GunBarrel Gauntlet: The Last Bronze II

26. "Checkmate."

"The windshield! Windshield! Shoot it out!" Nipplebiter frantically gestured to the guards atop the deck of the water tanker, pointing at the bald woman behind the glass.

Following his lead, a series of bullet holes punctured the screen as the Pirates all fired at once, crazing the transparent surface into veins of opaque fractures.

Crimson bloomed from Carrion's shoulder and upper arm.

Leaning her head as far as she dared out of the driver's side to compensate for the immediate loss of vision, she ignored the wounds to remain in the fight against the Kenworth tanker and pickup truck.

Jets of orange heat lashed the other side of the cabin, peeling the leather and flesh of the Pirate that Shamrock had stuffed into the missing window frame. Waking back to consciousness with a curdling scream, the Pirate limbs thrashed, gouging at the Irishman's face to find an anchor point to climb back into the truck.

The frenzy ceased abruptly with a screwdriver staked through the temple, delivered by Shamrock's fist.

Still focused on the vision of the highway outside the doorframe, Carrion verbalised her plans to the pair of men beside her:

"Shamrock, I'm gonna need you to climb back out there and unhitch the fifth wheel coupling; the trailer is slowing us down! Bronze, do you think you can take out those men on the water tanker if I get us alongside them?"

"With what?" Came the Nomad's cynical reply.

"Anything! Search the cabin ... if I can get ahead of that tanker I can stop it!"

Riffling through interior, the Nomad recovered a tow chain and hook from behind the seats.

"An how're we gonna get past that flamin' bastard do ya propose!?" Shamrock asked as another scalding wave spread over the exterior closest to him.

"I'll make room, you be ready!"

"Aye-aye driver, I'm ready."

"Let's bogey." The trucker said, jerking the wheel abruptly to her left.

The length of the Volvo tanker slapped against the lesser stature of the Ford pickup, heaving it off the road in a wail of smoking rubber friction as it bounded into the median strip of light poles. Thrown in a cartwheel from the tray, the Nipplebiter crashed into the earth as their war chariot wrapped its grille and radiator around a lighting mast hard enough to lift the back wheels on contact.

"Now!"

Exiting the cab for the onrushing wind, Shamrock hugged the side panels to inch his way across, slipping into the gap between the carriages. Scratch had his cheek to the mesh cage as he watched the Irishman returning toward them.

"Come down!" Shamrock waved his hands back at his chest to warn the three Scabeaters. "Get off the trailer!"

For a moment the three hooded figures looked at each other in incredulous silence, having been safe up until now by remaining prone in the cage. To leave it seemed to be an act of suicide.

Sensing their hesitation, the Irishman proceeded to release the cables for the brake and electrical systems, a gesture which immediately inspired the trio to scale the cage barrier and join him on the fairing between the air tanks.

"Hold ma legs Scratchy, I'm gonna release tha coupling pin, keep me safe o' gettin' crushed now!" Shamrock cried out over the wind and engine noise.