“Here it comes!” J.B. shouted, firing a short burst at the machine. A jam caught in the ejector port, and the Armorer feverishly worked the arming bolt to clear the bent brass to start shooting again.
The rest of the companions maintained their fire while retreating from the machine. Unlike its brethren found inside certain redoubts, this one was in perfect working condition, and if it had been armed with any kind of a distance weapon, they would all have been chilled by now. But most droids had been designed more as a terror weapon, built to deter people from entering top secret facilities like the redoubts rather than to commit wholesale slaughter.
Moving into the street again, the companions shot at the droid and threw the occasional round into the fuel tanks of the better condition cars, hoping for an explosion, but it never happened.
Shoving a pizza van aside, the sec hunter droid charged for the companions, and they turned and ran. But as they passed the fire truck parked before the station, there came the sound of running boots, and Ryan appeared on top of the cab with a shining ax in one hand and a cloth bundle in the other. At the noise, the droid turned and Ryan spun out the fireproof blanket to cover the machine. As it raised both buzz saws to cut away the heavy material, Ryan jumped from the top of the cab, swinging the ax with all of his strength. The ax struck the right buzz saw, shattering the spinning blade with a ringing crash. Instantly, the shrapnel sprayed out in every direction, and for a split second, the one-eyed man saw his own distorted reflection in a flying chunk of steel as it passed his head.
“Now!” Ryan shouted, diving aside.
As the droid removed the blanket, Krysty, standing only a few yards away, fired, the muzzle flash from the H&H almost touching the machine as the remaining red lens shattered into a million pieces. Recoiling to ride the force of the blow, the sec hunter droid rallied within seconds, blindly thrusting out its remaining blade to hit cars, walls and lampposts.
Now the companions hammered the damaged machine with blasterfire as slim burnished rods rose from within the armored body. Bending and flexing, the antennae probed the air and then once more the hunter started forward.
“LISTEN UP, Gordon,” Kate said into a microphone. “Pull back to the dry sand and keep Two to cover the cargo vans! Those bugs could eat the tires off the rims in a heartbeat! Form a break with you at the center, and use the flamethrower if they get close.”
Even as they watched on the monitors, a man tripped in the wet sand and fell. The rest of the people kept going, leaving him behind. Slipping and sliding in the muck, the man finally got to his feet only to scream as he saw a millipede crawling across his chest. Rearing its head, the insect buried its pincers into his flesh and started sawing off a piece. His screams became shrieks as he grabbed the bug and tried to pull it loose, its hundreds of legs ripping the skin off his fingers. Than another bug bit him in the leg and he dropped, wailing in agony.
The port side .50-cal banged once, and the man dropped lifeless into the bloody water. The bugs converged on the twitching corpse and starting a feeding frenzy.
“Roger that, Chief,” the bald man said, his picture on a vid monitor slightly out of sync with his words. “We’ll keep the hull cold in case you folks have to get on board.”
“Fuck that,” she growled. “You get hot and stay that way! Pump as much electricity through the chassis as the busbars can carry. If the bugs get inside Two, you’ll be SPAM in a can for their dinner. Now move!”
Unhappy at the orders, Gordon just nodded. His picture began to shake as War Wag Two started pulling back, with the cargo vans already pushing ahead.
Rolling the big wags into the muddy water, Trader could see the people splashing frantically toward the machine. Friend or foe, it made no difference when millipedes were on your tail. Close behind them the muddy water seemed to boil in a black shiny patch twenty feet wide and about as long. That was a nuking lot of bugs. On a side monitor a camera had zoomed in for a close shot of the muties. The bodies were segmented, the rear pincers arched like a scorpion about to strike, and the front pincers were snapping with the sound of crumpling paper there were so many.