Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [21]
Whether it was caused by the sudden movement or the thunder of gunfire, Colleen came to her senses and fought against her inhuman captor. Then she screamed.
The gunfire and screams activated the defense bots, and harsh light suddenly exploded through the forest. Orange and yellow eyes of night creatures caught in the beams reflected, looking eerie. The illumination washed away what little color there was and rendered the immediate area in lights and darks.
More tentacle things poured through the ripple, and Hella quickly lost count of them. There might have been a dozen, but there were so many legs and the things moved so quickly that she didn’t know for certain. She wished she knew how to close the ripple. Some lasted for only seconds, long enough for something to come through or get sucked away, but others were reputed to stay open for days. Hella didn’t know if that was true, but she hoped it wasn’t.
The thing that held Colleen darted behind a tree, ducked into the shadows, then swung back around toward Hella. Caught by surprise, Hella threw herself backward, flipping neatly to avoid a couple of tentacles that shot at her like harpoons. The tentacles snapped as they buried in trees behind her.
On her feet again, Hella moved at once to the attack. Even before she’d started training to fight with Stampede, she’d known that trying to run only made her vulnerable to attack. She aimed at the thing’s body again, but it swung away, which was what she expected it to do. Never breaking stride, Hella swept her machete through three of her foe’s support tentacles and felt a cold surge of joy as the creature listed to the side.
Taking advantage of the thing’s being off balance, Hella continued on to Colleen and leaped up to slash the tentacles that held the woman. The purple, frothing stumps drew back in pain as their prisoner dropped to the ground.
Hella reached Colleen’s side. The woman appeared able to move under her own power except for the fear locking her up. Grabbing one of Colleen’s arms, Hella yanked her into motion. “Move! Back to camp!”
Confused, Colleen started to run the wrong way.
Hella grabbed the back of the woman’s shirt, bumped her with her body, and got her going in the right direction. “Toward the lights! Go toward the lights!” Hella hoped that the defense bots didn’t mow them down as they charged across the uneven terrain.
Ditches, rocks, and exposed roots tripped Colleen. Every time the woman went down, Hella grabbed her by the arm and got her up again, yelling at her to keep running.
The tentacled thing boiled around the tree and came after them. Despite the missing limbs, the creature learned quickly how to move at speed on what it had left. It came on with inexorable speed, gaining quickly. Hella knew it was too far for the woman to reach, and Riley’s guards were caught up in fighting the new onslaught of creatures that had poured from the ripple.
Muzzle flashes lit up the night, warring with the sporadic blasts of the defense bots as they locked on to anything that hadn’t been scanned into their Identify Friend/Foe programming. Even Daisy had been scanned in. Hella had made certain of that. The lizard was too large for the security systems to miss.
“Hella!”
“I’m here! I got Colleen!” Hella sheathed her machete, formed her right hand into a weapon, and locked on to the charging tentacled thing.
The creature tried the swaying maneuver again, but Hella adjusted to it. She opened fire, unloading full auto and depleting the stores her body could generate in that short amount of time.
Bright blossoms of purple froth erupted across the bulbous mass, and one of the eyes disappeared into ruin. But it came on.
Too stupid to die! Knowing her body didn’t have any more ammo to give at the moment, Hella turned and fled back toward camp. She pumped her arms and legs, latching on to the adrenaline drenching her systems and letting it push her into overdrive.
When she spotted one of the squat defense bots, looking like a meter-tall can bristling with weapon muzzles, Hella headed straight for it. A targeting