She and Dean joined Doc and Jak as they looked into the cargo box. More slaves were dead, hit by the beams directly, or horribly burned alive when the sides of the box heated up. Those who survived were badly shaken.
“Look!” Dean cried, pointing at the pair of black gyroplanes sweeping down on them.
The companions dropped from the cargo box and jumped into the cab. Laser cannons flashed from the noses of the aircraft. The streaming energy pulses hit the ore wag’s EM shield directly in front of the driver seat and sheered off to either side.
It was a wake-up call.
The gyros hovered, holding their fire as Mildred got the wag moving again.
“The cargo box doesn’t have an EM shield,” she said. “If those pilots wanted to, they could hang right over it and chill all of the slaves. Maybe they’re as valuable as the road.”
“Difficult to run a mine without workers,” Doc said. “As difficult as it is to move ore without a road.”
As Mildred continued to climb out of the bowels of the crater, the gyros retreated along with her, maintaining position and distance.
Then, without warning, the cannons fired again, simultaneously. The two pulses hit the same spot, and the energy flare off the cab’s shield was ten times brighter than before.
“Damn!” Mildred said, rubbing her eyes.
“They can’t hurt us,” Dean said.
“Or they don’t want to yet,” Doc told him. “They could have something up their sleeves, just biding their time until the proper moment.”
As it turned out, they had nothing up their sleeves.
The gyroplanes suddenly rose in the air, wheeled around and sped back toward Slake City.
“I’m sure glad to see their backsides,” Mildred said.
“Did we win already?” Dean said. “Is it over?”
“I am sorry to say that it has not yet begun,” Doc replied.
More black wags appeared on the road above them. These weren’t ore trucks; they were attack wags and they were closing fast.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Krysty looked over her shoulder as the speaker entered the room. The she-he had close-cropped blond curls and pale blue eyes. The charcoal-gray T-shirt the creature wore was skintight over a wide, muscular chest. What startled Krysty the most was the width of its neck. The trapezius muscles formed a broad triangle from below the ears to the rounded domes of its shoulders.
Instead of swinging the chair down on the comp, Krysty pivoted her hips and brought it crashing against the she-he, who raised both forearms to block the attack. Although the blow forced the she-he to take a step back, the chair bounced off.
Bounced off and flew across the room as if it had rocket-assist.
“Not nice,” the she-he said.
Krysty winced. Apparently, she had done herself more damage than her intended target. Her hands had gone numb to the wrists from the shock of the impact.
“Come here,” the creature said playfully, crinkling an index finger toward herself, “come to Mero. We’ll take you back to your cell.”
As Krysty retreated and the she-he turned, Krysty got a look at the mass of weeping sores on the side of Mero’s neck. “What’s that you’ve got there?” she asked. “It looks plenty bad. Probably hurts like hell. Did you spill a bucket of battery acid on yourself?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Mero replied. “Just get your butt over here. Don’t make me chase you around the room.”
“Not up to it, huh?”
Mero lunged for her. Krysty easily moved out of the way, sidestepping the outstretched hand. As she came around on the balls of her feet, Krysty launched a side-kick into the back of the she-he’s weight-bearing leg. Mero staggered forward, throwing both arms in the air to keep from falling. Krysty spun 360 degrees and power-kicked the she-he in the throat. The toe of her boot bored deep into the soft tissue.
For anyone else, it would have been a killshot.
Mero lurched backward, but in so doing managed to grab hold of Krysty’s ankle. With one hand, the she-he almost casually flipped the redhead onto her back.
Krysty landed on her kidneys. The impact with the floor knocked the wind out of her for a second. Long enough for the she-he to get a better grip on her left foot, wrapping fingers of steel around her instep.