment of firepower, catching him and the others unprotected. Instead it tore a large bush out of the ground and, without breaking step, threw it straight at the outcrop. Shedding a trail of soil and pebbles it arced through the air and struck near the summit, knocking loose one of Greg’s men, Nilsson. Crying out, he fell roughly thirty feet and landed awkwardly. Hansen wanted to go after him but the others held him back. Nilsson struggled to his feet, saw the oncoming behemoth and tried to run but a hurled length of branch caught him in the back. He dropped like a sack of stones and lay still.

By now the rest were up on the outcrop, where Greg and Alexei brought their scavenged beam rifles to bear and opened up on the mech. Bolt after bolt struck it full in the chest or on its headlike protuberance, and Greg could see surface layers ablating and flaring off but for all that the thing staggered under the impacts it just wasn’t being seriously affected. As if in contempt for their weaponry it stamped repeatedly on Nilsson’s body, crushing his skull beneath one jointed metal claw. Then it went over and grabbed one of the dead Brolturans by his feet and, ignoring the hail of fire, charged at the outcrop.

Greg was stunned by the machine’s sheer, brutal, almost primitive violence, and shouted at everyone to hit the deck as it came within reach. The next moment it began using the body as a club, battering the rocks behind which the defenders crouched in terror. The machine was just over half the height of the outcrop but its arm length and the length of the Brolturan’s corpse gave it enough reach. Smashed again and again into the rocks, the body split and tore and spatters of blood flew.

One of the Rus lost control and, bellowing with rage, stood up and fired madly with an autopistol. The next moment he was swept off by the Brolturan’s corpse, now battered to a pulp and almost unrecognisable. Then the combat mech began to climb up the rocks. It only needed to ascend a couple of metres to come within arm’s length of Greg and the rest.

Greg looked at Alexei, rapped his knuckles on the casing of the big Brolturan rifle, and said, ‘On three … two … one! …’

In perfect unison both men shoved their rifles forward and opened fire. Energy bolts hammered into the mech’s torso plating which, incredibly, held, even though the pummelling force of the twin-barrelled onslaught stopped its ascent. In response it hurled the gory and now-headless corpse at them – Greg ducked but one crushed leg caught Alexei in the face, felling him in an instant.

The mech swung back with both clawed hands, clambering high enough to make a snatch at Greg. He stumbled back, still firing, watching the rifle’s charge level drop by the second. The others opened fire, an awful cacophony, through which the mechanoid still came. Fear made Greg want to toss the rifle away and throw himself down the other side of the outcrop, but there was a roaring sound in his ears as he stared up into the blank metal visage of death …

There was a dazzling flash. Greg felt heat on his face, saw a flaring burst, heard a rough metallic sound. Something had struck the side of the mech and instead of one claw-tipped arm it now had a melted stump fringed with sparking contacts. It straightened, whirled to locate its attacker, just as the second blast caught it full in the upper chest, punching through, sending shrapnel and inner workings bursting out the back. Critically damaged, the machine lost balance and control and fell back out of sight. There was a heavy thud as it landed and a chorus of small servo sounds, submechanisms scraping and grinding as they tried to function. The stunned defenders let out a ragged cheer but when one of the Rus went to look over the side Greg forcibly dragged him down, just in time. When the self-destruct went off it was a shattering explosion that sent a hail of fragments up to rattle against the rocks of the outcrop. Greg coughed at the stink of burning and charred dust as he crawled over to check Alexei who was sitting up, looking groggy and sporting an angry welt on his forehead.

‘Decked by a boot,’ he groaned. ‘A dead Brolturan’s boot, too!’

‘Well, you’re alive and he’s dead, laddie. I think my uncle would call that the best result.’

A short stocky man in muddy battledress came over and tapped his shoulder. ‘People are coming, seven, maybe eight.’

Greg straightened to face him and held out his hand. ‘I’m Greg Cameron, sometime leader of this motley band.’

They shook hands.

‘Yevgeny Markin,’ the man said, his manner sombre. ‘We were part of Vashutkin’s irregulars.’

Greg glanced off at the gloomy, spidery undergrowth and a small group that was emerging from it.

‘Where are the rest?’ he said.

‘No one else made it out of the caves.’

He looked at Markin. ‘Vashutkin?’

‘Dead.’ Markin shrugged. ‘Machines ambushed us, cut off the main entrance then hunted us in the tunnels. Vashutkin was with us then went off with his huntress to find another exit. We found one, but we also heard him shouting and firing back inside as we got out.’ He bared gritted teeth, shook his head. ‘It was terrible.’

Dammit
, Greg thought.
Without Vashutkin, half the resistance in the towns will lose heart
…

Then he looked over the side as the newcomers drew nearer, and he laughed in recognition.

‘I might have guessed,’ he called down. ‘Nice job!’

‘Aye, well,’ said Rory. ‘Ye cannae beat superior firepower!’

Rory and two others were, between them, carrying a long torpedo-shaped object cased in pale green and black.

‘So where’d ye get the oversized peashooter?’

Rory patted the weapon’s tapered, slotted muzzle.

‘Heavy plasma cannon. This wee baby was mounted on one o’ they ground skimmers the Brolts use – we saw one on patrol and our need was greater than theirs. End of story.’

‘And the rest of the arms?’ Greg said. ‘Please tell me you’ve got them.’

‘Oh aye, and a bundle of them Brolt rifles an’ all. Sent them on to Tusk Mountain with the rest of the boys, in case things went for a dive.’ Rory glanced around. ‘Listen, chief, d’ye not reckon we should move out? It’ll be getting dark soon and I’m already getting the creeps from this place.’

Greg agreed and with the help of Markin got everyone moving down next to Rory and his team, whereupon several admiring eyes were turned to the liberated heavy cannon. Then Greg realised that Chel was missing, but when he asked Alexei and the rest no one could recall seeing where he went. Yet when he asked Rory there was an immediate nod.

‘It was him that led us through the trees,’ he said. ‘We were tracking that big beast o’ a mech ’cos we thought it was after a bunch of guys we saw down in a river bed …’

‘So where did he go?’

‘Ah, well, ye see, he told me to say that … now that he can see more, he knows what he should be looking for. Hey, those eyes of his are pretty, eh, spooky.’

Greg frowned, wishing he’d been around to speak to Chel in person, to get him to explain the meaning of his words.

‘We’ll probably catch up with him later,’ he told Rory. ‘Meantime, let’s get on the road.’

Before they left he took a last, close look at the remains of the combat mech. The burst, twisted, melted and charred mass of metal was almost unrecognisable as the machine that had attacked them with such fury. It was certainly bigger, stronger and faster than any of those he had seen previously. Was the robot factory using new designs? Peering at the wreckage he spotted a section of leg armour that had escaped the worst of the self-destruct: it still bore some surface decoration, a pattern of crimson and dark green hooked motifs. Again, unlike the other machines which had seemed to have no identifying marks at all. He fixed the image of it in his mind before leaving.

Beyond the dark tangles of the ancient pillar tree, a dense layer of trees, bushes and vines hemmed it all around. Looking back from the edge of a wooded rise, with the light failing, Greg could see how the immense truncated tree was hidden by a canopy of foliage and how the whole mass could be mistaken for a small hill.

From there Greg led the way back across the swampy ground and he was keen to be as stealthy as possible so there were no conversations as they travelled on into the encroaching evening. The need for quiet and speed was not helped by the Brolturan cannon’s weight and bulk so Greg changed the carriers every half-hour or so and tried to avoid the boggiest parts of the morass.