The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) (28 page)

“
Oh, great,” Striker growled. “Something else that’s impervious.” A second later, the rapid-fire of his automatic pistol pierced the air, bullets instead of lasers pounding his target. “Those bounce off too.”

“
Duck,” Thatcher demanded.

Sedge had gone over the top of one mound and was about to scramble over the ridge of another one, but he paused to see if his comrades needed help. As much as he wanted to check on Kalish, he could not simply run away from the other men.

But they were running too, sprinting down the backside of the first mountain. A blast landed on the ridge behind them, and ore and shattered rock burst into the air, shooting up like a geyser.

“
Where are your grenades now?” Tick demanded as they ran.

“
Keep going,” Thatcher ordered, his voice calm but forceful. “Two more came from around the corner a second ago.”

The men needed no urging. They soon caught up with Sedge and sprinted over the rocks. He ran with them, trying to catch sight of the women up ahead of them or at least the glow of their flashlights. He could see the larger glow of the ships’ lights, a third of a mile ahead, but he did not see any smaller beams. The undulating landscape thwarted his eyes, hiding far too much of the vista ahead.

They passed another smoking crater, this one so large Sedge had to run around it instead of through it. His boots might have melted if he had tried—the limestone and ore certainly had.

“
Grenades away,” Striker hollered.

The explosion came seconds later. Striker yelled something else, but the noise buried his words.

Still running, Sedge topped the last ridge before the landing platforms. He spotted Kalish helping Tia up the ramp of their ship, but he also spotted a black robot striding down the backside of the mountain, not ten meters ahead of him.

He halted so quickly he almost pitched onto his face. His flailing arms saved him, and he skittered backward, even as the robot turned toward him. He had to get away before that thing created a crater right on top of him.

“
Watch out,” he rasped as he raced back over the ridge, expecting the others to be right there, about to crest the top. “Not that way. It’s—”

The robot’s weapon crackled, and a lance of pure energy leaped from its arm. Even though Sedge had managed to scramble to the other side of the ore mountain, the blast struck the front with such power that the force flung him ten feet in the air.

He soared right over Thatcher and Tick, who ducked, their eyes wide. Sedge landed with a roll, trying to distribute the force evenly across his body, but the rocks were still hard and jarring. They pounded the air out of his lungs, and he struggled to draw in a breath when he landed.

“
Go around, Thomlin,” Thatcher ordered.

He and Tick had stopped, their weapons trained up the hill, what remained of it. The entire top had melted, with plumes of smoke clouding their visibility.

“
Tell Calendula to get in the air and shoot these with the shuttle’s weapons,” Thatcher added at the same time as Striker launched his first grenade.

Though Sedge hated the idea of leaving the group, he obeyed the order. The robot would simply pick them off if they all tried to run around the mountain and to the landing platforms. But the shuttle had more powerful weapons, laser cannons that might make a dent in the construct’s incredible armor.

Striker’s grenade went off at the same moment as the robot crested the rise. A cloud of black smoke swallowed it. Sedge sprinted for the valley between the mountains, hoping the robot had been destroyed. If not that, he prayed it would at least be distracted.

The ships came into sight. Val’s shuttle was already rising into the air and turning to face the battle. With no pilot at the helm, Thatcher’s remained stationary. Sedge did not know if he had the skill to get it in the air and firing, but he angled toward it anyway. Tia had disappeared into the clunky freighter, but Kalish had paused on the ramp, her pistol in hand.

On the ore pile, the smoke cleared, even as chunks of rock slammed to the ground all over the place. The construct had been knocked down the back side by the force of the explosion, but impossibly, its soulless red eyes still burned. Its armor did not appear dented, and it lifted its arm, not aiming for Striker and the others, who were hidden behind the hill, but for Sedge.

The ground was flat here, with no cover to hide behind. He fired a few times over his shoulder, hoping to distract the construct, but he never slowed down. He sprinted for Thatcher’s shuttle, the closest ramp available to him. The hatch stood open, inviting him in.

Shouts came from behind the robot, the other three men reaching the top of the hill and trying to draw its fire. But the crackle of the energy weapon sounded, and Sedge could only hope he could make it into the shuttle first. He reached the ramp, ran two steps up it, but then something slammed into the back of his shoulder with so much power that it spun him around and knocked him from the ramp. He hit the ground with the momentum of a train.

Knowing the edge of the platform wasn’t more than a meter away, with a hundred-foot drop after it, he clawed at the ground, trying to stop himself. But only one of his arms worked—excruciating pain came from the shoulder of the other, and he could not move it, not even to save himself. He slowed as he reached the edge, but not enough. He fell over.

He flailed with his good arm, trying one last lunge to get a grip. His fingers caught on the bumpy limestone at the very edge of the platform.

Panting, he gritted his teeth and struggled to hang on. The hundred-foot drop yawned beneath him, the rocks in the shadows below offering nothing soft to land on. If he fell, he would break his neck.

Again, he tried to swing his other arm up, but it would not obey him. Tears of pain and frustration seeped from his eyes. All of his weight hung by four fingers, and the ledge threatened to crumble beneath his grip. His forearm was already trembling from the effort of holding himself up.

“
Help,” he called upward, but the sounds of laser fire and explosions came from the distance, and he feared the other men could not hear him or could not escape to help even if they knew what had happened.

Footsteps sounded above him, and a candle of hope lit in his chest.

Kalish looked over the edge and gaped down at him.

Damn, she wasn’t strong enough to lift him up. She would only end up being pulled over with him.

“
Don’t—” Sedge started, but she had already clenched her jaw and backed out of sight.

With the finality of a gong sounding, he realized she might not have been planning to help at all. He had pried into her affairs and knew more of her past than she was comfortable with. Maybe she would find it simpler if he ceased to exist.

More tears blurred his eyes, less from the pain this time and more from the realization that he had caused those feelings in her, made her see him as a betrayer. As a villain.

His fingers slipped a little farther. The pinkie fell off the edge, and he hung only by three. With defeat in his heart, he stared down at the drop again, seeing his inevitable end in those unyielding rocks far below.

A crunch came from above. He blinked his eyes, struggling to see. Kalish’s head popped back into sight, lower this time. She knelt on the edge.

“
Hold on,” she said as she tied a slender rope around his wrist. “Two more seconds.”

“
I shall... endeavor to do so,” he whispered, watching her tie, hoping she could make an excellent knot and hoping even more that the other end of that rope was tied to something sturdy.

She said something else, but the words were lost in the blast from another explosion. Then she backed away.

Staring up at his trembling fingers, Sedge tried not to feel utterly alone again. He lifted his pinkie, trying to lock it around the edge again. But the rock under his other fingers finally crumbled and gave away. He gasped and lunged, trying to regain the handhold, but he was falling.

“
No,” he cried.

And then the rope went taut. He didn’t quite feel like a fool for what might be considered, at that point, a melodramatic cry. Not when he was dangling in the darkness of an unfriendly cavern with booby traps, man-eating creatures, and even killer robots all around him. The rope tightened, and then pulled him upward. A shudder of release went through him as the reality sank in that he had been saved. He was not certain his right arm had been saved, but he would wait to mourn that until he knew for certain.

His knuckles bumped against the bottom of the platform. Then a calloused hand gripped his wrist and pulled him over the edge. Sergeant Tick. Kalish was there, too, and she gripped him under the armpit, helping him up. With his right arm useless, he could do little more than let them drag him up, like a whale being hauled up a beach.

“
Thanks,” he rasped when his entire body was finally on solid ground again.

“
You’re bleeding, buddy,” Tick announced. “Looks like that thing shot a hole all the way through your shoulder.”

“
I hope you killed it for me.”

“
Blew the head off it.”

“
Good.”

“
Unfortunately, there are still three more.”

Sedge groaned, eyeing the plumes of black and gray smoke that had swallowed the entire landscape in front of the ships. Val’s shuttle fired lasers into the cloud.

“
We’re planning to get the hell out of here and not worry about them,” Kalish said, her head bent over his wrist as she untied the rope.

The other end was attached to a compact winch that she had mounted to the ramp of her ship. Some treasure-hunting gizmo from her pack? He immediately approved of it.

Thatcher and Striker appeared out of the smoke, running backward and firing as they went.

“
Everyone on board,” Thatcher ordered. “
Now
.”

“
No arguing, sir,” Tick said, leaping to his feet. He offered Sedge a hand.

“
Kalish, are you coming?” Tia called from the ramp.

“
Take off without me.” Kalish released the rope, letting it spool in by itself, then waved and grabbed Sedge about the waist.

His shoulder had been hit, not his legs, but Sedge could not bring himself to reject the support from both sides. They ran for the ramp of the shuttle, reaching it at the same time as Thatcher and Striker. They jerked their heads, shooing his group up first.

Happy to comply, Sedge lunged up the ramp with Kalish and Tick. His legs, perhaps not so reliable as he had believed, collapsed as soon as Tick let him go, turning to fire a few more shots at the black figure striding out of the smoke.

“
I blew up one,” came Val’s voice over someone’s comm, “but there are still two walking.”

“
Leave them,” Thatcher said, running up the ramp.

Striker fired one more grenade, then started up after him. The robot launched another blast of energy, but Val unloaded a torpedo into it at the same time. The blast flew astray, crackling through the air over the shuttle, as the robot was torn from its feet and hurled twenty meters before the torpedo exploded.

Striker hit the close button, and the ramp came up, the hatch sealing. That was the last of the robots Sedge saw. It was enough. He stumbled to the hull beside the hatch and slumped down against it. He struck the back of his shoulder harder than he had intended, and fresh waves of agony ripped through his body. It was too much for his nerves. His vision went black, and he passed out.

* * *

Kalish dropped to her knees beside Sedge, placing a hand on his uninjured shoulder to keep him from falling over. His head had fallen forward, so she assumed he had lost consciousness. He was sitting against the hull, his legs stuck out in front of him, his shoulder still smoking from the robot’s bolt.

“
Can someone get me a first-aid kit?” she called.

Thatcher had raced for the pilot’s seat while Striker stood by the closed hatch, a grenade in hand, as if he was still thinking about throwing it. Surely the shuttle’s weapons would be more powerful and effective.

Tick waved a first-aid kit and jogged back toward Kalish and Sedge.

“
I may need assistance at the weapons,” Thatcher announced. “I must concentrate on programming a route back through the booby trap.”

Striker jammed his grenade back into his bandolier and ran toward the front, bumping shoulders with Tick.

The shuttle rose from its perch, spinning to face the platform. From her knees, Kalish could not see much of what was going on through the view screen, but she glimpsed the tops of the refinery buildings and a burst of blue energy splashing against the front of the craft. The robots had not given up yet.