fixed to the back of the war wag, with the machine gun mounted on a pintle inside and sticking out through a narrow slot. The gunner had a little polycarbonate window right above to sight out of. It really was a wizard design, J.B. noticed, as he caught the top edge with both hands. And the workmanship was just what you’d expect from Trader’s techs: exquisite.
Fortunately he had a fast eye. He didn’t have time to hang around. He scrambled up onto the casemate like a monkey.
The roof of War Wag One’s three sections was armored like the rest. It wasn’t as heavily armored as the sides, front and rear; not even the specially rebuilt, massive engines that drove the vehicle had infinite capacity to haul mass. But in an age when functioning aircraft were rarer than good mouthfuls of teeth, and the most common danger from above came from the carnivorous mutie fliers called screamwings and much smaller chillers called stingwings, there was no need to armor the top heavily. The relatively thin plating was plenty sturdy enough to resist the spears and even the biggest rocks the muties were chucking at it.
That was also why Trader only bothered mounting the one machine gun in a hardpoint welded to the top of the wag. He didn’t usually need much top cover for his rolling HQ.
But unlike screamwings and stingwings, scalies had hands with opposable thumbs. They could drop down to the roofs of the three segments and find their devilish ways inside to work havoc among the crew.
And there were a dozen or so between J.B. and the quiescent blaster mount.
He ran forward. One mutie turned and opened its mouth to screech a warning to its fellows as it raised a spear. Its tongue was long, shockingly red and forked like a sidewinder’s. The creature carried a weapon that was a tree branch with a head that looked as if it was made out of a hammered tin can.
J.B. blasted the monster from the hip. The steel-jacketed 7.62 mm Russian bullet didn’t have the raw smashing power that Marcus’s Italian-made 12-gauge did, but it punched a big hole through the mutie’s sunken sternum and blasted through its skinny body to smash the forearm of the mutie standing behind it.
The shot mutie toppled off the armored roof. The huge war wag’s three joined segments had heavy suspensions and its sheer mass absorbed a certain amount of road impact. And the relatively soft sand of the dry river bottom didn’t give a rough ride. But the big machine was hauling mass, and the ride wasn’t silky-smooth, either.
The mutie who’d been hit by the blow-through round had its left hand flopping loose on the end of its arm. It was a human-looking hand, except for the fact that it had but three fingers, instead of four, along with a thumb. And the black, curving, needle-tipped talons, of course.
But the mutie had a projecting lizardlike muzzle filled with double rows of razor teeth. It showed them to J.B., opening its jaws to snap his face off.
Instead, he smashed it across the open jaws with the buttplate of his SKS. The blow knocked the mutie off the war wag, trailing blood and a couple of teeth as it turned over and over in the air.
J.B. was halfway down the rear segment. The machine-gun nest was in the middle of the central one. He heard single shots from that way—handblaster shots. Its crew was apparently fending off the muties with sidearms. And that was a problem. If he shot straight ahead he might hit one of his own guys.
But J.B. was still in machine mode; it was the way he got when he had a problem to solve, something to fix.
The reptilian muties were merely preliminary problems to his smoothly clicking mind. As for the blaster crew, they weren’t his pals. He wasn’t concerned if he blasted one by accident. It was easier to get forgiveness, he reckoned, than permission. And he reckoned that for Trader to get pissed at him for incidentally blasting one of his personnel, J.B. would have to survive this goatscrew.
Trader, too, for that
Fortunately he had a fast eye. He didn’t have time to hang around. He scrambled up onto the casemate like a monkey.
The roof of War Wag One’s three sections was armored like the rest. It wasn’t as heavily armored as the sides, front and rear; not even the specially rebuilt, massive engines that drove the vehicle had infinite capacity to haul mass. But in an age when functioning aircraft were rarer than good mouthfuls of teeth, and the most common danger from above came from the carnivorous mutie fliers called screamwings and much smaller chillers called stingwings, there was no need to armor the top heavily. The relatively thin plating was plenty sturdy enough to resist the spears and even the biggest rocks the muties were chucking at it.
That was also why Trader only bothered mounting the one machine gun in a hardpoint welded to the top of the wag. He didn’t usually need much top cover for his rolling HQ.
But unlike screamwings and stingwings, scalies had hands with opposable thumbs. They could drop down to the roofs of the three segments and find their devilish ways inside to work havoc among the crew.
And there were a dozen or so between J.B. and the quiescent blaster mount.
He ran forward. One mutie turned and opened its mouth to screech a warning to its fellows as it raised a spear. Its tongue was long, shockingly red and forked like a sidewinder’s. The creature carried a weapon that was a tree branch with a head that looked as if it was made out of a hammered tin can.
J.B. blasted the monster from the hip. The steel-jacketed 7.62 mm Russian bullet didn’t have the raw smashing power that Marcus’s Italian-made 12-gauge did, but it punched a big hole through the mutie’s sunken sternum and blasted through its skinny body to smash the forearm of the mutie standing behind it.
The shot mutie toppled off the armored roof. The huge war wag’s three joined segments had heavy suspensions and its sheer mass absorbed a certain amount of road impact. And the relatively soft sand of the dry river bottom didn’t give a rough ride. But the big machine was hauling mass, and the ride wasn’t silky-smooth, either.
The mutie who’d been hit by the blow-through round had its left hand flopping loose on the end of its arm. It was a human-looking hand, except for the fact that it had but three fingers, instead of four, along with a thumb. And the black, curving, needle-tipped talons, of course.
But the mutie had a projecting lizardlike muzzle filled with double rows of razor teeth. It showed them to J.B., opening its jaws to snap his face off.
Instead, he smashed it across the open jaws with the buttplate of his SKS. The blow knocked the mutie off the war wag, trailing blood and a couple of teeth as it turned over and over in the air.
J.B. was halfway down the rear segment. The machine-gun nest was in the middle of the central one. He heard single shots from that way—handblaster shots. Its crew was apparently fending off the muties with sidearms. And that was a problem. If he shot straight ahead he might hit one of his own guys.
But J.B. was still in machine mode; it was the way he got when he had a problem to solve, something to fix.
The reptilian muties were merely preliminary problems to his smoothly clicking mind. As for the blaster crew, they weren’t his pals. He wasn’t concerned if he blasted one by accident. It was easier to get forgiveness, he reckoned, than permission. And he reckoned that for Trader to get pissed at him for incidentally blasting one of his personnel, J.B. would have to survive this goatscrew.
Trader, too, for that
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