‘Look, let’s talk.’ He held up his free hand, palm open toward the warrior, lowered his SMG to point it at the stony ground. It was the best way he could think of to signal peace. But at the same time his thumb switched the weapon to rapid fire. The next time he pulled the trigger, it would be for real.
The warrior put his hand up to touch his forelock. He brought it down again, sniffed suspiciously at his fingers with his squat, almost swinish snout. Then his eyes widened and went as round as blood-hued coins. He snarled something Vyotsky half-recognized, which he made out or guessed to be: ‘What? You dare threaten?’ Then the warrior’s right arm rose up toward his right shoulder in a sort of salute. His gauntlet was clenched, but at the apex of the salute it sprang open and showed an arrangement of blades, hooks, claws.
He went into a crouch, affected a combat stance, made as if to hurl himself at Vyotsky. But the big Russian wasn’t waiting. Over a distance of only six or seven paces he couldn’t possibly miss. He squeezed the trigger, opened up, hosed the warrior across the body with a stream of lethal lead – or should have!
But the KGB man wasn’t having much luck with his gun. Of all times to have a defective round! – the weapon fired three or four shots and jammed. It had been Vyotsky’s intention to stitch the warrior one way across his body, right to left and rising, then the other way, coming back down. A simple ‘wave’ of the SMG should suffice, pouring maybe fifteen to twenty rounds at him, half of which should find their target. But the gun had released only three or four shots, none of them aimed.
The first had sliced a groove along the warrior’s left side, laying open the flesh there as if he’d been slashed with a jagged toothed saw; the next had pierced his shoulder under the right collar bone at the joint with his arm; the rest, two shots at most, had missed entirely. But the two hits had been like hammer blows which would have stopped any soldier of Earth. This wasn’t Earth, however, and the target wasn’t just a man.
Thrown back and spun around by the force of the impact to his shoulder, he’d gone sprawling flat-out in the dust – where in the next moment he’d sat up and looked groggily all about. Vyotsky, cursing loudly, snatched the magazine from his gun, re-cocked the weapon and glanced into the chamber. A cartridge, struck but not fired, was stuck in the breach. He shook the SMG to try to dislodge the jammed, defective round; no good, it would have to be carefully prised loose. And by now the warrior was back on his feet.
Vyotsky hooked the gun to his belt to keep it out of the way, unhooked the nozzle of his flame-thrower. He struck ignition and threw off the safety-catch. As the wounded warrior again stumbled toward him, he made one last attempt for peace and adopted the same pose as before, showing the warrior his open palm. Perhaps the other considered it an insult; whichever, all Vyotsky got for an answer was a snarl of rage. Then, even though the warrior had been shot through his right shoulder, still he lifted his gauntlet, flexed its terrible tools and showed them to his opponent.
‘Enough is enough!’ the Russian growled. He let the other come to within three or four paces, aimed the nozzle of his flame-thrower and squeezed the firing stud.
The small, licking blue flame at its tip became a searing lance of roaring heat, lashed out and torched the warrior all down the left-hand side of his body. Burning, he screamed his shock and terror and bounded away, bounded again, then threw himself down and rolled in dust and pebbles, finally extinguished the flames. Smoking, he staggered to his feet, went careening back toward his weird mount. But now that Vyotsky had started this, he’d decided it should be finished.
He advanced after the smoking warrior, aimed his hose a second time – and froze!