“And neither can we,” Jake replied from the control board. “We just going to leave him down there?”
Kate snorted. “Not a chance in hell. Can we get a reading with the radar?”
“Not into the city. It’s designed for the sky, not to scan down into holes.”
“How about change the angle?” J.B. asked.
“Not in this,” the man said, gesturing at the ceiling the sound of rain on every side. “No way.”
“Can we hit him with the L-gun?” Blackjack asked, swiveling about at the machine gun blister. With the enemy down in the sinkhole, he had nothing to guard for a moment.
“Angle is wrong. Never planned on shooting down a goddamn well,” Kate replied with a frown. “We could do it, but we’d have to be right at the very edge of the cliff. A sitting target for his coil gun.”
“You have a working laser?” Ryan asked.
“Bet your ass we do. We made it ourselves,” she admitted with pride. “Or rather Eric did. Took us a year. Uses diamond dust as a light source. He is an ace tech, and can make anything.”
“Shit lousy blaster shot, though.” Blackjack smirked at the blister.
Behind the tinted plastic, Eric made a rude gesture in response.
J.B. mused on that. Burning diamonds was clever. Jewelry was without value these days, and so a lot of it could still be found in the ruins. Diamonds were merely coal, after all. Probably used thermite to ignite the diamond dust and then watch out, the stronger the source, the hotter the laser.
“Heads up,” Eric announced suddenly, his voice distorted with static as lightning flashed nearby. All conversation stopped for a moment as the thunder rolled over them shaking the wags.
“The ear has a series of explosions to the north,” Eric continued reporting. “A lot of them, very fast, very strong.”
“Is he fighting somebody else?” Dean asked hopefully.
Jak replied, “Mebbe it only thinks it’s us.”
“Bah, the feeb has gone blaster-happy,” Blackjack muttered. “Just shooting for the sound of it.”
“Or he’s clearing the line of sight,” Ryan corrected. “Once those few standing buildings are gone, he’ll be able to track the entire rim of the cliff from one central location.”
“Fuck it,” the door guard said with conviction. “Let him keep the city. He’ll be ass deep in muties for the rest of his life.”
Then Eric spoke, “No, he is shooting at the cliff. I hear rocks falling, but no glass shattering, or anything else breakable. This makes no sense.”
Frowning in thought, Ryan turned. “J.B., you took a recce of the rim while we were on top of the building.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Is the north face of the cliff the lowest point?”
“Sure,” the Armorer said, then realized what that meant.
“He’s digging a path out,” Kate growled, slamming a fist onto the arm of her chair. “Using the coil gun to blow down the cliff and make a ramp of solid rock to reach the surface!”
“If he achieves open ground with that APC,” Mildred started.
“Tank,” Jessica interrupted. “During the lightning I got a brief vid of the city and saw it. Big monster, five, six times the size of any APC. It’s a goddamn tank.”
“Nuking hell!” Anders whispered, slumping his shoulders. “Gaza with a working preDark tank.”
“If the baron escapes from the pit in that behemoth, he’ll take over the Deathlands in a year. He was a major danger with just an APC, but with a full operational preDark tank—” Kate paused “—he’ll be unstoppable. We got nothing that can even dent that big bastard until it’s close enough to blow us to bits.”
“The bastard has all of the advantages,” Fat Pete said, speaking at last.
“Except one,” Ryan stated, going to the windshield and looking at the pouring rain. “Think any of those motorcycles might still work?”
“Sure,” Blackjack said, leaning on the .50-cal, making the belt of ammo jingle. “They’ve survived acid rain storms before. Why?”
“We’ll need a lot more plastic sheeting,” J.B. said, tilting back his fedora. “And a hell of a diversion. But if these folks have enough cable and a good winch, we can use the ravine and ledge we climbed before to get back down into the city.”