Judas Unchained

They were halfway down the slope now, ranged at four hundred seventeen meters from the MANN truck. Thick clouds of diesel gushed up out of its vertical exhaust pipes behind the cab, and it started to rumble forward.

“Don’t go,” the Cat yelled at it. “That’ll make me cross.”

The Cruiser they’d been concentrating their firepower on exploded. Morton watched in dismay as the Guardians continued to ride into the kinetic guns. “They’re being slaughtered,” he shouted accusingly.

“We are where we’re meant to be,” Scott replied levelly.

“Fuck that.” He had two HVvixen missiles left. Both of them burst out of his shoulder tubes. Two seconds later they stabbed down on a Cruiser, taking it out in a clean pillar of white flame.

“Bad move,” Rob said. “I think we’ll need them later.”

Morton ignored him. The surviving Cruisers were still shooting. “Cat, Rob: synchronize.” He stopped running, and crouched down as his hyper-rifle slid smoothly up from his forearm. The MANN truck started to draw away. Beside him the Cat and Rob had come to a halt. Charlemagnes charged past in pursuit of the armored cars. Masers from Institute vehicles had locked on to them. The shield webbing protecting the warhorses blazed with energy that was discharged through their elaborately woven saddle tassels; the big beasts raced onward trailing whirlwinds of sparks. Morton pulled targeting data out of the tactical display at accelerant speed, bundled some of it in a neat file that he shunted to the Paris team. “That one.”

Three hyper-rifles fired at once, joined a moment later by the boom of the particle lances. The Cruiser’s force field burned dark crimson. They fired again. The Barsoomians joined them. This time they punctured the force field. “Switching,” Morton told them. He picked a second target while the fireball was still expanding.

The Cruisers were on the move, bucking and juddering over the rough ground as they closed protectively around the MANN truck. Accelerants allowed Morton a seemingly leisured review of the fickle data coming in from the Guardian scouts up ahead. The vehicles carrying the soldier motiles were only three kilometers away now. Already a running firefight had broken out between the aliens and the lead riders of the mounted platoons sent to intercept them. It looked like the soldier motiles were equipped with a very powerful version of a plasma rifle. They were also shooting mini-missiles with enhanced-energy warheads. Once again, the horses were taking the brunt of the attack.

Morton’s wired scrutiny snapped his attention back to one of his own sensor feeds. One of the Cruisers around the MANN truck was firing missiles. A squadron of intense purple sparks went slicing through the air to detonate against the front of Bradley’s armored car with a ferocity that slammed the heavy vehicle back several meters. The blast wave nearly knocked Morton to the ground. He swayed back as the inside of his helmet reverberated with the roar of the explosion.

“This is a strategic balls-up of the first order,” Rob declared. “They haven’t got a fucking clue what to do.”

“Is there anything we’ve got that can split that bastard’s force field?” Morton asked.

“I don’t think so,” Matthew said. “If the zone killers couldn’t do it, nothing we’re carrying can.”

“Bradley,” Alic called, “what’s your plan now?”

“We’re going to ram the truck. That’s the only way left to stop it reaching the Marie Celeste. We must pray the planet is having its revenge.”

“Crazy,” Rob wailed. “This isn’t a battle, it’s a joke.”

Morton swiped his attention across various images. The MANN truck had almost made it to where the road began again. Two kilometers ahead of it, the motile soldiers were brushing off the wild attacks by the mounted Guardians. They’d link up soon enough.

Another flight of missiles from a Cruiser pounded into the armored cars.

“If it’s running for its ship it has to get out of the truck to transfer,” Morton said. “That’s when it’s vulnerable. We just have to keep up.”

“Morty, clever boy,” the Cat said approvingly.

“Are you with me?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, darling.”

“Let’s show these morons how to fight a real war,” Rob said.

“Okay,” Alic said. “We’ll take it to them.”

Morton’s smile was feral as he started running.

***

Amid the gray desolation of solidified lava that comprised the summit of Mount Herculaneum the hyperglider had become difficult to see. Dust churned up by the crash had settled on its white fuselage, sticking to the streaks of ice to tone down the shiny plyplastic like adaptive camouflage. Its sharp aerodynamic planform had disappeared the instant it struck the rock spur, crumpling and warping until it resembled the worn vacuum-boiled ripples of lava on which it had come to rest. In the dark cavity underneath what was the badly smashed-up cockpit a couple of small red LEDs glowed in the shadows, slowly dimming as the ruined power cells decayed.