“You’re right-damn it! I didn’t think they had any of those left! Well, we’ve got to stay as long as we can. I’ll pass the word to the boys. In the meantime try a little ricochet work. Might pick off one or two of that beauty’s crew. If we’re lucky. Which I’m beginning to think now we certainly ain’t!”
He crawled out of the hollow and Dard got thankfully back into station. His companion patted down a ridge of dirt on which to rest the barrel of his rifle. Dard saw that he was aiming, not at the ugly black muzzle of the burper, but at the rock wail behind the gun. So-that was what Santee meant by ricochet work! Fire at the rock wall and hope that the bullets would be deflected back against the men serving the burper. Neat-if it could be done. Dard lined the sights of his own weapon to cover what he hoped was the proper point. Others had the same idea. The shots came in a ragged volley. And the trick worked, for with a scream a man reeled out and fell.
“Why don’t they use that green gas?” asked Dard, remembering his own introduction to the fighting methods of the Cleft dwellers.
“How do you think we crashed those ’copters, kid? And the boys got a couple more machines the same way out by the river. Only something went wrong when they triggered the blast to seal off the valley this way. And the gas gun- with a couple of very good guys-came down with this-underneath.
For a space the burper did not move. Perhaps the defenders had wiped out its crew with the ricochet volley. Just as they were beginning to hope that this was so, the black muzzle, moving with the ponderous slowness of some big animal, eased back into concealment. Dard’s partner watched this maneuver sourly.
“Cookin’ up something else now. They must have had a guy with brains come in to run things. And if that’s so, we’re not going to have it so good. Yahh!” His voice arose sharply.
But Dard needed no warning. He, too, had seen that black sphere rising in a lazy course straight at the barrier.
“Head down, kid! Head ”
Dard burrowed into the side of the hollow, his face scratching across the frozen dirt, his hunched shoulders and arms protecting his head. The explosion rocked the ground and was followed by a scream and several moans. Dazed, the boy shook himself free of loose earth and snow.
To the left there was a sizeable gap in the barrier. With a white patch halfway down-not snow but a hand buried to the wrist in the slide the explosion had ripped down.