Looters Of Tharn

Chapter 20

If the Looters had been nervous before, now they would probably be scared stiff. Blade had half a dozen other tricks up his sleeve. If he could move fast, before the Looters decided to bring the smaller war machines into the city, he could press home his advantage.

The machine darted through the streets at high speed. In a few minutes Blade knew he had come far enough to be behind the second Looter machine. He wanted to pick it off first, then move in on the command machine with fewer worries about his flanks and rear.

Blade landed on a roof surrounded by high walls that kept the machine entirely hidden from below but provided excellent perches for observers. This time he stationed four observers on the walls, one looking in each direction.

In five minutes the second machine stopped beside a damaged building less than three hundred yards away. Apparently the Looters had realized that roaming around the streets of Miros might not be the wisest thing to do now. The command machine was nowhere in sight. Had it left the city?

Another five minutes passed. Blade knew he couldn't safely wait any longer before launching his attack on the second machine. He called in the observers and lifted off the roof, heading for the building beside his target.

One particularly wild ray-blast had chewed out a three-story hole in the building nearly five hundred feet above the street. Blade's machine darted from the cover of one building to the cover of another, moving across the city street by street. At last he landed on the roof of a building across the street from his target, a roof almost on a level with the gaping hole. He waited until the wind sent smoke swirling more thickly than usual across the street. Then he sent his machine plunging out across the street and into the hole.

They landed with a crunch. Blade felt the floor sag and groan under the weight of the machine. He would have to work fast. He backed well inside the building, swung the turret to the rear, then ordered everyone to hang on tight. Then he slammed the machine sideways into the outer wall of the building, the wall directly above the Looter machine on the street below.

The building shook and the machine vibrated like a drum. The wall showed no sign of damage. Fortunately neither did the machine. Blade drove it sideways again. This time the wall showed cracks, and bulged outward at the bottom. A third time, a fourth, a fifth. The wall was unmistakably weakening, but it was still there. Blade was beginning to wonder whether the wall or the machine would give up first.

A sixth time. Now he was hitting the wall higher up, to distribute the impacts evenly. A seventh. An eighth. Backing off and going in for a-

Crrunnnnk! Almost elegantly, seventy or eighty feet of wall detached itself, sagged outward into thin air, and vanished from sight. The floor under it began to crumble away, then the ceiling began to sag down.

In seconds Blade had the machine racing out through the hole into the open air, so fast that he nearly rammed the building across the street. He swung up over the roof with feet to spare. A ray blast crackled through the air just below him, a wild shot that chewed away much of the wall surrounding the roof but didn't touch Blade's machine. Then the falling piece of building came down on the Looter machine.

The Looter machines were built strongly, but they weren't built strongly enough to stand a direct hit by a twenty-ton slab of building falling five hundred feet. The machine quivered, vanished in a cloud of dust and smoke, then seemed to burst apart in flame. The spare rockets exploded, shooting up huge gouts of yellow orange flame and spraying bits of hot metal in all directions. The top of the machine opened up like a sardine can and more explosions sent more bits flying. High above, Blade felt his machine rock from the concussion.

The blast must have also been the final blow to the tall building, already torn by the ray and by the impacts of Blade's machine: Slowly its top three hundred feet leaned forward, crumbling away at the bottom as it did. Then suddenly gravity took a firmer grip and the whole ponderous mass plunged downward. Blade darted clear a moment before the falling mass came down on the building across the street like a piledriver. The second building seemed to burst outward from the impact, pieces as big as small houses flying in all directions and crashing through the walls of its neighbors. Rubble poured down, more smoke and dust rose up in a cloud that swiftly blotted out the whole scene, and the world was filled with thunderings and crashings that rose to an ear-splitting roar.

Blade waited only long enough for the smoke and dust to clear away enough to give a good view. Both buildings had collapsed into the streets below, burying the Looter machine under a pile of rubble a hundred feet high. It would take a thousand men a month's work to dig out what was left of it.

Blade sent the machine spiraling downward. As it dove, he snapped out orders to Chara and the six members of the attack team. The Looters in the command machine should be hopelessly stunned and bewildered by what had happened. There would never be a better chance to attack them. He saw fierce grins on the faces around him as all seven started checking their weapons and equipment.

As the machine dove, Blade saw metal glinting through the smoke half a mile away. That would have to be the command machine! He headed for it as fast as he could twist and turn his own machine through the streets of Miros, only inches above the pavement. Several times they hit chunks of rubble with bone-jarring crashes. Blade did not stop or slow down. Nothing was more important now than speed and more speed. It didn't matter if his own machine didn't survive the coming battle. He and his fighters could evade the smaller machines and walk out. But they had to get the Looter commanders!

The machine plunged out into the open street. A hundred feet away stood the command machine, its turret with the ray-tube pointing away from them. Blade did not slow down. His machine bounced off a building across the street as it turned. But the impact and the controls hurled it in the same direction. The command machine's turret swung toward Blade. Before it could take aim, Blade's machine smashed down onto the turret.

Metal clanged and crunched and sparks flew as electrical equipment died spectacularly. The turret ground to a stop. Blade backed his machine away, one hand on the controls and the other furiously pressing buttons to extend the tentacles. He hoped they still worked. For a moment he wished he had three or four extra hands.

The tentacles lashed out. The tentacle with the heavy sensor-knob at the end snapped downward at the bubble dome at the front of the other machine. The transparent material shivered and cracked under the impact. A second blow and it splintered and smashed inward.

The other three tentacles swept across the top of the Looter machine, ripping the tripod signal mast free and hurling it to the street. More electrical fireworks. Then Blade wound all three around the beam tube and jerked them sharply upward. The ten-foot tube bent upward into a curve, then ripped free of the turret. A tremendous cloud of smoke spewed out of both tube and turret, momentarily blanking out the screens.

Blade didn't wait for the smoke to clear or bother retracting the tentacles. He drove the machine forward against the side of the other one, like a bull goring a farmer. The other machine slammed hard into the nearest wall. Bits and pieces showered down with clangs and thumps. Blade charged again. This time both the wall and the side of the other machine gave. Great slabs of wall crashed down on both machines. Two of Blade's screens went dead, and metallic screeches sounded as tentacles were ripped out of their sockets.

A third charge. This time it sounded as though the end of the world had come, in a hideous, ear-splitting din of metal twisting and crumpling and tearing apart. Something smashed into Blade's turret hard enough to dent the armor and send most of the fighters sprawling. A purple glare filled the cabin as the beam-tube shorted out. Pungent smoke followed it.

Blade cut off the power. The machine dropped with a final crash six feet to the street. Everyone who had stayed on his feet until then went sprawling.

Blade unbuckled his seat belt and sprang to his feet. For a moment he felt a little unsteady on his legs, and hoped that all his teeth and internal organs were still in place. Then he drew his sword and pointed at the hatch.

«Up and at them, oh people! Capture them if possible, for they may tell us even more than their machines!»

Chara stabbed at the hatch button with the hilt of her sword. With squeaks and squeals the hatch slowly opened. Four people dove out through an opening Blade would have sworn was too narrow for one. No one was worrying about depriving Mazda of any honor now. They were all too eager to get at the Looters.

As Blade's feet hit the platform outside, something went pfffuttt from the Looter machine and something else went spannnngggg! beside Blade. One of the men let out a gasp of pain and clapped a hand to his thigh. A small metal dart gleamed there, the blood just staring to well out around it.

But the Looter machine was less than twenty feet away. Before the Looter with the dart gun could fire again, the other attackers converged on a hatch that gaped open below the nose dome. One of the women flattened herself against the hull, then threw a wad of blazing cloth in through the hatch.

The black smoke of burning teksin oil poured out of the hatch. A moment later came a raw-throaty gurgling scream. A human figure stumbled out of the hatch and fell to its knees, clothing and hair blazing. Somehow it lurched to its feet, one hand holding a small tube out in front of it. The tube spat out another dart-and this one took one of the women in the throat. She dropped her sword, swayed, and raised both hands to her throat. Then slowly she folded forward to the ground, kicked for a few moments, and lay still.

For a moment a red haze seemed to flicker in front of Blade's eyes. To bring the people so far, and now-! His breath stuck in his throat for another moment, then he charged forward.

He knocked two other fighters aside as he reached for the hatch. Both hands closed on the edge. It must have weighed two hundred pounds, but Blade ripped it free and hurled it away as easily as if it had been a playing card. Then he leaped through the opening, into the Looter machine.

Another dart clanged off the floor as Blade landed inside. He flattened himself against the forward bulkhead while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then he whirled around and sprang up into the cockpit. A glance told him that it was full of strange shapes and strange instruments. But for the moment he didn't care about them. All that interested him now were the two remaining members of the Looter crew.

One of them was a woman. She was backing away into a corner as Blade entered. The other, a lean red-haired man, stood on one of the control consoles and aimed his dart-thrower at Blade with one hand while he drew a sword with the other.

Blade lunged forward and up. One hand chopped upward under the wrist of the hand holding the dart gun. Blade felt the other's bones splinter under the impact, heard the man scream, saw the dart gun go flying. He pivoted and drove his other fist into the man's stomach. The man doubled up and lurched forward off the console.

Blade caught him as he fell, grabbed him around the waist, and hurled him up and back as hard as he could. The man seemed to fly through the air, then jerk to a sudden halt. His mouth opened, letting out a scream and a spray of blood. His arms and legs waved frantically as he hung, impaled on the broken points of the canopy, then went limp.

Blade turned to the woman. She was still backed into her corner and had drawn a short sword. One of the people moved in with his own sword drawn. A flicker and a clack of teksin meeting metal. The attacker's sword went flying. He dove to retrieve it. The woman's sword slashed down at the back of his neck, and he jumped clear just in time.

Blade took a closer look at the woman. She was small and lithe, with curling brown hair piled on top of her head. Her eyes were wide, but with intense concentration on her opponents, not with fear. This was someone who meant to sell her life as dearly as possible.

«Don't kill her!» shouted Blade. The woman might not want to be taken alive, but she was the last chance for a Looter prisoner. He drew his own sword and moved in. The woman thrust, fast and well, but his own down-cut was faster and delivered with a much stronger arm. It beat down the woman's guard. Blade thrust high, aiming to smash the flat of his sword into the woman's head and stun her.

Instead she dropped under his thrust and came up with her sword darting at his groin. The point drove into his teksin loinguard and was held there for a moment. Blade's left hand chopped down at the woman's sword arm. She jerked it back from under the chop just in time. Blade's hand came down on the sword itself, knocking it out of the woman's hand.

Instantly she dropped into an unarmed-combat stance. One small booted foot darted out at Blade's chest in a high kick. He pivoted so that it struck his left shoulder. Then he clamped both hands on the woman's ankle and twisted, hard. The woman screamed but had to turn over on her face to keep her ankle from being twisted apart. The moment she did so, Blade lunged forward and brought the edge of one hand down across the back of her neck, just below the hairline. He struck with only a fraction of the force he could have used. The woman went limp, but a quick check told Blade that she was unconscious rather than dead.

Blade quickly stripped off the woman's belt and tied her hands tightly behind her back. He lifted her across his shoulders easily-she could not have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. Then he turned to the fighters behind him.

«Two of you go and bring our comrade with us. We shall not leave her. But we must get away from here as fast as possible, before the smaller machines come.»

The five nodded. Blade shifted the woman to a more comfortable position and led the way out into the street.