Desert Kings. James Axler

Four

      Astonished by the sheer speed of the spidery droid, Ryan hit the floor braced for the searing onslaught of pain from the laser beam. Incredibly there did not seem to be any damage from the bright ray. But he felt fine, and even his shirt was undamaged. What the frag? Had the thing missed?

      As the droid fired again, Ryan rolled out of the way and the rest of the companions triggered their Kalashnikovs in unison, peppering the machine with a hail of 7.62 mm rounds, the ricochets zinging everywhere. Then Ryan came up holding the 9 mm SIG-Sauer and put two Parabellum man-stoppers directly into the machine’s eyes. The red crystal shattered and the droid began randomly lancing out with the strange white beam, hitting the walls, floor, coffins and Doc, to no effect whatsoever.

      Snarling a curse, Jak cast away the useless AK-47, smoothly drew his Colt Python and stroked the trigger, sending a booming .357 round directly into head of the droid. With a loud ringing noise, the shiny metal deeply dented, the machine limply fell from the ceiling to crash on the floor, wildly shaking, the metallic legs flailing insanely.

      Moving fast, Doc stepped in close, leveled the LeMat and sent a massive .44 miniball directly into the dent. The metal split apart with a huge eruption of sparks and smoke began to rise from the droid as the legs slowly lowered to the floor and went still. Nobody moved for a few moments until they were sure the droid was aced and not merely faking.

      As the companions gathered around the creaking machine, Mildred went to Ryan and checked the man over, looking into his eyes for any signs of dilation, taking his pulse, pressing an ear to his chest to listen to his heart, and even yanking up his shirt to see the skin underneath.

      “I’m fine,” the one-eyed man said patiently.

      “Yes, you are,” Mildred finally said, tugging down his shirt. “And I’m damn glad for that, but puzzled as all hell. Why are you fine?”

      “I guess it missed me.”

      “No way, lover,” Krysty said, turning. “I saw that white beam hit you dead-center.” Her hair started flexing as the woman frowned. “At least, I think it hit you…”

      “Hit,” Jak stated in a no-nonsense tone. “Hit Doc, too.”

      “Indeed it did, my young friend,” Doc rumbled, going to the weapon lying impotently on the floor. The man kicked aside a leg partially covering the device. “Which begs the question of why we are unharmed. Did the laser malfunction, or did it do something else to us that has yet to achieve full effect?”

      “Like what?” Mildred demanded, resting a hand on the strap of her med kit.

      The man shrugged. “Possibly we now have cancer or will go insane in a few days. You tell me, madam.”

      The physician started to rebuff the suggestion, then had to reconsider. Whoever had set the droid as a guardian over the blasters would have been incompetent beyond belief to not make sure it was properly armed. So what did the white light do?

      Kneeling on the floor, she ran fingertips over the beam unit, then J.B. joined her and they started to disassemble the outer casings.

      “Think more?” Jak asked, studying the ceiling, his blaster held tight in a two-handed grip.

      “No, if there were any more of the machines they would have joined the fight,” Ryan said, holstering the SIG-Sauer. “I’ve seen droids with laser camou before, but never as good as this one. Until it moved, I had no idea the bastard thing was hanging above us.”

      “Aside from the odd tapping noise,” Krysty added, removing the mostly spent clip from her rapid-fire and inserting a new one. “That must have been caused by the metal legs moving on the ceiling.”

      “How do?” Jak asked, easing his stance slightly. If the others said the area was clear, that was good enough for him.

      “Magnets most likely,” Ryan said with a shrug.

      “And that’s also what this is,” Mildred said, studying the interior of the weapon. “Nothing but a massive capacitor and a magnetic array.” She touched a golden coil. “See, that’s the focusing mechanism. I’ve seen something similar inside a CAT scanner.”

      “Not las, but mag gun?” Jak asked quizzically.

      “Yep.”

      “So what was the light?”

      “That was from a halogen bulb.” J.B. grunted, tilting back his fedora. “Nothing more than a souped-up flashlight, probably just there to help aim the magnetic.”

      “Aim the magnet, sir?” Doc repeated slowly, chewing over the information. “Are you saying this is some sort of scrambling device? Mayhap a kind of antirobot gun?”

      “Could be, yeah. What else would a focused beam of magnetics harm? A comp, mebbe, or a—”

      “Cyborg,” Ryan interrupted in a hard voice. “This wasn’t set here by Delphi to guard the blasters. Somebody else put it here to wait for him.”

      “A cyborg chiller,” Jak whispered, impressed and uneasy at the same time. Then he eagerly added, “Still work? We use now.”

      “No, it’s busted to drek.” Mildred sighed, standing and dusting off her hands. “The circuit boards are fried, the ribbon cables melted, the focusing ring warped…” She dismissed the device with a hand wave. “The only way we could use this to hurt Delphi now is if we dropped it on his head from a great height.”

      “This means that most likely Delphi has not been here in a long while,” Krysty added, ruminating out loud. “Weeks, mebbe, or even months.”

      “It also means that somebody else wants Delphi aced,” J.B. stated. “Which is fine by me. The enemy of my enemy, and all that, eh, Doc?”

      “True words, John Barrymore,” the silver-haired man intoned. “Although, I have usually found that the ‘enemy of my enemy’ axiom loses all coherent meaning after the aforementioned protagonist is finally eating dirt. Then all bets are off.”

      “Fair enough,” Ryan said savagely, working the bolt on a Kalashnikov. Then his stomach softly grumbled. “Come on, let’s finish the recce of this redoubt. The sooner we know it’s safe, the sooner we can have some chow.” In an effort to save their stomachs, the companions had deliberately not eaten before doing the jump. It seemed to work, but now they were paying the price.

      “I hear that,” J.B. added eagerly, heading for the exit. “I’m not quite hungry enough for Millie’s boot soup, but will be soon.”

      “Well, it kept us alive, that’s for sure,” Mildred shot back proudly. “Although it must have been a month before I finally got the taste out of my mouth. It made hospital food seem absolutely delicious in comparison.”

      “Indeed, madam, the flavor combination was rather reminiscent of the haute cuisine of Hades,” Doc observed, glancing sideways and trying to hide a smile. “Although to be honest, it was truly the finest boot soup that I have ever had!”

      “Aw, shut up, ya old coot,” Mildred shot back, pleased and annoyed at the same time.

      Reaching the exit, the companions paused to check over their weapons before proceeding down the long hallway. Jak was the last to leave and closed the armory door behind them. Even though the machine was smashed to drek, he didn’t trust droids and felt better with a good foot of steel between them.

      “Wait a minute, I may have something,” Krysty said, rummaging in her bearskin coat pockets to finally pull out a handful of jerky. She offered it around and everybody took some. “Been saving it for a while,” she said. “But it should still be good.”

      It took some determined chewing before the dried meat yielded any flavor, but as the reconstituted juices trickled down their throats, the hunger pains in their bellies eased.

      Slightly refreshed, the group reached the elevators at the end of the corridor,