Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [22]
“Warning. You are endangering this unit’s ability to respond properly.” The mechanical voice piped into Hella’s head over the comm link. The verbal equivalent was just a heartbeat later in front of her. “You are advised to break off your approach.”
Hella managed another stride then another.
“Warning. This unit’s parameters are established. Outside losses of friendly units are acceptable when camp integrity is threatened.”
Hella silently cursed the mechanical thing. A flesh-and-blood defender would have moved, not held position the way the bot did. If camp security were threatened, a flesh-and-blood defender—especially someone like Stampede—would kill her just as dead to take out an enemy.
The bot cycled its weapons, lifting slightly to alter the angle. Hella leaped into the air awkwardly. She flailed for balance then heard the defense bot open fire beneath her. Tracer fire drummed through the space she’d occupied only a heartbeat earlier.
Unable to find her balance, Hella came down hard but managed to land on her back. She slapped her arms out to her sides at the moment of contact with the ground to lessen some of impact. The wind went out of her in a rush, and she thought she might have fractured her ribs.
Groaning with effort and pain, Hella rolled over onto her elbow and folded her legs beneath herself. Then she stood, lit by the lightning given off by the defense bot’s auto fire. Her guns were once more ready, but there was no need. The bot’s heavy-caliber gunfire tore the tentacled thing to pieces, bursting it like a grape and leaving the tentacles hanging empty.
“Hella!”
“I’m fine. Back at camp.” Hella stared through the darkness and saw one of the tentacled things explode as a rocket slammed into it. “These things are hard to kill.”
“Stubborn, that’s all. Definitely doable.”
Smiling, Hella turned to look for Colleen.
The woman knelt next to a defense bot, hair in her face, features ironed by terror, and tears in her eyes.
Hella went to her, feeling bad for what happened to her. She turned one of her guns into a hand and gently laid it on Colleen’s shoulder. “Hey. You’re safe.”
Colleen clung to Hella’s hand with both of hers. “I don’t know what happened.”
Gunfire out in the brush slowed, and Hella thought the creatures were either all dead or they’d run deeper into the forest. “It’s okay. We’ll work it out.”
“Colleen Trammell doesn’t remember anything?” Stampede sounded as if he didn’t believe that as he walked through the battlefield outside camp the next morning.
“Until she realized that thing was holding her, no.” Hella flanked the bisonoid and searched the other side of the swath they cut through the forest.
“Do you believe her?”
Hella hesitated, knowing that was a loaded question. It wasn’t just about her believing Colleen’s story. It was also about whether he thought Hella was compromised by her belief in the woman.
“I believe her.”
Stampede kicked one of the bodies over so he could peer into the hideous face. He didn’t say anything, but Hella knew what he was thinking.
“I like her. She seems real.”
Like a curious child, Stampede gripped the thing’s face and forced the misshapen X mouth open. Fangs on all four flaps glistened. “You like her because she wants to be with her daughter instead of out here.”
“I do.” Hella knew better than to try to hide the respect she held for the woman.
“You can’t trust people out here, Red. Not even me.”
“Can I trust you on that?”
Stampede glanced up at her and smiled. His horns glistened with morning mist.
“She didn’t know what she was doing.” Hella focused on remembering how Colleen Trammell had acted. “It was like she was hypnotized or something. The way she was dressed—”
“Not like we’ve seen her before. And not something she’d wear out in the open around men. Other women might. But not that one.”
Hella felt a little better then. Stampede had noticed a lot. He was only pretending to be a hard sell.
“I don’t think she got up on her own.” Hella slipped her sunglasses