There were here, heres and grunts of approval. The young woman, dirty, white-knuckled, long-necked, and the loudest of the lot, cat-called out like a street whore. “Sure thing, Smacky! First time the dome’s ever gone down. We got some payback coming so long as we slip by these bugs.”
Yul did a face-palm and sucked in a breath. “That’s an egg brained idea. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Who are you to tell us anything?” Wilb said, edging in with a cleaver.
Yul cautioned the angry man with an upraised hand. “You want to die? There’s Mentera there, probably more than here, and soon there’ll be squids, thousands of them, looting the place and taking more of you as slaves and looking for resources to capitalize on.”
Smacky squinted at Yul as he scratched at his scarred chin. “Don’t reckon you know as much of the ground reality, sheltered in your fancy ship up there.”
“I know lots.”
A rustle of boots crunched on the pebbles up ahead, alerting them. That and the whirr of a flying engine.
“Quiet down, you loudmouths,” said Smacky. They hunkered down behind some rubble and twisted sewer pipes. Behind them, a monument leaned on a drunken angle. The handiwork of Mentera pressure bombs.
Nose in the dust, Yul balled his metal fist, hoping for an opportunity. Cloye crouched, breathing heavily beside him. He caught snatches of the conversation.
“Gonna find that chump Yul and slit his eyeballs, Vince. Keep looking, Deakes, and quit whining about Grendel. Ship’ll be fine. We can always get Jiminy here with his slide rule to fix it.”
“I don’t know, boss. Getting a funny, bad feeling here.”
Regers! How the hell’d he catch wind of them so fast?
Some amphibious vehicle, a rust-painted globe, hovered eight feet above the rubble, twin blasters trained their way. It jet-thrusted closer. All edged noses deeper in the dirt.
“Want me to fry that thing, Smacky?” hissed Marv, lifting his rifle, clutching at Smacky’s shoulder.
“Nah, don’t try.” Smacky shrugged off the arm. He pulled the muzzle down, his voice a dull whisper. “Those are armored plates. Rifle fire’d just deflect off it. Tip him off and they’ll make bread dough of us. They smell like military types. Mean. Can tell by the way they strut and hold those guns. The other fuck though, whitey with the pale, ghost-like face, looks like a newbie. Doesn’t even know how to hold a gun. Looks scared shitless too, as if he’s gonna shoot his own damn foot.”
Marv snickered.
“Shh! Want to give us away?”
Marv glared. “You’re the one yapping—”
“Shut the hell up.”
The airborne vehicle slid through the air like a greased lizard. Yul hoped that the pilot didn’t spy them from his loftier angle. Seconds passed. Nope. The operator was another newbie.
After the four foot soldiers trudged by and the air vehicle passed into the next street, Smacky thumped Yul on the shoulder. “Who are those guys? Some friends of yours?”
“Guys you’d rather not meet,” murmured Yul.
“What do you mean? You seem a little tense, Yab. That posse is offworld, like you. Can tell from the dicky accent. Out for your blood, spaceman? Yeah, they’re out for your hide. Can smell the fear from here. Man doesn’t get all worked up over a few fuckboys passing by when there’re bugs galore on the loose ready to slap ass in tanks.”
Yul’s fingers clenched. A new sheen of sweat broke out over his brow. “You don’t want to mess with Regers.”
“Regers, is it? Ratshit, he’ll soon be. This is my turf. Nobody comes in unless I say so.”
“Yeah, like the locusts?” sneered Cloye. “Not looking much like anyone’s turf to me.” She waved an insolent hand. “Mostly bug-fucking ground from where I’m looking.”
Smacky rolled over closer, one eye scrutinizing her with a critical glint. “You speaking to someone, sister?” He reached out to clout her but Yul caught the hairy arm in a metal fist. “Relax, chief. We’ve got other problems to deal with than slapping women around.”
Smacky pulled himself away, “I’ll bitchslap who I want.”
The blond gang girl of the group snarled, raising a misshapen club of home-crafted wood.
“Back, all of you,” Smacky commanded. Scrambling to his feet, he whirled his gun like a parade leader. “Think I’m up for a bit of knock on wood. In the mood.”
Yul held up his hands. “Bugs are on the hunt and you’ve got a lot of wild and crazy people about. Better things to do, Smacky, so let’s think it through.”
“Trying to tell me another thing I don’t already know, spaceman?” He fingered his sawed-off rifle.
“No need to get blast happy on us.” Yul gritted his teeth. Of all the lowlifes he had to get waylaid by, it had to be these mouthbreathers.
“Mick, you got any explosives left?” bawled Smacky.
“Fresh out of bombs, sorry, Smacky.” He scratched at his brown-tousled hair. “Wasted them on the last bug ship that came down snatched Artha and her brats.”
“Shit, we’ll have to get back to camp then.” Smacky blew air out of his chipmunk cheeks. “No way we’re going to blow that EV without heavier weaponry.”
“Your call.”
Chapter 27
The ragged group ducked back into the daytime shadows, retracing their steps through the scattered pockets of survivors and the endless rubble. Smacky and Wilb prodded Yul and Cloye along like pet animals, hustling them toward a low-rise apartment flat, the lower level bombed and the glass shattered. They stepped across broken glass to a stairwell half clogged with masonry and broken bricks then down to a cut-out gap: a doorway of sorts covered by a thin strip of canvas.
Smacky and Wilb herded Yul and Cloye into a large, one-room apartment.
“Inside,” Smacky ordered.
In the gloom, Mick and Marv lit some kerosene lamps.
