Free Hell's Maw by James Axler Page B

the mechanical assault vehicle. The wags bumped over the fallow fields, dropping down into potholes before rearing up again like scared stallions, their mounted guns blazing.
    The wags were rugged, but they were not designed for this kind of treatment. Their cargo shifted and shook on their beds, and Kane’s companion wailed in frustration as one of the guy ropes tore and three sacks of grain went tumbling over the side.
    â€œLeave ’em,” Kane instructed. “When we survive this, we can go back for them.”
    The gunner looked at Kane with raised eyebrows. “When?”
    â€œStay positive, boy,” Kane told him. “No point losing the fight before you’ve entered it.”
    Bullets spit from the turret, finding their distance now as the wag closed in on the striding behemoth. In the opposite field, on the far side of the broken strip of road, Brigid was working one of the tripod guns while one of Ohio Blue’s troops took the other, sending short bursts of bullets at the towering monstrosity trudging across the fields. Suddenly, the box-on-legs turned, slowing its stride as it brought its aperture to bear on Brigid’s wag.
    â€œBaptiste!” Kane shouted into his Commtact, unable to do anything else.

Chapter 6
    Brigid had been counting off the seconds in her head. It had been twenty-five seconds since their mystery attacker had last fired that cataclysmic ray—and she knew she should have thirty before it could do so again.
    As Kane’s warning came, Brigid reached across to the other gunner, a woman in her forties with prematurely graying hair and the deeply tanned complexion of a Native American. “Get down!” Brigid instructed.
    The gunner didn’t stop to query the instruction; she just let go of the tripod gun and dropped to the deck behind it. Beside her, Brigid was doing the same.
    Then the ray blasted, zapping a melting beam of incredible heat toward the wag, bathing it in boiling red light. Brigid turned her head away from the blast as it washed over the back plate of the six-wheeler. She could feel the warmth running down her right-hand side as the periphery of the beam lashed against her, her shadow suit compensating instantly. Beside her, the red-skinned woman fared less well, spitting a curse as the tassels of her jacket caught fire, then tamping the flames down with swift pats of her hand.
    As soon as the beam faded, Brigid was back up to work the guns again. The wag was still moving, bumping across the uneven ground of the fallow field, and it took Brigid a few seconds to adjust her aim.
    â€œKane, it’s taking them thirty seconds to power up thatheat ray,” she said as she drew the tripod cannon around and squeezed the trigger. “That’s how long you have to drop it.”
    * * *
    â€œC OPY THAT ,” K ANE acknowledged as his own wag went caroming over the bumpy field. “Hey, Paul,” he called to the driver while his partner worked the turret gun. “Get us closer!”
    â€œCloser? You want closer?” the driver sounded outraged.
    â€œJust do it!” Kane snarled back as he scrambled to the edge of the wag’s flatbed. A moment later, as the wag sped past the towering machine, Kane leaped over the side, dropping into a tuck-and-roll as he stuck the soil. Above him, the boxy construct began firing with its secondary railguns, sending a swift burst of bullets in the direction of the scrambling wag that Kane had just disembarked, drilling 15 mm shells across the roof and side of the retreating wag. The bullets struck like hail, clattering across the metal and drilling through with a sound like clashing cymbals.
    The wag swerved left and right behind him as Kane rose from the ground and began to sprint across the terrain toward their towering assailant. Kane was thirty feet away from it now, and this close it looked a lot like scaffolding with a box depending from the chains. The legs were part-built,