The injured gunslinger dropped, clutching the side of his head as he writhed uselessly on the ground. The blood pouring from his ear painted the underside of his hand slick with a mix of blue and crimson. It trickled down his neck and pooled across the sand, staining the dirt a deeper shade of red. Down but not dead, the man drew his weapon from its holster and shot blindly into the air. Two bullets struck the train itself and ricocheted off the armored exterior in different directions.

  “Don’t worry, Dobsy. I’ve got this.” Misty sprang past Dobson and kicked the pistol from the gunslinger’s hand. Blindly, he grabbed for her, managing to catch Misty around the ankle. He dragged her down on top of him, but Misty was ready. She twisted around and slammed the butt of her pistol against his face, smashing his nose flat against his reinforced skull.

  Misty spat the man’s blood from her mouth, shouting over her shoulder at Dobson, “You take care of the two others.”

  As if on cue, a bullet struck the brim of Dobson’s hat and knocked it from her head, narrowly missing her ear. A spray of ammunition followed as the steady chug-chug-chug fire of an overpowered blitzer lit the air.

  “Get down!” Dobson screamed.

  She threw herself into an awkward roll and came back up on one knee beside the train, huddling against the side as bullets pinged against its armored exterior mere inches above her head. Dobson tucked herself lower, pressing her body in the space between the engine’s circular wheels. Her rifle, piecemealed together from scrapped parts, was no match against a blitzer. She stayed low instead, patiently waiting for her opening.

  It came soon enough, when the magazine ran dry and the shooter had to stop and awkwardly reload.

  Dobson peeked out from her hiding place, searching for where Misty had gone. She saw the downed gunslinger first. He was lying on his back in the red-stained sand, still breathing. Misty, however, was nowhere to be seen. Dobson crouched lower, checking the underside of the train and found her, lying flat on her stomach beneath the great iron beast itself.

  Misty tilted her head to the side and glared back at Dobson, mouthing the words, ‘Get him.’

  The gunfire had taken out the lantern hanging above the doorway. Fortunately for Dobson, she didn’t need it. The distant light of the loader fire allowed her to see her quarry even without the use of her mech vision. A small boon, considering it’d stopped working back at the saloon.

  The shooter stood with his back to the fire, searching the area in front of him with unseeing eyes. Blue serum leaked out from around his eyelids and trailed down his unshaven face. Unable to see either Misty or Dobson, he stood with his head cocked to the side, listening for signs of movement.

  The woman beside him was making it more difficult than it should have been. “What in Sam Hill are you shooting for?” she demanded, squinting uselessly in his general direction, unable to see anything beyond her own nose thanks to the aftereffects of Misty’s industrial-sized flash bomb. “Bradley said to bring ‘em in alive.”

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  “Can it,” he snapped. “They shot first.”

  “So, you’re just gonna ignore the boss’s orders then?”

  “I said, can it!”

  The woman lifted her lip in a snarl. “Neither of us can see a bloomin’ thing! How do we know you’re not shooting at our own, huh?”

  The man lying at the base of the ladder in a pool of blood groaned, attracting the attention of the trigger-happy shooter, who wasted no time in unloading an entire magazine in response. The shooter peppered the back of the train in a spray of bullets until all thirty rounds ran dry. Cursing, he reached for the bag on his hip and started to reload.

  Dobson swung out from behind the protective corner of the train and lodged a slug straight through his right eye. A spray of blood and borg juice erupted from his skull. He staggered a step backwards, still swaying on his feet, unaware he was already dead. Dobson lowered her aim and took off his hand, ensuring he wouldn’t douse the back of the train in another shower of bullets before succumbing to the inevitable.

  The woman beside him blindly groped the air for her partner. She grabbed the gunman by the shoulder just as the dying man’s knees started to fold.

  “Bil—” The woman opened her mouth, her partner’s name still forming across her tongue, when Dobson’s slug caught her in the throat. The bullet struck the seam that held the protective neck plates together and pushed through, piercing her jugular. Sticky red blood bubbled from the woman’s mouth. She went down with the gunman. The two fell together, dead before their bodies struck the ground.

  Dobson waited, listening for reinforcements, but none came. The train sat eerily silent beside them.

  “You alright under there?” Dobson hollered to Misty.

  Her partner’s incensed voice echoed from beneath the train. “No, I am not.”

  Dobson winced, hoping she wouldn’t have to crawl between the tracks to retrieve her. The gap beneath the train was not a large space, and she was not a very small woman. With her luck, she’d get stuck, and then they’d both be sitting ducks for however many baddies were left squirreled away deep within the armored train.

  “How bad is it?” Dobson asked, fearing the answer. “Can you stop the bleeding?”

  “It’s not me the bugger shot, Dobsy,” Misty snapped. “It’s the canteen! All my precious clam juice just leeched straight into the ground! All of it!”

  Relief washed over Dobson. She pinched the bridge of her nose with a groan, reveling in sweet, sweet, stupid relief. “The canteen?”

  “Not a single drop left!”

  “Is that all?”

  Misty popped out from beneath the train, muttering dark curses beneath her breath. She clawed with her single arm whilst wriggling on her belly like an angry snake in the sand. “‘Is that all’, she asks.” Misty flipped over onto her back and threw her arm dramatically into the air above her. “That was my everything, Dobson! I tasted the sweet nectar of the gods, and now it’s all gone. Drawn back into the ground from whence it came. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

  “I do not think they grow clams on desert moons,” Dobson reminded her.

  “Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about. The principles of scarcity and whatnot. You get it,” Misty agreed. “I’m sure as hell not going to find any more clam juice out here, that’s for sure.”

  Misty continued to flail about, airing her grievances, while Dobson studied the back of the train. Despite all of the commotion, she had yet to see a single head pop out from beyond the door. Meaning, perhaps, all the expendable Company Men were already dead. Anyone left behind would be tucked under a table somewhere deep inside, cowering with their tails between their legs.

  “Are you finished with your bellyaching?” Dobson asked Misty.

  “No.” Her partner pouted. “Why?”

  “As it happens, I think there might be one other place you might find a can or two of your vile mollusk brew.”

  Misty pursed her lips and said nothing, allowing Dobson the rare opportunity to finish her thought uninterrupted.

  “This is a company train, after all.” Dobson nodded to the iron ladder that led to the shoving platform above them. “If you’re going to find nectar of the gods anywhere, it’ll be in there.”