Borderlands: Unconquered by John Shirley Page B

on Mordecai’s seatback, hunched over them with its head cocked, seeming to take inventory with them. Roland had his Scorpio turret but with limited ammo, and there was the outrunner’s gun, which fired only small cannon shells, and he had precious few of those left. He had a Vladof Hammer, an orange-colored shotgun with a nine-shot magazine, deadly at closerange. He had two crates of ammo for it. “I got twelve grenades . . . my sidearm, lotta ammo for that . . . I got this Eridian rifle, but it’s been acting up. Not really reliable. I got the turret. You got your Cobra burstfire.”
    “We’re kinda underweaponed, man. Not even a rocket launcher. I got badly depleted last mission. We should maybe take a side trip to a settlement, load up on some goods.I haven’t got much money, but . . .”
    “You know what, I can scrounge weapons almost as easily as I can buy them, Mordecai. Easier a lotta times. Of course, that usually means killing some Psychos and takin’ their hardware, but I expect to do that anyway. We’ll weapon up, don’t you worry about it. Come on, let’s look at my scan map—and Broomy’s minicom.”
    He unrolled the scan map he’d bought fromSkelton Dabbits. “You see that mark? See the readings? That marks the biggest den of crystalisks known on this planet.”
    “Long way to go. And a lot of hassle in between.”
    “Let’s see just how much.” Roland pulled out Broomy’s minicom and activated it. “Now how do I get into this thing . . .”
    It was Mordecai who figured out Broomy’s password. He’d seen the tattoo on her: Fuckemorkillem. Luckyguess.
    Some of the photos they found on the device made Roland’s stomach churn. “Ugh—get outta that folder!”
    They found what they wanted under tactics : a holographic image projected into the air from theminicom, displaying a map of the Salt Flats. It appeared in glowing yellow 3-D, with red and green lines for topographic and other markers.
    Mordecai pointed at the Devil’s Footstool on themap. “There, the Devil’s Footstool! She’s got it marked ‘GG HQ.’ That must be where they’re centered.”
    “Squares with a rumor I heard. Those X ’s—troop encampments?”
    “Looks like every other klick across the Salt Flats, a lot of other places too. They’ve got it sewn up!”
    “Well, maybe we can slip through.” Roland shook his head. “But I figure they’ll have people posted on high points looking forintruders in captured territory.”
    “Maybe we can go back to New Haven, see if we can get a hopper—or, if you can pay for it, even a trip to orbit. We can drop down behind their lines.”
    “Nah. She’s shooting down anything that flies over. No one’ll go there. And I can’t afford the other method. Besides, I doubt we could get permission for an orbit drop back there. They don’t care if we get killed,but loss of their shuttles or even pods . . . no way.”
    “So we got to go overland. We’ll have to shoot our way through. Or find an easier mission.”
    Roland looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “That what you want to do? Wimp out?”
    Mordecai grinned at him. “Are you kidding? This’ll be the ultimate test of my sharpshooting, man. No way I’m missing this mission. I just wanted to give you thechance to blow it off.”
    “Very thoughtful. I’m after crystalisks and Eridium. So we head southwest.”
    They didn’t see the varkids till sunset was melting into the night, and Roland was hunkering to build a campfire, thinking he should set up the Scorpio turret. There was still enough light for Mordecai to notice the ground trembling at the far edge of the hilltop.
    “What the hell,” Mordecai said,staring at the tremulous sand. He pointed. “Over there! We got spiderants coming up?”
    Roland dropped the wood he was stacking and grabbed his Vladof Hammer, which was never out of reach when he was away from a settlement.
    The two of them stalked slowly toward the place where Mordecai had