‘Ha! Got it!’ he grinned.
‘ Get rid of it! ’ Ashua howled, fighting with the wheel to gain control of the buggy.
Harkins’ grin faded as he saw that the fuse had almost entirely burned down. With a jerk of his arm he flung the dynamite over his shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears, but even so, he couldn’t suppress a shudder at the enormous explosion that followed.
Ashua stepped on the brakes, unable to master the careering Rattletrap, and they skidded to a halt in a cloud of rising dust. Harkins waited a few seconds and then opened his eyes.
Something round and heavy dropped out of the sky and caromed off the Rattletrap’s hood, causing Harkins to shriek in fright. It bounced in the dust, rolled for a few metres and stopped.
It was a goggled and masked head. It stood on its severed neck, facing Harkins. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought its owner was merely buried in the sand.
He slowly turned to look over his shoulder. Behind them, at the centre of a small black crater, were the remains of the Dakkadian Rattletrap. There wasn’t much to see.
‘Reckon they must’ve been carrying dynamite, too,’ Ashua opined.
Pinn slapped Harkins on the shoulder, making him flinch. ‘Nice throw, you gibbering freak,’ he said affectionately.
Harkins gave him a weak smile and tried not to be sick.
Five
Crake was having an equally hard time keeping his lunch, but for him the threat came from the other end. His stomach had been grumbling and roiling ever since he’d arrived in Samarla – the food didn’t agree with him at all – and it had been making things pretty unpleasant when it came time to visit the bathroom. With all this jolting about, it took all of his concentration to avoid embarrassment. The fact that he might be shot at any moment was a distant second in importance to that fact. He was an aristocrat, even if he didn’t look much like one these days. Dishonouring himself in such a manner would be a fate worse than death.
Bes; Aides, he wouldn’t give Pinn the satisfaction. A few days ago, after one particularly cruel bout of diarrhoea, Crake had found Slag, the Ketty Jay ’s cat, lying by the door, apparently overcome by the fumes. He’d rushed Slag to the infirmary, where Malvery, between bouts of hysterical laughter, pronounced the cat clear of any kind of toxic poisoning. It turned out to be Pinn’s idea of a joke. The pilot had spiked Slag’s milk with rum and laid the unconscious animal where Crake would find it.
Maybe it was because they were carrying a highly visible golem on the back, but they’d attracted two of the three enemy buggies. Jez was driving like a maniac to stay ahead of them. If not for Bess, they would all most likely have been shot by now, but she was their shield and most of the bullets that came their way ricocheted harmlessly off her armour. She roared and swiped, making threatening grabs at her tormentors. They were wise enough to stay far out of her reach. Shooting Bess made her very annoyed indeed.
‘Can’t you keep her still?’ Jez yelled, as their vehicle slewed back and forth.
‘They’re shooting her. With bullets,’ Crake replied. ‘Would you keep still?’
Jez didn’t bother to reply to that. ‘Where’s the Cap’n? Someone needs to take care of these bastards.’
Crake shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun. ‘There he is! He must’ve dropped back. He’s coming up behind them.’
‘Alright. Let’s try not to-’
Jez was interrupted by an explosion to their left, pelting them with tiny stones. The Rattletrap rocked and swerved. Crake looked over at the train, which suddenly seemed a lot closer than before.
‘The autocannons!’ he said, flapping his hands at her. ‘Get away from the train! They’re herding us towards the train!’
‘They’re not herding us anywhere! I’ve been driving in a straight line!’ She twisted the wheel and skidded aside as a gatling gun sent a hail of bullets their way. ‘More or less, anyway.’
‘Maybe you’ve been going straight, but the tracks haven’t.’ He pointed suddenly. ‘Look there! More help on the way!’
Ashua’s Rattletrap was approaching, leaving a column of black smoke behind them, which was all that remained of their opponent. The relief inspired by the thought of imminent reinforcements almost caused Crake to have an accident, and he had to clench tight and concentrate on reciting mathematical tables until the urge passed.
He’d just got himself under control when there was another explosion behind them, which clouded them from their pursuers for a moment. Jez wrenched the wheel around and tore off at right-anry at riggles to her original course just as the others arrived.
There was a chorus of gatling fire and a bellow of engines as Frey and Ashua’s Rattletraps tangled with the enemy in a dusty knot. They swerved and crisscrossed, and when they emerged from the haze, Ashua was chasing one of the Dakkadian Rattletraps. The other was still following Jez and Crake, but Frey was hot on its tail, harassing it mercilessly.
Crake looked back. The Dakkadians were now forced to concentrate on avoiding Malvery’s gatling fire rather than shooting at Bess. The autocannons had fallen silent since they were out of range, but the train powered on relentlessly.
‘She alright back there?’ Jez asked.
Crake checked on Bess, who was getting more and more agitated.
‘She’s not what I’d call happy,’ he said.
‘Let’s see if we can do something about getting that son of a bitch off our tail,’ Jez said.
She threw the Rattletrap into a skid, carving a quarter-circle in the earth before leaping off a rise. They hit the ground hard and went the other way, making a tight zigzag.
‘They’re catching up!’ Crake said, as he was thrown from one side of his seat to the other.
‘That’s the idea,’ said Jez, turning again. ‘They can’t slow down with the Cap’n on their back. I want them to pass us.’ She slammed the Rattletrap the other way. ‘I just don’t want them shooting us first.’
Crake saw her method now. Zigzagging made them a hard target, but it slowed them down. With Malvery blasting away behind them, the enemy would be forced to pass by.
It sounded like a good idea. But the Dakkadians didn’t play along.
Jez had slipped up. Her zigzags were predictable. She twisted the wheel at regular intervals, instead of varying the turns. It allowed their pursuers to guess where she was going next, to skid in that direction, and to open up with everything they had just as the Rattletrap passed in front of their guns.
Time slowed down as Crake realised what was happening. The enemy was attacking from the passenger side. He stared at the rotating muzzle of the gatling gun, knowing there was nothing between him and it. Knowing, with a cold and dreadful certainty, that he was about to feel a salvo of brutal impacts punching into his body, and after that there would be nothing more.
But suddenly the gatling gun was gone, a wall of metal in the way. Bess. Hanging on to the roll cage with one hand, she lunged across the side of the buggy, making a barrier of her body between Crake and the guns. Bullets sparked and whined as theyid ined as bounced off her humped back, chipping the metal, ripping through her chainmailed joints to ping around the empty interior of the suit.
The shift in weight tipped the Rattletrap to one side. Two of its wheels lifted off the ground and Crake felt the vehicle about to flip. Jez threw it into a skid, trying to avert disaster, but it was no good. Crake braced himself – and then Bess let go.
She tumbled away from the Rattletrap in a crashing ball of metal. The Rattletrap slammed back down onto four wheels, sliding across the scrubland until it came to a jolting halt. Crake was shaken half out of his wits, but he clambered from his seat as soon as the buggy had fully stopped. He staggered dizzily to the ground, looking about. The thought that Bess might have been hurt – grievously hurt – made him frantic.