The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [189]
‘The songs going unsung!’
‘Ja, and the heads going unpunched and the chairs going unbroken!’
In the ensuing round of belly laughs, Theo almost failed to hear the clicking of metal on stone. Frowning, he turned and spotted a grey insectoid machine the size of a dog leaping from boulder to rock shard and heading straight for McRae. The big Scot saw the warning in the others’ faces before they could shout and he’d unlimbered his cleaver in time to swing it as the Legion mech reached him.
Even as that happened, Theo spotted a second machine and a third, and was hastily bringing the Brolt rifle to bear. Dritt! – they were less than a hundred yards from the warpwell. They couldn’t fail this close!
One of the Stonecutter boys was jumped by yet another two of the machines and he went down with his throat slashed open. The Scots and the Norj were armed with hammers, cleavers, nailguns and shotguns and a group of them set about the ambushers with a will. Theo stayed near Rory and managed to pick off one mech as it dodged and swerved through the rocks. Grinning and laughing manically, he heard the warning shouts too late before something struck him across the shoulders. Knocked off balance, he would have fallen into a dark gap between a boulder and a tilted slab had he not jammed the big rifle between them.
‘Let me down, ye rust heap o’ junk! – if I get ma hands on yir main neural junction and gie it a good yank ye’ll know what hit ye!’
It was a full-sized Legion cyborg, about twenty feet long with various tool arms and tentacles protruding from its oddly starfish-shaped carapace. Rory was struggling in the grip of two smaller arms whose stubby graspers had laid hold of knots of his clothing. He was dragged from the rock shard he had clung to and was being lifted into the air. Out of nowhere, McRae came running, made a mighty jump and caught hold of the edge of the cyborg’s carapace. The cyborg rose unsteadily, trying to dislodge its unwanted rider with sudden jerks or by fumbling around with one of its tentacle pincers. But McRae dragged himself fully on top of it, holding on grimly for a moment or two before spread-eagling himself across the upper carapace. At this point the cyborg was already moving towards the warpwell and its vertical cascade of invaders.
Regaining his feet, Theo looked around for the others and saw them scattered in twos and threes as they fought on against the Legion mechs. He cursed and began hurrying after the cyborg, trying to move through and across the field of broken rock without being rash. Moments later there was a shout and his eyes snapped up in time to see Rory falling from the cyborg while McRae was struggling in the coils of the machine-creature’s tentacles.
‘Rory!’ Theo bellowed, clambering over the smashed shards and split boulders. ‘Where are you? Tell me you’re alive, boy … ’
‘ … Here … I’m here … ’
Moments later Theo found him, lying at the bottom of a slanted slab of stone about ten yards from the warpwell. His face was pale and one of his arms looked broken but the worst of it was the sharp sliver of rock that had impaled his right leg.
‘ … no’ so good, chief … dinna think I can finish it … ’
‘Lie still and rest,’ Theo said, fumbling for the painkillers in his waist pouch. ‘Here, take these then give me the bomb – I’ll be happy to throw it in for you!’
Rory gave him a strange look as he swallowed the pills then unfastened the small satchel that was strapped to his chest. Theo had not yet seen the spacefold device. It turned out to be three metallic spheres joined by an odd coiling framework that looked and felt like wood. At the centre was an oval indentation into which his thumb might easily fit. Apart from that there were no other visible buttons or controls.
‘So, there is no timer,’ Theo said.
‘S’got tae be set off inside the well,’ Rory said. ‘That’s what the Zyradin told me, and I know fine well what he was on about … and … with all these things still inside me … chief, I really was gonnae do it. I wanted tae do it! After what that bastard machine did … ’
Theo