Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [99]
“Then let’s get it done.” Stampede nudged her with an elbow.
Hella’s stumble turned into a full-blown run in a half dozen strides. Daisy bleated in fear, and that sound galvanized and focused Hella’s resolve. There was nothing she could do for Scatter or his mate at that time. If she and Stampede were free and running, that could change. She hoped it would change.
The mortars continued to rain death throughout the camp, but the security bots quickly adjusted to the attack. Sizzling lasers leaped from the bots and exploded incoming mortar rounds in the air. Most of them never reached the campsite, but a few still did, and those created instant craters.
Around the camp perimeter, the Sheldons closed in and exchanged gunfire with Riley’s hardshells. For the most part, the body armor turned away the biker’s deadly assault, but one of the wounded security guards stuttered back with both armored gloves wrapped around her throat. Blood fountained down the black material. Hella didn’t break stride, knowing there was no time to save the woman. By the time she could get through the armor safeguards, if the woman were even able to tell her the pass codes to get the suit open, she would be gone.
At the edge of the camp, Daisy fought her tether. She gentled at once when she discovered Hella was there then threw her head up and down in greeting.
Bullets chopped into the brush and trees. A security guard in a hardshell wheeled on them with his rifle to his shoulder. Stampede stamped his hoof, and the ground beneath the security guard erupted. The man flew backward several meters.
Three Sheldons surged forward with their weapons up and firing. They had their heads pulled down so their shells acted like collars and offered protection.
Bullets cut the air around Hella and Stampede. A least a pair of rounds hit the chain mail and drove Hella back, but she had her hand up and fired automatically. Two of the men went down, mortally wounded. Stampede removed the head of the first with a single rifle blast.
Breathing hard, pain arcing beneath the chain mail, Hella stopped at the equipment chest on the ground beside Daisy, clicked it open, and took out the saddle from inside. Stampede grabbed the chest and started lashing it into place on the mountain boomer’s back while Hella fitted the saddle.
A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a nearby security bot and reduced it to a flaming pyre. The ammunition cooked off in rapid succession. One of the stray rounds hammered Hella between the shoulder blades hard enough to drive her forward and take her breath away. But the chain-mail armor held, though she knew she’d be covered in a massive bruise for days.
Once the saddle was cinched into place, Hella stepped into the stirrup, grabbed the pommel, and swung herself aboard. Daisy quivered in anticipation, already wanting to get out of the firefight. Hella hesitated, not knowing which direction to take.
“North.” Stampede hauled his rifle to his shoulder, took brief aim, and fired. One of two of Sheldons nearest them went down with a massive bullet in his face.
Hella hesitated, staring at the skirmish confronting the camp. She didn’t like the idea of running from the fight. Scatter and Ocastya might be all right, but she feared for Colleen Trammell.
Stampede stepped up beside her and spoke loud enough to be heard over the gunfire and explosions. “Riley and his people are establishing a line.”
That was true. Riley and the hardshells repelled the ground attack, and the security bots had triangulated the mortar teams and were blasting them into the earth or into retreat.
“Colleen is back there.”
“She’s one of them, Red.”
“Not entirely.”
“Even so, if we go back there, we’re either going to end up dead because of the Sheldons or because of Pardot. We’ve got to go.”
Angry and frustrated, Hella reined Daisy over and pointed her toward the wilderness away from the camp. She put her heels to the mountain boomer’s sides and rode, staying low in the saddle as Daisy scampered through the rough terrain.
With incredible speed, Stampede