Devil Riders

Then the bikers turned off their headlights and darkness covered the landscape, with only the flashes of their blasterfire showing where the Devils were located.

“Ready the second cannon!” Thomas ordered, working the bolt of the Remington and chambering a fresh predark cartridge. “Blow them off the cliff!”

With the gun crew shouting directions, bald eunuchs lashed a team of slaves to move faster, loading the predark monster with black powder and broken lengths of chain. At this range, the shotgun blast of junk would chew the outlanders into small chunks of flesh, leveling anything along that entire section of the cliff. There was no escaping the guns of Hellsgate.

INSIDE THE DIMLY illuminated interior of War Wag One, the dashboard and control panels cast a rainbow of colors across the tense crew. Then the ceiling speaker crackled alive once more. “Repeat, Trader One, they just aced Denver Joe and have the gate covered with slaves. Main guns are being armed. Repeat, their cannons are being loaded. Do we charge the gate, or run?”

The men and women in the room exchanged tense looks, their hands tight on grips of the machine guns inside the blisters jutting from both sides of the armored transport. Nervously, the seasoned killers chewed gum to stop from fidgeting as smoking was forbidden inside the vehicle because it could damage the delicate comps operating the coms and main L-gun.

“Your call, Chief,” Roberto said, glancing backward from the main weapons panel. His wounded arm now hung in a clean sling, but the man could still use both hands to steer the big rig.

Hunched forward in a chair bolted to the floor, Kate clenched and unclenched her fists on the handles of the periscope and watched the events happening just over the hill. Black dust, how had everything fallen apart so fast? The plan had been for the bikers to mine the gate and blow it open so the war wags could roll into Hellsgate and level the place. The gate, that damn gate! It was the only access into the ville, and even then they had to outmaneuver those sixteen-inch cannons. War Wag One had missiles, but not enough to chew a hole through that bastard wall. The armor plating from the ancient warships was proof to almost any weapon. The gate was the only way in, and now it was covered with living slaves as protection.

With their diesels engines idling, two more armored wags also sat behind the hill, their lights off, exhaust puffing into the salty breeze. The additional four cargo wags were far away from the war wags in case of trouble, but well-armed with small-caliber rapidfires and a single precious flamethrower.

They were ready to give cover fire and help protect the rear from a night creep, but the brunt of any chilling would be done by War Wag One and its heavy weaponry.

Once again, Kate pressed her face against the cracked cushion lining the ob slit of the periscope. Switching from infrared to Starlite, the front of the ville grew into daylight clarity and she could see the naked women dangling from the chains, shouting. Probably begging for death. Her heart pounded as Kate remembered doing the same in the past, and the old scars on both wrists suddenly itched as her mind heard the whip crack of a herder’s lash across her back and felt the leather cut into virgin flesh.

This was all the fault of that damn pet doomie the elders had! She had to have screwed the deal, and now the whole plan was a mess. All that time spent tracking the Devils to steal their bikes wasted. Lives lost for nothing. They were stopped again by those damn cannons, with the cannies laughing in victory behind the thick wall. Mebbe the cooks already started the stoves for a special meal this night, the slaves soiling themselves in terror as the eunuchs appeared at the top of the holding pits with chains and knives, laughing at the wails of terror from the people below…

Sounding like nukefall, a cannon of the ville discharged, splitting the night, a lance of flame stretching yards ahead of it. A whistling barrage of shrapnel blew across the ground with the bikes catching a couple of minor pieces. Quickly, the bikers moved their vehicles into the path of the cannon, knowing that they would be safe from another salvo for a few minutes until the weapon was reloaded. However, they also knew the dodge wouldn’t work a second time. Because the next volley would be both of the eastern cannons, and from that combined spread there would be no escape.

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