Taking a stance, he aimed the longblaster, adjusting the focus on the crosshairs to bring their faces into wire sharpness, when the beasts snapped their attention away from the companions and started to hiss, their tails motionless, fur bristling.
“Not us,” Krysty said. “We’re much to far away, unless they understand what a blaster can do.”
“Could be,” Mildred mused, moving away from the channel. If there was trouble, she didn’t want to be trapped with a fifty-foot drop onto rocks at her back.
Just then the hair on the back of Ryan’s neck started to stir. With battle instincts honed in a hundred fights, the man spun from the waist and fired the long-blaster.
A hundred yards away, the giant spider on the ridge gave no reaction as the 7.62 mm round hit its bulbous body. It continued to scuttle down the slope, its eight hairy legs blurs of speed.
“Nuke me,” Jak said, and fired the .357 Magnum Colt from his hip.
The booming handblaster blew a lance of flame from its pitted muzzle. There was a ripple in the yellow-and-black-striped fur over the massive torso, nothing more.
Dean raised his own blaster, but didn’t fire; the distance was too great yet for the semiautomatic pistol. But the spider was closing in fast. There was no way to tell where its weird multifaceted eyes were looking, but the boy knew the friends were its goal. The angle of attack was too perfect. The companions were caught between the rocky channel and the cats, with the spider closing the third side of the triangle trap. Dean shot a glance at the ground, wondering if the thing did this often.
“Hurry, form a firing line, my friends!” Doc rumbled, and dropped to a knee, gripping the LeMat in both hands.
Jak and Dean went down alongside the man, Mildred and Krysty standing behind them, forming a wall of blasters. J.B. passed Mildred the shotgun, and switched the Uzi from single shot to full-auto.
“If we’ve got to jump,” he said grimly, “stay away from the coral. It’ll slice you apart like barbed wire.”
“Jump, my ass. Get ready to run!” Ryan countered, and fired the Steyr twice.
The discharges echoed across the grassland, and the ropes tied to the stanchions of the bridge snapped. Instantly the freed cougars sprang forward, sprinted across the landscape with their legs pumping, backs arcing to propel them with frightening speed directly at the spider.
The insect immediately changed course and went toward the approaching animals, its mandibles loudly snapping like distant blasterfire. Staying motionless, the companions anxiously watched as the muties collided.
At first, the cats dashed around the towering spider, snapping at its legs, darting forward, only to dodge backward. The insect rushed at them again and again, only to have the guard cat nimbly avoid the rush. Then one cat stood its ground, snarling a challenge. The insect scuttled in for the kill, when the second cougar jumped on its back and started ripping out mouthfuls of hairy hide. Squealing in agony, the spider rose onto its hind legs, easily dumping the cat off its back. Tumbling through the air, the cougar landed upright on its paws and raced under the belly of the beast, while the other slashed for the multifaceted eyes with deadly claws.
But the spider countered both attacks, dropping flat on the ground, avoiding the first cat and catching the second animal underneath. Mewing in pain, the crushed cat squirmed free, one leg dragging limply behind.
“Now,” Ryan said, and the companions dashed for the bridge.
With its speed gone, the second cat tried to defend its mate, but the spider rushed upon the wounded beast and caught its body in the powerful mandibles. Screaming in rage, the cat fought for freedom as the black pincers sawed into its flesh. Red blood gushed out, a leg fell off, the cougar thrashed insanely for the vulnerable face of the insect, then the pincers closed with a solid click. The animal fell away in two pieces, blood everywhere.
Both tails lashing, the other cat didn’t make the same mistake, and darted among the spider’s legs, just nipping here, clawing there. Thick yellow blood flow from the tiny wounds, mixing with the red on the rich soil. Soon the giant insect started to move more slowly, its legs clumsily avoiding the cat as the mandibles snapped with less force.