Grema and Berlast were cut off from the others, in open view. They ran amok, dodging fire rays and the razor-sharp beaks and talons of the third bird.
Fenli finally overcame his fear and hesitation, and bulled his way forward with a frustrated battle roar, tossing the grenade to rat face who had but seconds to live before talons ripped into his back.
Rat-face Grema did not hesitate to snatch up the grenade. With a vicious grin, he pulled the pin and tossed it without compunction, running away as he did so. A whooshing flare rocked the chamber, the blast knocking him and Berlast sprawling headlong to the ground.
Miko whirled and charged in to smash the bot’s head, blinding it.
The bot righted itself, hopped madly about, spraying fire from its damaged eyes every which way. It went haywire, smacking against the walls again, completely short-circuiting itself, finally to lie in a sparking, disoriented heap in the middle of the wreckage-strewn corridor.
Miko ran out to drag the two outcasts to safety. Choking on clouds of dust, he stumbled his way through the debris, hauling each by an arm. When the dust finally cleared, the hawkbots were no more, but only smoking ruins spread in pieces amidst the litter of wreckage. Usk ran in to clip the last twitching hawkbot’s navigation-aerials.
The survivors had more respect for Usk after that encounter.
Miko’s breath came out in ragged gasps. He saw the five dust-smeared survivors wince and groan.
Sket panted, “Signals sent from the bot’s navigational systems will alert the Skullroxers to our location.”
“That’s bad, Sket, very bad,” said Miko.
“They may not know where we’re heading,” insisted Star hopefully.
Fenli scoffed. “Where else would we be going?”
“Let’s move,” growled Sket. “We’re in for a shit storm. Who knows how many more of those flying rustbuckets are lurking about.”
IX
They approached the first of the massive pipes rising from the lake—intake pipes, three running side by side, pumping dark, untreated water to the purification tanks.
An enormous snake of a conduit as high as a man, painted red, trailed from the gloom of a tunnel farther ahead, and seemed to feed a series of translucent pipes that ran up the wall, multicoloured and bearing turbid liquids. Before the wall, the main pipe’s housing converted to glass to reveal the contents of the water, slightly blue-green as it roiled down the tube. A great ship’s water turbine drew the water toward the end, with its metal fans dicing any sea creatures wallowing within the pipe. Miko guessed these powerful turbines pumped the dark, gummy water up from the lake across the desert to the barren underground cavern in which they stood.
To either side stood air tubes, monitoring the flux, with metered valves to control the mix. A console at floor level was connected to the air tubes and peppered with dozens of dials and switches, lights and controls. The main filtration centre of Demen’s public works was complex.
“Well,” said Fenli, “if we’re supposed to sabotage the system, here’s our chance. I don’t doubt those red warning dials and control knobs regulate the air and water supply to the city.”
Miko rubbed his nose. “I don’t care to kill the Skullroxers.”
“Nor I, but—”
The tramp of men’s boots pounded across the catwalks.
“The enemy is here!” hissed Sket. “Quick, to shelter!”
“What about the tunnel ahead?” demanded Miko.
“That tunnel ends in a stone wall. A dead end.”
The groan of straining supports continued to ring in full force, now revealing ragged forms.
“Shit! I can’t believe they’ve caught up to us already,” cursed Sket. His eyes darted longingly down a tunnel from where the main water pipe ran. “End of the line. As I said, only a stone wall there.”
“Then we’re done for. B & D lied,” said Miko.
“Of course he did. It’s all sport to him.”
“Bastard,” croaked Miko.
“That’s unkind,” came a baritone drawl from a speaker.
“Kill your own Skullroxers, you damn mutant!” croaked Sket.
Drek’s voice came booming from behind the pipes. “Finish your mission, or die! I will make personal surety of it.”
“Or what, you hermaphroditic freak?” taunted Fenli. He readied his mace.
Miko’s heart jumped to his throat. Murlag, Jingin and a dozen others came clambering down the catwalks, dropping to the floor like monkeys, weapons flashing in their grimy hands.
“You’re dead men!” cried Jingin, the only one with an air gun.
Fenli jeered back, “Take us if you can.”
Miko had no time to think. He parried a tall bearded aggressor and swept back, arms locked on the wrist of his foe who wielded a jagged pipe. Miko bent the man’s head to a pressure release valve capped with a silver funnel. He smashed down hard, tripping the valve with his elbow.
A hiss of hot steam gushed out and sprayed the man’s face, melting his features in a bubbling pool of frothing liquid.
Miko jerked backward to defend against other grinning cutthroats who sprang at him with knives and staves.
Murlag pushed forth through the fray, his dark grey eyes flashing and his fierce gaze sizing up the ragtag opposition that faced him. “So, it’s true Myx failed to dispose of you vermin. Grema, you fight with these cast-offs?”
The mutant stammered. “We had no choice, Murlag. It was either s-surrender or die at the hands—”
“Then die!” He smashed down his club, making bloody ruin of Grema’s face.
Berlast reeled back, appalled at the carnage to his friend. Bravely, he charged the leader and Murlag grimly strode to greet him.
While Murlag’s ragtag followers rushed to dispose of the fugitives, Jingin, seeking glory and recompense, jumped up on a command platform, hacking at the air-mixture controls like a madman. He had obviously been
