Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [105]
Scatter’s face lifted from Hella’s palm to the air. “Hella.”
“We’re here.” Hella ran to cover behind a tree and knew it would be poor cover against one of the zeppelins’ cannons.
Sadness pulled Scatter’s face down heavily. His face shook. “This is too much. I do not want you and Stampede to die.”
“We’re not dead yet.” Blood trickled down Hella’s cheek as she peered around the tree.
“The two of you should go somewhere else. Be safe.”
“If we have to, we will. Dead heroes don’t do anybody any good.” That was another one of the sayings Stampede had first taught her, but it sounded really dumb saying it to Scatter. She just didn’t know what else to say.
The zeppelins cruised closer then hovered over the battleground a couple hundred meters up.
“They’re idiots getting that close.” Stampede shook his head. “If Trazall brought any—”
A rocket streaked into the sky atop a chemical burn tail. When the rocket first crashed into the zeppelin, Hella thought nothing was going to happen. Then a secondary round exploded inside the bag and ignited whatever gas had been used to fill it. A series of successive detonations ripped through the bag.
Almost instantly, a pool of fire hung in the night sky then began the long fall to earth. The gunners aboard the second craft fell silent, obviously overcome by what had happened to the other ship.
Hella wondered if the zeppelin crews had ever before been in battle, and she thought again of the perfect world Riley had taken pains to describe to her. They weren’t living in peaceful times. Stampede had taught her that. He’d trained her to be a warrior because that was the only way she would survive. He’d trained her to be a scout because being on her own was safer than trying to exist within the shifting allegiances of towns and trading posts.
The wreckage of the first zeppelin hit the ground ahead of flaming bodies as survivors of the explosions tried to escape. The mass indiscriminately killed Trazall’s people as well as the expedition members while they fought. Another rocket launched and narrowly missed the second zeppelin, though Hella had no idea how a target that big could be missed.
Evidently the commander of the surviving vessel had decided on discretion as the better part of valor because the airship started pulling away. Before it got more than fifty meters away, a third rocket slammed into it amidships and burst it open in a fiery gush. As the zeppelin fell, ammo cooked off in a hail of bullets and rockets. Fiery debris lay spread across the treetops.
Eyes stinging from all the smoke and smarting from the bright explosions, Hella looked around for Stampede. He stood behind a copse of trees with the big rifle held before him. Flames wreathed the trees behind him.
He nodded. “I’m fine.”
“I’m going to look for Scatter.” His visage had disappeared again, and the silver film covered her left palm.
“We’ll go.”
“No. You’ll stand out.” As far as Hella had seen, there wasn’t another bisonoid in either of the two groups. “I’m depending on you to cover me.”
Stampede hesitated. “In and out. Don’t try to get cute with this.”
Hella plunged through the trees and brush before he could change his mind.
Chaos spread out as far as Hella could see. Fire cast uncertain light and weirdly twisting shadows. Smoke poured in all directions and stayed low in the brush rather than rising above the trees. She ran and even after only a short distance felt her lungs, throat, and nasal passages burning from the smoke-laced chemicals. She hoped she wasn’t breathing anything lethal.
Skirmish groups still battled. Gunshots rang out singly or in rapid-fire bursts as she vaulted over dead bodies. She thought of Colleen Trammell and hoped the woman was still alive. Of everyone in the expedition, Colleen had seemed the most kind.
One of Trazall’s warriors strode out from