James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark

Kaa stepped to the edge of the throng and returned fire from the hip. Bullets from the rooftop whined off the asphalt on either side of him. He paid them no more mind than drops of chem rain. Joyeuse, his neon au-toblaster, bucked in his fists, spitting smoking casings in a yellow stream. The tracers spanged off the edge of the roof, and the sec men disappeared in a flurry of impact smoke puffs. Kaa swept the M-60’s muzzle back and forth, hosing the sec men off their perch.

While he was so occupied, Kaa’s troops advanced without him, starting up the wide strip of parking lot that passed by the front of the amusement zone and led to the entrance of the hotel. He shouldered Joyeuse and melded with the advancing pack. All he could see ahead of him was the bobbing mass of bald heads, gleaming in the sun.

More blasterfire erupted from the direction of the

hotel. The stickies in the lead were absorbing it, the first ripple of a living wave sweeping over the baron’s blaster emplacements. Those that were shot and fell became the carpet for their comrades. Kaa felt sadness and joy, and above all, pride. This was the true measure of the hardness of the hearts of his soldiers. That they would all gleefully die in the hope of getting their sucker hands on a live norm.

The massed blasterfire from the entrance to the hotel was suddenly joined by an attack on their right flank. Sec men along the fence line of the amusement zone and high in the scaffolding of the roller coaster peppered the mob with salvos of lead. It took many hits to chill a stickie. Kaa saw them dropped by bullet impacts, only to rise up and run. The combined assault did have an effect, though. It compressed Kaa’s army, forcing it to run along a narrow strip of golf course.

The piebald man saw the danger, but before he could reroute his troops, the earth rocked violently and Kaa was thrown to the ground. As he was trying to get up, another explosion ripped the air.

Then it was raining body parts.

The baron had mined his own compound.

His ears ringing from the pressure of the blasts, Kaa sprang to his feet. Clouds of smoke billowed across the parking lot. Dozens of his soldiers were down, and many more had simply been vaporized. His stunned army paused, struggling to regain its momentum.

He had to do something.

The mutant lord could see the little figures hanging

over the balcony of the penthouse. He knew that the baron and his head toadies were up there watching the show, confident in their own safety. Bracing Joyeuse against his hip, he opened fire. He stitched a line of slugs across the front of the patio. The tiny figures scattered. Maybe some fell; he couldn’t tell. Or they ducked below the balcony wall.

It was a foretaste of hell.

Another explosion sent Kaa staggering to his knees.

Chaos and panic swept through the ranks of the stickies, who hadn’t yet recovered from the effects of the first two blasts. If his army stayed out in the open, tightly packed together, it would be annihilated, either by blasterfire or an explosion. He was too far back in the pack to lead them away from danger with a shout or a raised arm.

He unpeeled his eye and showed them how to escape.

ELUAH WAS BUSY browbeating his sec men when the stickies jumped up from the river plain. The volunteers were getting tired of raising the prisoner twenty-five stories and were working more and more slowly.

If Elijah didn’t see the stickies pop up, the toadie Skeen sure did. He screamed and pointed to the far side of the amusement zone.

“Look! Look!” he cried.

Everyone looked. Because of their angle of view and the intervening structures, they could only see the rearmost portion of the force.

“My blasterports can handle them,” the baron said. “This should be very interesting. Come on over, gals, and watch this.” Elijah got a fresh tankard of beer and joined them at the rail. They watched the mass of stick-ies disappear behind the lee of the berm wall.