COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The survivors of postnuclear America struggle against the free fall into anarchy and barbarism. Hot lead keeps people sharp, but it’s the fire within that keeps them alive. Ryan Cawdor and his band roam Deathlands searching for somewhere to call home. Until then, it’s survival at all cost.

LINE OF ATTACK

New Hampshire is rich with big game, more than enough to feed Ryan and his hungry companions. But claims to a fallen elk get ugly and Ryan is forced to chill another hunter, the self-proclaimed king of the Granite Highlands, over the meat. Soon the hunters become the hunted as the dead man’s widow gives chase, armed with predark tanks and heavy artillery. As the kill zone widens across cannibal-ridden lava fields, Ryan and his group search for leverage in the merciless landscape.

Krysty bent forward slightly as if she was about to burst into a run

“Sense anything?” J.B. asked.

“Too much,” she replied, rubbing her temple, “with so many people dying violently inside the ship.”

Taking a revolver from the wall, Ryan cracked open the cylinder and checked inside. “Not fired,” he said, closing the weapon with a snap of his wrist. “They were caught by surprise.”

“And who leaves working blasters behind?” J.B. said. “That makes no sense at all unless—” In the darkness, they heard a noise and something flew across the office to hit the Armorer in the throat.

Staggering backward, J.B. crashed into a desk. His glasses came off as he collapsed against a wall, the Uzi tumbling away, his fingers twitching feebly….

Other titles in the
Deathlands saga:

Way of the Wolf
Dark Emblem
Crucible of Time
Starfall
Encounter: Collector’s Edition
Gemini Rising
Gaia’s Demise
Dark Reckoning
Shadow World
Pandora’s Redoubt
Rat King
Zero City
Savage Armada
Judas Strike
Shadow Fortress
Sunchild
Breakthrough
Salvation Road
Amazon Gate
Destiny’s Truth
Skydark Spawn
Damnation Road Show
Devil Riders
Bloodfire
Hellbenders
Separation
Death Hunt
Shaking Earth
Black Harvest
Vengeance Trail
Ritual Chill
Atlantis Reprise
Labyrinth
Strontium Swamp
Shatter Zone
Perdition Valley
Cannibal Moon
Sky Raider
Remember Tomorrow
Sunspot
Desert Kings
Apocalypse Unborn
Thunder Road
Plague Lords (Empire of Xibalba Book I)
Dark Resurrection (Empire of Xibalba Book II)
Eden’s Twilight
Desolation Crossing
Alpha Wave
Time Castaways
Prophecy
Blood Harvest
Arcadian’s Asylum
Baptism of Rage
Doom Helix
Moonfeast
Downrigger Drift
Playfair’s Axiom
Tainted Cascade
Perception Fault
Prodigal’s Return
Lost Gates
Haven’s Blight
Hell Road Warriors
Palaces of Light
Wretched Earth
Crimson Waters
No Man’s Land
Nemesis
Chrono Spasm

James Axler’s

DEATHLANDS

Sins of Honor

Honor is not about making the right choices. It is about dealing with the consequences.

—Sophocles

Chapter One

Ignoring the rumbling in his empty stomach, Ryan Cawdor took a deep breath to steady his aim, set the crosshairs of the telescopic sight on the velvety throat of the huge elk and gently squeezed the trigger. The crack of the longblaster rang out in the snowy forest, disturbing the early morning peace of the New Hampshire foothills.

Squirrels, birds, rabbits and winged lizards burst out of hiding from among the various shrubbery and fled into the distance. Several hundred yards away, the steel-jacketed round punched cleanly through the elk, and the animal screamed in pain as red blood gushed from both sides of its neck. Staggering away from a partially frozen creek, clear water dripping from its distorted mouth, the dying animal blindly slashed around with its deadly antlers at the unseen source of the terrible pain for an exceptionally long time. But every movement only caused fresh blood to gush from the hole. Soon its eyes dimmed, the movements slowed, then with a terrible shudder the elk collapsed heavily to the frosty ground and went still.

“Dark night, that was a good shot!” J. B. Dix exclaimed, slapping the other man on the shoulder. “Looks like we eat tonight.”

“Finally...” Krysty Wroth sighed, the word almost becoming a laugh with her profound relief.

Working the arming bolt of the Steyr Scout to chamber another 7.62 mm round, Ryan said nothing in reply, his full attention on the tall pine trees surrounding the motionless elk.

There was a rustle in the nearby pine trees and a huge shapeless mutant descended from the shadowy bough. Nearly transparent, the flapjack quickly undulated across the clearing, drawn irresistibly toward the smell of fresh blood. As it neared the elk, the mutie eagerly extended a ropy appendage toward the pool of crimson on the icy ground.

Tracking the mutie, Ryan aimed and fired again.

A second shot dully boomed from the opposite direction of the snowy foothills. Even as the 7.62 mm round plowed through the flapjack, it also jerked as another bullet slammed into the creature with triphammer force. The crisscrossing rounds spun the flapjack around, gobbets of transparent flesh smacking into the laurel bushes and tall pine.

Chittering in agony, the mutie re-formed as best as it could, and weakly flowed back toward the safety of the dark trees. But the two rifles fired again, the double report echoing across the snowy landscape. The 7.62 mm hollowpoint round went deep into the amorphic creature and exploded out the other side leaving a ragged hole larger than a clenched fist. At the exact same time, a massive .66 miniball plowed through the thing, tearing a wide tunnel of ragged flesh and crushing internal organs.

Sticky fluids pumping from the hideous wounds, the dying flapjack changed direction toward the bushes, when the two longblasters fired in unison. The diverging rounds tore the translucent mutie apart, and pieces of it landed on a patch of snow, the clear body slowly darkening into a mottled brown ooze.

As the first traces of gunpowder had reached the forest, dozens of small animals scampered away from the deadly clearing, and soon a deep silence engulfed the forest, the only sounds coming from the babbling creek and the rustle of the wind through the gently swaying nettles.

“Anybody zero the other shooter?” Ryan demanded, working the bolt action on the Steyr Scout to eject the spent cartridge. Catching the empty brass, he tucked it into a pocket for reloading in the future.

Ryan was a tall man, towering above the other members of the group by several inches, and he radiated a sense of physical strength the way a campfire did heat. Curly black hair hung almost to his shoulders, and the hole where his left eye used to be was covered with a black leather patch.

“Alas no, my dear Ryan,” Doc Tanner rumbled, squinting in the distance. “He is as Hermes, messenger of the gods. Unseen as a ghost in the morning fog.”

Looking as if he had just stepped out of the ancient past, Dr. Theophilius Algernon Tanner was dressed in knee-high boots, black pants, a frilly white shirt and a long swallow-tail frock coat. Although clean, his clothing had clearly seen better days and some of the patches were starting to come loose and reveal bullet holes in the fabric.

A gunbelt was strapped around his waist, a massive replica LeMat .44 revolver holstered at his hip. The leather ammunition loops in the gunbelt were most empty, but the nine chambers of the titanic LeMat were completely full, including the stubby 18-gauge mini-shotgun attached underneath the main barrel of the oddball weapon.

Looking through a pair of dented National Guard binoculars, a stocky black woman gave a rude snort. “Crazy old coot,” Dr. Mildred Wyeth muttered.

Turning sideways, Doc flashed oddly perfect teeth. “Just because I may be a crazy old coot, madam, does not automatically mean that I am also wrong. Correct?”

Having no salient reply to that, Mildred merely shrugged and continued to search for the other shooter.

“Found! Two clock, tree line,” Jak Lauren whispered, pointing in that direction with a 357 Magnum Colt Python revolver.

A true albino, his hair was the color of new snow, with his skin almost as pale, although the chill in the air gave the young man a faint pinkish hue this morning.

“Well, I don’t mind one more at the campfire,” J.B. stated, adjusting the wire-rimmed glasses perched on his face. “There’s plenty of meat. That buck must easily weigh a couple of hundred pounds. No prob!”

“What if want all?” Jak asked pointedly.

“Then he chews lead,” J.B. replied, swinging around a 9 mm Uzi machine pistol, and working the arming bolt. Aside from the Uzi machine pistol, J.B. also had an S&W M-4000 shotgun slung across his back. A battered leather bag that held munitions hung at his side.

“Unfortunately, he’s not alone,” Krysty added, her long crimson hair moving as if stirred by secret winds that only it could feel.

The statuesque beauty was wearing a bedraggled bearskin coat over a green military blouse and denim pants that were barely able to contain her shapely figure. The wide leather belt around her trim waist supported a sheathed knife and a canteen, but there was also a double row of ammunition loops, only a few of them containing live bullets

“How many more?” Ryan demanded sharply.

Krysty frowned. “A lot.”

“A dozen?”

“Easily.”

“Fireblast,” Ryan growled, resting the Steyr on a shoulder. “Be nice if we still had that implo gren.”

“Cows and wags, lover.”

“True enough,” Ryan muttered.

The morning chill seemed to have no effect on the big man and his fur-lined coat hung open, allowing him fast access to the SIG-Sauer handblaster and a curved panga sheathed on his gunbelt. Two bandoliers of rifle ammunition crisscrossed his chest.

“Pity the redoubt was empty,” Krysty said, studying the distant clearing for any more scavengers.

“The last two were empty, as well,” Ricky Morales complained, taking a swig from a battered aluminum canteen. “I’m almost hungry enough to try that flattened roadkill we found yesterday!”

“Not been that hungry,” Jak stated grimly, then he relented with a friendly chuckle. “But mighty close!”

Wearily, Ricky nodded in agreement. The tepid water had eased the growling in his stomach, but didn’t make it go away entirely.

At sixteen Ricky was well on the way to becoming a husky young man. A big-bore Webley .45 revolver was held casually in his hand, and a bolt-action DeLisle carbine was slung across the back of his recently acquired FBI parka.

“Any chance we can negotiate a deal?” Mildred asked, resting her hand on her holstered blaster. “It’s been three days since our last real meal, and that can of string beans the seven of us split for breakfast barely took the edge off my appetite.”

Her old Czech .38 ZKR target pistol was holstered on her right hip and there was a worn canvas satchel slung over her left shoulder.

“Only one way to find out,” Ryan stated, breaking cover by walking out of the snowy hedges.

Immediately there was a flurry of movement in the distant hills and a huge man stepped into view from a huckleberry patch. The stranger was colossal, much taller than even Ryan, with a sloping brow and protruding jaw that gave him a definite simian appearance. He walked in the rolling gait of a sailor on a ship during a storm.

“Mutie?” Jak asked, scratching his nose in case the other man could read lips from this distance.

“No, just big,” Mildred replied, adjusting her scarf for the same reason. “There was a professional wrestler back in my time called André the Giant. He was so huge it was hard to believe he was just one guy.”

“His bastard size is not what’s worrying me,” Ryan countered, subtly shifting his grip on the Steyr.

He was unimpressed by the other man’s statue—hot lead brought down almost everything in the Deathlands. What was much more worrisome was the stranger’s clothing. The man was wearing what looked like a brand-new U.S. Marine ghillie suit, the black-and-white-patterned fabric without any rips, stains or patches. His matching combat boots shone with polish, and the giant Thompson .45 rapid-fire gleamed with fresh oil. A spare ammunition drum hung at his side in a net bag, and a Glock 9 mm handblaster was tucked into a nylon shoulder holster. Spare ammunition clips lined his leather gunbelt, yet there was no sign of a backpack or canteen.

“Baron?” J.B. muttered.

“Must be,” Doc whispered, pretending to cough into a fist.

Hobbling, Doc was using an ebony walking stick as a cane, as if he was weak or infirmed. But that was an old trick that had served the companions well many times before in the past. The silvery color of his hair made Doc appear to be old, but the discoloration was merely a side effect of the experiments conducted upon the man by Operation Chronos. Doc was actually in his thirties with a wiry strength.

“Looks like he wants to cut a deal,” Ricky said.

“Or just wants us to break cover so the snipers can chill us,” Krysty countered.

In wordless agreement, J.B. flipped the switch on the Uzi from single-shot to full-auto.

“How many rounds in that magazine?” Ryan asked, going around a chunk of cinder-block wall sticking out of the cold ground. Ivy had covered the outcropping before dying.

“Twenty-two,” J.B. replied. “Almost full.”

“Got a spare?”

“Plenty...just no brass in ’em.”

Stopping on a grassy knoll, the giant man rested a boot on a tree stump and gave a friendly wave.

Coming to a halt on the edge of a frozen creek, Ryan waved in return, then jerked a thumb back and forth between them as a sign to parlay. The stranger nodded in agreement, then gave an odd smile and placed two fingers in his mouth to sharply whistle.

At the noise, dozens of mounted people galloped out of the distant forest to form a half circle behind the giant. The horses were a motley pack, palominos, piebalds and roans, but the saddles were identical, and each came with a gunboot containing some sort of a longblaster.

The riders were as different as their mounts, and each of the men and women wore tanned buckskins and a heavy fur coat. The similarity of the home-made clothing carried the strong impression of a uniform.

“Sec men,” J.B. announced. “He’s a baron, all right.”

“We can take them,” Ricky said with the conviction of youth, straightening his shoulders.

“Put the pin back in that gren, boy,” Ryan commanded, lowering the barrel of the Steyr. “An old friend of mine once said that it was easier to make a deal than to make brass.”

His shoulders hunched for battle, Ricky eased his aggressive stance.

“There’s no sign of chains or skinning knives,” Mildred said, bracing herself for a possible rush. “At least they’re not cannies or slavers.”

“Probably,” Jak growled, putting a wealth of meaning into the word.

“You never can tell,” Krysty said, her hair coiling tight to her head in preparation for battle.

“Smile, aye, and be a villain,” Doc added softly. His face maintained a slightly puzzled expression, but his hand inched closer to the holstered LeMat revolver.

“Where you from, outlanders?” the giant called out with a friendly smile.

“Thanks for helping with the flapjack,” Ryan said, sidestepping the entire issue. “Much appreciated.”

“The...what did you call it?” the giant man asked with a frown, then burst into laughter. “Black dust, they do sorta look like a pancake come alive, don’t they?”

“Sure enough,” Ryan said with a tolerant smile. He was still holding the Steyr in both hands, but didn’t have a finger on the trigger. To anybody sane that would mean he was willing to talk.

“Well, we call ’em pires,” a stocky sec man added, hefting the flintlock longblaster cradled in his arms.

“Pires...as in vampires?” Mildred asked, a note of surprise in her voice.

“Don’t know that word,” the giant muttered, clearly displeased by the fact.

Mildred started to explain, then clearly changed her mind. This wasn’t the time, nor the place. “Muties that drink blood,” she said simply.

“That’s a pire, all right.” The giant snorted, then abruptly pointed at himself. “The name’s Angstrom, Franklin Angstrom, King of the Granite Empire.”

That statement took the companions back.

“King...not baron?” Jak asked suspiciously.

“Barons only rule villes,” Angstrom said with a toothy grin. “But I rule every baron west of the Lantic Ocean.”

“Impressive,” Ryan said diplomatically. “The name’s Cawdor, Ryan Cawdor. Now, about that buck I shot—”

“Shitfire, you outlanders got a lot of blasters,” a burly sec man interrupted. “Got any brass for them?”

In reply, J.B. aimed the Uzi into the sky and triggered a short burst. The spent brass casings arched away to fall on an outcropping and musically bounced off into the creek.

“Mebbe that’s all the brass they got, my liege,” a bald sec woman said, staring at the Uzi in open lust.

Without comment, Doc raised and fired the LeMat. The thundering boom of the .44 echoed across the clearing, to repeat endlessly into the snow-covered foothills.

“Okay, you’re full of brass and meaner than a shithouse rat on jolt,” Angstrom said with a chuckle. “But it also don’t look like you’ve been eating too regular lately.”

“Lean keeps a man sharp,” Ryan lied.

“At least they’re not wearing green,” a sec man said to Angstrom.

Just for a moment, Ryan wondered what that meant, then dismissed it. Green was probably just the color of the uniform for some enemy ville. “Now, I shot the buck, but we aced the flapjack together, so...split the meat?”

“Half ain’t enough to make soup for my crew,” Angstrom scoffed with a wave of the hand. “And I should get all of the meat since my shot chilled the mutie. Once it touches something, only a triple-damn gleeb would eat any part of it.”

“Poison?”

Angstrom made a face. “Nyah, its little hairy things, sort like roots. They go deep fast. If they get inside you, they feed on your guts. Lead in the head is a mercy after that.”

“Sounds bad.”

“Feels worse.”

“Probably so,” Ryan said, the cold wind ruffling his hair. “Could have aced it myself.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It has been a while since we last ate, so I’ll tell you what,” Ryan said, reaching into a pocket. “We’ll buy half of the buck from you for brass.”

Pulling out his hand he opened it to show the other a fistful of .22 cartridges. As the Granite sec men murmured among themselves, Ryan gauged their reactions. Angstrom was a trained negotiator, but his crew wasn’t, and they were becoming unduly excited at the sight of the live ammunition. Not greedy, but apprehensive. Brass bothered them? Ryan thought. Curious.

“Don’t use brass in our flintlocks,” Angstrom countered smoothly. “But you can have all of the buck for one of them rapid-fires.”

There was no change in the big man’s stance, but Ryan instantly knew this was a trick. Was he stalling until more of his men arrived or—

Just then there came a subtle movement in the laurel bushes edging the clearing, and something metallic glinted in the weak sunlight.

“Ambush!” J.B. shouted, firing the Uzi. The bushes violently shook from the passage of the 9 mm Parabellum rounds, and a sec man stumbled into view, red blood pumping from a dozen wounds.

“Son of a mutie whore...chill ’em!” Angstrom bellowed, swinging up the Thompson. “Chill them all!”

Chapter Two

Chaos erupted as everybody cut loose with a weapon, the combined racket of the assorted pistols, revolvers, zip gun, machine pistols, smooth-bore muskets, shotguns, and longblasters, briefly building into a roar of stentorian power. Ricochets went everywhere, the earth churned, and the surrounding trees shook violently from the passage of so much hot lead through the colorful leaves and dark green nettles.

A moment later a dark gray cloud of gunsmoke billowed across the battlefield, and everybody used the brief respite to find protective cover. The notable exception was the assorted horses of the Granite sec men. Obviously trained for combat, the powerful animals stayed exactly where they were, neither running nor flinching, even when two of the horses fell with hot rivers of red life pumping from hideous wounds in their muscular necks.

Rolling into a crouch, J.B. came up with the Uzi chattering, the hammering stream of 9 mm Parabellum rounds stitching a line of death across the opposing sec men. Several of them toppled to the ground clutching red bellies.

Popping back into view from behind a tree stump, Ryan aimed and fired the Steyr in a single move. Caught in the act of shoving a fresh magazine into the heavy Thompson, the snarling Angstrom rocked backward as a small hole appeared in his forehead. Then the back of his head exploded in a horrid geyser of bones and brains and blood.

“That...that one-eyed bastard aced the king,” a sec woman gasped, the soft words cutting through the din as if they were nuclear-powered.

“Ain’t possible!” a sec man yelled from inside a laurel bush, the barrel of his flintlock extending high into the smoky air.

“Look for yourself, gleeb!” another sec woman replied, using a fist to cock back the massive hammer on her flintlock.

“Ace ’em!” a blond sec man shouted at the top of his lungs, spittle flying into the cold air.

Instantly the firefight erupted with renewed vigor, the discharges and ricochets now peppered with guttural snarls that conveyed a deeper hatred than mere vulgarities ever could.

Peeking over the frozen bank of the icy creek, Krysty and Jak expertly laid down suppressive fire, while Ricky emptied an entire magazine from the softly chugging DeLisle.

Briefly popping up from the frozen creek, Mildred squeezed off two shots from her ZKR target pistol. The .38 rounds precisely hit a sec man in the hip and temple. The double blow turned him around just as his shotgun boomed. Several voices rose in pain and shock from the spray of bent nails and gravel, then a flurry of flintlocks cut loose and the wounded sec man died on the spot.

“Veni, vidi, vici!” Doc snarled, partially hidden behind a broken cinder-block wall.

Firing a fast three times, his LeMat boomed louder than thunder, and a flintlock visibly bent before flying out of the grasp of a startled sec man, his fingers bending backward at impossible angles during the process.

Snarling a curse, an old sec man stepped into view from the gray cloud, a blood-spattered Thompson cradled in his arms. Bracing for a recoil, he triggered the big weapon and the classic L-shaped flames jutted from the end of the muzzle and the exhaust vent on top.

As the hammering string of .45 rounds chewed a path of destruction across the clearing, J.B. answered back with the Uzi. The chattering machine pistol sent a hail of 9 mm rounds through the Granite sec man who fell with most of his face gone. Still firing, the Thompson did a cartwheel through the air, killing a horse and wounding several sec men. Bouncing off an oak tree, the weapon landed in a patch of snow, the flakes hissing as they came in contact with the hot metal.

Screaming in pain, a sec man staggered out of the huckleberry bushes, his face and chest obscured by a pulsating translucent mass. With every beat, the feeding flapjack turned slightly darker in color, while the struggling man trapped inside the mutie became noticeably weaker and more pale.

“Shitfire, a pire’s got Billy!” the bald sec woman yelled, swinging her weapon in a new direction and pulling the trigger.

The big iron hammer snapped forward, a chunk of flint scraping along the metal strike plate and issuing a bright spray of yellow-white sparks. Those ignited the black powder in the flashpan, and the longblaster thunderously boomed, a lance of flame extending out the barrel for almost a full yard.

A hundred feet away, Billy jerked as the .75 soft-lead miniball slammed into his chest and exploded out of his back, carrying along a horrid spray of bones and guts.

Even though already dead, the bedraggled sec man kept walking while the ravenous flapjack continued draining the nutrient-rich blood. Tripping over an exposed root, the body fell, and the pulsating mutie immediately peeled itself off the corpse to start undulating across the frosty earth toward the nearest sec men.

Just for a second, the firefight paused as the Granite sec force and the companions turned in unison to unleash a maelstrom at the deadly creature. Torn into pieces by the wild fusillade, the flapjack was scattered across the snowy field, every piece twitching with monstrous life.

Pulling out the empty magazine from his longblaster, Ryan pocketed it for reloading later, then yanked a fresh magazine from the bandolier under his jacket. Shoving it into the Scout, he worked the arming lever to chamber the first round. The battle was going in their favor. But there were a lot more of the Granite troops than the companions, and how this would end was anybody’s guess at the moment. Time to parley.

“Hey, Blondie!” Ryan shouted, studying the billowing cloud for any movement. “You’ve lost a lot of men and horses! Why not leave...while ya still can!”

“Frag that drek!” the fat sec man bellowed, stepping out from behind a pine tree and firing a homemade shotgun. The double roar echoed across the hills and forest.

Aiming for the man’s voice, Ryan stroked the trigger of the Steyr. The longblaster coughed, and there came the telltale slap of lead hitting flesh.

“Nuking outlanders got Duncan!” a sec woman called from behind a dead horse.

Calmly shooting again, Ryan saw the top of her head part, jagged pieces of her white skull flying away amid the gory pink residue of her brain.

“Lucia!” a tall sec man gasped, starting toward the twitching body.

Tracking the running fellow for a moment, Ryan fired and took him out with a well placed shot to the heart. The sec man wobbled like a drunken puppet, then abruptly sat and collapsed.

“Everybody shut the frag up!” an unseen man bellowed from within the shadowed interior of the forest.

Breaking cover, a pair of sec men on horseback charged out of the forest to quickly head away from the fighting.

Bracing his longblaster on a rock, Ricky opened fire, the gently coughing DeLisle chilling one man and wounding the other. At the same moment both J.B. and Ryan spun in the opposite direction to see a dozen sec men sprint out of the distant hedges to hit the frosty ground and start crawling toward the frozen creek.

Grimly knowing they would be safely behind the cover of the snowy bank in only seconds, Ryan fired the Steyr as fast as he could work the bolt, hitting any visible part of the scurrying sec men. Boot heel, elbow, hat, backpack, ass...it made no difference. One at a time, each sec man cried out from surprise, or pain, and briefly rose into view. It was the last thing they ever did.

“How is the ammunition?” Doc asked, thumbing fresh rounds into the nine-shot LeMat revolver. “I’m almost out.”

“Same here,” Mildred growled, pausing as a miniball hummed by overhead. “Maybe we should start running, and just let them have the meat!”

“No chance!” Jak drawled, firing his weapon. The blaster boomed and rode up slightly from the force of the Magnum round. Inside a rustling mulberry bush, a woman screamed, then went silent.

“Well, I do have a couple of smoke bombs...” J.B. said, easing the last 12-gauge cartridge from the shoulder strap of his M-4000.

“Get them,” Ryan ordered. He was starving, and the companions would spend the rest of the day running away from the angry sec men, but then they could go hunting again tomorrow. Hungry and alive was always better than cold and dead.

“Wait! I sense...something...” Krysty whispered, her hair going preternaturally still.

Just then, there came an odd sort of a humming whistle from the forest, and a split second later, something small came flying out of the forest to arch high into the cold sky.

“Petards!” Ryan cursed, raising the Steyr to aim toward the homemade bomb. A length of rope dangled from the steel pipe, the whistling sound obviously made when a sec man twirled the bomb overhead to build speed. But why was Krysty getting such a sense of danger from a simple pipe bomb?

“Not like,” Jak snarled, closing his blaster with a jerk of the wrist.

As the incoming projectile reached the arch of its trajectory, Ryan fired once, and the pipe promptly exploded. However, instead of the expected black powder detonation, a powerful fireball of gargantuan size filled the entire sky and a split second later the companions were brutally hammered to the ground by the triphammer shock wave of military-grade, C-4 plas ex.

* * ** * *

IN SLUGGISH STAGES Ryan slowly awoke to total darkness. He ached all over as if he’d been trampled by a herd of wild horses, and his temples throbbed from a nukestorm of a headache.

Just then a cool breeze touched his empty socket, and Ryan realized that his eyepatch had to have simply shifted from the sheer force of the concussion, which also explained why it was difficult to breathe, and every inch of his body felt sore.

A small part of his mind marveled over the fact that the companions had managed to survive the aftereffects of such a powerful detonation at all. As a small boy, his father had once said that C-4 was to black powder what water was to shine. Smart words.

Reaching up to put the eyepatch back into position, Ryan instantly felt an adrenaline surge at the discovery that his wrists were bound together with what felt like leather straps. Instantly he reached for the SIG-Sauer and wasn’t overly surprised to find that it was gone, along with the panga, and everything else. Fireblast! They were captives! How long had he been knocked unconscious?

Jerking the patch back to where it belonged, Ryan blinked, then shifted position to study the area around him. A forest was to his left, and on the right side snowy ground extended to a campsite full of Granite sec men. A nimbus of reddish firelight was coming from a crackling fire—no, there were four fires—each of them roasting a haunch of what sure smelled like fresh elk.

His mouth salivated at the delicious aroma, but Ryan ignored that to glance around for the other companions. Incredibly, they were only a few feet away, lying in a jumbled pile inside a crude cage made from tree branches bound together with coils of rope.

Everybody was present with leather straps binding their hands and ankles. All of their clothing was in serious disarray, including his own, even the pockets turned inside out from a thorough search. Expecting the worst, Ryan steeled himself, but Krysty and Mildred still wore all their clothing, although both of their shirts were completely unbuttoned.

That unsettling sight sent a visceral surge of blind rage through Ryan, and his heart wildly pounded as he strained with both arms to burst out of his leather bonds. But after a few minutes he was forced to relax and bitterly accept the fact that strength wasn’t going to get them free.

Focusing on the cage, Ryan eyed the thing with dispassion. The work was excellent, simple, but looked very strong. There was no door, hatch or even a floor, just the wooden branches. They were helpless as fish in a bucket.

The cage appeared to have been built around them, and it rested on top of a couple of freshly chopped logs. Ryan grunted at that. Those were obviously rails for dragging the cage behind a team of horses. He had no idea of their final destination, but he damn well knew it was going to end in their bloody deaths. However, it did indicate that the sec men weren’t going to ace them immediately. Bad move on their part.

The trees rustled as the night wind changed direction, and suddenly Ryan could hear the sec men. They were complaining about digging graves for their aced friends, impatient for dinner, and marveling over the incredible haul of jack they had just acquired—apparently all of it from the companions.

“Six butane lighters!” a short sec man chortled, pouring the wealth from one hand into another. “And they all work! I’m gonna die from all the quim this will buy me at a gaudy house!”

“And this telephone thing!” Another sec man laughed, extending the antique Navy telescope to its full length, only to slap it back down again. “Never seen nothing like it nowhere!”

“It’s called a telescope, not a telephone,” corrected a tall blond man, extending a hand. “And give it here. That’s a gift for the queen.” There was a white rag tied around his head for a near miss, a rivulet of dried blood still on his cheek

Oddly, Ryan saw that the blond man wasn’t carrying any of the weapons from the companions. There was a Remington shotgun slung across his back, and what had sure looked like a Glock 9 mm pistol holstered at his side. Both weapons were spotless, and shone with fresh oil. Ryan didn’t like that. The man cleaned his weapons before himself? That alone said the fellow was a professional coldheart, even if he was now wearing the livery of a ville sec man.

“Well?” the blond man repeated impatiently.

“Fair enough, Major,” the other man growled, tossing over the Navy telescope.

The major made the catch with one hand.

“As long as I gets to keep this here longblaster!” the sec man said as a question, patting the flintlock hung across his back. “Always did like Joe’s blaster better than mine.”

“Sure. Everybody gets a taste,” the major replied, wrapping the telescope in a shirt before tucking it into a backpack.

Just then, Doc softly groaned.

Tilting his head, Ryan asked the man a silent question. Doc gave a tiny shrug in reply, then shifted his position to reveal the single leather strap tied around his wrists. In comparision, Ryan and the other companions were trussed like hogs waiting for the butcher, with multiple layers of windings.

In spite of the dire situation, Ryan felt hope surge. The Granite sec men had just made a second mistake. Doc looked like a wrinklie, but that was just the side effect of the time jumps he’d been forced to endure at the hands of the whitecoats of Operation Chronos. If he could get free, there might be a slim chance the companions could come out of this alive.

Muttering softly, Mildred rolled over, placing her head behind Jak’s boots. J.B. angled away slightly, and the woman stretched her neck forward to start chewing on the leather strap between Doc’s hands.

“Hey! I think one of the prisoners just moved!” a sec man shouted, swinging up a double-barreled flintlock. The reddish firelight made the weapon appear to be made out of solidified blood.

“Who nuking cares?” a sec woman replied, her voice thick with disdain as she continued to strop the panga on a rock. “Nobody escapes from my knots!”

“Better check it anyway,” the major commanded, jerking his thumb. “Dog, Harrison, Omar, on the hump! Then go relieve the guards on the perimeter.”

Grumbling in compliance, three sec men rose from the ground and trundled toward the cage. As they eclipsed the campfires, their elongated shadows hid the companions, and Mildred quickly resumed her earlier position.

As the firelight returned, Ryan noted that the three sec men were carrying several of the companions’ possessions. A fat sec man had the Webley sheathed in a leather shoulder holster, the tall one carried his own SIG-Sauer, and a bald sec man was holding Doc’s ebony sword stick, twirling it around like a baron walking along the parapets of a castle. The three men still had flintlocks slung across their backs, a powder horn at their sides bouncing with every step.

“Wish we could have taken their boots,” the fat sec man muttered, shuffling his left boot. The sole flapped as he walked, making an oddly comical noise.

“Shut up, Dog.”

“Just saying...”

“We gotta stay in uniform,” the tall sec man muttered, hitching up his gunbelt. “King’s commands!”

“Omar, we ain’t got no king.”

“Then Queen’s commands,” Omar snarled, stopping some distance from the cage. “There gotta be laws, or else we’re just stickies in boots.”

“Whatever you say,” Dog said dismissively.

“Damn right!” Omar said, drawing the SIG-Sauer and working the slide to chamber a round.

Slowing his breathing, Ryan tried to appear unconscious. It was an unpleasant experience facing down his own SIG-Sauer in the hands of another man, and in spite of his best effort something of it had to have shown on his face.

“Hey, One-Eye is up,” Harrison said, coming to an abrupt halt.

“Told you he’d live.” Dog chortled. “You owe me a new flint!”

Digging in a pocket, Omar produced a shiny rock and tossed it over. “Check the ropes,” he snarled.

Staying a safe distance from the bars, Harrison tugged on the coils of rope at each corner.

“They’re fine,” he announced, looking down at Krysty. “Blind Norad, I wish we could have rode these sluts. I got a real thing for redheads, ya know? She really shoves a brass up my breech!”

Omar grinned. “You can load that into a blaster, sure enough. She looks hotter than Washington Hole!”

As the two sec men laughed, Dog said nothing, but his gaze shifted to Ricky lying prone on the wooden bars.

Ryan felt his stomach turn at the sight.

“You know, mebbe if we stayed real quiet,” Harrison said, glancing back at the other sec men sitting around the four campfires.

“Can’t touch ’em,” Omar muttered, rubbing the back of a hand across his mouth. “At least, not till we reach home. The queen will want these people alive, and unharmed.”

“Unharmed?”

“Completely unharmed,” Omar snarled, hitching up his gunbelt. “She loved that big bastard like a druggie does jolt, so she’ll want them screaming for weeks.”

Softly muttering as if she was still unconscious, Krysty rolled over allowing her shirt to fall open to expose her breasts.

“Nuke me...” Harrison said in a throaty whisper. “Mebbe...are you sure we checked them everywhere for hidden knives?”

“Only one way to be sure,” Dog muttered, eagerly stretching a hand forward.

Angrily, Omar slapped it away. “Idiot! If they’re awake, you’ll lose a finger,” he stated, swinging up the ebony swordstick and slipping it through the wooden bars to poke Krysty.

Instantly snapping apart his weakened bonds, Doc grabbed the swordstick with both hands. Yanking and rotating at the same time, he pulled off the ebony sheath to expose the slim steel sword hidden inside.

Before the startled sec man could react, Doc lunged forward with the sheath to ram the tip into Omar’s belly. As the air exploded from his lungs, the sec man dropped the sword.

Snatching it out of the air, Ryan rammed the blade deep into the sec man’s throat, then yanked it free and tossed the sword to Mildred at the other end of the cage. She made the catch and turned toward the two sec men even as they clawed for their weapons.

With surgical precision, Mildred stabbed them both in the heart. The sec men went motionless, galvanized from the incalculable pain, and dark red stains appeared on their shirts to quickly spread outward.

“Hey, what are you assheads doing over there?” a sec woman shouted from the nearest campfire.

As the three dying men started to fall forward, Krysty, Jak and J.B. grabbed them by the collars, and hauled the twitching bodies against the bars to keep them upright.

“Help...” Omar whispered, blood bubbling from his slack mouth. “Prisoners...”

Coldly, Mildred stabbed all three of them again in major organs to prevent any further outcries, then the corpses were stripped of every weapon.

“What now?” Ricky asked, holding out his arms.

Mildred slashed the leather straps with a purloined knife, then did the same to everybody else.

“We chill them,” Ryan stated, wiping some blood off the SIG-Sauer.

“Might not escape be a better plan?” Doc asked urgently. “There are fifty of them to the seven of us.”

“If I have to, I can smash open the cage,” Krysty offered, buttoning her shirt closed.

Ryan knew it was true. Krysty could call on her Gaia power when necessary, more than enough to break the wooden cage open. However, afterward she be weaker than a kitten, and escape was only part of his plan for survival.

By now, several of the sec men had started walking toward the cage.

“Thanks, but we need this thing intact,” Ryan said, dropping the clip from the SIG-Sauer to check the bullets inside.

“For what, my dear Ryan?’ Doc asked, clearly confused.

“Protection!” J.B. replied, pulling one of the corpses tighter against the bars. “Everybody keep your mouths open to equalize the pressure!”

Nodding, Ryan eased the magazine back into the handblaster. Looking past the five sec men heading his way, the one-eyed man aimed at an older sec man carrying a battered leather bag. Smoothly, Ryan stroked the trigger and the silenced weapon gave a hard cough.

Two hundred feet away, the sec man cried out as his right knee exploded and he tumbled sideways into the campfire. Screaming, the man tried desperately to roll out of the flames, but Ryan kept shooting, the hard slap of the 9 mm Parabellum rounds forcing the hapless man back into the fire again.

The combined blast of all of the predark military explosives in J.B.’s munitions bag seemed to shatter the universe, and a staggering fireball enveloped the entire campsite.

A hellish corona of broken men, rocks, blasters, cooking pots and assorted pieces of equipment went flying in every direction.

Hunkering behind the three corpses, the companions braced themselves for the coming onslaught, and a split second later the shield of dead men jerked wildly as they were hammered with a barrage of debris and junk. A flintlock stabbed straight through one of the bodies, and Jak cried out as the red-hot barrel scored a bloody path across his right cheek.

Then the companions shook as the shock wave of the blast brutally shoved the cage away from the campsite. The crude log rails scraped up mounds of dirt as the companions traveled sideways into the nearby bushes and then onward into the trees. Just for a moment, it seemed like they might escape unscratched. Then the cage snagged on an exposed network of roots and completely flipped over.

Tumbling out of control, the companions let go of the bedraggled corpses to frantically grab on to the wooden bars as the cage jounced along the uneven ground, crashing through saplings, weeds and decaying logs.

A large tree loomed directly in front of them. An instant later the cage smashed into the trunk with a resounding crash.

Chapter Three

Loose leaves were still falling from the shaking tree when Ryan roused himself into motion and started clawing his way toward freedom. The cage was completely gone, reduced to a loose collection of broken branches and frayed piles of loose rope.

“Nuking ears are ringing,” Ricky muttered, shaking his head.

“Easy, boy. That’s concussion damage,” Ryan said, then repeated himself much louder. “It will go away in a few minutes!”

“You sure?” Ricky asked hopefully.

“This isn’t our first escape!” Krysty replied, removing a smashed bird’s nest from her tightly coiled hair.

“Everybody okay?” Mildred asked, struggling to sit upright. “Anybody have blurred vision or a clear nosebleed?”

Ricky scowled. “Clear?”

“That would mean a skull crack and internal damage from the concussion,” she explained, looking over the other companions. “No, we’re fine. Just got the shit kicked out of us by that explosion. No permanent damage.”

“I have no broken bones that I can see,” Doc said, wiping the blood off his face. “Although every inch of me... Good Lord!” Covering his face, he turned abruptly away.

“What’s wrong?” Mildred demanded, a hand automatically going for the medical kit normally hanging at her side. “Is there something in your eyes? Don’t rub!”

“Fine, I’m fine!” he said. “But...madam, your clothing is in disarray.”

Looking down at herself, Mildred snorted. “Jeez, Doc. We’ve all seen ourselves naked before.” She chuckled, trying to close her shirt. However, most of the buttons were gone, so she simply tied the loose ends under her breasts.

“Not under these circumstances!” he replied, stoically facing the opposite direction.

“Prude!”

“Gentleman, actually!”

Chuckling, Mildred glanced at J.B. for confirmation. In silent agreement, the man tilted his head toward Doc. Then looked at her new outfit with such frank appreciation that she was forced to blush.

“Behave yourself...” Mildred told him, putting a wealth of meaning into the words.

Trying not to smile, J.B. winked in reply.

Fighting their way clear of the tangle of assorted wreckage, the companions dutifully searched the area for any of their belongings, then began painfully trudging back toward the campsite. The crude tunnel of their passage through the forest was littered with small items, and the companions constantly paused to recover a dropped weapon.

In the distance, many of the taller trees were still swaying from the aftereffects of the powerful concussion, and a thick column of smoke rose high into the polluted sky, the dark gray eventually merging with the roiling expanse of purple and orange storm clouds.

“Fireblast, that smoke is going to attract norm and mutie for miles,” Ryan stated, stepping over a human leg. Steam rose from the ragged end, but the buckskin boot was still firmly tied in place over the foot.

“Don’t hear anything coming,” Krysty said hesitantly, cupping a hand to an ear. Then she scowled. “As if I could hear a gren exploding behind my back at the moment!”

“Work your jaw, as if chewing gum,” Mildred said, “That’ll help.”

“Really?”

“Not much, but some.”

“Here,” Jak said, offering a precious pack of gum.

“Why didn’t they take that?” Krysty asked in surprise.

Jak shrugged. “Got pockets in my pockets.”

Gratefully, everybody took a stick from Jac’s pack and started to chew as they quickly retraced their journey through the forest until reaching their original location. Peeking through a lilac bush, Ryan noted the perfume of the tiny purple flowers was almost overpowering this close. It was one of the few plants to still have any vegetation after that staggering detonation.

Warily, Ryan studied the swirling smoke for any recent disturbances. A person walking through live smoke left a kind of contrail in his or her wake. It was subtle, and difficult to spot, unless you knew exactly what to look for.

“Clear,” Ryan announced, pushing aside the colorful branches. As he did, dozens of the flowers dropped their petals, and the perfume in the air drastically increased.

“Smells like a shopping mall on Mother’s Day,” Mildred said, plucking one of the purple flowers.

“That a ville?” Ricky asked tersely, eyes sweeping the area.

“In a way,” she replied, tucking a lilac into her tangled hair.

Advancing toward the Granite campsite, the companions had to be careful where they stepped. The ground was littered with slippery pieces of disemboweled people, most of them still issuing tiny tendrils of pungent smoke.

Nudging aside an eerily staring eyeball with the toe of his shoe, Doc recovered an intact flintlock handblaster and stuffed it into his waistband, along with a buckskin bag of black powder, miniballs and spare flints. Jak and J.B. did the same, and the men reloaded the weapons as they walked.

Holding the SIG-Sauer at his hip, Ryan stopped at the edge of a ragged blast crater. The majority of the Granite campsite had been obliterated by the multiple explosions, the central area void of anything but churned earth.

However, numerous objects were scattered along the perimeter of the blast zone, and the companions needed no prompting to start the grisly job of looking for anything useful among the ghastly corona of trash, filth and corpses.

Almost immediately, each of them paused to tie a cloth across their face to hold back the pungent smells. The smoky air was thick with the delicious aroma of the roasted elk, but there was also a faint stink of cooked pork coming from the burned pieces of the dead sec men. Their stomachs almost rebelled at the foul combination. Only Ryan and J.B. seemed immune to the stench.

“Something’s wrong here,” Krysty stated, lifting the Steyr from the bloody ground. “I can’t see the blond major anywhere.”

“Destroyed by blast?” Jak asked, pulling one of their backpacks out from under a headless torso.

Krysty shook the longblaster. “The Steyr is intact,” she stated simply.

“Then we better keep a watch for survivors,” Ryan said, yanking Mildred’s canvas medical bag from under a smoldering horse saddle.

“Guards were supposed to be walking the perimeter,” Ricky said nervously, looking expectantly toward the nearby forest. Most of the trees had their bark removed on this side, the pale exposed wood peppered with pieces of flintlocks, miniballs, splintery bones and loose gravel.

“Even if they survived the shrapnel, the sheer force of a blast this strong would have knocked them unconscious,” Mildred stated, lifting a dented canteen from inside an empty boot. “John, what exactly was in your damn bag anyway?”

“Just the usual, black powder, some detcord, homie fuses, a road flare, jar of fireworks and such,” J.B. replied, prying a disembodied hand from the stock of the DeLisle. “Along with a pipe bomb, two grens and those three sticks of TNT that I found in that rock quarry last month.”

“Three sticks?”

“Bet your ass.”

“Good Lord, I am surprised that we survived such a Herculean rift at all,” Doc rumbled, gingerly poking among gory debris with the tip of his ebony stick.

“The dead make good shields,” Ricky muttered, then dived forward with a cry. Rummaging amid a steaming pile of entrails, he then stood with Krysty’s gunbelt in his dirty fist, the Model 640 revolver still tucked into the dripping holster.

“Merciful Gaia!” Krysty said with a smile. “Is there any brass?”

“Lots.”

“Even better. Thank you, Ricardo.”

“Sure, no prob,” the boy replied, trying not to preen under Krysty’s praise.

Just then something lurched out of the bushes.

Instantly, the companions spun around with their weapons ready. But they lowered the blasters slightly at the sight of the sec man stumbling closer. His entire body was bristly with splinters, his clothing soaked with blood, and most of his face was missing, broken teeth jutting through the horrid remains of his nose and forehead.

“Help...me...” he croaked, the words almost too soft to hear. “Please...”

Pulling the sword from inside the swordstick, Doc marched closer and ruthlessly stabbed the dying man in the heart. Clawing blindly at the empty air, the sec man shuddered as if hit with lightning. With a flourish, Doc yanked out the blade, and the sec man dropped face-first onto the ground.

“And so all are paid the wages of sin,” Doc stated, wiping the bloody blade clean on the tattered shirt of the corpse before easing the sword back into the ebony sheath.

“Sometimes, Doc, you are one savage son of a bitch,” Mildred said, slinging her medical kit over a shoulder.

“When in Rome, it is sometimes wise to be a Roman candle,” Doc replied in a cold voice, devoid of any emotion.

“Check his pockets,” Ryan said, kneeling to sort through a pile of bloody bedrolls.

It took only a few minutes for the companions to recover most of their stolen possessions, as well as a lot of other small items from the dead carpeting the ground. Grinning happily, J.B. stuffed a couple of powder horns and a butane lighter into a battered leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

“It’s not my old bag,” he said with a grin, “but better than nothing!”

Just then Jak looked up from the ground, beaming a wide grin. “Horses!” he said, jerking a thumb.

Armed and ready for anything, the rest of the companions formed a wedge behind the young man as Jak followed a nearly invisible trail away from the blast zone. Reentering the forest, Jak smiled at the sight of a large copse of intact pine, the open spaces between the trees blocked with pieces of thorn bushes tied in place with hemp rope.

Forcing their way through the makeshift corral, the companions found the majority of the animals dead on the ground, riddled with shrapnel from the blast. But there were ten horses in the far corner, relatively undamaged aside from some small cuts.

Constantly snorting the smoke out of their black noses, the animals kept rolling their big eyes, clearly still terrified by the unfathomable detonation and the bloody chaos that swiftly followed.

Standing still, Ryan made gentle chucking sounds and held out an open hand. He wasn’t overly surprised when all of the horses shuffled forward, obviously grateful for the presence of any human protector.

“We’ll take seven and let the rest go free,” Krysty said, stroking the neck of a roan gelding to try to calm the animal. The mare nickered at the gentle ministrations as if it has never gotten any before, then it bumped her with its great head in a friendly manner.

“Saddles!” Mildred announced, walking toward a small lean-to made from overlapping branches and a ratty bearskin.

Inside the ramshackle structure were piles of horse blankets, saddles, reins, canvas sacks of feed and dozens of worn leather saddlebags, most of them full of the previous owner’s possessions.

“Dark night, there’s too many supplies,” J.B. growled, looking over the array of powderhorns, flintlocks and crossbows. “If this black powder had been stored any closer to the camp...” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“Then we’d have lost all of the horses,” Ricky stated, lifting a saddle almost twice his size. Then his face darkened. “Damn, you mean this many supplies says the sec men are close to their home ville, only been out hunting a few days.”

“We can expect others to come check on that blast triple-fast,” Ryan declared, hauling a saddle and blanket out to the horses. “Haul ass, people! We better be long gone before the rescue party arrives.”

“Don’t take too much,” J.B. suggested, sliding a couple of pipe bombs into his new munitions bag. “We’ll travel faster with light packs.”

“As long as there’s some food,” Doc muttered, his stomach rumbling as he slung a blanket and saddle across a shoulder.

Walking out of the lean-to with both arms full, Jak snorted. “Plenty of that,” he said, indicating the dozens of dead horses strewed on the ground.

Pursing his lips, Doc was clearly displeased by the suggestion, then shrugged in acceptance.

“Life is for the living, eh?” Mildred said, throwing a blanket across the back of an Appaloosa mare.

“Too true, madam. Audaces fortuna iuvat!”

“Fortune favors the brave?” Mildred smiled. “Not always, but near enough.”

Softly whistling, Ryan waited as a big chestnut stallion shuffled forward at the call. Stroking the neck of the animal, he waited impatiently until the horse relaxed then laid the blanket across its back and swung up the saddle.

In short order, all of the companions had saddled a mount, and started ferrying bags of supplies out of the lean-to.

“No brass, but we do have blasters,” Krysty said, hefting a massive .66 flintlock handblaster. The weapon was easily four times the size of her deadly S&W revolver, and much heavier.

“If nothing else, these bastards knew how to maintain their weapons,” J.B. agreed, sliding a flintlock longblaster into the gunboot alongside his saddle.

The yard-long weapon was homemade, probably copied from a museum display, or a picture in a book that had survived the rioting that happened after skydark. He had encountered many similar weapons in his days traveling with the Trader. The springs seemed to have come from a screen door, the trigger was carved bone, and the stock was obviously made from a table leg. But the firing mechanism engaged smoothly, and the blaster was scrupulously clean.

“Good for us, bad for them,” Ryan replied, easing a fistful of paper bullets into a shirt pocket.

Perfect for use in a muzzle-loading weapon, the homemade cartridges were a clever combination of a precise measure of black powder and miniball sealed inside a paper tube. The paper was used as the wadding to hold everything in place.

“Doc, did you say these things were invented back in your time?” Krysty asked, checking the action on the horse pistol.

“Indeed, I did!” Doc replied with a toothy grin. “One of the few good things to ever come out of the War Between the States.”

“You mean the Civil War,” Mildred corrected, lashing down the flap on a saddlebag.

“Nothing civil about damn war,” Jak said loquaciously.

“Too true, my young friend.” Doc laughed, kneeing his gelding in the side before tightening the belly strap. “How often in the past I would have been delighted to receive such a cornucopia of black powder for my old LeMat.”

“I’m surprised you kept it as long as you did,” Ryan said, pulling the panga.

“It came from my era,” Doc said simply. “It was a tangible piece of my home...my true home. A reminder of better days in these savage lands, and the promise of someday returning to my beloved Emily.”

“But you can’t go back anymore?” Ricky asked, carefully wiggling a worn leather bit into the mouth of his chestnut stallion.

Giving a wan smile, Doc said nothing in reply and continued packing away the assorted supplies.

Going to the dead animals, Ryan looked them over for any signs of mutations, then started swiftly butchering some steaks from the flanks.

Abruptly, Doc stopped loading ammunition into a saddlebag to stare in horror at a pile of paper cartridges. “Am...am I hallucinating, or do these have printing on them?”

“Looks like,” J.B. said, adjusting his glasses. “Something about the best of times, worst of times...is it code?”

“My lord, these are made from books!” Doc gasped. “This used to be a Dickens novel, The Tale of Two Cities. The foul Visigoths!”

Folding pieces of the raw horsehide over a pile of steaks, Ryan handed J.B. one of the bundles and put the other into his own saddlebag.

“Eat good tonight!” Jak chuckled, ruffling the mane of his horse.

Just then, a soft hoot sounded on the breeze. It was almost like a lonely barn owl calling for its mate. But the noise made all of the companions jerk out weapons and cast glances around the corral.

“Not here yet,” Ricky said, licking dry lips.

“But they soon will be,” Ryan countered, working the bolt on the Steyr Scout to chamber one of his few remaining live bullets. “Okay, on the hump, people!”

Leading the others to the gate, Doc stayed in the saddle and used his sword to slash the ropes holding the thorny bushes in place. As they fell away, the companions walked their horses out of the corral, mounted, then broke into a full gallop.

“Follow me!” Jak announced, chucking the reins.

Going to the right, he led the others around the copse of trees twice in an effort to muddle their tracks, then he angled away sharply to head for the northern foothills. Long minutes passed while the companions did nothing but ride hard, trying to put as much distance between them and the Granite campsite as possible.

As they crested a snowy knoll, Ryan paused to look back and saw several inhuman shapes shambling around the decimated campsite. Faint hoots could be heard on the wind as the stickies eagerly dived upon the horsemeat and the scattered pieces of the dead sec men.

Using the suckers on their boneless arms, the stickies ripped out chunks of the raw flesh, then waved the grisly morsels around in triumph. As they feasted, the hoots got even louder.

“And there, but for the grace of God, go us,” Mildred said softly, making the ancient sign of the Christian cross.

“Better the dead than us,” Ryan countered grimly, kicking his horse in the rump with his boot heels. “Let’s roll! It’s a couple hundred miles to the next known redoubt.”

“Why go there?” Doc asked. “There’s a redoubt just a hundred miles to the northwest of here hidden in a graveyard. I was taken prisoner there once by...” His voice faded away in lost memory.

“That graveyard got a name?” Ryan asked, riding closer.

“Hmm?” Doc asked in confusion. “What graveyard is that, my friend?”

“The one you were just...” Ryan saw the blank look on the face of the time traveler and knew the conversation was over far too early. “Never mind.”

Riding along, Doc replied with a gentle smile.

“One hundred is better than two or more,” Krysty stated, wrapping the reins around a fist for better control. “And how hard can it be to find a predark graveyard?”

“Trust Doc,” Jak said simply. “Not wrong yet.”

“Northwest it is,” Ryan decided, kicking his mount to a full gallop. “Let’s ride through the night if we can and find the place by dawn!”

“With a quick stop for dinner,” J.B. added eagerly, patting the bulging saddlebag.

Ryan grinned. “You can load that in a blaster!”

As the companions galloped away toward the inland foothills, back at the campsite one of the stickies paused in its monstrous feeding to stare at the distant figures. Still holding a human head, the mutie slowly started to shuffle forward in that direction.

Chapter Four

As dawn began cresting over Cobalt Mountain, a pair of armed guards walked patrol along the top of the tall limestone wall surrounding the ville of Near-Miss.

The only opening was a single huge gate made of sheet steel and railroad ties, multiple patches with lesser materials overlapping each other as repairs had been made over the long decades. The gate was so heavy it required a dozen hinges salvaged from predark garages, and still needed a double row of car tires at the far end to keep it from sagging.

Inside the wall, the neat rows of homes were the usual mixture of canvas tents, log cabins and predark brick structures. Almost all of the glass windows were gone, replaced with thick pine shutters more than capable of keeping out screamwings and skeeters, as well as the bitter evening chill.

Rows of buildings followed the ancient street patterns, even though the asphalt and sidewalks had long ago been harvested to help build the original defensive wall around the settlement. Over time, the bare ground had been tromped flat, and gravel added to give strength against the spring rains, but mud holes were prevalent, some of them deep enough to use as an impromptu washbasin.

Set on a mound that rose higher than the roof of any other building in the ville was a massive cinder-block structure surrounded by a wide moat, pungi sticks and endless coils of greasy barbed wire.

The morning breeze carried the fresh smell of green bamboo and lava down from the rumbling Cobalt Mountain in the west. The pungent highland smells mixed with the more homey aromas rising from the sprawling village of Near-Miss: fresh horse dung, baking bread, boiling soap, and the sharp tang of fermenting mash issuing from a heavily fortified concrete blockhouse.

Safely ensconced behind the high limestone walls, the people of Near-Miss began to shuffle from their homes. The adults yawned and scratched, while the children hauled buckets of nightsoil off to the sluice gate near the appropriately named Drek Creek.

On the second floor of a gaudy house, a woman in a worn corset threw open the night curtains. Stretching her arms wide, she luxuriated in the warm morning sunlight, showing ample cleavage to the passersby.

Below the balcony, an old man darted out of an alley, the nylon bag at his side stuffed full of wiggling rats, a nylon fishing net in his other hand. Her muscled torso shiny with sweat, a female blacksmith paused to light a corncob pipe. A chained gang of slaves began chopping wood under the watchful eye of a burly overseer, a knotted bullwhip expertly coiled in his callused fist.

Standing on top of the village wall, the pair of guards ignored the usual morning goings on, their full attention on the open expanse of bare ground extending from the ville to the distant fields of waving wheat to the north, and the vast carpet of blue-green soybean fields to the far south.

“The crops look good this year,” the sec woman said, scratching her neck. “Who knew that boiled nightsoil would help make plants grow?”

“Yeah, the queen is a real whitecoat, that’s for triple damn sure,” the sec man agreed, yawning, opening the front of his pants to piss off the top of the ville wall.

“Blind Norad, do you have to do that here?” the sec woman asked. Scowling, she angled away her Browning longblaster to avoid the spray of her partner. “There are perfectly good crappers all over the ville! Some of them even without splinters in the seat.”

“But I likes the feel of the breeze!” The sec man laughed, closing his pants again. “Come on, give it a try!”

“In public? Not even if Baron Linderholm himself was standing directly under me,” the woman replied with a haughty sniff, resting the longblaster on a shoulder.

The weapon was old, patched a hundred times since the world ended, but the metal gleamed with fresh oil, and a bandolier of live brass lay across her snakeskin shirt like a necklace of golden death.

“Now that would really be something, eh, wife?” He laughed again, shifting his own longblaster to a more comfortable position.

Tucking a loose curl of hair behind an ear, she nodded in agreement. “Yes, that would be better than cold steel. However, I’m famished, so let’s go get—” The sec woman stopped talking. She slid the heavy longblaster off her shoulder and swiftly worked the arming bolt.

To the east of the ville stood a fallow field, waiting to be planted the following year. Mostly it was barren, but there were a few scattered rosebushes amid the misty acres of turned earth.

“See something?” the sec man demanded, leveling his Browning.

“Mebbe...” she whispered, clicking off the safety.

Softly, the distant Cobalt Mountain rumbled, a flashing discharge of lightning highlighting the perpetual radioactive clouds hovering above the colossal volcano. There hadn’t been an eruption in living memory, but the locals were very aware of the mountain’s moods, and stayed constantly alert for the deep underground growl that legend said was the warning of a coming eruption.

Just then, a rosebush located in the field trembled slightly even though there was no breeze at the moment. The sec team aimed and fired their weapons. With an inhuman scream, an insect-like mutie stumbled out of the bushes to fall shuddering on the dirt, pale blood gushing from a pair of wounds in the throat.

Not buying that nonsense for an instant, both weapons fired again, and the mutie convulsed violently as the bullets tore away most of its main face. The skull cracked exposing the mass of wiggling pink tendrils that served the horrid thing for a brain. The sec team fired once more, ending the inhuman life as the tendrils were scattered across the bare earth for yards.

“Nuking hellfire, the damn tinglers get bolder every year,” the sec man muttered, the heavy Browning cradled in both hands.

“But we keep getting better shots,” his wife replied, working the bolt action of the longblaster.

“And I’m thankful for that! Now, what were you saying before you were so rudely interrupted?”

“Breakfast!” The sec woman laughed, slapping her younger husband on the shoulder. “Then back home for a fast wash and a good long fuck.”

“Now, I’d prefer that in reverse order, Mrs. Jones,” he said with a grin, rubbing a callused hand lewdly between his legs.

She bumped him with a hip. “Too bad, Mr. Jones. Because the blaster tells the brass, not the other way around. Savvy?”

“Fair enough!” Jones started down the wooden stairs leading to the ground.

A dull clanging began to sound from the direction of the front gate. Both of them paused for only a moment in surprise before spinning with their weapons at the ready.

On the far other side of the ville, a fat sec man positioned above the ville gate was using a baseball bat to wildly beat a circle of steel suspended inside a bamboo frame.

“Incoming!” Jones bellowed over the noise. “Red alert! We have incoming!”

All across the ville, shutters slammed shut and frantic civilians grabbed children to bodily haul them inside the nearest house. Meanwhile, a hundred sec men boiled out of the brick barracks, only a few of them fully dressed, some wearing only their skivvies, and one fellow was stark naked, but everybody was carrying iron.

“What is it, a tingler or a howler?” Jones demanded, squinting to try to see past a guard tower.

“Much worse, lover,” his wife replied, lowering her longblaster. “It’s Goldberg and some of his boys riding like skydark itself is chasing their asses.”

“They being chased by coldhearts, cannies mebbe?”

“Nobody and nothing else in sight, but them.”

“Strange.” Easing his stance, Jones frowned. “Don’t like this. The major and his crew only left last month to recce those old ruins on the coast. Do you think—”

With a throaty sputter, a small engine roared into operation near the front gate. Sluggishly, an electric generator revved to full power, then locking bars were hastily removed and the ville gate began to ponderously cycle open.

Moving at a full gallop, the three riders charged directly into the narrow opening between the gate and the limestone wall. The ever-widening passage was narrow, but they scraped through. Reining their sweaty mounts to a ragged halt, the sec men jumped to the ground and grimly started forward.

“Get the queen!” Major Goldberg bellowed, holding a hand to a bloody bandage wrapped around his chest. “Wake her! Find her, and get her down here triple fast!”

“I’m here already, Major,” a tall woman announced loudly, as the crowd of sec men respectfully parted to clear a path for her.

Queen Margaret Angstrom was a tall, shapely woman, her long auburn hair artfully draped to hide a missing ear taken from her in childhood by a mutie. As befitting her rank, the queen was wearing the matching pants and shirt of an ancient police officer, only now the collar and cuffs were embroidered with fancy scrollwork.

Black leather riding boots rose to her thighs, and the dark blue shirt was unbuttoned slightly to show off the emerald necklace given to her by the king on the birth of their first child, and a plain gold ring was on the second finger of her left hand. Slung low around her trim waist was a hand-tooled leather gunbelt supporting twin S&W .357 Magnum revolvers and a double row of live cartridges.

“Ma’am!” the second sec man cried out, going to a knee. Both men were covered with cuts, bruises and numerous blood-stained bandages, as if they were the unlucky survivors of an explosion at a bullet factory.

“Ma’am, we have to talk privately,” Goldberg said in a tight voice.

“Where’s my husband?” the queen asked, her voice taking on a slightly worried tone. “And where is the rest of the recon team?”

“Aced...all of them,” Goldberg stated without preamble. “Chilled by outlanders. A one-eyed man named Ryan chilled the king.”

“My husband...Frank...chilled?” she said, going very pale.

“They’re all aced,” the major snapped impatiently. “But more importantly—”

“Liar!” the queen screamed, slapping the major across the face.

Startled, Goldberg staggered from the unexpectedly powerful blow, but didn’t quite fall over.

“No, it’s true, my queen,” one of the kneeling sec men said, his black eyes narrowed to mere slits. “Forgive me, ma’am, but the king is truly chilled, shot by a gang of cowardly outlanders!”

“A bomb got everybody else, Your Highness,” added the other sec man in a strange guttural voice, the bandages around his neck immediately starting to well new crimson stains.

“No...impossible...” the queen whispered, a hand going to the necklace.

The middle-aged Asian sec man bowed his head. “Sadly, it is true, ma’am. All of it!”

At the startling news, hushed murmurs rapidly spread across the army of sec men, and then through the civilian population. For several minutes Margaret Angstrom did nothing but breathe heavily, her face undergoing a wide variety of expressions.

“Are...are the outlanders chilled?” she asked in a monotone.

“Still alive,” Goldberg said gruffly. “They had been taken prisoner, but they somehow escaped and blew up the campsite.”

“I see...” the queen said slowly, raising her left hand to stare at the gold wedding ring. Then in a blur of motion, she pulled both revolvers and fired them simultaneously into the major’s face.

The barrels were so close to his face that the muzzle-flashes engulfed his features as the titanic .357 Magnum rounds punched out both of his eyes. The major staggered backward just as the steel-jacketed hollowpoint rounds blew out the back of his head in a grisly spray of bone, brain and blood.

A shocked silence exploded across the ville green.

“The major didn’t show the proper respect for the falling of his lord,” Queen Angstrom loudly announced, a vein in her forehead visibly throbbing. “You there...Corporal!”

“Ma’am?” the Asian sec man asked, slowly standing upright.

“With everybody else chilled, you are hereby promoted to the rank of major,” Queen Angstrom said, sliding the revolvers into their holsters. “Congratulations, Major...”

“Svenson, my lady. Yang Svenson.”

She nodded as if that was important for some reason. “Congratulations, Major Svenson. Have a private take care of your horse, then see the healer about those wounds.” She looked at the bloody corpse on the ground. “Afterward strip this fool of anything valuable. Everything he owned now belongs to you.”

“Thank you, my queen!”

“Then assemble a war party, and bring me the heads of the outlanders packed in salt! I want them as decorations on the mantel above my fireplace. Understand?”

“Consider it done, Your Majesty,” Svenson said, snapping off a salute. “May I take Kevin and Sue Jones, the wall guards? They’re the best nuking shots in the whole Granite Empire, and the leader of the coldhearts is almost as good.”

“Take whoever you want.”

“Thank you!”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty?” asked the other sec man, still kneeling. “May I ask a boon?”

“Proceed,” Queen Angstrom said in a dangerous tone, the pulse in the vein quickening.

“Please allow me to lead the patrol sent to avenge the king,” he asked, looking upward. “I can help identify the outlanders.”

The queen glanced at the new major.

“Sounds good, Your Majesty,” Svenson said. “Corporal Goldberg helped build the cage they escaped from and saw their faces, while I have not.”

She blinked in surprise. “Goldberg?”

“The major was my uncle,” the corporal said, looking her in the face.

For a long moment the queen said nothing, then shrugged. “Granted,” she announced. “Find the outlanders, and your family won’t be punished for the failures of your relative. However, if they escape from you again...”

“Never, ma’am!” Corporal Goldberg declared, slapping a fist to his chest. “Death first!”

“Getting chilled would be the least of your worries,” the queen replied.

“On second thought, Major, don’t assemble a war party,” the queen said, using stiff fingers to brush back her long ebony hair. “Take a hunting party instead. Ten, mebbe fifteen, at the most. The best hunters we have. Find the outlanders, but do not kill them.” She inhaled deeply. “Then use a pigeon to send back word to me. I’ll take over from there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Svenson said, a hard smile slowly forming. “It will be done as you command.”

“Make damn sure that it is,” she growled, turning on her heel.

As she walked across the ville green, every sec man gave a stiff-armed salute, and all of the civilians bowed their heads. Several of the older civilians were openly crying, while frightened children tightly hugged the legs of their grim parents.

On impulse, Angstrom looked up and saw the gaudy slut on the balcony of the tavern stepping into a dress. As the civilian wiggled the lace garment up to her shoulders, Angstrom nodded in approval and kept walking.

“I wonder if they are paying homage because your husband was a good king,” a familiar voice said from behind, “or is it merely a show to appease your wrath?”

“Was he a good king?” Margaret Angstrom asked, glancing over a shoulder.

“Absolutely!” John Kelley replied, flashing crooked teeth. “The Granite Empire is wealthier than most predark cities, and no man, mutie or machine has breached our primary wall in a dozen years. We have running water, and the tribute from the other villes keeps us all well fed in the winter months. What more can anybody ask of a ruler?”

“A child that lived would have been good,” the queen whispered, the words nearly lost amid the general murmurs coming from the crowd.

Opening his mouth to speak, Kelley closed it with a snap and remained mum.

Noticing the action, the queen patted the man on the shoulder. “My husband always said that you were smart.”

Shrugging in reply, Kelley maintained the safety of silence.

Short and skinny, the old man was dressed in leather pants and shirt, the garments covered with so many patches it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Predark sneakers were on his feet, and his bright orange plastic vest was composed entirely of pockets, each one containing a tool of some sort. Every inch of his exposed skin was marked with overlapping scars, some of them fresh, and thick welding goggles hung around his neck on a braided leather strap. Heavy canvas gloves were tucked into his gunbelt, and a Remington .22 derringer was holstered at the small of his back.

“John, I want the Fire Hammer ready to hunt down these coldhearts,” the queen said, heading up the sloping street toward the cinder-block house at the top of the gentle hill. “Are all of your modifications finished?”

Kelley grinned eagerly. “Absolutely, Your Majesty! The rebuilt step-up transformer delivers almost double the voltage to the primary firing chamber, and the new—”

“So, it works?” she interrupted tiredly.

“Absolutely! Would you like a demonstration?” Kelley asked hopefully. “There’s a baker who raped an old woman due to go to the whipping post at noon. I would be more than happy to use him as a live target.”

“Yes, that sounds fine,” the queen said, breathing in deeply. “However, at the present, I wish to...” A ragged sob escaped from the woman, and she quickly turned away to wipe her face with a silk handkerchief.

“Noon it is, my queen,” Kelley said, starting down the hill.

“No, wait! Stay with me,” the queen said with a wave, motioning him to return.

Hesitantly, Kelley started back.

Violently shaking herself as if trying to dislodge an annoying insect, the woman grabbed him roughly by the shirt. “Talk to me,” she commanded. “Tell me of your machine. Explain about volts and comps, and all the tech that makes the Hammer work.”

“The details are very complex, Your Majesty,” Kelley said awkwardly, scratching his head again. “Normally, I reported such things to the king, but—”

“Now he is gone, and it is my responsibility,” Margaret Angstrom stated, releasing the man. “The barons will only obey me out of fear, and the only thing they are frightened of is the Hammer.”

“Quite true.”

She almost smiled. “So, talk to me about the foundation of my empire. Tell me everything. And if the Fire Hammer’s demonstration is successful, I believe I’ll assemble my own war party and head out after Svenson.”

Chapter Five

Long into the night, the companions rode hard and fast into the foothills. To avoid being followed, Ryan had them double back on their tracks, ride single-file for a mile, and take off in different directions, only to converge again in an hour.

As expected, Mildred had the pieces of the roasted elk wrapped in clean cloth and stuffed into a saddlebag, along with any other food she had been able to find: a plastic bag of salt, a plastic bottle of shine and some odd rods of an amber crystal.

“These look like maple sugar sticks,” she explained, passing around the items. “But I’d give them a lick first, before biting hard.”

Eagerly, the companions divided the portions of roasted elk while riding. This wasn’t the time, or place, to stop to make camp.

“S’good!” Ricky commented, chomping off another piece.

“Take normal-size bites,” Krysty advised, doing the same thing. “You don’t want to choke and make this your last meal. Right?”

As comprehension flared, the youth nodded and forced himself to slow down. But a few moments later he was savaging the elk steak again, clearly unable to control his ravenous hunger.

“Kid eats like a sec man.” Ryan chuckled.

“Shoots like a sec man, too,” J.B. declared with an obvious note of pride.

Ryan gave a rare smile. “Sure does. The kid’s got some bastard skill.”

As a light snow began falling around midnight, Jak thought he saw a man wearing the buckskin uniform of the Granite Empire watching them from a distant hill. Quietly alerting the others, Jak dashed into the storm to try to sweep around the hill to ambush the sec man from behind. If the scout was a vanguard, he needed to be killed fast and silent. However, by the time Jak reached the hill, there was no trace of the sec man, the falling snow covering any possible footprints or tracks.

Reluctantly, Jak returned to the others and the companions rode hard and fast for the next couple of days, heading high into the mountains. They didn’t waste any time trying to muddle their tracks. Speed was the only concern. This so-called Granite Empire seemed too well organized for Ryan’s taste, and if the new king wanted revenge, then the sooner the companions were out of this part of the Deathlands, the better. In spite of the fact that the last redoubt had been empty of any useful supplies, the mat-trans chamber worked fine.

Conversation grew sparse as more snow fell from the rumbling sky, masking the rugged landscape in a gentle mantle of downy white. The progress of the companions slowed as they needed to hunt for food along the way. Luckily, the area was rich with game: squirrels, cougars, beaver...most of it gene-pure norm, and the companions ate well every night.

However, over the next few days, the landscape grew wild. Crooked arroyos merged with vertical escarpments in a crazy pattern of hills and valleys that steadily flowed upward to merge with angular black mountains.

“Near redoubt?” Jak asked, expertly skinning a rabbit while riding his horse. The animal nickered unhappily at the smell of fresh blood.

“Damned if I know,” J.B. said in annoyance, folding away the patched plastic-coated sheet. “None of these mountains are on any of my maps.”

“Must be more nuke-scaping,” Doc said, turning up his collar to the bitter wind.

Following the remains of a predark road, the companions climbed ever higher into the soaring mountains, and soon found themselves looking down at the top of a thick forest. The snowy pine trees stretched to the horizon, then curved away to follow the bank of a partially frozen river.

“How beautiful.” Mildred sighed. “It looks just like a postcard.”

“New Hampshire is pretty,” Doc rumbled in his deep bass. “But by God it’s a stygian wasteland in comparison to the sylvan fields of Vermont!”

“That’s only because you grew up there,” J.B. noted, using a cloth to clean the snowflakes from his glasses.

“Indeed! How clearly I recall snowy days like this,” Doc said wistfully. “I would be clearing the front porch with a broom, while in the kitchen my mother would be...” His voice trailed away.

“Doc, four o’clock!” Ryan snapped.

Instantly, Doc spun with the LeMat in his fist. “I see nothing, sir,” he growled, squinting into the swirling snowstorm.

“Stay alert, I saw something move,” Ryan told him, then nodded to the others to let them know it was a lie.

“I saw cougar,” Jak lied in an easy drawl.

“A big cat would scare away any small game,” J.B. said, adjusting his frosted fedora. “Be tough for anybody to do a nightcreep. This might be a good place to make camp.”

“Lots of dry wood around,” Krysty noted, sliding off the saddle.

“I could eat,” Ricky said eagerly, although trying to sound casual.

“As could I, young Mr. Morales,” Doc said, holstering his weapon. “If hunger is the best sauce, then call me Bernaise!”

Wordlessly, Jak arched an eyebrow.

“He’s hungrier than a cannie in a lettuce patch,” Krysty said, scratching her horse between the ears. “Me, too, for that matter. Gaia, it feels like years since we had that fried salmon for breakfast.”

“I’ll cook if somebody else gets the firewood,” J.B. added, putting his glasses back into place.

“Deal.” Sliding off his horse, Ryan heard his boots crunch into the thin covering of new snow. With a hand on the SIG-Sauer, he looked at the surrounding hillside.

There was a lot of empty space between the trees and bushes, affording an excellent view of any approaching dangers, and to the east was a ragged cliff, the tops of pine trees just inching into view.

Clearly, this had once been a parking lot along the roadway. Probably one of those lookout points that Mildred had told them about. Sounded crazy, a special place just to look at the scenery? But then, a lot of the things predark folks did were crazy.

Quickly, the snow was scraped off a patch of ground exposing the cracked asphalt underneath. Loose rocks were gathered to form a circle, and branches were neatly piled inside the circle. Six butane lighters were applied in unison, and soon the branches were burning, the growing waves of heat bathing the faces of the tired companions like a healing balm.

“This is the last of the Granite supplies,” Mildred announced, setting a saddlebag onto the snow. “After this, we eat what we catch.”

“Prefer fresh,” Jak said, tossing the cleaned rabbit carcass near the crackling campfire.

“Now, I like those military self-heats and MRE food packs,” J.B. countered, spearing the raw rabbit on a stick and hanging it over the flames. “There’s nothing quite like corned beef hash or spaghetti with meatballs!”

“Hey, bread!” Ricky announced, opening a backpack. Grinning widely, he lifted a hard roll into view, then took a small bite. “Cornbread!”

There were more than a dozen of the tough rolls. As the delicacy was quickly passed around, everybody took a bite.

“Damn near broke a tooth,” J.B. complained, rubbing his jaw.

“I think the secret ingredient is cement,” Mildred said with a pronounced scowl.

“Bah, no weevil alive could ever penetrate this culinary Gibraltar!” Doc espoused, pulling his sword. But then he paused and slid the Spanish steel back into its ebony sheath.

“You’ll need to clean that with fire, alcohol, and then fire again, before using it on food,” Mildred warned, sitting on a rock. “My head swims at the idea of all the kinds of bacteria it can be carrying after being inside those sec men.”

“Since our hurried departure, there has been no time for such militant ablutions,” Doc said.

“Yes, I know.”

“Besides, every man carries the seeds of his own destruction inside his heart,” Doc stated, reaching down to clean his hands on a bank of snow.

She snorted. “That’s kind of grim, even for you.”

“Ah, but grim is just another word for reality without the sugar-coating of hope.”

“Are you okay, Doc?” she asked in concern.

Trying to smile, the man shrugged in reply. “We’re so very close to Vermont from here,” he said wistfully, staring at the snowy horizon.

“No sweat, Doc. Got spare,” Jak said, a knife dropping into his waiting hand from inside a sleeve. He flipped a wrist and the blade thudded into a tree stump between the man and woman.

Coming out of his reverie, Doc nodded his thanks, extracted the slim knife and got busy. Any further conversation was held in check until the rabbit and cornbread were completely consumed.

Afterward, the companions used the bushes in shifts, one of them standing guard while another answered the call of nature.

Cradling the Steyr in his arms, Ryan kept his back to Krysty squatting in the greenery, and listened to the thick silence of the foothills. The air was oddly still, unbroken by the touch of a breeze, or even the chatter of squirrels in the trees. The entire world seemed peacefully asleep, as if there was nothing left alive in the mountains except for the companions and their horses.

“Don’t much like this,” J.B. said, zipping up his pants while coming out from behind a birch tree. “It’s too damn quiet.”

“Agreed. Something big has spooked everything else in the area.”

“Mutie?” Ricky asked, washing his hands clean with snow.

“Hopefully,” Ryan said, the word almost visible in the cold air for a moment.

Frowning at the cryptic reply, Ricky got busy feeding the horses from the dwindling supple of oats recovered from the corral. As they happily munched the crunchy foodstuff, he dutifully checked the animals for any stone bruises on their hooves. The ride here had been pretty rough. But the iron shoes on their hooves had protected the horses from any damage incurred by the long climb.

“These Granite guys know iron,” Ricky stated, easing down a hoof.

“A little chem, too,” J.B. added, going through a saddlebag and extracting a pipe bomb. “Some of these are filled with black powder, but that one the major tossed at us was packed with plas ex.”

“Homemade C-4?” Ryan asked, sounding impressed. “Got any more of those?”

“Don’t know. So far, I’ve only found black-powder bombs,” J.B. replied, unscrewing the cap from one to glance inside. “Hey, this isn’t black powder... Dark night!”

At the exclamation, everybody hands on weapons, spun.

Deathly pale, J.B. began walking backward, away from the horse, the open pipe bomb cradled in both hands.

“Booby?” Ryan asked, starting closer with the panga in his hand.

“I wish! This damn thing is full of nails and a predark stick of seventy percent!” J.B. said, a bead of sweat trickling down his face.

“Farming dynamite?”

“Yep.”

“Is it...sweaty?” Krysty asked, her hair coiling protectively to her head at the implications.

“Like a virgin on her wedding night,” J.B. whispered.

Nobody laughed. Dynamite was just liquid nitroglycerin poured into some neutral material like dirt, or sawdust, to make it more stable and easier to transport. But when the sticks got old, dynamite started sweating out droplets of pure nitroglycerin.

“Fireblast, we probably only got this far alive because of that cornbread,” Ryan said. “It acted as a cushion for the pipe bombs. Only now—”

“A single bump and my ass lands on the moon,” J.B. whispered, ever so slowly turning. “Along with all you folks, too, so everybody back off!”

“Not a chance in hell,” Mildred said, dragging a branch out of the man’s path. “What can we do to help?”

“Get clear, damn it!”

“No, John.”

“Just pour the wretched stuff onto the snow,” Doc suggested, unable to take his eyes off the lead tube. “Then we can set it on fire with a match. Burning off sweaty dynamite is the thing to do!”

“Can’t. The cold made it jell,” J.B. whispered. “This isn’t predark stuff, but some homemade shit.” He swallowed hard. “We light it on fire, and who knows what would happen next.”

“Did the locals use rusty nails?”

“And black powder as a primer!”

“Feebs.”

“My point exactly!”

Never lifting his boots off the snowy ground, J.B. finished turning and walked forward toward the nearby cliff. Glancing over the edge, he took a breath and simply let go of the pipe bomb. The instant it left his hands, the man dived backward. He hit the ground rolling and came up at full run.

Standing partially behind a rhododendron, Doc scowled. “Really, John Barrymore, how powerful do you think this homemade concoction is?”

Just then, there was a thunderous detonation in the valley below. A geyser of smoke, flame and snow erupted past the cliff, and all of the nearby trees violently shook from the maelstrom of subsonic gravel.

“Nuke me,” Ricky whispered as the booming echo of the blast endlessly ricocheted off the valley walls, to slowly faded into the distance.

“If the major had used this bomb back at the clearing...” Krysty started to say, then stopped, unwilling to finish.

“However, he didn’t, which is why he’s aced, and we’re still sucking air,” Ryan stated, striding toward his horse. “Okay, everybody back off a way while J.B. and I check the rest of the bags for any more sweaty dynamite.”

“I can help,” Ricky offered, then stopped as they heard a low groan from the valley, the noise nearly indescribable.

“Mutie?” Jak whispered, fisting back the hammer on a .66 flintlock longblaster.

“Don’t care,” Ryan muttered, opening a saddlebag to examine the jumbled contents. “Just let me know if it comes any closer.”

“And if it does?” Mildred asked tersely, her ZKR at the ready.

Ryan gave no reply as he carefully unscrewed the cap from a pipe bomb and looked inside. His face went hard, and the man started walking toward the cliff.

“This is taking too long,” he growled, walking heel-to-toe. “Everybody remove your saddlebags and leave them on the ground.”

“Not toss over cliff?” Jak asked, rushing to his mount.

Gently, Ryan laid the pipe bomb on a patch of undisturbed snow. “Too risky. We want a—” He stopped.

Suddenly a screamwing appeared from over the trees, throating its classic battle cry. Leathery wings flapping, the mutie bird swooped toward the companions. As they clawed for weapons there came a brief hum from the valley below and the screamwing violently exploded into a red mist.

Instantly four more of the winged muties launched from the snowy treetops, snarling and hissing in unbridled fury. More low hums sounded and the each of the creatures detonated into bloody gobbets.

Sliding his 9 mm blaster back into the holster, Ryan motioned to the rest of the companions to keep working, then pointed at Mildred and jerked a thumb at the cliff.

Rummaging in her medical bag, Mildred unearthed an old dental mirror, then did a commando crawl to the edge of the rocks. Easing the mirror over the cliff, she angled it for a few moments, then sharply inhaled. Quickly, she withdrew.

Pausing in their work, the companions asked her a silent question. She replied with a hard shake of her head, then pointed at the horses.

Setting down the saddlebags, the companions took the reins of their horses and started walking directly away from the cliff. Nobody dared speak for a while, and the only sound was the soft crunch of the fresh snow compacting under combat boots and hooves.

“Okay, what is?” Jak finally asked in a low whisper. “Droid?”

“Close, a robotic tank,” Mildred replied, casting a nervous glance over a shoulder. “I recognize the model, a Ranger. We faced a similar model in West Virginia a while back.”

As they started around a limestone escarpment, Doc gave a snort. “Ah yes, the Beast. As I recall, it took quite a Homeric sacrifice for us to escape.”

Scowling darkly, Ryan said nothing, his thoughts private.

“Robotic...” Ricky said slowly. “So there’s nobody inside?”

“Just comps,” Krysty replied grimly.

“How did it ace the mutie birds? I didn’t hear a cannon or a rapid-fire.”

“The tank in West Virginia used a rail gun, a kinetic-energy weapon,” Mildred replied, then paused as his frowned deepened. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Reach into a pocket, she pulled out a bullet and tossed it at the youth. Holding on to the reins of his horse, Ricky tried to dodge, but the cartridge hit his arm to harmlessly bounce off.

“Why aren’t you aced?” Mildred asked.

“How could I be? The bullet wasn’t traveling fast enough,” Ricky said, confused, then his face brightened. “This tank fires something that moves so fast it blows you apart like a gren when it hits?”

“Smart lad,” Krysty said, leading her mount around the copse of birch trees.

“Mildred, did this Ranger have smooth, curvy armor?” Ryan asked, walking around a large patch of ice. “Or was it regular armor, but covered with small blocks?”

“I only had a glance,” she said. “But this stuff was angular, all different sizes and colors. Like it was pieced together from other machines.”

“Dark night, that’s composite armor,” J.B. muttered, hunching his shoulders. “Triple tough! We’d need an implo gren to get through that.”

“Or another Ranger,” Ryan added with a frown.

“Got one, old buddy?”

“Sure, hidden up my ass.”

“That’ll keep it nice and warm.” J.B. grinned. “Just keep it handy, in case that thing makes it up the cliff.”

“Not possible,” Mildred interrupted. “The Ranger is broken. The treads were missing on both sides.” She gave a half smile. “It can’t move an inch.”

J.B. scowled. “Hover jets?”

“Not with all that ivy growing over it. The Ranger must have been trapped in that valley for decades, maybe longer.”

“Glad to hear,” Jak said, patting the neck of his stallion. Then with a gasp, he unexpectedly flew out of the saddle a split second before the rolling boom of a high-powered longblaster sounded from the distant hills.

Chapter Six

As Jak disappeared into a gully, his horse reared on its hind legs, whinnying in terror and pawing the cold air with its hooves. Then the animal jerked and blood began gushing from a missing eye. The rolling thunder of the distant sniper arrived a heartbeat later, as the panting animal lay in the snow, trembled all over and went still forever.

“Incoming!” Ryan bellowed, diving sideways out of his saddle.

The man hit the ground hard, the breath exploding from his lungs at the impact. Disorientated for a moment, Ryan instinctively rolled away from the frightened horses chuffing and stomping their hooves.

He came to a stop inside a patch of snowy bushes and swung around the Steyr. Working the arming bolt, he peered through the glistening leaves for any glimpse of the enemy sniper. Even through the telescopic sight, Ryan couldn’t locate anybody hidden on the nearby hills or in the swaying pines.

“Anybody hit?” Ryan asked in a hoarse whisper, easing the barrel of the longblaster through the tangle of branches.

“Not that I can see,” J.B. replied, wiggling further behind a snowbank. “But I’m nowhere near Jak.”

“Not...aced...” Jak wheezed from a shallow gully, only his boots in view.

“Naturally, I’m delighted, my friend,” Doc rumbled, crouched behind a tree stump. “But how is that possible?”

“Not...shot...” Jak panted. “Fell on...rock.”

“Did you hit your head? Is your vision blurry?” Mildred demanded. The ZKR target revolver was in her fist, the other hand tight on the strap of her medical kit. “Does it hurt to breathe? Any taste of copper?”

Breaking into a ragged cough, Jak gave a long sigh and went still. Without hesitation, Mildred broke cover, zigzagging across the open ground until diving into the gully with the unconscious man.

“Any idea where the sniper is?” Ricky asked from a low-hanging branch of an elm tree.

“Snipers, there’s two of them,” J.B. corrected, the Navy telescope peeking out of a pile of loose snow.

“Zero them,” Ryan growled, tightening his grip on the longblaster.

“See the big rock on the eastern hill that looks like a dog? Track fifteen yards north, then follow the curving crack in the rock face until—”

“I see them now,” Ryan stated, working the arming bolt on the Steyr.

* * ** * *

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Sergeant Sue Jones demanded, slapping the man across the back of the head. “The queen wants these outlanders alive and kicking, not meat in a box!”

“They were getting away,” her husband said, his face shiny with barely controlled excitement. Lovingly, he caressed the Browning longblaster with an open palm.

“Of course they were,” Jones agreed, sneering, risking a peek over the rocky escarpment. The plateau below was covered with glistening snow and edged with trees, a perfect chilling zone reaching all the way to the booming cliff. “Who’d you get, their leader?”

“Well, I got the guy with the best clothing,” Jones replied in a haughty manner. “That’s gotta be the chief, right?”

“Almost always.”

He grinned. “Better get the major to release a pigeon with the location before—” The man jerked as the back of his head exploded, spraying bones, brains and a clear fluid across the startled woman.

Transfixed, the sergeant paused at the terrible sight, then frantically dived for the ground just as something red-hot scraped alongside her temple.

* * ** * *

“FIREBLAST,” RYAN SWORE, rising from the bush. “I aced the man for sure, but the woman moved at the last second.”

“Aced?” Krysty asked.

He frowned. “Unknown.”

“Which means,” J.B. said, thoughtfully tilting back his hat, “she might just be pretending to lure us closer.”

“Exactly.”

“We should do a recce anyway,” Ricky stated, starting across the snowy field.

“No, we ride,” Krysty stated, stepping into view. “If any more sec men arrive, we’d be caught between them and the Ranger.” Her crimson hair was a wild corona around the woman, the living filaments endlessly flexing.

“Meat in a grinder,” Ryan said, slinging the Steyr Scout.

Just then, the cliff shook again and a section of the parking area broke into chunks, the pieces of pavement tumbling out of sight.

“Best to leave while we can,” Mildred said, helping Jak to his feet.

“Hurts breathe,” he mumbled. There was blood on his shirt and his chest was wrapped in multiple layers of gray duct tape. His normally pale face was flushed an unnatural pink.

“You’re lucky those ribs are only bruised and not broken,” Mildred told him, fingering the crude bandages. “You’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Can he ride?” Ryan demanded sharply.

“Always,” Jak wheezed with a weak smile.

Nodding, Ryan watched the hill for any suspicious movements while the rest of the companions quickly gathered the horses. The animals were wary, but not obstinate.

“I am surprised they did not bolt at the gunfire,” Doc said, removing the saddlebags from the dead horse and draping them over his own mount. “But then, trained for sec men, these animals are probably used to loud explosions.”

“Can’t ride with, too heavy,” Jak muttered, an arm hugging his chest.

“Share with Ricky. He’s the lightest,” Krysty asked, walking her mount closer.

“Plenty of room,” Ricky said, patting the back of his palomino.

“Thanks.” Climbing onto the horse, Jak moved awkwardly, trying to hide it, but his face registered the amount of pain he was suffering.

“How bad is it?” Mildred asked in concern.

“Like eating glass,” Jak muttered, settling between the saddle and the saddlebags. Then he gave a wan smile. “But better than eating dirt!”

“Only the living feel pain,” Ryan said, sliding the Steyr into the gunboot.

“Well said, my friend,” Doc agreed. “‘Now, half a league, half a league, half a league onward—’”

“Finish that poem, old man,” Mildred interrupted, “and I will remove your frenulum with a pocketknife.”

Chucking the reins of his horse, Doc gave a half smile. “My fen...frem...my what now, madam?”

“Trust me, you’ll miss it!”

The parking lot shook again, the cracks spreading outward like dark lightning. Taking that as their cue, the companions kicked the horses into a full gallop. Since speed was important, they stayed on the old highway, riding along the gentle curves edging the ragged mountains until the parking lot was out of sight. Soon after that, the low hum of the Ranger faded away, and they rode onward accompanied by only the clomping of the horse hooves and the murmuring breeze blowing through the mountain valley.

Several times, the companions had to circle around large craters, the bottoms glassy with lumpy plugs of fused earth.

“Careful, those are hot,” Ryan announced, checking the miniature rad counter clipped to his lapel.

“Kind of small for nukes,” Ricky said, craning his neck to steal a glance into the conical depressions.

“Mininukes, probably artillery shells,” Mildred said with a sigh. “Miniature nuclear weapons.”

“Agreed, madam,” Doc said. “The madness of the ancient government is quite unparalleled in human history.”

“Well, not quite that bad,” she replied tolerantly. “But damn near.”

Cresting a low ridge, the companions slowed their horses to a gentle walk. The other side was a dangerously sharp drop to a flat area full of old buildings clustered around a frozen waterfall. The ramshackle structures were clearly from predark times, the streetlights and fire hydrants a dead giveaway. Many of the smaller houses were made of brick, some even boasted aluminum siding. There were satellite dishes on a couple of the tilted roofs, and a few of the windows still had glass in the frames.

In the far distance was an old railroad bridge, a box trestle, extending across the valley. Off to the side was a roundhouse, the rusty remains of a locomotive partially visible inside the crumbling structure.

“Some kind of lumber camp,” Krysty said, pointing to a faded billboard. The lettering was long gone, but the plastic sign was still in excellent condition.

“Might be some good loot still on the shelves,” Ricky said eagerly. “Canned goods, preserves in jars. All kinds of stuff!”

“Never hurts to check,” Ryan said, starting forward at an easy walk. “Just stay razor for muties.”

“Always,” Jak muttered, tenderly massaging his crude bandages. There was no blood showing on his shirt, but Jak was obviously having trouble breathing, and he was drenched with sweat in spite of the chill.

“Lots of food is edible after a century,” Mildred said. “Honey, rice, even coffee, if it was vacuum packed in glass jars.”

“How’d they do that, anyway?” Ricky asked curiously.

“Suck hard, then slap the lid on fast,” J.B. said with a neutral expression.

Furrowing his brow, Ricky chewed that over for a moment, then snorted a laugh.

All conversation stopped as the companions concentrated on traversing the steep incline. The dirt was hard-packed and studded with pieces of asphalt and limestone, just rough enough to afford the horses irregular footing. However, at their passage the slope crumbled, the loose dirt sliding down the slope in an earthy river of tumbling rocks. The palomino carrying Ricky and Jak kept slipping, so the youth hopped off and walked ahead of the animal, kicking any loose debris out of the way.

Eventually reaching level ground, Ricky got back in the saddle, and the companions let the horses catch their breaths before slowly advancing toward the waterfall and surrounding buildings.

“There seems to be a plethora of cars,” Doc said, pointing to the left. “There could be a plethora of tools located in that brick garage.”

“As good a place to start as any,” Krysty said, ruffling the mane of her horse. Pleased, the animal gently nickered in pleasure—then abruptly went silent as its head simply fell off, the neck stump gushing a steaming torrent of red blood.

“What the...laser!” Krysty screamed, going sideways out of the saddle. As the shuddering body of the decapitated animal fell, she hit the ground in a roll and came up running.

As the laser flashed by overhead, the companions wildly kicked their horses into a full gallop. Leaning far over in the saddle, Ryan grabbed Krysty around the waist. Hauling her off the ground, he got her behind him, then lashed his horse with the reins.

“Head for the garage!” he bellowed. “We can make a stand there!”

“Report!” Ryan snapped, kicking both heels into the rump of his stallion.

“I see a dozen sec men on horses and bikes,” Krysty said, both arms wrapped around Ryan’s waist. “No, make that two dozen...more... Hellfire, it’s a fragging army!”

“Guess we really did ace their king!” J.B. yelled, curving around the garage.

“Any sign of the laser?” Mildred asked urgently, frantically glancing around the ruins.

“No!”

“Good!” Ryan snarled, charging behind the billboard. “Because if we can see it—”

“—then it can see us,” she finished. “Yes, I know!”

In a loud woof, the billboard burst into flames and a scintillating energy beam punched through, the rainbow-colored beam going deep into the frozen earth. A moment later a searing heat wave washed over the companions, making their skin prickle.

Unbidden, Ryan recalled an old conversation with the Trader about lasers. The bastard things worked on color absorption, and you could use a blue blanket to give limited protection against a blue laser, green for a green laser, and so on. Unfortunately, this one was a full-spectrum laser, quickly cycling through every color, hence the rainbow shimmer. Even a mirror would shatter after a few seconds from this military-grade weapon. The best protection against this type of weapon was the quick application of shoe leather.

As the companions arched behind the brick building, the laser sliced along the roadway, missing them by less than a yard. The old asphalt cracked and spread open wide, the material bucking and writhing like a living thing.

There came a crackle of assorted longblasters. Bullets and miniballs hammered a storage shed ahead of the companions, shattering every window and knocking down the old splintery door. The laser fired again, the beam stabbing deep into a huge gasoline storage tank.

Veering sharply away, Ryan braced for the blast, but there only came a brief hiss of escaping air.

“Those sec men can’t hit anything!” Ricky said, galloping around the storage tank.

“Hit what aim for,” Jak countered, firing his Magnum. On the slope, a sec man fell, clutching his belly. “Must want alive.”

As her horse jumped over a rusty feeder pipe, Mildred leaned back in the saddle. “Are you serious?” she demanded, rocking back into position.

“Yeah!”

She blanched. “But that would mean—”

“They want us alive?” Doc offered, drawing the LeMat. “Never going to happen!” Turning in the saddle, he squeezed off two rounds.

As he rammed a load down the muzzle of his flintlock, a sec man flew backward from the triphammer impact of the copper-jacketed hollowpoint rounds, his flintlock thundering impotently into the air as he fell away into forever.

Pausing to catch their breaths in the lee of the huge steel storage tank, the companions quickly reloaded their weapons.

“Son of bitches must have followed us,” Mildred growled.

“No way,” Jak stated forcibly. “I clear path good. Nobody follow!”

“Then they must have figured out where we’re going,” Krysty started slowly.

“Could they know about the redoubt?” Ricky asked with a worried expression.

“Doubtful,” Ryan growled.

“Then logically there must be something important in this lumberyard or along this road,” Mildred said with a frown. “Something they expected us to try for. A weapons cache, ruined city, maybe a military base?”

“That would explain the Ranger,” Doc replied doubtfully.

From the other side, there came a long pattering of bullets and miniballs ricocheting off the tank.

“Frag logic, what do now?” Jak panted, mopping the sweat off his forehead with a sleeve.

“We might have a chance if we can make it across that bridge,” J.B. stated, pulling a pipe bomb from his munitions bag. “But once we head in that direction, they’re going to stop trying to capture us alive, and go for the chill.”

Krysty scowled. “Then we need a diversion.”

A stiletto of sunlight—the laser—stabbed through the storage tank and a rain of molten steel droplets sprinkled down to loudly hiss onto the cold ground.

“And quickly!” Mildred added, using the barrel of the .38 ZKR to flick a bright orange spark off her medical bag. The old patched canvas smoldered from the brief contact, and she spit on the spot to kill any chance of a fire.

“Give me three minutes,” Ryan snarled, jumping to the ground.

“One, then I come get you,” Krysty said, taking the reins of his horse.

Nodding, Ryan looked at the woman and they shared a private moment more intimate than any kiss. Then he turned and sprinted across the buckled street. A hail of incoming rounds peppered the ground behind him, but none of the rounds came close.

Ducking and dodging every yard of the way, Ryan could unfortunately see that Krysty had been correct. There was an army coming down the slope, dozens of sec men on motorcycles, even more on horseback.

Reaching the garage, Ryan assumed a position near the corner and unlimbered the Steyr. The telescopic sight brought the attackers into sharp focus. Situated in the middle of the advancing army of sec men was a big, boxy APC. He recognized the model as a LAV-25, an amphibian class military transport. But this vehicle had a couple of small differences. Perhaps this was a newer model?

Going low, Ryan aimed around the corner and emptied a magazine. On the slope, a sec man cried out and went flying off his motorcycle. He fell under the APC with grisly results, and his abandoned bike slammed into a horse, sending the animal and rider rolling down the slope to crash into several others.

Across the street, the companions broke cover and headed for the box-trestle bridge hell-bent for leather, using the reins to whip the horses onto greater speed, their hooves kicking up great gouts of loose snow.

Reloading, Ryan found his targets and fired repeatedly, sec men and horses tumbling along the slope completely out of control, their arms and legs flailing in an impossible manner with intact bones.

Dashing to the other side of the garage, the one-eyed man cut loose again, placing his shots for maximum chaos. As its front tire blew, a motorcycle flipped over to crash into another, and both gas tanks exploded. Ruthlessly aiming for the knees, Ryan crippled several horses, and their riders went airborne. Then what resembled a refrigerator cycled into view on top of the APC.

Instantly, Ryan ducked behind the garage and started running for the bridge. He had no idea what that big box was—minigun, grenade launcher, laser, microwave beamer, needler or missile pod—but he wanted nothing to do with it.

In spite of his best efforts, Ryan got only a few yards before a wave of heat enveloped him and a shimmering laser beam lanced by overhead. Throwing himself backward, Ryan hit the ground rolling and saw the beam slice the three-story garage in two, both sections bursting into flames as they separated.

Looking through a dirty window, Ryan saw rusty oil drums sitting near a grease pit. Firing from the hip, he put a couple of 7.62 mm rounds through the containers. The first merely fell over with a loud clang, but the second gushed a thick viscuous fluid that sluggishly spread across the floor. As the burning timbers fell into the liquid, a dense greenish cloud quickly filled the room and began flowing out the doors and windows.

Shouldering his longblaster, Ryan impatiently waited until the chemical smoke started expanding across the street, then he turned and sprinted for the bridge. Almost instantly the laser stabbed out again, missing him by a wide margin, then came a prolonged flurry of weapons discharging, the longblasters creating a crackling roar. In spite of the obscuring smoke, several of the shots came uncomfortably close. But Ryan didn’t waste any time on zigzagging. Speed was the best defense now.

Blindingly bright, the laser swept sideways across the ruins, cutting every building in two and starting countless small fires. Unexpectedly, something exploded in the roundhouse, sending out a mushroom cloud of broken machine parts.

Dodging a hard rain of gears and pistons, Ryan managed to reach the bridge and saw the rest of the companions were already on the other side, their horses nervously stomping the ground with their hooves.

“Move it or lose it, old buddy!” J.B. shouted, using a butane lighter to start the fuse on a pipe bomb. As it sputtered into action, he began swinging the bomb around at the end of a rope.

Redoubling his efforts, Ryan charged along the ramshackle structure, every step making the entire bridge shake, dust and rust sprinkling down from the corroded rafters. Muttering curses, the one-eyed man ignored that to concentrate on the wooden ties. They were just far enough apart to trip the unwary, and through the openings he could see white-water rapids very far below. The river was so far away that Ryan could barely hear the rumble, which meant that he’d die from the fall, and only his corpse would smack into the rapids. That sobering realization sent a cold surge of pure adrenaline through the man. Suddenly everything was in perfect focus, wire-sharp, and devoid of color. Move your ass, Cawdor, he urged himself.

Sputtering two-stroke engines loudly revving, a crowd of sec men on motorcycles appeared from the swirling green cloud bank rolling down the damaged street. Instantly the companions cut loose with their weapons, the hail of steel-jacketed lead tearing through the sec men, killing one, and blowing the front tire on a chunky chopper.

But even as the wounded sec men fell off the machines, the rest of them screamed curses and twisted the handlebar controls. The rear wheels on their motorcycles wildly spun, spraying loose gravel and smoke. As the studded tires finally caught, the Granite Empire sec men rocketed forward, whooping like madmen and firing huge .66 flintlock handblasters.

The discharge of fiery smoke hid them for a heartbeat. On the other side of the river chasm, Krysty screamed and dropped her blaster to grab her seemingly undamaged head. As the sec men reappeared, the rest of the companions annihilated the riders with a concentrated volley of subsonic lead.

As a panting Ryan reached the halfway point of the bridge, J.B. let the pipe bomb fly. It sailed over his head and landed with a clatter on an iron rail.

Without warning, the shimmering laser stabbed through the dense green cloud, the ravening power beam narrowly missing the man on the bridge as it disappeared into the snowcapped mountains on the opposite side. Icy boulders violently exploded from the abrupt temperature inversion, and an avalanche began churning down the mountain rapidly building in speed, volume and power.

Feeling the ever-mounting pressure of time, Ryan redoubled his efforts, and was only a few feet from the end of the bridge when the pipe bomb detonated. Desperately throwing himself forward, Ryan felt the concussion hit him hard in the back, and he went flying to painfully land sprawling on the snowy ground.

Scrambling to his feet, Ryan headed straight for his horse. The nervous animal was standing alongside a strangely quiet Krysty. She was deathly pale, and her animated hair was limp, hanging straight down past her shoulders.

“Lover?” Ryan asked, climbing into the saddle.

Giving a weak smile, Krysty shook her head in reply. At the motion, a clump of the filaments fell away.

Ryan grabbed the reins of her confused mare even as he kicked his stallion into a full gallop. A miniball had to have plowed through her hair!

That meant nothing to a normal human, but Krysty was part mutie, and her hair was made of living filaments, fully alive. It had to have felt like having a dozen fingers severed at the same time. The level of pain involved was unimaginable to Ryan, and he marveled that she was still conscious, albeit completely nonresponsive.

High overhead, the polluted orange sky rumbled, warning of an approaching storm.

Visibly flexing, the groaning trestles buckled, rivets popping like machine-gun fire as the steel beams twisted free of their concrete moorings. The rusty metal screeched as the frame bowed, the wooden railroad ties loudly breaking as entire sections disengaged, pieces snapping off to plummet toward the thundering river.

On the other side of the chasm, a second gang of the Granite sec men frantically braked their motorcycles to a halt at the crumpling end of the street. A bearded sec man covered with tattoos failed to do so, and his sputtering Harley raced right over edge. Screaming obscenities, the man defiantly fired a flintlock blaster at the churning river below, then vanished from sight into the roiling mists.

Turning from the crumbling structure, the companions headed higher into the mountains, following the natural trail of a dried river. In spring it was probably another waterfall, but now it was a perfect avenue of escape for them.

Desperately holding on to the pommel with both hands, Krysty shuddered all over as more dead hair floated away on the cold breeze.

In a deafening groan, the railroad trestles completely broke apart, the main supports shattering from the wildly conflicting forces. Welds snapped louder than grenades, the last of the rivets burst free, and the entire bridge dropped from sight.

“I saved her blaster,” Ricky announced, displaying the hammerless S&W revolver.

“Good lad!” J.B. said, taking the weapon and dropping it into his munitions bag.

Following the riverbed, the companions rode hard and fast into the hills, quickly leaving the burning lumberyard far behind. From within the spreading green cloud, the laser stabbed out several times to sweep along the upper tors and peaks of the mountain range, starting several more small avalanches, but none of them was close to the fleeing companions.

“Once more, luck favors the brave,” Doc said with a scowl. “Cicero would be greatly pleased, eh, my good Doctor?”

“We didn’t exactly escape unharmed,” Mildred said, casting a sideways glance at Krysty.

Sitting perfectly balanced, the woman was expertly moving to the motion of her horse, but her face was blank, devoid of emotion. Even worse, her long red hair still hung motionless down her back, as if the living filaments had been reduced to nothing more than simple protein chains, as inert as fingernails.

Thunder rumbled as the laser flashed once more.

“Will she be okay?” Ricky asked in a worried tone.

“Yes...and no,” Ryan said honestly, tightening the grip on the reins of her horse.

It began to snow. Dancing and swirling in the gentle wind, glistening white flakes settled upon the hunched companions, frosting their shoulders and covering the tracks of their horses in the riverbed.

Proceeding onward, soon the companions were surrounded by a swirling cascade of crystalline beauty, the snowfall bringing an unexpected hush to the mountains, and making it seem as if they were the last people alive in the world.

Chapter Seven

Rolling over the dead bodies and the broken motorcycles, the rumbling Fire Hammer braked to a stop directly alongside the ragged edge of the paved road.

With a loud clang, the rear doors were slammed open and Queen Angstrom climbed out. “All right, how did they escape?” she demanded hotly.

“Their leader, the one-eyed bastard is as good a shot as the Joneses,” Major Svenson said, wrapping a white bandage around his bloody hand. “I’ve never seen shooting like that in my life!”

“It’s like they were born with blasters in their hands, ma’am,” Jones whispered, tightly hugging her longblaster as if drawing strength from the weapon.

“Or they use them a lot,” Angstrom said, hitching up her gunbelt. “Practice does make perfect, especially with blasters.”

“What did you say, ma’am?” the sec woman asked, dragging a corpse to the chasm.

Waving her away, Angstrom proceeded along the ragged cliff, looking down into the misty abyss. The billowing snow made it difficult to see anything far away.

“Help me...” a man groaned. “Please, somebody...help me...”

Scowling, Angstrom picked her way through the jumble of burning timbers until finding a sec man sprawled on the ground. His buckskin clothing was soaked with blood, a fist holding closed the tattered remains of his shirt.

“Chest or guts?” Angstrom asked.

“B-belly,” he whispered.

She scowled at that. A belly wound was untreatable. Her grandfather had been shot there, and claimed that it felt like his guts were on fire. In spite of everything done by two village healers, he hadn’t lasted the night, and died shrieking, clawing at the wound to try to hasten his own death.

“Major, summon the healer for this man!” Angstrom commanded, jerking a thumb.

“Can’t, ma’am,” Svenson replied gruffly. “He was the first one to get chilled on the slope.” The man glanced across the burning ruins toward the steep incline littered with broken bodies. “His horse got shot, and they both went under the Fire Hammer.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Damn,” Angstrom muttered. She remembered the bump, but had thought nothing of it at the time. Now she felt a wave of loss over her dead friend.

“M-my queen?” the wounded man gasped, putting a wealth of questions into the words.

“I am deeply sorry, armsman, but you’re too far gone to save,” Angstrom said, withdrawing one of her S&W Magnum revolvers.

The sec man grunted at the ancient word of honor. “My wife—” he started.

“Will be cared for,” she interrupted. “Food and firewood for a year. She will not go to the gaudy house. You have my word.”

“Th-thank...you...” he wheezed, the words barely audible.

Without saying a word, Angstrom cocked back the hammer on the handblaster, and fired once. The sec man jerked at the arrival of the .357 round, then went eternally still.

“Toss the body over the cliff with the rest,” she directed, holstering the weapon. “But save the blaster and boots for his wife. She can sell them, or become part of the sec force if she can shoot. Her choice.”

“Wall duty?” Svenson asked.

“For a month. Then treat her like everybody else.”

“By your command.”

Turning away, Angstrom went directly to the smashed moorings of the missing bridge. She stared at the twisted struts of rusty steel for a long time, her thoughts deeply private.

“What is your opinion, Major?” she asked, without even looking to see if the man was near.

“Impossible, ma’am,” Svenson replied promptly, thumbing fresh cartridges into his Remington shotgun. “There’s no way across this. We’ll have to go around.”

Angstrom scowled “Past the machine?”

“No, I meant, all the way around,” the major continued, unruffled. “Past the Broken Cliffs and up through Volcano Gorge.”

“But that would take a week, mebbe more!” Goldberg gasped. “These coldhearts could be long gone by then.”

“Do we have a choice?” Svenson asked, slinging the shotgun over a shoulder, the barrel pointed downward to keep out the falling snow.

“Mebbe we could build a bridge,” a sec man said hesitantly. “Use the wood from these buildings to make something to get a few of us across.”

“What buildings, you feeb?” Jones snorted, indicating the burning structures.

“Okay, how about trees?” the sec man tried again, rubbing his jaw. “We could use the Fire Hammer to cut down the forest, and make a bridge from the tree trunks. That would work, right?”

Curiously, Angstrom looked at Svenson, and he vehemently shook his head in the negative.

“What are your orders, ma’am?” Goldberg asked, turning up his collar to the blowing snow.

Staring at the rumbling sky, Angstrom had an irrational urge to agree with the idiotic plan just to be doing something right now. She knew that it would probably fail, but there was such an urge for action boiling inside her that it bordered on madness.

Thoughtfully stroking her ruined ear, the woman recalled an early lesson from her husband. A wise ruler didn’t order a man to turn dirt into gunpowder, then punish him for failing. That was the kind of foolishness that had brought about skydark and destroyed the world. Think before you attack, he had said, then move swiftly and take no prisoners.

“Major Svenson!” she yelled, placing both hands on her hips. “Pack up everything useful, send a pigeon for more troops and let’s move out!” She glanced at the northern mountains, the range crested by a smoking volcano. “We’re going the long way around Cobalt Mountain...and then ace these mutie-loving bastards at Bluewater Lake!”

Cheering enthusiastically, the sec force started scavenging among the dead for ammunition, fuel, food and blasters, all the while boasting about how the forthcoming battle would certainly end.

“But what about Linderholm?” the major whispered, stepping closer. “If these coldhearts cut a deal with that green bastard, we could have a war on our hands.”

“Then you better make damn sure that never happens,” Angstrom snarled, brushing the snow off her arms while starting back toward the Fire Hammer.

* * ** * *

EVENTUALLY NIGHT FELL as the companions continued riding ever higher into the craggy mountains.

There had been a short respite when the storm eased for several hours, and they broke for some food and to make any battlefield repairs necessary. But then the winter weather returned with a savage vengeance, seemingly intent to now bury them alive under the rapidly growing mounds of snow. Soon progress along the rocky riverbed had become so difficult that the companions decided to climb a bank and start across a vast frozen field.

Still deathly pale, Krysty hadn’t spoken for a very long time. But everybody took heart when she reached down to scoop some loose snow off a tree branch and massage it into her scalp. She flinched at the contact, then gradually relaxed.

“Got shine,” Jak offered, pulling a pint bottle from inside his leather jacket. It was half full of an amber-colored liquid. “Not much, but strong.”

“Thanks,” Krysty whispered, visibly shivering as the melting snow began to trickle down her face and neck. “Mebbe later.”

“Sure.” He tucked the bottle way. “Anytime.”

Long hours passed and the companions encountered nothing but snow, along with the occasional frozen creek. There weren’t even many trees, just some low scrub brush and spiky teasel weeds.

“Damn, I was hoping we’d catch a break after freezing our asses in Nome. I’m cold, hungry and just plain scared!” Mildred said.

“Is that from a poem, madam?” Doc asked, rocking to the motion of his horse. Frosty mounds were perched on both of his shoulders, and it was difficult to tell where his silvery hair ended and the snow began.

“A movie, actually.” She chuckled.

Just then, there was a movement in the bushes and a mountain lion padded into view. The animal appeared normal.

“If it charges, aim for the eyes,” Ryan commanded, easing the Steyr from the gunboot alongside the saddle. “And don’t use a flintlock! They’re so loud the echoes would bring every mutie in the area down on us like flies on shit.”

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey,” Doc muttered under his breath.

“Do you know any other poem than that?” Mildred growled irritably.

“Of course! Jak recently taught me one about a very flexible fellow from Nantucket.”

“Pass! Kipling is fine.”

“Why are they always fighting?” Ricky asked, leaning forward in his saddle.

“Just friends ribbing each other,” J.B. replied with a chuckle. “Honestly, they’re just so damn much alike.”

As the wind increased, everybody hunched lower in the saddle.

“Anything useful on the map?” Ryan asked, watching the trees for any suspicious movements. The area seemed totally devoid of game, which usually meant there was either a big mutie nearby or a radiation crater. Both of which he seriously wished to avoid at the moment.

“I have no idea. This is supposed to be at the bottom of a lake,” J.B. growled, his glasses speckled with melting flakes. “We’re so far off the map, that we might as well use it for tinder.”

“S-sounds g-good to m-me,” Ricky said, his teeth chattering. “Damn, it’s almost as cold as Alaska!”

“Not want ever go there again. Use spare socks like gloves,” Jak said, displaying his own oddly clad hands. “Helps lot.”

Grinning widely, the youth dug into a saddlebag and soon was wearing some cold woolen socks.

“Better.” Ricky sighed. “Thanks.”

“Just don’t get them wet,” Mildred warned, then paused to blink into the distance. She couldn’t be sure with the storm in the way, but there was a large dark circle near the base of a cliff. It could be a cave, which would be a godsend under the present circumstances. Unable to restrain herself, Mildred thumped her knees against the horse and trotted off in that direction to see.

“Trouble?” Ryan called, pulling the warm SIG-Sauer from inside his jacket.

“Not sure,” Mildred replied over a shoulder, resting a hand on the ZKR pistol holstered on her hip. Then the wind shifted and she burst into a wide grin. “Cave! I see a cave!”

Instantly the companions headed in that direction. Joining the woman, they stopped a few yards away and studied the area before easing down from their horses.

“Better get razor, people,” Ryan commanded, shaking his head to dispel the growing collection of snow. “There could be anything inside.”

“Mountain cave usually bear,” Jak said, holding the Colt Python between both hands to warm the weapon.

“Yeah, usually,” J.B. agreed, carefully advancing as if walking through a minefield. Reaching the opening to the cave, he waited for Ryan to take a defensive position, then proceeded inside a few yards.

The companions fanned out in a defensive maneuver and slowly advanced. Coming out of the snowy darkness was a concrete embankment, similar to the kind used to reinforce weak hillsides and keep them from burying an access road.

Stepping into the tunnel, the two men listened intently for any snores or growls that would indicate hibernating bears. But there was only a deep silence ahead of them, and the soft howl of the snowy wind coming from behind them.

Peering owlishly into the darkness, J.B. sniffed. “No smell of spoor. You?”

“Nothing,” Ryan said. “Try a flare.”

Pulling a civilian road flare out of his munitions bag, J.B. twisted off the cap and rubbed the rough top across the igniter nubbin. In ragged stages, the flare sputtered into life, the bright magnesium flame banishing the darkness for yards.

“Looks clear,” he announced, glancing around. Holding the flare high, he studied the ceiling for any signs of bats or spiders. Those could be real trouble. They often became rabid and moved so fast it was difficult to kill them.

Thick smoke rose from the flare to pool on the ceiling and slowly trickle away, flowing like water back toward the entrance. What looked like a pile of leaves off to the side proved to be just that, windblown leaves.

“What’s that?” Ryan asked, squinting at the ceiling.

Lifting the flaming road flare higher, J.B. grinned at the unexpected sight of a line of fluorescent tubes set into a smooth featureless material.

“Those are light bulbs and that’s ferro-concrete!” J.B. shouted excitedly. “Cave my ass, this is a predark tunnel!”

Not turning, Ryan sharply whistled. “Bring in the horses!”

In seconds the rest of the companions joined them inside the tunnel. As the wind eased, they all stood a little taller, and even the horses whinnied, showing their pleasure at being out of the storm.

“Strange,” Doc murmured, “and oddly familiar.”

Nobody replied to that, but they all tightened their grip on their weapons.

“You sensing anything?” Ryan asked.

“I’m not sure....something...” Krysty replied, clearly annoyed at the vague answer.

“A tunnel in the middle of nowhere,” Doc said with a scowl.

“At the bottom of a lake,” J.B. reminded curtly, moving the road flare around. The tunnel went on for quite a while, the end lost in solid blackness.

“Could this be the entrance to a redoubt?” Mildred asked hopefully, swinging her medical bag behind her back to keep it out of the way in case of a firefight.

“Mebbe, but more likely it was an air base or a missile silo. The predark gov had those hidden in the damnedest places.”

“Still, those are almost always excellent locations to get out of a storm,” Doc stated with a small shiver.

“Let’s find out,” Ryan said, working the bolt on the Steyr. “Two yard spread, I’m on point. Ricky, guard the horses.”

“Check,” he said, resting the DeLisle on a shoulder.

Lighting candles, the companions started forward with their weapons at the ready. The flickering glow of the candles barely illuminated the passageway, and they saw the raw sleeve of ferro-concrete dotted with the occasional ceramic brick. The white square shone like a beacon in the gloom. More and more of them appeared until the tunnel was fully lined with the ceramic bricks.

This far from the opening, the air was noticeably warmer, and Ryan paused as the end of the tunnel appeared. Now, the companions advanced slower, in a standard two-on-two combat formation, constantly checking for sensors or antipersonnel devices.

Sure enough they easily located cracked mirrors set into the wall where sec cameras had been hidden. Ryan pried one of them open using the panga, but only found dark machinery thickly coated with corrosion and cobwebs proclaiming the lack of power.

On the other side of the tunnel, Jak gave a low whistle. Set into a small recess was a squat rapid-fire covered with ferruled cables. The battery pack had cracked open wide, the corrosive materials inside spread across the deadly weapon like a disease.

“Dark night, that’s an Auto-Sentry,” J.B. started. “Good thing it’s out of commission, or we would have been aced before hearing the first shot.”

“No bomb shelter,” Jak said with a half smile. “Gov installation?”

Without replying, Ryan slowly walked along the wall until reaching a large metal door. The floor was covered with loose leaves, but the door was completely untouched by the passage of time, the metal perfect in every aspect.

“This is vanadium,” Ryan said, running a hand across the satin-smooth metal. “Just like in a mat-trans chamber.” Then he scowled at the sight of a keypad hanging loose from the ceramic brick wall, the internal wiring dangling freely.

“Damn it, somebody tried to smash their way inside,” Mildred growled, leaning closer to inspect the ancient mechanism. “No way we’ll ever get this to work again.”

“Not necessarily,” J.B. said, turning away.

A few minutes later he returned with the dusty battery from the sec camera.

“If this has just a speck of power left...” he muttered, scraping some old wires clean with a knife. Knitting them together, he jumped as there was a bright spark, a red light pulsed once overhead and the door gave a hard click.

Grabbing the handle, Ryan pulled, but nothing happened. Passing off his longblaster, the man took the handle in both hands and planted a boot against the wall.

Bracing himself, Ryan bent to the task, steadily increasing the pressure. Nothing happened for a minute, then the door opened a crack and a reeking hurricane of dark fumes blasted outward, forcing the companions back gagging and gasping for air.

Chapter Eight

Quickly covering their faces, the companions backed away as far as possible.

“Incoming!” Ryan shouted down the tunnel, not knowing how else to warn Ricky. If there was a reply, he couldn’t hear it over the sustained rush of foul gases.

Impatiently, the companions waited. It took several minutes, but the fetid exhalation finally ebbed.

“Whew! Stink worse week-aced stickie,” Jak drawled, fanning the air with a hand. “What was, poison gas?”

“Just the natural emanations of decomposing people,” Mildred said dourly. “I smelled worse working at the morgue, but not by much.”

“You okay, Ricky?” Doc shouted down the tunnel.

“N-never b-better,” Ricky answered, along with a few coughs.

“Better come on down! We found something!”

“Will do!”

Returning to the door, Ryan peeked through the small opening, but could only see another ceramic brick wall on the other side. Adding a few drops of gun oil to the door tracks, the man braced himself again and started to apply pressure, but now the door easily slide aside on lubricated tracks.

“Guess you just had to ask nicely first.” J.B. chuckled, nudging the man.

Scowling in disapproval, Ryan snorted and swung up the Steyr.

Just then, Ricky arrived with the horses. They were unhappy at being in the smelly tunnel, but also clearly glad to be reunited with their riders.

“Is this a redoubt?” Ricky asked hopefully, tethering the reins together.

“No,” Ryan stated, easing through the doorway.

Carefully he inched along the ceramic brick wall for a few yards, then paused at an iron-pipe railing. It was standard for most military installations.

Around the corner was a long hallway that reminded him of a redoubt again. Both walls were lined with unmarked doors, and a skeleton was sprawled on the floor behind a plastic shield. Only tatters remained of a military uniform, but the combat boots were in decent shape. A 9 mm Glock blaster lay on the floor nearby, the weapon streaked with flaky corrosion.

“Repairable?” Jak asked curiously.

“Not a chance.” J.B. snorted, nudging the weapon with his boot. It skittered across the floor to the wall and broke into pieces.

Kneeling, Mildred dutifully checked what remained of the pockets, but found nothing that had survived the passing millennium: wallet, cigarettes, keys and cell phone, all of them utterly destroyed by implacable time. Only a simple gold wedding ring survived intact. She left that in place.

“How chilled?” Jak said, nudging the skeleton with the toe of his boot.

“Looks like a secondary concussion,” Mildred said, gesturing at the cracked skull. “My guess is that something big exploded outside, and that door stopped the primary concussion. However, the secondary vibrations cause an internal shock wave that crushed the life out of her.”

“This is a guess?” Doc scowled.

“Sadly, I’ve seen this before.”

“So, this girl—”

“Woman,” Mildred corrected, pointing at the pelvic bones. “Middle-age, Caucasian, left-handed, one child.”

“Indeed,” Doc said, bowing slightly.

“Door stop nuke?” Jak asked, looking back at the open door.

“Not a tick on the rad counter,” J.B. announced, checking the device clipped to the lapel of his worn leather jacket. “If it was, it must have been a clean bomb.”

“Fireblast, I know what this was,” Ryan growled, starting down the corridor.

A sagging iron gate partially closed off the corridor in the middle, closely followed by another shield of bulletproof plastic with two more desiccated skeletons. Their M-16 assault rifles were in even worse condition than that of the door guard. But J.B. recovered a handful of the 5.56 mm rounds.

Past the guard station was a turnstile of the sort used in a subway station. Ryan and the others shared confused glances about that.

“Millie?” J.B. asked.

She shrugged. “Beats me.”

Easily hopping over the turnstile, Ryan walked directly to a dented steel door and tried the handle. It turned and the door swung aside on screeching rusty hinges.

In the flickering light of the companions’ candles, the room inside was small, almost cramped, barely large enough to hold two people sitting in chairs in front of a complex control panel. Both were armed with holstered blasters, and J.B. went to check those immediately.

Oddly, the control panel seemed to mirror itself, the left and right sides almost identical, aside from a few personal items for the operators. A framed picture of a young child and an old woman. Rectangular slips of paper that could have once been tickets of some sort, and the obligatory coffee mugs. U.S. Navy on the left, U.S. Army on the right.

Spanning the wall was a huge window, but anything on the other side was completely hidden by a millenium of crud, dust and dirt.

“Son of a bitch, this is a nuclear missile base,” Mildred said in growing wonder. “I’ve seen this in a documentary on cable! These two men had to turn special keys at precisely the exact same time to activate the weapons system.” She pointed at the matching hexagonal keys jutting out from the control panels.

“Must have held a lot of rockets,” Ricky said, using the ball of his fist to try to clear an area on the window. He only managed to smear the dirt on this side, revealing that the opposite side was blocked solid with dried roots of what resembled ivy.

“It only held one rocket,” Ryan answered. “A triple-big bastard called an ICBM.”

“An icy bm?” Ricky quipped in surprise.

Ryan repeated the letters more slowly.

“Oh!” His eyes went wide. “Just the one? Was it...you know...for going into space? Something for a sat?”

“No, this was a nuclear missile silo,” Krysty whispered, bowing her head. “As the incoming nukes burned down our cities, we launched missiles to take out their cities in revenge.”

“The idea was that nobody would ever attack us, America, because we would guarantee that they’d also be destroyed,” Mildred said with a sigh. “It was called MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction.”

“Madness, indeed,” Doc grumbled, resting both hands on the ebony swordstick. “Entire nations acting like coldhearts fighting to the death over who was the strongest. Childish insanity.”

She shrugged. “It worked for a while.”

“Damn, these are useless,” J.B. said, dropping the two rusty blasters into a plastic wastebasket. “There’s nothing useable here but the damn coffee mugs.”

“Mebbe, mebbe not,” Ryan replied, turning and leaving the room.

Returning to the corridor of doors, the big man left wet footprints behind as he checked each one with his candle. Every door was slightly warped from the hammering concussion that had killed the base personnel, except one. It looked like ordinary wood, but when he rapped it with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer there was a pronounced metallic ring.

The door was locked, but by nothing electronic this time, purely mechanical, and it easily fell before the adroit manipulations of J.B. and his collection of picks, probes and jimmies. The same as before, the companions stepped back as the door opened. But this time there was only a soft exhalation of fumes that carried a familiar metallic smell of inert gases.

“Jackpot,” Jak whispered, grinning widely.

The large room inside was packed with racks of longblasters, pallets of grenades, boxes of handblasters, crates of knives and endless plastic drums of assorted ammunition.

“Looks like the Trader was right,” Ryan said, taking a gooey M-16 from a rack. “Missile silos always have the best weps.”

A brief survey showed that every longblaster and handblaster was thickly coated with a brown goop the ancients used to call Cosmoline. It protected the metal from any possible oxidation, or corrosion, and easily washed off with shine or spring water mixed with a little piss.

“Any food packs?” Krysty asked, pulling out a belt knife to start cutting open the plastic wrapping on a crate of grenades. “MRE, self-heats, anything?”

“Nary a crumb, dear lady,” Doc espoused sadly. “Merely enough ironmongery to frighten the mighty Hephaestus himself!”

“Fine by me,” Jak stated, stuffing his jacket pockets with plastic-wrapped boxes of .357 Magnum rounds. “Easier get food with brass than other way around.”

“Too true, my young friend.” Doc chuckled, then turned away to start ripping open cardboard boxes. “Here you are, Remington .45 cartridges, solid lead or copperjacketed hollowpoints?”

“Both!” Ricky exclaimed eagerly, taking the boxes. “Wow, a hundred rounds! Never had this much live brass in my life. Yanni would have split a gut laughing if I ever claimed...”

His voice trailed away at the mention of his missing sister, and the youth started grimly going through the pallets taking grenades and anything else useful.

“Anything here that can stop that APC from before?” Mildred asked, rummaging through a first-aid box bolted to the wall. “LAW rockets, landmines, satchel charges?”

“Just brass and grens,” Ryan stated. “What else would the base personnel need?”

“I suppose,” she relented, taking down a bottle of dried iodine residue and a small box of bandages.

She barely had room in her medical bag for the new items, as it was packed with anything she could cobble together: curved needles from upholstery shops and blue nylon fishing line to suture wounds closed, plastic bottles of boiled water and raw shine, a jar of powder sulfur, a nearly empty bottle of antiseptic mouthwash, a plastic bag full of boiled cloths to use as bandages, a pouch of bark from a willow tree to brew tea that contained a mild version of aspirin, a tiny bar of hotel soap, and such. It was a laughable collection of junk in comparison to the contents of a medical bag from back in the twentieth century, but nearly magical in comparison to the crude instruments of most other healers in the Deathlands.

In short order, the companions were fully armed.

“Not a whole lot left,” J.B. said smugly, hefting the bulging munitions bags. “Aside from a useless load of 5.56 mm brass for those longblasters.”

“Any 40 mm shells for the grenade launchers?”

“According to the manifest they’re on back order,” Ryan said, tucking another box of 9 mm Parabellum rounds into a pocket. “Any 7.62 mm for my Steyr?”

“Sorry.”

“Fair enough,” Ryan said, taking an M-16 and a nylon bag of magazines.

“Now, I prefer my longblaster,” Ricky said, affectionately patting the DeLisle carbine.

“Same here,” Ryan said with a rare smile, slinging the M-16 over a shoulder. “But an M-16 will buy us more than a month of room and board at any friendly ville.”

“Maybe we’d better bring the horses in for the night,” Mildred said, checking her watch. “We can load them up in the morning, and heaven knows I’ll certainly sleep better with a locked door and steel walls protecting my back.”

Doc grinned affably. “Agreed, dear lady.”

“Okay, let’s find the ward room,” Krysty said, fighting back a yawn. “There’s bound to be a sofa there, or some carpeting that we can use for bedding.”

“Sounds good. Doc and Ricky, get the horses inside,” Ryan directed. “Jak, guard the door until relieved. The rest of us will go hunting for the ward room.”

Everybody got busy.

As expected, the ward room was located at the extreme end of the hall, just far enough away from the armory that the officers might survive if there was an explosion. The lock was a joke, and inside were several comfortable sofas, plus a kitchenette and a small washroom. Since the base was designed to survive a direct nuclear blast, the chemical toilet worked, but the shower only delivered a thick brownish sludge that might have once been called water. However, there were plenty of hygienic personal wipes under the sink, for both ladies and gentlemen, and the companions used all of them to get as clean as possible under the circumstances.

Everything edible in the cupboards and drawers of the kitchenette had long since yielded to the passage of the years, as had the propane stove. But J.B. got a hotplate working by hardwiring together a couple of ancient batteries from other sec cameras. Soon, the circular element was glowing a bright red, and filling the small room with a pleasant wave of iron-scented heat.

Dinner was pan-fried squirrel and beans, washed down with melted snow. The horses got the last of the feed, mixed with a pile of pine nuts and acorns gathered by the companions along the way.

After the meal, Ryan replaced Jak at the door, and everybody made crude beds from the sofa cushions and bathroom towels. Soon, the sound of gentle snoring filled the air. Then a dull thud sounded from deep within the missile base.

Drawing weapons, everybody stirred, and looked dully around the ward room.

“Somebody in crapper?” Jak slurred, blinking away his dreams.

Doc fought back a yawn. “Quite possibly, my dear Jak,” he began, then stopped as the thud came again, only much louder this time.

“Sounds like it’s coming from the control room,” Krysty muttered, pulling on her cowboy boots.

“Sure as hell hope not,” J.B. said, sliding his glasses into place.

The dull thud came once more, closely followed by a loud shattering noise and then an inhuman bellow of bestial rage.

Scrambling into their clothing, the companions charged out of the ward room just as Ryan appeared from down the corridor.

“Control room,” Krysty said, her hair fanning out in every direction.

“Should we leave?” Mildred asked.

“Not without the horses,” Ryan said. “Mildred, Doc and Ricky, get them into the tunnel! Be ready to leave.”

“We’ll just do a fast recce,” J.B. said, tightening his grip on the Uzi machine pistol.

Maintaining combat formation, the companions moved swiftly through the corridors. Kicking open the door to the control room, the companions paused to let their eyes adjust to the darkness.

The withered corpses were still sitting in front of the deactivated control panel. Only now the unbreakable plastic window was smashed and, standing inside the launch tube in a circle of the sunlight streaming down from above, was a giant flower. It was more than a dozen yards high, the petals spreading out wide to display yet more different-colored petals. Its beauty was almost breathtaking.

However, strewed around on the dirty floor of the launch tube were dozens of men and women, shuffling woodenly along. Their clothing was in tatters, and trailing behind each of them was a leafy vine that went directly back to the colossal flower.

“Meat puppets,” Krysty stormed, her voice tight with hatred. “It’s a vine master!”

At the sound of her voice, the plant actually turned in that direction. A split second later so did all of the slaves, their faces slack, but their eyes rolling in silent terror.

Without pause, Ryan, Krysty and J.B. each pulled out a grenade, yanked the arming ring, flipped off the safety lever and tossed the military spheres through the smashed windows.

An inhuman roar sounded as they ran out of the control room and slammed the door shut. Then the grenades cut loose, the confined blast sounding louder than any possible missile launch. The door buckled, almost coming off the row of hinges, and hot gases slammed into the companions, knocking them down and throwing them across the dirty floor.

Using their hands and feet, they stopped themselves from hitting the far wall, and hastily screamed erect.

“Again,” Ryan shouted, pulling out another grenade.

But as he opened the door, a shambling corpse staggered into view, the fleshless hands reaching for his face. Diving backward, Ryan got out of the way just in time as J.B. cut loose with the Uzi. The 9 mm Parabellum rounds hammered the living corpse back into the control room, and Krysty managed to toss in her grenade before slamming the warped door shut once more.

The lock engaged, then fell off. In wordless accord, the three companions frantically scrambled up the ramp. As they hopped over the iron railing, the grenade exploded. This time the bestial roar was even louder, and oddly accompanied by the very human moans of agony and dismay. It sounded like the very gates of hell had swung open wide.

That was more than enough to refuel their desperate scramble out the vanadium door and into the access tunnel.

“Vine master!” Krysty called to Doc and the others, turning to pump several rounds from her S&W .38 into the open doorway.

Slamming the heavy door shut, J.B. fumbled with the locking mechanism. “Dark night, I can’t lock it from this side!” He cursed, backing away fast.

“Then run for it!” Ryan growled, firing his weapon into the gloom. There came loud meaty thwacks, but no cries of pain.

Then the door burst aside and out boiled a mob of partially dressed people. Their heads lolling to the side, the slaves of the plant stiffly shuffled forward, their arms held to grab a companion, their filthy clothing alive with crawling vines.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc snarled, firing the LeMat as he backed away. One of the enslaved humans jerked as the .44 hollowpoint round slammed directly into a temple. Crashing against the wall, the meat puppet slumped to the floor, his sad eyes seeming to bless the man for the sweet gift of death.

Stroking the trigger on her S&W revolver, Krysty blew out the knee of the closest man. As his leg erupted, the man sagged, but in spite of the tremendous blood loss he clumsily rose again to head toward her.

No command was needed for the rest of the companions to form a defensive line and cut loose with every weapon they possessed. A score of the living slaves staggered from the barrage of gunfire, but none of them dropped. Hideously wounded, the meat puppets kept moving forward, clawed fingers trying desperately to grab any part of a companion.

“Head shots only!” Krysty bellowed, quick firing her revolver. As the blaster emptied, she dashed away to yank an M-16 longblaster from the gunboot of her saddle. Her horse whinnied in fear and didn’t run.

Mentally thanking the excellent training of the Granite Empire sec men, Krysty yanked the arming bolt and flipped off the safety. She sprayed the entire advancing crowd of humans at head level.

A dozen of them jerked at the impact of the 5.56 mm hardball ammunition. Chunks of their heads were ripped away to reveal the soft pink brains inside, the folds alive with crawling green vines. Then the vines withdrew and wiggled away like an escaping snake.

“...thank...you...” a woman hoarsely whispered, slumping into death.

Doc triggered the miniature shotgun on his LeMat. The thundering discharge of the 8-gauge cartridge chewing up the naked feet of the slaves and cutting several lengths of escaping vines.

As the damaged vines withdrew even faster, the freed people dropped, and there came a high-pitched keen of pain from deep inside the missile base.

“Ace the vines!” Mildred snarled, the ZKR firing steadily.

Reloading as they retreated, the companions cut loose at anything moving on the floor. As a length of vine was severed, the unharmed section would quickly withdraw and the formerly attached meat puppet would limply fall, some, if able, mouthing words of gratitude while convulsing into sweet oblivion.

When there were no more vines or slaves in the tunnel, the companions paused to catch their breaths, warily watching the floor, walls and ceiling, for any sneak attacks.

“Everybody okay?” Jak muttered, shoving a magazine into his longblaster.

“Still here!” J.B. replied, thumbing fresh cartridges into his shotgun. “But I...” He stopped talking to oddly giggle, then reached out to stroke a hand across the rear of Mildred’s pants.

“John Barrymore!” Doc gasped in shock.

Annoyed, Mildred slapped his hand away, then paused, reeling slightly as she began to breathe deeply.

“Millie...” J.B. mumbled, casting away the shotgun.

“Oh...John,” she replied, dropping her medical kit.

As they passionately embraced, Ryan instantly recognized the signs from when he’d battled a vine master many years ago.

“Masks!” he bellowed, firing the Steyr dangerously close between the two people. The stinging muzzle flash made the man and woman jerk backward, and the wild frenzy left their faces as the pain overwhelmed the hypnotic perfume.

“Stinking mutie weed,” Jak snarled hatefully, pouring some raw shine onto a handkerchief and holding it to his face.

Tossing the bottle to Doc, he yanked out a gren, clumsily pulled the pin with one hand, released the arming lever and whipped the bomb through the open doorway.

A few seconds later Doc did the same thing, closely followed by Ryan, Krysty, and then all of the companions.

At the first explosion, the unseen vine master bellowed again, then its cries were drowned out by the rapid detonations of the other grenades.

“A-aced?” J.B. panted, his sweaty face still deeply flushed.

Mildred wildly shook her head, her beaded plaits flailing. “Can’t r-risk it,” she croaked weakly. “B-best run...while w-we can...”

The other companions needed no further prompting. Stumbling more than walking, they retreated to the frightened horses and clambered into their saddles.

Kicking the animals into a fast walk, the companions were nearly at the mouth of the tunnel when a fresh wave of meat puppets appeared out of the darkness.

Wordlessly crooning a soft melody, this time however, there were only women. Stark naked, they made kissing faces and began to beckon the companions.

With the cold morning wind blowing in fresh air, the grim companions took out their weapons, and mercifully cut down the women with carefully placed head shots, forever freeing them from the odious control of the demonic mutant. Then kicking their horses into a gallop, the companions headed away from the tunnel and across the snow as fast as possible.

“Cold air never tasted so bastard good,” J.B. said, breathing deeply.

“Wretched abomination,” Doc muttered, resting the M-16 across his lap. “Our morning ablutions must have accidentally awakened the foul colossus in its stygian lair.”

“M-more likely it was the dawn,” Mildred wheezed, reaching into her shirt to stuff a breast back into her sports bra. “The d-damn thing is just a plant. Needs sunlight...as well as meat.”

“Meat?” Ricky asked in horrid fascination.

“It doesn’t actually eat people,” Krysty explained, her fiery hair fanning out in the cold wind. “The perfume stuff merely makes...” She paused, uncertain, then continued. “It makes you have controllable sex until you die from starvation, then it feeds off the decomposing corpses.”

“Whew! Slaves or food,” Jak muttered. He made a face as if biting into an apple and discovering half a worm.

“Indeed, it is a most dastardly duality of damnation,” Doc said.

“Did anybody notice the uniforms on the slaves?” Krysty asked.

Keeping both hands on the reins, Ryan cast a backward glance. “Uniforms?”

“In that first wave. There were only two,” she replied. “I mean, two types of uniforms. The tan buckskin of the Granite Empire sec men, and another uniform, some sort of twilled cloth that was dark green.”

“Nothing else?” Ryan quizzed.

“Just those.”

“Only two uniforms seems to imply that the second group is either good friends with Angstrom’s widow, or her enemy.”

“Hopefully the latter,” Mildred said, shifting position in the saddle. “Green, you said?”

“Dark green,” Krysty replied. “If we find folks wearing that color, we might be able to cut a deal.” She smiled. “The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”

“Quite true, dear lady!” Doc retorted in reply. “Although, occasionally, the enemy of my enemy is still just another damn enemy.”

Having no reply to that, Ryan made sure a grenade was comfortably tucked into a pocket before settling into the rocking motion of a long horse ride.

Slowly, the sun warmed the air, removing the evening chill. Loose snow swirled around on the breeze, but the sky was clear, and Ryan allowed himself to relax. There was still quite a distance to go until the redoubt, and they had an army on their trail. But potential allies had entered the mixture, and the companions were fully armed once more. Both of which were good things. If life had taught Ryan anything, it was to enjoy the little things while he could, because all to soon—

With a grunt, Ricky took the DeLisle from his gunboot and fired a single round into the trees. On the other side of the snowy field, a fat opossum sitting in a redwood cried out and fell limply to the snow with a heavy thump.

“Breakfast!” the youth announced proudly, holstering the carbine.

Chapter Nine

The morning sun was still low in the sky, the bright rays just peeking over the eastern wall of Concord ville. The cold air was rich with the aroma of pine from the surrounding forest, mixed with the homey aroma of wood smoke.

Yawning and stretching, the inhabitants were starting to rouse for the day, most of the men hauling bundles of fishing nets down to the stone docks of Bluewater Lake.

Alongside the flat roof of a predark hair salon, a tall man wearing dark green clothing rose into view on a worn bamboo ladder mostly held together with twine, duct tape and a large dose of optimism.

“Good morning, Kevin,” Baron David Linderholm said, stepping off the rickety ladder.

Standing near a large open-faced coop in the middle of the roof, Sky Master Kevin Owens turned around, a hooded falcon sitting on his padded forearm. The man was also dressed in the dark green uniform of Concord ville, a holstered blaster at his side and the handle of a knife jutting from a fishskin boot.

“Morning, Baron!” Kevin said with a lopsided grin, gently stroking the neck of the bird. “Are you here for the daily tally?”

“Of course,” Linderholm said, twisting and turning to straighten his back from the arduous climb. “Dark night, I know your birds need privacy to sleep and mate, but this rooftop coop is getting harder for me to reach every year.”

“But it’s perfect for them!” Kevin beamed, opening the wire door to the coop and putting the falcon on a wooden perch. “Just perfect! Exactly the correct amount of sunshine, rain and wide-open spaces.”

“They fly, so why would they want...” Linderholm paused. “Never mind, Sky Master, whatever you need will be provided.”

“How about an evening with Cordelia at the Watering Hole?” Kevin chuckled, removing the leather hood from the bird. It blinked at the sunlight, then spread both wings wide and loudly announced its domination over the entire world.

“Would if I could, old friend.” Linderholm laughed, slapping the smaller man on the back. “But we’re the wrong caliber for her blaster...if you get my meaning.”

“Yes, so I have heard. What a waste.”

“If the tales are true, Cordelia does anything but waste it.” Linderholm turned to watch the flock of falcons in the huge coop strut around, flapping their wings.

A large male with a white collar turned to looked directly at the baron, its black eyes narrowing in an eerily human expression of hatred. It was an unnerving sight, but Linderholm knew that the deadly falcons were as harmless as newborns in the presence of their beloved master. But one word from Kevin and they would attack an enemy with incredible savagery. Many coldhearts who attacked the ville barely escaped alive, their faces in bloody tatters. The Falcons of Concord were nearly as famous, and as feared, as the village’s deadly cannons.

In a surge of pride, Baron Linderholm glanced along the walls at the double row of shiny brass cannons set into the limestone blocks. The first cannon had been rescued from something called a museum, a bizarre sort of storage facility for weapons in very bad condition.

Had the cannons been put there for repair? He had no idea. But by the dint of trial and error, the village blacksmiths had eventually learned how to duplicate, and then improve, the predark relic. Now their range, power and accuracy were legendary. Not even howlers dared to approach the village! Although privately, the baron admitted to himself that might merely be a coincidence. Nobody in the ville knew anything about howlers.

“How many carrier pigeons have your winged mercies aced today?” Linderholm asked, putting his back to the cage full of fluttering assassins.

“Three...so far,” Kevin said, removing the padded sleeve from his arm. “But the day is still young, Baron.”

“Only three?” Arching an eyebrow, Linderholm looked around the rooftop, which was littered with dozens of bloody pigeon corpses. The piles of loose feathers were blowing around like autumn leaves.

“Three that carried messages,” Kevin corrected, pulling a wad of folded papers from a pouch on his gunbelt. “The rest carried nothing but lice.”

He smiled at the small joke.

“But what about the code?” Linderholm said with a tolerant expression. “Have you have any luck breaking it yet?”

“No, Baron, I have not,” Kevin muttered, crushing the neatly folded papers into a crumpled wad. “Whatever secret tongue King Angstrom uses is quite beyond my knowledge. It might as well be gibberish!”

“Could it be?”

“Lord?”

“It is gibberish? Maybe the writing means nothing, and it is the type of pigeon that is the actual message. A female for attack, a male for retreat, brown for this, gray for that, and so such.”

“God’s balls, I’ll have to check my records for such details,” Kevin said eagerly, his eyes darting back and forth. As if sensing his excitement, the falcons started flapping their wings and loudly screamed their hunting cry.

“Well, let me know the results, and keep chilling those flying rats,” Linderholm said, turning to start picking his way across the collection of dead birds. “Someday we’ll find out what he’s talking about, and then we can bring the battle to him.”

“And what a great day that will be, Baron!” Kevin shouted. “A victory for the ages!”

Saying nothing in return, Linderholm started down the ladder. He always tried to keep a brave face to bolster morale. Sec men, bakers, fishers, blacksmiths, gaudy sluts, potters, healers, wrinklies and the children, they all depended upon him to keep the King of the Granite Empire far away.

To date, he had been successful. But every year, Angstrom made more conquests, controlled more villages, his army constantly swelling in size, and the rumors of a new armored war wag called Fire Hammer were extremely disturbing. Concord had cannons, the best in the Hamps, and a secret supply of powder that was the lifeblood of his defenses. But a pitched battle between a predark war wag and his cannons would only pack the last train west with mutilated bodies from both sides.

However, there was no denying that it would be an amazing fight to see...just from a very great distance away.

* * ** * *

SEVERAL DAYS LATER the companions were still riding higher into the rumbling mountains. Every path they took ended in impossible cliffs, a dead end, or went upward.

“Soon we crest top, then downhill easy,” Jak said, tightening a new wolfskin cloak around his shoulders.

“Well, going back the way we came isn’t an option,” Ryan muttered, barely visible inside the shaggy skin of a giant sheep. “So up we go.”

Everybody was wrapped in some sort of animal skin as much needed protection from the bitter cold. Most of the hides came from wolves and bears, both of whom acted as if they had never seen a normal human before. That made shooting them ridiculously easy. Then at night the companions would scrape the skin clean and rub in the brains of the beast. The natural chemicals in the brains greatly assisted the curing process, and the skins were holding up well so far.

Mildred and Doc both found it amusing that every animal seemed to have just enough brains to cure its own hide. Doc claimed it was proof of a loving god, Mildred said it was just functional evolution, and their heated arguments raged over the hills, dells, escarpments and arroyos of the wintry New Hampshire mountains.

Meandering their way through a dense forest, the companions were startled when the air became noticeably warmer. Soon, the deep banks of snow disappeared, then thin patches of plant life returned. By noon the next day, the landscape was thick with green grass and flowering bushes of every description.

“Are we near a rad pit?” Ricky asked nervously, his horse stepping over a small babbling creek.

“Not that I can tell,” Ryan said, checking the rad counter clipped to the collar of his shirt inside his new coat. “This must be a natural phenomenon. Underground hot springs, or something.”

“Please, don’t even mention the possibility of a warm hot bath.” Krysty sighed, scratching under her collar.

Starting across a wide meadow of wildflowers, the horses eagerly started consuming everything in sight. Since the animals had been on short rations for more than a week, the companions tolerantly let the horses graze freely for a while before forcing them onward. Although beautiful, strong and loyal, most horses weren’t overly intelligent, and if left on their own accord, hungry horses would often stuff themselves with food until becoming sick.

“In a way, they’re rather like frat boys,” Mildred said to herself.

“Who are what, Millie?” J.B. asked curiously.

She started to speak, then waved the complex explanation. “Nothing, John, never mind. Private joke.”

Understanding that she often made references to a world that no longer existed, J.B. nodded in acceptance.

Leaving the meadow, the companions felt the heat increase again. Riding around an outcropping, the companions paused at the unexpected sight of a river of blazing hot lava pouring from the side of a cliff. Thick and sluggish, the lumpy molten rock flowed thickly down the mountain, branching out into two wide rivers that disappeared over a wide cliff made of shiny basalt.

“Damn,” Jak drawled in amazement.

Situated between the two glowing rivers was a wide delta covered with fields of corn and rows of trees heavily laden with apples, pears and what almost appeared to be eggplants. In the center of the delta was a small walled ville. Armed sec men wearing bright orange hunting vests walked the wall, there was smoke rising from several brick chimneys, and a tattered American flag fluttered from a tall wooden pole.

“Behold, Lava ville!” Mildred cried, throwing back her wolfskin hood to bask in the waves of warmth.

“No, indeed, madam,” Doc said softly. “It is the mighty Xanadu...where Kubla Khan did a stately pleasure dome degree!”

She flipped a hand back and forth. “Bananas, tomatoes.”

“Isn’t that Xanadu poem about an ice palace?” Ryan asked, pulling the Steyr from the gunboot.

“Quite right!” Doc beamed in delight. “However did you know?”

“You recite it often enough,” Krysty snorted, her hair fanning out to play in the warm breeze.

“Think those vests are the badge of a sec man?” Ryan asked, swinging up the longblaster and looking through the telescopic sight. “The ville could have been founded by a group of hunters who survived skydark. Now the vest is a mark of authority.”

“Makes sense,” J.B. said, extending the Navy telescope to its full length. “I can see into the ville from here, and there’s no sign of any slave pits or whipping posts.”

“Doesn’t mean they don’t have them,” Ryan said, lowering the longblaster. “But good enough for a recce.”

“If the baron knows anything about thermodynamics, it would be easy to build an electric generator that ran on steam from the lava,” Mildred said eagerly. “That would give them lights, refrigeration, radios, an electric fence to hold back the muties....”

“They’re just likely to have a dung-eating contest,” Krysty replied dourly. “Sometimes, the nicer the ville, the more backward the people.”

“Sad, but true.”

A winding dirt road snaked along the irregular path of the southern lava flow, and a tremendously thick bridge made of tough volcanic glass offered a way across to the delta.

“Mined?” Jak asked.

“Bet your ass,” J.B. replied. “I can almost smell the hidden explosives.”

Safely reaching land again, the companions paused at a crossroads until a sec man on top of the wall waved them onward.

Proceeding slowly along a gravel road, they marveled at the orderly plots of mixed crops: beans, cabbage, corn, apples and so on. There was also a large patch left barren that had nothing growing there at all.

“Crop rotation?” Mildred asked. “They know about leaving a section fallow to let the soil rest and increase the next year’s crop? Wow, I am impressed.”

“Hey, Millie,” J.B. said, nudging her with an elbow. “Mebbe they do have a steam generator, and all of that other stuff.”

“Or they might enslave any passing travelers who know a thing or two,” Mildred muttered. “You know, for the good of the ville.”

“That would be a bad move on their part,” J.B. growled, loosening the flap on the munitions bag.

The wall was irregular chunks of cooled lava patched together with concrete, or something very similar. In Ryan’s expert opinion, it looked extremely strong. The gate was made of pale applewood, banded together with wide black straps of iron riveted into place.

“Easy to repair if damaged,” Krysty said, shaking her reins. “Somebody here is very smart.”

“So was Kinnison, dear lady,” Doc noted. “Yet he was also crazy enough to try to father his own clone.”

“Kinnison aced,” Jak said contemptuously.

“Indeed, my taciturn friend. But what a terrible price we paid.”

Since it was true, Jak had no possible response to that and merely shrugged.

This close to the ville wall the companions noted several trees that had been neatly pruned of every branch except one. Hanging from that branch was a rotting corpse dangling at the end of a knotted rope, their crime written on a piece of reversed bark nailed to the chest. Rivulets of dried blood clearly showed the process had been accomplished while they were still alive.

“Rape...theft...horse stealing...” Krysty muttered, riding by the reeking corpses. “Sounds good so far.”

“More importantly, there’s nobody hung for disobeying a sec man,” Ryan said, adjusting his eyepatch. “That’s a good sign the baron isn’t a tyrant.”

A hundred feet from the wall the cropland ended, and the companions slowed their horses to a walk. These days, every ville was surrounded by a wide clear belt where an invader would have no place to hide from the longblasters of the sec men on the wall. Doc called it a killing field, but these days such things were as ambiguous as doormats. Noticed, but rarely noted.

“That’s close enough, outlanders!” shouted a bald sec man standing on the wall. He worked the lever on a Winchester .38 longblaster. “What’s your biz here?” The stock of the longblaster was new, and appeared to be carved from bone, but the weapon was spotlessly clean, and shone with fresh oil.

“Just looking to buy some food,” Ryan said, keeping his open hands in plain sight.

“You folks certainly got a lot of blasters, that’s for damn sure,” a sec woman added, cradling an AK-47 rapid-fire with a bayonet attached. “You mercies?”

“Walkers,” Krysty stated. “Just passing through. Not interested in any local trouble.”

In the distance, a volcano softly rumbled in the mountain range, discharging a thick column of black ash and sulfuric steam.

“Well, Old Smokey there seems to like you.” The sec man chuckled, easing his stance. “That’s a good sign.”

“Glad to hear it.” J.B. grinned.

Forcing a smile, the sec woman leaned down slightly. “The baron’s always open for trade...especially if you got any jolt. We’re pretty low in here, and folks are getting itchy.”

“Sorry, never touch the stuff,” Ryan replied, almost insulted at the crude trap. “Last year we ran across a trader who tried to sell us jolt. We burned his stock, cut his hamstrings and left him for the ants. Don’t like jolt, or the bastards who deal in that poison.”

“Now that’s music to my ears, One-Eye.” The sec man rested the longblaster on a shoulder. “My momma always said that the only thing a jolt dealer was good for, was to test the edge of a new knife.”

“Smart woman.”

“Yeah, she was our lib’ary until a stickie got her.” The sec man sighed, his face saddening in memory.

Putting two fingers into her mouth, the sec woman loudly whistled a short tune, and the front gate started to ponderously move aside. “Well, come on inside. Welcome to Little Eden!”

“Good name.”

“Thanks!”

Riding in through the opening gate, the companions nodded to the gang of sec men waiting on the other side. They were clustered around a small gasoline engine that was operating a series of pulleys to move the massive gate.

“Better add some bullet shavings to your juice,” J.B. said in a friendly tone. “You’ve run it on pure shine for too long and the rings are burning out.”

“Told you so!” a short sec man declared, his fists on his hips. “Thanks, outlander!”

“No charge,” J.B. said, riding away.

“You could schmooze the pants off a stone statue,” Mildred said with an obvious note of pride.

The man gave a wink in reply.

Studying the place, Ryan liked what he saw. The ville was full of busy people doing everyday chores: small children running around hauling buckets of water from an artesian well, a butcher chopping up a hog for some waiting customers, a young cooper struggling to get the iron rings to fit on a wooden barrel, and the shirtless crew of a distillery stoking the fire under the copper kettle, every inch of their visible bodies soaked with sweat.

The streets were dirt, packed down with gravel as protection from the spring rains. Every roof was slanted, with a gutter made of PVC pipe to funnel the runoff into plastic barrels on the ground.

“They save the acid rain to make black powder,” Krysty noted. “I’m liking their baron more all of the time.”

The tinkling sound of a badly tuned piano came from a large cinder-block building in the center of the ville, along with a chorus of drunken singing.

Heading in that direction, Ryan and the others tethered their horses at a rusty parking meter in front of the tavern. Hanging from the rafters, a hand-carved wooden sign proudly proclaimed this was the Broken Fish, Bare Girls.

“That’s supposed to read ‘bar and grille,’” Mildred corrected, under her breath.

Just then, a louvered door on a second-floor balcony swung open and a topless woman appeared to loudly belch, then stagger drunkenly back inside.

“I stand corrected.” Mildred sighed, shaking her head at the new reality.

Draping their excess furs over the saddlebags to hide them from view, the companions tromped onto the wooden porch. An old sec man in a rocking chair waved at them in greeting. A double-barreled longblaster lay across his lap, the homemade weapon made from galvanized steel pipes bound together with coils of iron wire.

Nodding in return, Ryan reached into a pocket for a live bullet to pay for the fellow to guard the horses.

But the sec man waved that away. “Courtesy of the baron,” he said, displaying a complete lack of teeth. “Nobody steals a horse in Little Eden!”

“Fair enough,” Ryan said, turning to go inside. He stopped. “Anything wrong with bringing you a beer on our way out?”

“Hell no!” The sec man cackled. “Bring two if you feel like it!”

Shooting the man with a finger, Ryan joined the other companions inside the Broken Fish. The tavern was huge, holding a dozen wooden tables made from cable spools flipped over onto their sides. The air was thick with the smells of roasting meat, frying onions, sweaty bodies, shine, spent black powder, badly cured furs, tobacco, marijuana, gun oil, fresh bread and popcorn.

At the tables, several sec men and sec women were playing dominoes, a family of travelers was bent over a table eating stew, and a gaudy slut was asleep on a table, a hand-rolled cigar dangling from her slack lips. Under the table, a fat dog was chewing on a meaty bone.

“Nice,” Jak said with a wide grin. “Like.”

The piano and player were both safe behind a wall of sandbags, probably to protect the valuable instrument from any flying lead during a bar fight. Drunken singers were clustered along the sandbags, drinking from a wide variety of cups and ceramic mugs, some of which displayed corporate logos of ancient companies.

Stairs led to the second floor, and from behind those closed doors came rather unmistakable sounds of professional intimacy: sweaty slaps, hard grunts, giggling and groans.

In the far corner, a girl sat near a roaring fireplace shaking an antique bed warmer over the crackling flames. A steady popping noise was easily discernable over the drunken singing coming from the opposite corner. As the popping died away, she emptied the bed warmer into a wooden bowl, added what looked to be butter and salt, and passed it away to immediately start the next batch. The bowl traveled across the room, going from table to table, until finally reaching the bar.

“Empty!” called out the fat bartender. “Make more this time, Lucille!”

“On the way, Dotty!” the girl answered, pouring the new batch into a shiny, clean hubcap this time.

Since the tables were all full, the companions took seats at the corner of the bar. That way, their backs were covered by a wall, and they could see their horses outside.

“Hi, I’m Dorothy. New in the ville? What’ll ya have?” the bartender asked, as if saying that a hundred times a day.

She was a mature women with a lot of curly black hair. Her patched dress hung loose except for an apron tied tight around her waist, and her huge breasts moved freely under the thin blouse.

“The stew smells good,” Ryan said, taking a stool.

“’Tis!” Dorothy said, wiping down the counter with a damp rag. “Fresh this week. Bear and venison with taters and carrots.”

“Bear and venison?” J.B. asked curiously.

“Bear’s got a strong taste, so we sweeten it with a little venison,” she said, looking up at last. Dorothy recoiled a little at the sight of all the weapons, then rallied a smile. “Tastes good! Guaranteed.”

“Okay, seven bowls,” Ryan said. “Got any coffee?”

“We do. But that’s expensive, outlander,” Dorothy replied, resting a plump fist on a hip. “However, we got lots of fresh shine, old beer and dew.”

“Dew?”

“Shine cut with blackberry juice.”

“Sounds great,” Ryan said diplomatically. “But we’ll stick with the coffee.”

Placing a hand on the counter, he turned it over to show three .22 bullets.

“Shitfire and honeycakes,” Dorothy whispered, reaching out a hand to almost touch the shiny shells. “Those live?”

“Open them if you like,” Ryan said, pushing the ammunition closer. “They’re not filled with dirt.”

“No, I reckon they’re not,” she muttered, scooping up the bullets and tucking them into a pocket of her apron. “Nine times out of ten I can tell an owl from a stickie.”

“Yeah, but it’s that tenth time that’ll chill you,” Ryan said, touching his eyepatch.

“True enough!” Dorothy laughed, jerking a thumb at the wall. “Welcome to the Broken Fish. Don’t ask about the origin of the name. I’ve forgotten the truth and run out of lies. I’m Big Dot, owner and enforcer.”

“Both?” Krysty asked curiously.

Without comment, Dorothy jerked her hand forward. Something small and fast shot across the room in a blur, and a wooden ball slammed into the bull’s-eye on the bedraggled dartboard ten yards away.

All conversation in the tavern stopped, and hands darted into clothing, closely followed by metallic clicking of safeties being thumbed off.

“Just a demo for the newbie!” Dorothy announced through cupped hands. “Go back to your drinking!”

Slowly, everything returned to normal. Only now Ryan noted that nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the companions anymore. It would seem Dot ruled the tavern like a baron.

“Why a wooden ball?” Ricky asked, placing both elbows on the counter.

“Aced customers generally don’t come back the next day,” J.B. explained.

“Or pay their bills!” Dorothy replied with a jiggling chuckle. “So...coffee, you said. Leaded or unleaded?”

“What’s difference?” Jak asked suspiciously.

“Leaded is the real stuff. Unleaded is the homie stuff we make out back from burned bread crumbs and chicory.” She shrugged, making her blouse move in a quite spectacular manner. “It tastes real enough, but it won’t get your heart humming.”

“Less fun than kissing your sister?”

“Not my sister, but close enough.”

“Leaded,” Krysty decided. “Plus, lots of bread.”

“Done and done. We also have some honey and apple butter. But that’s extra, of course.”

“Bring, if real,” Jak said, pulling the hubcap of popcorn closer.

“Real as these!” Dorothy laughed, using both hands to jiggle her huge breasts.

“Then real as nature itself,” Doc said in a smooth manner, a hand to his heart in thespian style. “For what glory of God could ever compare with the dulcet beauty of a woman armed with a deadly smile.”

“Shitfire, I do like sweet talk,” Dorothy said, studying the man.

Doc smiled politely, and she reached out to grab his arm and squeeze. “You’re no wrinklie,” she said, a new tone of respect entering her words. “You look about ready for the last train, but feel like a sec man.”

“Why, thank you, madam,” Doc mumbled, blushing fiercely.

“And shy, too?” Dorothy leaned in closer, her breath warm on his cheek. “I got a room in the back. Show you a hell of a good time. No charge, honey.”

As understanding flared, Doc turned an even darker shade of red. “How nice, but I...that is...”

“Come on, you like fems, right?”

“Yes, I do. But...that is...” Desperately, Doc looked around for help.

“He’s mine,” Mildred growled, sliding an arm around the man and pulling him close.

“I don’t mind sharing,” Dorothy said, looking over the shorter woman.

“Well, I do,” Mildred replied, resting a hand on the ZKR holstered on her belt. “Nobody rides my horse, but me. Understand?”

“Fair enough.” Dorothy sighed, turning away. “I’ll go get the food.”

As she disappeared into the steamy kitchen, Mildred released Doc and he covered his face with both hands. “Dear lady, I...thank you,” he said. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you ten thousand times.”

“No problem,” Mildred stated, trying not to smile. “Just stop flirting with every woman you meet, okay?”

“Flirt? I was merely being polite.”

“These days that’s damn near a proposal of marriage.”

“I see your point.”

Slamming open the door, a group of armed sec men entered the bar. In the center was a short man with a pointy beard. He walked with a pronounced limp and was using an intricately carved wooden cane. Unlike the sec men, he was wearing predark clothing, all of it clean and neatly pressed. There was a brace of H&K handblasters in his gunbelt, the leather loops full of live ammunition.

“Baron?” Ricky asked out of the corner of his mouth.

“Baron,” Krysty agreed.

Walking straight to the companions, the man offered a hand. “I hear you folks are here to trade,” he said without any preamble.

“We are...if you’re the baron,” Ryan said, accepting the hand and shaking.

As the sec men fanned out in defensive positions, the man blinked, then broke into laughter. “Good one, Blackie!” he cackled. “I’m Baron Calvin Rushmore.”

“Ryan.” He wasn’t bothered about the sec men. A baron without them was soon wearing grass for an overcoat.

“What’s your biz?” Rushmore asked, turning around an empty chair and sitting.

“Just walkers needing supplies,” Ryan said. “Dried meat, horse feed and such. We got brass.”

“If you don’t mind smoked bear and cornmeal, we got enough to feed an army,” Rushmore said, crossing his legs. Pulling out a cigar, he struck a match on his pants and got the tobacco glowing.

Feeling his throat tighten at the wonderful smell, J.B. tried not to openly drool.

“Now, what kind of brass do you have? I have no need of .22 rounds that wouldn’t stop a dormouse.”

Expecting that, Ryan flipped over a bullet.

Making the catch, Rushmore closely inspected the military-grade 5.56 mm cartridge, his smile steadily growing.

“How much do you want, friend?” he asked, blowing a smoke ring.

Just then, a small boy dashed breathlessly into the tavern. Looking around, he raced through the maze of tables to the baron and offered him a tiny slip of neatly folded paper.

With his smile sagging, Rushmore took the slip and looked inside. “Bad timing, Blackie,” he said, stuffing the paper into a shirt pocket. “It seems like we just ran out of bear...venison, cornmeal, onions and damn near everything else.”

“Near?”

“Okay, everything else,” Rushmore growled. “We have nothing to sell to you in this ville.”

“Here’s your stew!” Dorothy announced, coming out of the kitchen.

“Nor does anybody else in the ville have anything to sell, barter or trade to you outlanders,” the baron said in a loud voice.

Looking shocked, Dorothy sighed and pivoted around to glumly return to the kitchen.

“We have lots of brass,” Ryan said, feeling the deal evaporate into thin air.

“Got enough brass,” Rushmore said, jerking a thumb toward the front door. “Now get out, before my people throw you out.”

At that, all of the sec men drew weapons. But the companions already had their blasters out and ready.

“Okay, we’ll go, but you walk along with us,” Ryan said, pulling a gren into view.

Everybody in the tavern went silent as he pulled the arming ring and tossed it away. It landed on the wooden floor with a musical tingling that seemed louder than thunder.

“If we get aced...” J.B. said, working the arming bolt on the Uzi rapid-fire.

“You get chilled,” Krysty continued, leveling her M-16 longblaster.

“Everybody gets chilled,” Doc added, pulling out another gren and yanking the ring.

Chewing the cigar to the other side of his mouth, Baron Rushmore clearly bridled at the open threat, then relented. “Fair enough,” he growled. “But you leave, and right fragging now.”

* * ** * *

KEEPING THEIR WEAPONS aimed at the baron, the companions didn’t relax their vigilance until reaching the basalt bridge. Releasing the man, they watched as the baron and his sec men raced back into the ville.

Silently, Ryan held out his hand and J.B. slapped a spare ring into his palm. It took a few minutes for the man to defuse the gren, then he wrapped a piece of tape around the lever and tucked it away once more.

“Well, that was fun,” Mildred said, holstering her blaster. “Think they’ll come after us?”

“That’s not how I read the man,” Ryan said, shaking the reins on his horse. The stallion nickered unhappily as it started across the bridge of black glass, waves of intense heat coming over the edges from the bubbling lava below.

“Forced,” Jak said as they reached dirt once more.

“Indeed, my young friend,” Doc said, patting his mare on the neck to help soothe her down. “The baron was quite friendly until receiving that message.”

“The question is, who did it come from,” J.B. said, taking out the cigar and putting it into his mouth. “The real baron? His wife? Or—”

“Angstrom,” Ryan stated as if there was no other possibility. Kicking his horse into a gentle gallop, the man started back toward the flowery meadow.

“What now?” Krysty asked, scowling at the snow visible in the distance. “Do we go hunting?”

“Not with Angstrom’s widow on our ass,” J.B. stated with a frown. “She and her sec could arrive any moment.”

“Wait nightfall,” Jak suggested. “Hide where go from Rushmore.”

“Sounds good,” Mildred added. “Then we head northwest again, toward the redoubt?”

“Agreed,” Ryan affirmed, slowing his horse to pulling out the Steyr once more. “Northwest to the redoubt. Right after we get those bastard supplies.”

Chapter Ten

As evening fell, a warm breeze wafted over Little Eden carrying the familiar reek of lava from the two fiery rivers of stone. Bright moonlight illuminated the landscape in a cool silvery glow, counterpointed by the dull reddish corona of the trundling lava streams. The odd color combination looking almost as if the world had been painted with blood.

Standing on top of the wall, a sec man rested a heavy crossbow on his shoulder. “I wonder when the bitch is gonna arrive,” he growled, anxiously fingering the row of notches on the stock. Each notch represented a norm killed, or ten mutants.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the other sec man replied gruffly, loosening his collar.

The fur was smooth, and the toggles were hand-carved moose bone in the shape of tiny revolvers. It was a highly prized gift from the baron for acing a stickie that had somehow made it over the Black Rock Bridge.

“Thought we weren’t supposed to call her that on the wall anymore,” the sergeant muttered. “Especially not with the king aced, and she’s top dog.”

“The woman is a bitch, and triple crazy, too,” the corporal snarled. “Gods of the Atom, I’d love to put some lead in her head!”

“Same here, brother.” The sergeant sighed. “Chilling a baron would be two notches for me!”

He scowled. “You still doing that nonsense?”

“Man needs a hobby.”

“Try humping gaudy sluts instead.”

“Can’t.” He grinned. “Your sister retired.”

Just then a cloud drifted past the moon.

As the patch of shadows swept across the killing field, Ryan sprinted out of the wheat field carrying a bamboo pole. Close behind came J.B. carrying the silenced DeLisle carbine. All of their clothing had been darkened with volcanic ash. Streaks of charcoal across their faces reduced the shine.

Following the cloud, the two men hopped over tripwires and went around blast craters at breakneck speed. They only got halfway to the wall before the moon reappeared. Instantly they dropped and rolled into a blast crater. They landed on a pile of old bones that loudly shattered at their arrival.

“What the frag was that?” the sergeant demanded, swinging around the crossbow. The barbed tip of the arrow gleamed razor-sharp in the weird reddish-blue light.

The corporal shrugged in dismissal. “Just the wind,” he said, pulling out a homemade cigarette. “Got a light?”

Still wary, the sergeant paused for a few moments before finally relaxing. “A light? Yeah, sure,” he muttered, pulling out a butane lighter. “Mind if we share?”

“Okay by me,” the corporal said, dragging in the dark smoke and letting it trickle out of his nose.

Passing the home-rolled cigarette back and forth, the sec men continued their patrol along the wall, chatting about how much they hated Angstrom, and lying about how many muties they’d aced over the years of service.

As the sec men disappeared into the distance, Ryan and J.B. scrambled out of the blast crater. Running full-tilt, they covered the last few yards and hit the base of the lumpy wall. Going motionless, they covered their panting mouths with a sleeved arm to muffle the noise as there came the sound of boots from overhead. With weapons in hand, the two men waited until the wall guards were past.

Staying safely hidden in the shadows, Ryan and J.B. timed the passage of the two groups of sec men several times until they knew the pattern.

When the first pair of guards strolled by again, the long piece of bamboo was gently placed against the wall, and J.B. braced it with both hands while Ryan quickly climbed the notched length to the top.

With his SIG-Sauer sweeping for targets, Ryan scrutinized the sleeping ville and noted the positions of the sec men patrolling the top of the wall. Two ahead, two aft. Perfect. He didn’t want to ace anybody on this nightcreep, but would if necessary. Thieves might be forgiven in the light of day, but blood had to be answered with blood. That was just ville justice, the only real law in the savage Deathlands.

Shaking the bamboo pole, Ryan waited, and J.B. joined him on the wall. Adjusting his glasses, J.B. tilted his head in a question and Ryan jerked a thumb in both directions. Nodding, the Armorer pulled up the pole, and they raced along the wall to lower it again behind a reeking outhouse. Sliding to the ground, the companions laid the pole along the base of the wall just as the second pair of sec men walked by, smoking cigarettes and chatting about women.

There were very few lights on in the ville, a couple of oil lanterns bobbling along the streets by sec men, and thin streams of yellowish light coming from the closed shutters of some tents and log cabins. It was a warm night and smoke only rose from one chimney. J.B. caught the wonderful aroma of baking bread.

“Just like the Trader taught,” he said, the DeLisle tight in both hands. “A baker has got to start work around midnight, or else there wouldn’t be anything to sell at dawn.”

“Just hope he’s making enough for us, too,” Ryan said.

Both men knew that there would be plenty of food stored in the barracks, but that would be surrounded by dozens of sleeping sec men. The gaudy house would also have lots of food to jack, but music was still coming from the piano. In spite of the late hour, the gaudy house on the second floor was in full swing.

“People must have extra jack,” J.B. said, adjusting his glasses. “Just bad luck.”

“Good luck, you mean,” Ryan said, tracking the passage of a sec man with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. The 9 mm handblaster followed the guard across the ville square until he disappeared around a corner.

J.B. grinned. “Gotcha. Lots of drunks and all that music will help mask our presence.”

“And a couple of drunks won’t attract much notice.”

“Just as long as we stay in the shadows,” J.B. countered, touching his blackened cheeks.

When the street was clear, the men broke cover and casually strolled into the dark alley alongside the bakery. As J.B. picked the lock on the side door, both of their stomachs rumbled loudly at the wonderful smells.

Easing inside, they found a large kitchen full of hot ovens and wicker baskets piled with steaming loaves of bread. As J.B. started stuffing a backpack full, Ryan checked the next room to find an elderly man kneading a huge bowl of dough.

As the fellow looked up, Ryan clubbed him across the forehead with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. With a sigh, the baker crumpled to the floor, throwing up a large cloud of pale yellow acorn flour.

“Dad?” a woman called, coming into the kitchen while wiping her hands on an apron.

At the sight of the armed companion she froze in terror, and Ryan slapped a hand across her mouth.

“Don’t talk, and don’t move,” he ordered. “Your father’s not aced, but he will be, unless you cooperate. Got it?”

With raw terror filling her eyes, the woman nodded in agreement.

Pulling her across the kitchen, Ryan shoved the woman into a chair just as J.B. arrived. At the sight, he pulled out pieces of precut rope from his pockets and started lashing her tightly to the chair.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I recently gave birth, and a ride will ace me for sure!”

“We’re not going to rape you,” Ryan stated softly. “We’re just here for the food.”

Breathing heavily, she licked dry lips, obviously hesitant to believe the outrageous statement.

While J.B. stood guard, Ryan went to the shelves and started filling his backpack with stale bread and cheese. Discovering a stash of smoked fish, he snatched a bite, and hastily chewed while packing a second backpack.

“Any good?” J.B. asked.

Ryan tossed him a fish, and J.B. took a long smell before stuffing the entire thing into his mouth.

Going down into the cellar, Ryan found the larder for the baker, and took everything he could fit into the remaining backpacks: jerked meat, dried apples, coffee-sub, sugar, bacon, beans, butter and lard.

Coming back up, Ryan could barely fit through the narrow doorway.

“Looks like you found the mother lode,” J.B. whispered from the shadows, only the barrel of the DeLisle visible in the flickering light of the ovens.

“Everything we wanted, and more,” Ryan replied, setting the backpacks on the floor.

“Excellent!”

“Now, as for you,” Ryan said, advancing closer and reaching into a pocket of his pants.

Expecting the worst, the bound woman obediently opened her mouth. Then she blinked in surprise as Ryan stuffed a handful of live rounds into the pocket of her blouse.

“You...you’re leaving brass?” she whispered in total confusion.

“We’re not thieves, just hungry,” Ryan said, wadding a cloth into a ball. “Open wide.”

“I won’t scream,” she promised.

“Sorry, we can’t risk it,” he said, easing the wad into her mouth, then tying a second cloth around her head to keep the gag in place. Starting to leave, he paused and pulled out two more rounds. “These are for you to tell the others we went to the north. The north, understand?”

Nodding, the woman watched fascinated as Ryan opened a big stone jar and dropped the brass into the flour. “No need to tell the baron, eh?”

She nodded agreement.

“Where did we go?” J.B. asked.

She titled her head to the right.

Ryan smiled, putting the heavy stone cover back into place.

“None of this would have been necessary if your baron had simply cut a deal,” J.B. added, slinging two of the backpacks across his shoulder. “Any idea why he turned sour on us?”

Both eyes still wide with fright, the woman shook her head, then added an apologetic shrug.

Accepting that, Ryan and J.B. slipped back into the dark alley and vanished in the night.

* * ** * *

DAWN WAS JUST starting to lighten the eastern sky when Baron Rushmore stumbled out of his bedroom and started down the long flight of stairs to the dining room.

“Morning all,” he said, yawning at the pair of old cooks standing alongside the kitchen pass-through.

“Good morning, my lord,” the fat cook said, giving a little curtsy.

“Sleep well, sire?” the skinny one asked.

“No, I kept dreaming about Angstrom and her wretched war wag.” Rushmore growled, sitting at the dining table. Tying a napkin around his neck, he looked over the plates of steaming eggs, smoked fish, salted butter and sliced apples. “No bread today?” he asked, stroking his pointy beard.

“Not a slice,” the fat cook replied. “But we do have sugared nut cake.”

“For breakfast?”

Quickly the skinny cook added, “We have some stale cornbread rolls from yesterday, and I could steam them for you over the kettle—”

“Fresh bread, every day, delivered to my kitchen,” Rushmore interrupted rudely. “That was the deal to keep the man’s idiot daughter in the ville and not set her on the long-road. Now go find out what happened!”

“Yes sir, of course,” the skinny cook babbled, and turned to leave just as there sounded a loud clanging from outside.

Scowling darkly, Rushmore pushed away from the table and strode across the house. Throwing open the front door, he saw sec men scurrying along the top of the wall, one of them wildly beating an iron welkin with a thick stick. The fellow was shouting something at the top of his lungs, but the clanging of the alarm was effectively masking the words.

“Nuking feeb,” Rushmore muttered, grabbing his cane and gunbelt from a peg on the wall. Leaving the house, he limped along while buckling on his weapons.

All across the ville, windows were being thrown open and people peered out with crossbows, or blasters, in their hands.

“Is it Angstrom, my lord?” a old woman asked as she slid a .22 bullet into the end of a homemade zipgun.

The weapon was merely a piece of car antenna lashed to a wooden block with strips of leather. The firing pin was a nail and rubber band. But there were six notches on the side boasting of her kills, and she held the crude blaster in the sure grip of an expert sharpshooter.

“Unknown,” Rushmore growled, checking the magazines in his H&K handblasters.

“Bet it’s those damn flapjacks again!” a fat man offered, turning to point his crossbow at the roof of the nearby building.

“Stay inside and lock your doors!” Rushmore bellowed, turning a corner. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out!”

Reaching the village square, Rushmore forced his way through the growing crowd of civilians and grabbed the wooden stick out of the hand of the sec man.

“Milton, shut the fuck up, and tell me what’s going on!” the baron shouted, brandishing the club.

“Coldhearts done raped Kitty, and stole a load of food!” Milton replied excitedly. “Tied her up, right there in the kitchen!”

He tossed away the stick. “She aced?”

“No, they...sort of forgot that,” Milton finished lamely.

“Well, well, so he wasn’t a spy for Linderholm, and really did just want the food,” the baron muttered thoughtfully, stroking his beard. “The bitch lied to me.”

“Sire?”

“Never mind!” Rushmore snapped. “Did anybody see in what direction they left?”

“I did!” somebody shouted.

The baron turned to see a group of armed sec men escorting Kitty through the crowd.

“Did you, now?” the baron said as a question. “Even though you were tied up inside a house?”

“Well, they said north,” Kitty muttered, rubbing her chaffed wrists. “But they said it a lot, and kept looking at each other. You know, like they were telling a joke, or something?”

“That must mean they’ve gone south,” a sec man growled, breaking out a shotgun to shove 12-gauge shells into the breech.

“Toward the hellflower vines?” another sec man asked, his voice going up a notch. “Not a chance...unless they’re dumber than Norad!”

“West is a good smooth road, perfect for wags, but they’re on horses, so...” a gaudy slut offered hesitantly, glancing in that direction. The skinny woman wore only a long T-shirt, but there was a .22 zipgun clenched in each hand.

Another sec man brandished an ax. “Then we’ll catch them easy!”

“Too easy,” the baron snorted. “Only a feeb would use the western road, and that Ryan was no jellybrain.”

“You think they actually went north?” a sec man asked in disbelief. “Like they told Kitty?”

“Of course,” Rushmore stated. “It doesn’t take a doomie to see Kitty’s no whitecoat.”

Confused by all of the commotion, Kitty sat on the grass, pulled a piece of corn bread from a pocket and started nibbling.

Using his cane, Baron Rushmore loudly banged the welkin twice, then tucked the stick under an arm to cup his hands together. “All right, I’m going after the outlanders!” he shouted. “I want twenty volunteers with rapid-fires!”

The crowd cheered its approval.

“What’s wrong with a scattergun?” a fat sec man asked, proffering his weapon.

“Because I’ve looked into their faces,” Rushmore said bluntly, “and these are pros. Coldhearts tougher than boiled steel, and meaner than a stickie on jolt.”

“I can take them,” the sec man boasted.

“No, you can’t, Archie,” Baron Rushmore stated, turning away. “Okay, twenty sec men with rapid-fires! I’ll personally replace any brass used, and the first stud to chill this Ryan gets his redhead for a month!”

“Rather have his horse,” a sec woman stated, defiantly crossing her brawny arms.

“Done! His horse and his blasters, or his woman. Take your pick!”

Stunned at the extravagant reward, the crowd wildly cheered even louder than before, this time adding some catcalls and whistles.

“Yee-haw!” a sec man bellowed, waving a Thompson .45 machine pistol. “It’s chilling time!”

Chapter Eleven

The moon was low in the starry sky, descending toward the horizon, dawn only a few hours away, when the Fire Hammer crashed through an icy snowbank, the twin halogen headlights sending out brilliant blue-white beams. As they swept through the forest, frightened birds took flight at the artificial dawn.

Bursting out of a bush, a stickie charged the machine, waving its sucker-covered hands overhead, all the while hooting loudly. The mutie only got a few yards before the long barrel of a rapid-fire jutted from a small blasterport. In stuttering fury, the big weapon cut loose, and the stickie was torn apart by the hammering barrage of rounds from the M-60 rapid-fire safely inside. As the body fell, the Fire Hammer rolled by, the gunner working the arming bolt to clear a jammed round from the hot breech.

“Trouble?” Queen Angstrom demanded from the front of the armored vehicle.

“I think too many reloads is making the brass weak, ma’am,” the man replied, finally getting the bent shell casing free. It hit the metal floor and madly rolled until disappearing into an air vent.

“Then save the rest until we really need them,” she ordered, steering the huge machine around a fallen tree.

“As you command,” he said, closing the blasterport to stop the rush of cold air from getting inside.

Just then, the radio speaker in the ceiling crackled with an indecipherable message.

“Hammer to scouts, repeat,” Angstrom said loud and clear into a handheld microphone. “Did not copy, repeat!”

In reply, the ceiling crackled once more, then a large bundle of furs stepped out of the bushes in the distance. A Granite Empire sec man waved a gloved hand, then flashed a thumb.

“We found them,” Angstrom whispered excitedly, leaning forward in her chair. The original padding had been eaten by insects long ago, so now the chair was heavily padded with soft wolfskin and multiple layers of shag carpeting.

“Should I ready the laser, ma’am?” the sec man asked from the rear of the armored personnel carrier.

“Immediately,” Angstrom said low in her throat, the words almost a purr.

“With pleasure.” He twisted the throttle on a Harley-Davidson, kicking the compact gasoline engine alive.

The interior of the Fire Hammer was cramped, packed high with supplies, mostly fuel. But that minor inconvenience was more than countered by the waves of warmth pouring from the floor vents.

Built to carry a crew of ten predark soldiers, eight troopers, driver and gunner, the war wag was now barely able to hold two people. The pod of the laser used a lot of space, and everything else was the food, ammunition, jars of shine and the machine.

A wide Harley-Davidson motorcycle with both wheels removed had the frame welded to the rear floor of the APC, the big Twin-V88 engine attached with a leather strap to a portable Komatsu electric generator. In turn, that was hard-wired to a step-up transformer inside a protective wooden box, and thick insulated cable fed power to the laser. It took King Angstrom years to get the laser to work, and dozens of whitecoats had been blinded or burned alive until the sizzling beam could be properly focused. Then it was another year before he’d found a way to power the weapon for battle.

However, the Fire Hammer was now a rolling juggernaut of advanced destruction, fully capable of merely blinding enemies so that they could be used as slaves, or destroying them completely.

At the front of the APC, Angstrom sat in front of a complex control board covered with flickering meters, twitching dials and glowing screens. Her husband had not known what any of them had been used for, and so had switched off everything to save fuel. But the queen had worked out the details of most of the board, and turned all of it back on again. With all of the radioactive hash in the atmosphere, the radio and radar were pretty much useless, their ranges reduced to roughly a hundred feet. However, this was how predark commanders had ridden into battle, listening to the hum, clatter and steady beeps of the assorted instruments. She found that fact oddly comforting.

Of course, her grandfather used to tell stories about how his grandfather claimed the machine could actually fix itself if broken in battle. But that was pure nonsense. Just a stretch to tell the children before bedtime.

Working the pair of big levers that served the APC for a steering wheel, the queen parked the Fire Hammer on a low rise that afforded an excellent view of the snowy landscape ahead.

“Send out flanking scouts,” she said, thumbing the microphone alive. “Knives and crossbows only! We don’t want to wake them this early in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Major Svenson said, his crackling voice replied from a speaker. “Alive if possible?”

“Oh yes, they must be taken alive—” Angstrom stopped as there came a high-pitched scream from the dark tunnel directly ahead. Then there came the crackle of blasterfire and the dull thud of a pipe bomb exploding.

“Report!” Angstrom snapped, grabbing a pair of binoculars from a cushioned holster. “What happened?”

“Unknown, ma’am,” Svenson said

Shooting weapons backward over their shoulders, several sec men raced out of the dark tunnel set into the cliff face. They were closely followed by a group of naked women streaked with dirt, and apparently with leafy green vines coming out of their orifices.

“Meat puppets!” gasped the sec man in the rear of the APC.

“Fire at will!” Svenson commanded, dropping the hand radio to aim and discharging his longblaster.

Falling into position, the scouts cut loose with their flintlock longblasters, the barrage of .66 miniballs ripping off chunks of the drooling women and throwing them backward.

But even missing limbs, they stiffly rose once more and attacked. Several of the sec men were caught ramming fresh loads into their weapons, and fell screaming under the clawed hands of the naked slaves. In only moments they were covered with wiggling vines.

“Left wing, use pipe bombs!” the major ordered. “Right wing, retreat, and give cover fire!”

Sluggishly, the captured sec men rose to look blankly at their brothers, then awkwardly give the thumbs-up signal. Right on cue, more of the naked slaves stumbled from the dark tunnel, men and women this time, all of them waving and smiling. Only their terrified eyes revealed the horrible truth of the situation.

“Chill them all!” Angstrom commanded, flipping a row of switches on the main control board.

With a low hum of controlled hydraulics, a hinged section of the armored roof swung open wide, and the PEP laser cycled outside.

A painted crosshair appeared on a monitor along the softly beeping radar screen, and Angstrom used a joystick to center the laser on the tunnel, then squeezed the trigger.

From atop the APC, a shimmering beam of concentrated annihilation lanced out to sweep across the sec men and slaves. At the touch of the beam, the people seemed to explode as their blood instantly boiled.

Standing partially behind another bush, a large sec man caught in the beam shrieked as he was only cut in twain, the two halves of his body sliding away from each other, his face registering pain beyond words as his internal organs slithered to the ground like a heap of greasy ropes. Then his head cracked open, revealing a writhing nest of leafy tendrils, tiny filaments flexing and moving at the totally unexpected infusion of moonlight.

The ragged gobbets of flesh were still falling when a second wave of slaves appeared, a bizarre mixture of humans, stickies and grizzly bears.

The Granite Empire sec men opened fire on the slaves, the miniballs dispatching several of them even as the flintlocks and horse blasters threw out a dense gray cloud of gunsmoke. Then the laser stabbed out once more, a soft beam sweeping across their faces, the eyeballs turning white before bursting like overripe grapes.

Yet even as they fell, more leafy vines appeared from inside the tunnel, spreading outward in every direction to hunt for new hosts.

“Gods of our fathers protect us!” a sec man screamed, backing away.

Tripping on a fallen branch, he landed sprawling and the vines swarmed all over his body. Screaming curses, he pulled at a knife and wildly hacked at himself, but the unstoppable vines raced inside his mouth and up both nostrils. Next, they went up his pants, and the sec man went still, a wordless scream distorting his face into a rictus of madness. Then he slowly turned and smiled, his movements jerky and mechanical, drool flowing from his slack lips.

“Forgive me, old friend,” Svenson whispered, firing from the hip. The Remington boomed, the hellstorm of lead pellets opening the man’s chest to expose his vine-covered organs.

Incredibly, the corpse still shuffled closer and clumsily pulled a handblaster to start shooting blindly. Instantly, all of the other sec men triggered their weapons. The deafening volley of flintlocks, shotguns and handblasters was deafening, and the hail of hot lead ripped out what little life was remaining in the bedraggled creatures.

But even as it dropped, the tiny vines started moving across the snow on the hunt for fresh flesh.

Snarling curses under her breath, Angstrom worked the controls of the PEP laser, and squeezed the trigger again until it locked into place.

Once more the rainbow beam of the polycyclic laser stabbed out. But this time the beam flashed over the heads of the meat puppets to score a glowing red gully in the rockface just above the predark tunnel. The cold rocks violently exploded at the thermal inversion, filling the nearby forest with a maelstrom of deadly rock splinters.

Horses, sec men and slaves died in droves. But the laser kept onward, sweeping back and forth along the mountainside, until the rock was glowing a dull orange. Within seconds that changed to a bright cherry-red, then a brilliant yellow and finally white.

As slow as winter blood, the molten rock began to sag across the opening of the tunnel. Still smiling, the naked slaves mindlessly attacked the lava with their bare hands, trying to staunch the hellish attack. Their fingers disappeared at every fleeting touch, and soon their charred bodies fell under the unstoppable advance.

Moments later the entire mouth of the tunnel vanished from sight, the entrance completely blocking the slowly descending lava.

“All right, that’s enough,” Angstrom announced, releasing the trigger. “No sense wasting fuel.”

“Do we go home now, ma’am?” the sec man asked, turning off the motorcycle engine. It sputtered, and coughed, then died away.

“If the outlanders were in there, then I have all the vengeance anybody could ever want,” Angstrom replied, forcing her hand to release the joystick. “But until I see their bleeding corpses, this manhunt continues.”

“By your command.”

“Major, send out more scouts!” Angstrom said into the hand mike. “Look for horse tracks, footprints, spoor, spent brass, anything and everything! If the outlanders left before we got here, I want to know when they did, and where they went!”

* * ** * *

ON THE OTHER side of Cobalt Mountain, once the companions were past the warming effects of the lava flow, the mountains swiftly reverted to a frozen vista. Eating what they could with a single hand, the companions rode long and hard through a growing blizzard looking for a safe place to spend the night.

“Egad, it is like the seventh level of Dante’s Hell,” Doc muttered, shivering under the makeshift poncho of a horse blanket.

“Or summer in Minneapolis,” Mildred said through her chattering teeth.

All of the companions were similarly dressed. A simple cut in the middle of a heavy blanket made a crude poncho that at least kept off the majority of the snow, and lessened the stinging effects of the bitter wind. But covered with an accumulation of snow, Ryan and the others were starting to resemble snowmen, their horses only visible by the steam of their weary exhalations. They desperately wanted to stop and build a campfire in the forest, but the danger of being discovered by the vengeful sec men of Little Eden was too risky, so they had to keep moving.

Just before dawn, the companions found an abandoned hydroelectric power station. The access door, spotted by Krysty inside a snowbank they passed, as incongruous as a bowling ball in the Vatican. The thick portal was sealed with ice, but a sizzling road flare by J.B. cleared the jamb and the ancient door smoothly swung open on recessed hinges.

The air inside was cold, and smelled metallic, but the delicate coating of frost on the floor tiles clearly showed that no other living thing had ever breached the facility. Thick cables stretched like a spiderweb overhead, tiny icicles reflecting the morning light and giving the gloomy interior a strange, winter-festival feeling.

The heavily laden horses were a tight fit through the door, but once out of the storm, the animals stomped their hooves and shook off the accumulated snow.

“Why don’t we keep riding?” Ricky asked, scowling at the ominous mountains of predark machinery.

“Too much snow and too many cliffs,” Ryan explained patiently, flicking a butane lighter into life. “Unless you know how to fly.”

“Besides, storm hide tracks, and door lock,” Jak said with a smile, brushing the snow off his sleeves. “What more want, gaudy sluts and popcorn?”

Muttering something indistinct, Ricky shook the snow off his clothing.

The decades of exterior snow had never made it past the door, but everything inside was covered with frost and ice. Stairs, hallways, control stations, bus bars and transformers glistened as if made by elves. Even the huge turbines, whose perfectly balanced blades had once powered the electrical grid for the entire state, were now thickly coated with ice crystals. Powerful in life, they were now inert, and strangely beautiful.

The interior of the power plant was dark, but the candles of the companions sent out a flickering nimbus of illumination that was reflected off the thousands of shiny surfaces until they walked in artificial daylight.

A sign near an observation window said it had been installed to allow visitors to see the rainbow created by the thundering deluge of water rushing over the dam.

Only now the concrete dam was part of a new cliff, the window overlooking a vast expanse of cloudy air that seemed to extend downward for miles. Nothing else was in sight, but an ocean of fleecy clouds.

“Wow, I keep waiting for Lando to arrive, and say the Empire has betrayed us,” Mildred said with a chuckle.

“Another private joke?” J.B. asked with a tolerant smile.

“Sadly, yes.”

Just then, a weird greenish glow appeared in the darkness, closely followed by a dozen more. They tumbled through the cold air to settle on the cliff just outside the section near the observation window.

“Found a box of chem sticks in an emergency locker!” Krysty announced proudly. “Now, whose turn is it to cook?”

“Mine,” Ryan said, checking the ceiling. “There’s enough space for the smoke to rise and not choke us. Any firewood around?”

“Lots of furniture over here!” Doc called out, cupping a hand around a candle to shield the flame. “However, much of it appears to be plastic or coated with that fake leather the good doctor warned us about. Naughty hide, or whatever it was called.”

“Don’t burn that,” Mildred stated. “The fumes would make us very ill.”

“How about door?” Jak asked, rapping one with the barrel of his handblaster.

“Looks like cherry. That will burn fine.”

Unexpectedly, something rose from the clouds below to hover just outside the window. The creature was large, and scaly, with a wicked curved beak that seemed designed for tearing flesh. The wings were leathery and moved with such incredible speed they were almost a blur.

“Mother of God, that’s a screamwing,” Mildred whispered, inching away from the thick glass. “I’d prefer not to see another of those bastards up close.”

At her movement, the winged mutant opened its mouth as if to bellow a cry, but there was only silence. Then it flew directly toward the woman, only to harmlessly bounce off the transparent material.

“Okay, that’s obviously not glass,” J.B. said, lowering his Uzi machine pistol.

As the mutie stubbornly bumped into the unbreakable plastic, the companions had an unparalleled view of the thing.

“Ugly son of a bitch,” Ryan muttered, holstering the SIG-Sauer. “But we’re safe enough this time. We couldn’t get through that material with a gren. A screamwing has no chance.”

Futilely clawing at the window, the screamwing slammed into it again and again, the noise of the impacts only dimly discernable.

“The screams of that thing are going to attract every other mutie in the mountains,” Krysty stated, still aiming the M-16 at the flapping mutie. “Anything we can do about that?”

“If we had a laser...” Ricky began, then stopped with a pronounced frown.

Ever louder, the screamwing battered the plastic, its frustration obviously increasing.

“Chill easy with this,” Jak asked, both hands firm on an M-16. “But how reach?”

Steadily, the cries of the enraged screamwing escalated in volume and pitch. The companions could almost hear the noise inside the dam, but they knew the sounds had to be echoing across the mountain range for countless miles.

“I hate to say it,” Mildred said slowly, “but maybe we should consider leaving. If any of these things arrive and cluster at the exit, we would have a major fight getting out.”

Ricky frowned. “But the storm—”

“No, Mildred’s right,” Ryan agreed. “Best to leave while we still can. Get the horses.”

Without a word, Ricky pulled a knife from his belt sheath, cut a finger and smeared a wide arc of blood across the plastic.

“Why did you do that?” J.B. demanded, slapping his soggy fedora against a leg.

At the sight of the blood, the screamwing went berserk and violently threw itself forward. It hit the plastic hard enough to shake the entire window...and just stayed there, smashed across the resilient material, pale golden blood dribbling from its mouth.

Then it slowly slid down the window, leaving behind a trail of sticky residue. Reaching the sill, it dropped off to tumble lifelessly away until finally dropping from view.

“Nuke me.” Jak laughed. “Chilled self!”

“Well done, lad!” Doc boomed, smacking the boy on the back. “A classic example of brains over brawn.”

“If you can’t outgun them, outwit them,” Ricky said, sounding eerily like J.B.

Just then three more screamwings appeared from opposite sides of the window. All of the companions took out their weapons again. But as the mutants came near, they paused, then abruptly turned to fly away.

“Must smell deader,” Jak stated, watching them hastily depart. “Nothing like stink of own kind chilled.”

“Damn straight,” J.B. said. “Okay, let’s find a fire ax and start busting up doors!”

An ax was located conveniently near an emergency exit, and soon several of the office doors were reduced to a heaping pile of kindle, along with some folding wooden chairs, reams of paper and a large piece of ornamental driftwood found at the bottom of a dusty aquarium lined with pink gravel and tiny skeletons.

Carefully building a campfire in the middle of a curved bank of raised control panels, using the aluminum sheets to reflect the heat, the companions soon had an area that was wonderfully warm, bordering on downright comfortable. Then there came a brief deluge of icicles from the overhead cables as they thawed from the rising column of heat.

“Should have seen that coming,” Ryan said, brushing out his hair. “All right, who’s got the frying pan?”

Soon, delicious smells filled the control room and the companions spread out a layer of carpeting from the offices on the terrazzo floor to help stave off the chill.

“Need any help, Ryan?” J.B. asked, contentedly sitting cross-legged.

“No, almost done,” Ryan replied, crumbling some fried bacon into the simmering beans.

“Add shot?” Jak asked, offering a pint bottle of murky home brew.

“Rather have some taters,” Ryan said, accepting the bottle and adding a splash. “But thanks all the same.”

“Beans taste better with shine,” Jak added, tucking the bottle away again. “And garlic. Everything need garlic.”

“Louisiana cooking,” Mildred said, removing her soaked boots.

Jak smiled. “The best!”

“Ah...sheerest ambrosia,” Doc stated, ambling closer. He set a tin bucket of snow near the cheery blaze, and it immediately started to melt into water. “You are a most excellent chef, my dear Ryan.”

“Man’s gotta know how to take care of himself,” Ryan replied with a shrug. “Krysty is the better cook, but it’s my turn.”

“You got that right, lover.” She smiled, massaging her hair as it fanned outward from the growing warmth.

“Unfortunately the next turn is mine.” Doc sighed, resting his back against a control panel. “And while the good Lord gifted me with many valuable talents, the culinary arts weren’t among them.”

“You can burn water,” Mildred stated jovially, “that’s sure enough.”

“Sad, but true. However, I do possess the acumen to gather more wood.”

Stirring the beans with a wooden spoon, Ryan gave a nod. “Much appreciated.”

“Consider me Damon to your Pythias,” Doc announced with a flourish, gathering the ax to head for a large mahogany conference table.

“Mildred, do you know what he’s talking about?” Ryan asked, shaking his head.

“Most of the time,” she said, massaging the circulation back into her toes. “But only because my father was a big fan of the classic literature and made me read a lot.”

She turned to Krysty. “How’s your hair?”

“Still hurts, but I heal fast,” Krysty told her, a hand starting to reach upward, then she stopped. “Besides, I’d rather that miniball took some hair than plowed a hole through my skull.”

“You can load that into a blaster,” Ryan stated, setting the rolls near the flames to defrost them a little.

“If you want, I have an aspirin, singular, but also some willowbark tea in my medical bag,” Mildred said, pulling the patched canvas bag closer.

“Mebbe later,” Krysty said, then turned. “Any shine left in that bottle?”

“Lots,” Jak said, passing it over.

Removing the cork, Krysty drank, then passed the bottle back.

Dinner was simple, but there was plenty of it, from well-buttered beans and acorn muffins, to smoked fish. Locked safely inside the power plant, the companions ate their fill.

“What I wouldn’t give for a cup of real coffee,” J.B. said, standing to dump his greasy tin plate into a bucket of warm water.

“Now, I had a different kind of dessert in mind, John,” Mildred said, taking his arm.

Glancing sideways, J.B. asked a silent question, and she responded with a nudge of the hip. “There’s lots of little offices nearby, and some of the doors even lock,” she said with a smile. The couple stood and retired for the evening.

Chapter Twelve

In the morning, breakfast was warmed-up beans, bacon broth and smoked fish. Doc attempted to make a sandwich of the fish and beans, the result of which was a lot of beans spilled on the floor.

Checking outside the frosted window, the companions were pleased to see that the blizzard had finally ended. The sky was the usual orange and purple clouds, lightning flashing between the roiling clouds of toxic chemicals and radioactive vapors.

However, outside the door, the companions discovered that the snow was now almost a yard deep. Wearing every item of clothing they possessed, the companions cut up their ponchos to wrap the exposed legs of the horses with several layers of blankets to help protect them from frostbite. Then they climbed into the saddle and rode off toward the north once more.

As the long miles slowly passed, there was no sign of screamwings, hellflowers, stickies, or any other mutant. In the hushed still of the early dawn, it felt like the companions were the last humans alive on the planet, and they began to enjoy the cold ride across the vast wintry landscape.

“Currier and Ives, eat your heart out!” Mildred laughed.

Confused, Doc raised a silvery eyebrow. “The chocolatiers? What in the world do they have to do with winter, madam?”

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Mildred started to reply when J.B. suddenly raised a clenched fist.

Instantly everybody stopped talking and pulled a weapon.

For a few minutes the companions stayed in their saddles, straining to hear anything unusual. But there was only the gentle murmur of the breeze through the trees and the sound of distant thunder.

Eventually J.B. frowned, “Sorry, I could have sworn that—” He was interrupted by the baying of dogs, lots of them, and the noise steadily got louder.

“Sounds like pack,” Jak stated, clicking off the safety on his assault pistol. “Twenty, mebbe more.”

“That’s a bastard hunting party,” Ryan growled, wrapping the strap of the Steyr around his forearm to help steady his aim.

Squinting through the telescopic sight, Ryan scanned the horizon for any signs of pursuit. A scant moment later, there was a movement in the bushes and a pack of huge animals charged into sight.

“Fireblast, those aren’t dogs, but mutie wolves!” Ryan snarled, lowering the weapon to yank a silencer out of his backpack.

“Wild wolves?” Ricky asked, squinting in that direction.

“They’re wearing collars,” Ryan stated, quickly screwing the silencer into the barrel.

“The question is, do they belong to Rushmore or Angstrom?” J.B. said, pulling a gren from his munitions bag.

“Let’s find out,” Ryan suggested, working the arming bolt. Taking aim, he fired.

The discharge was no louder than a hard cough, but the lead wolf flipped over backward from the arrival of the 7.62 mm hollowpoint round. Blood sprayed high as the dying animal pumped out a geyser of life.

The rest of the wolves paid their fallen companion no heed, and raced over the trembling body in their grim pursuit of the companions. Then there came the sound of rumbling gasoline engines, and a large group of armed men and women wearing orange vests came into view riding motorcycles.

“Rushmore!” Ryan announced, firing twice more.

A sec woman grabbed a shoulder and tumbled into the bushes, her bike continuing on for a few yards before hitting an icy patch and also falling over. It slid across the ice to slam into a wolf, knocking the animal down, but doing no permanent harm.

Adjusting for the breeze, Ryan fired again, punching out the eye of the new lead wolf, the back of its head exploding across several of the bike riders.

Furious, the sec men brandished fists and screamed insults. Only the small man in the rear didn’t, and Ryan marked him as Baron Rushmore.

Now all of the companions opened fire, sending out a sweeping maelstrom of lead. The snow on the ground danced from the incoming rounds, two more wolves died, and several of the sec men sprayed red from minor flesh wounds. Then the two packs retreated into the forest, disappearing from view.

“They’re trying to outflank us,” Ryan snarled, shoving the Steyr into the gunboot. “We have to run for it!”

The companions urged their horses into a full gallop.

Softly, in the distance, there came the occasional yelp of a wolf, or the sputter of a motorcycle engine. But the breeze was blowing against them and carried the sounds away.

“Wolves got scent,” Jak called, jumping over a fallen tree. “Bikes fast, bad combo!”

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” Doc replied, reining his horse to a cantor. Yanking open a canvas pouch on his gunbelt, the man poured a line of black powder across the snow, then raced to rejoin the others.

“That didn’t take long,” J.B. stated, glancing sideways.

“There was only a pound remaining,” Doc replied, bent low over the neck of his horse. “I have little use for black powder anymore, aside from discouraging dogs!”

“Mildred, got any pepper?” Ryan asked, not bothering to look backward.

“If there was, I would have added it to the black powder!” Mildred told him, clutching her medical kit.

“I have a gren,” Ricky offered, patting a lumpy pocket.

“Save it!” Krysty commanded, her hair tightly coiling almost to her scalp.

Crossing an open field, Ryan waited until they were across to stop. Aiming the Steyr for the opposite side, he scanned for any glimpse of the sec men or wolves. But there was only the deep silence of the forest, the rustling of the tall pine trees and the soft clatter of some bamboo.

Then a sharp two-tone whistle made Ryan turn around fast and race back. Everybody else was gone aside from J.B. The man jerked his head toward a circular opening in a tall thicket of thorny bushes, then rode his horse inside.

A bear tunnel? Ryan thought, following his friend. Whatever had made the tunnel was exceptionally large, much bigger than any grizzly bear he had ever encountered.

“Big griz,” Jak muttered, the reins tight in his one hand, the M-16 in his other.

“We can handle a bear,” Ricky said, the strap of the DeLisle carbine wrapped around his arm to keep it from falling.

“Mebbe, mebbe not,” J.B. said, slowing. “But I got something that should ace those wolves.”

“Do it!” Ryan commanded, listening to the howls and engines get steadily closer.

“Jak, give me an anchor!” J.B. snapped, slowing his horses

Twisting in the saddle, Jak produced a knife and threw. The blade slammed deep into an exposed root, slightly quivering.

Hopping off his horse, J.B. wrapped a length of fuse to the knife, then stretched it across the tunnel and wrapped it around the base of a dead rosebush. Producing a gren, he yanked out the pin, and carefully wrapped the end of the fuse around the arming lever. Tucking the primed gren into the fork of the rosebush, he hastily climbed back on his horse and raced away.

“Willy peter?” Ryan asked hopefully. The fireball produced by a white-phosphorous grenade would block the bear cave for ten minutes, giving the companions more than enough time to get far enough away.

“Plas-ex,” J.B. replied. “Not even shrapnel, but the blast will have those bikes eating sky!”

Ducking under a low-hanging branch, Doc muttered something in a foreign language.

“I don’t think Jesus will really help us murder people!” Mildred shot back, hugging the medical bag tight to her chest.

“Which is why I asked for help from the unforgiving universe,” Doc retorted smugly, “and not its divine maker.”

Crouching to avoid any branches, the companions sped through the tunnel in somber contemplation. Suddenly it ended in a wide field of bright yellow daisies gently bowing in the breeze.

Stopping by a large pile of fecal matter, Ryan leaned low in the saddle. “This is a week old,” he reported. “The griz hasn’t been here for quite a while!”

“Pity, I would love to have it meet our new friends,” Mildred commented, pulling out a gren.

“Is that your last?” Krysty asked, her assault pistol sweeping the trees for targets.

“Yep.”

“Then make it count.”

“That was the plan,” Mildred replied, easing out the pin, then tucking the military sphere inside the mound of bear shit. Patting it into place, she stood and pulled out a knife. Bracing herself, she cut a finger and let it dribble fresh blood onto the dirty mound.

“Hurry, here they come,” Krysty said, her head tilted against the wind.

Just then, there came a thunderous explosion from the direction of the bear tunnel, followed by several howls of pain from both humans and wolves. A bright fireball grew to illuminate the thicket in hellish intensity, followed by another blast, more cursing, then high-pitched screaming.

“Dark night, a bike blew up,” J.B. said in delight. “We must have aced two or three of the bastards.”

“In hockey, that’s called a hat trick,” Mildred said, getting back into the saddle.

“Why?” Ricky asked, turning his horse around.

“Because afterward everybody tossed their hat into the air in celebration,” Mildred said, kicking her horse hard with both heels. “Okay, that’s what I heard. I really have no idea.”

“Sounded good to me!” Doc said, checking the magazine in his assault weapon. “When I first met Lord Stanley—”

The sputtering roar of a motorcycle interrupted the man, and the companions separated quickly to not offer anybody a group target. Incredibly, there came the sustained chattering of a rapid-fire, closely followed by several more. The entire forest seemed to shake from the passage of hot lead, and Doc cried out as blood erupted from his leg.

“This Rushmore?” Jak asked, blindly spraying the trees behind them with his assault pistol. “Not think he had rapid-fires!”

“I guess he found some for us,” Ryan snarled, holstering the Steyr to take out the SIG-Sauer.

Firing with his free hand, the one-eyed man emptied an entire magazine of 9 mm rounds just to the side of where the last rapid-fire seemed to have been located. Only a fool would shoot and not shift position. If this was the baron and his best sec men, they would certainly not have any fools, and Ryan planned to use that against them if possible.

While slapping in a fresh magazine, Ryan was rewarded by an anguished scream. He waited a few moments, then fired at the same location, hoping to catch some would-be rescuers rushing to the aid of their fallen friend.

But this time, there was only silence.

“Not help friend, just after us,” Jak snarled. “Not good! We need plan. Got one?”

“Run fast, and do not die,” Doc told him, one hand holding the leather reins, the other clamped tightly on his bloody leg.

“Amen, and pass the ammunition,” Mildred replied, reloading her assault rifle.

Following the natural curve of the land as an aid to speed, the companions rode on in tense silence. The wolves continued to howl, and the sound of the big Harley engines kept fading in and out of the morning breeze.

Suddenly the land took on a pronounced downward slant, and spreading ahead of the companions was a gleaming white slope that extended into the far distance.

“We’re over the mountains!” Ricky whooped in unabashed delight.

“Please inform me when that is of immediate use!” Doc responded with a grimace.

Riding dangerously close to the man, Krysty yanked the belt from her pants and handed it over. Clumsily, Doc took it, and managed to get the leather strap under his bleeding leg. Fumbling to attach the buckle, he barely got it done, then brutally pulled the belt closed as tight as possible. The bleeding slowed, but Doc went pale and sagged in the saddle.

Reaching out to steady the man, Krysty felt her horse respond to the new direction. Realizing what she had just done, Krysty tried to correct in the other direction, but it was too late. Her horses bumped his, and Doc went flying sideways.

Wheeling sharply around to avoid crushing the man, Mildred went off the back end of her own horse, and Jak slammed into her mount, taking a dive forward.

Reining to a stop, Ryan started firing the Steyr into the forest in an effort to slow the wolves and bikes.

“Get back in the bastard saddles,” he called tersely, despite being afraid to speak loud and let the sec men hear.

However, two of the horses were still running, and one of them reared, screaming in pain as red geysers erupted from several holes along its muscular neck.

Scrambling to the nearest horses, the downed companions frantically climbed behind a friend, and they took off again, but noticeably slower with the double weight.

“Not outrace now!” Jak muttered, spitting blood from his mouth. “Need bolthole!”

In the distance Ryan saw the burned ruins of a farmhouse, then off to the side, a weathered grain silo that had the structural integrity of a political argument.

“There!” Ricky shouted, pointing into the trees.

Standing on the crest of a gentle hill was an old ramshackle barn. The sides were splintery gray wood, every touch of paint scrubbed off by the long winters. But the structure looked basically intact, and certainly was a lot better than trying to have a gun battle in the middle of an open field.

With no real choice in the matter, Ryan changed direction away from the slope and charged back up the hill.

The companions wasted precious seconds circling the barn to make sure that it had four good sides, and wasn’t currently in use by anything. Thankfully, it seemed intact and abandoned.

Staying outside, Ryan guarded the entrance while the others dashed inside. Then he joined them and J.B. slammed the door shut with an echoing boom.

Glancing around, Ryan saw that they could have done much worse. There were ventilation spaces in all of the walls, just like any proper barn. But the wood looked solid, and not riddled with worms or termites. There were the rusty outlines of some tools along a wall, and the skeleton of a large, six-legged cow in a stall.

“Ricky, guard the door,” Ryan commanded, pulling out the Steyr. “Everybody else into the hayloft!”

Grabbing their saddlebags of spare ammunition, the rest of the companions began scrambling up an aluminum ladder to the second story.

“Clear!” Krysty reported, a hand holding her side.

“What should I use for cover?” Ricky asked, looking around anxiously.

With an expression of stone, Ryan turned and shot his horse directly in the heart. The animal bucked in surprise at the totally unexpected attack, and limply fell back on the frosty ground.

“Use that,” Ryan stated, going to join the others.

The rest of the companions had already spread out across the hayloft, taking positions behind anything serviceable as cover.

“Clear,” J.B. reported, crouched behind a large coil of rope.

“Same,” Jak stated, standing behind a wooden beam that supported the roof.

“And here they come,” Mildred said calmly, resting her M-16 rapidfire on top of a empty water barrel.

Charging up the hill, the motorcycles immediately spread out at the first sign of the barn. Zigzagging across the snow, they disappeared into the forest.

Then from the other side, the pack of wolves converged on the barn door, pawing and scratching at the old wood, trying to find a way inside.

“Eat this, you cold chillers!” Ricky snarled, firing a fast three times.

Resting on the dead horse, the silenced weapon made barely a sound, but the wood alongside a ventilation space cracked and splintered. Outside, a wolf dropped in the snow surrounded by a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

A moment later there came a flurry of machine-gun fire, and the barn door rattled from the impact of a lot of incoming lead. Hunkering low behind the warm horse, Ricky flinched every time it jerked at the arrival of a bullet.

Scrambling up a ladder to the second floor, Ryan knelt behind a wooden post to check the magazine in the Steyr, then sidled over to the windows. The slats in the louvered shutters were slanted down as protection from the rain, which offered him a perfect view of the area outside the barn.

There came the sound of a revving engine, and a big Harley-Davidson exploded from the bushes charging straight for the barn door. Ryan aimed and fired in a single movement.

With a strangled cry, the fat driver of the bike dropped away, both hands wrapped tightly around the ruin of his throat. Immediately the front wheel veered and the bike flipped over to loudly crash on the snow.

Firing twice more, Ryan put a hole in the fuel tank and another through the dashboard. Sparks flew and the stream of shine caught fire. In only a few seconds the entire machine was engulfed in licking flames, a thick column of black smoke rising high.

Howling and yipping, the wolves moved away, only to try to gain entrance on another side of the ramshackle building, and then another.

“Dark night, they’re well trained,” J.B. commented, triggering the Uzi in short bursts.

A wolf died and another was wounded. But the smell of blood seemed to enrage the beasts, and they came straight back, slamming the old walls with their full weight, as if trying to smash their way inside.

“So are we!” Doc snarled, triggering the assault rifle in short, controlled bursts. The spent brass went flying out the side, to hit the dusty floor and roll away randomly.

“But more of them!” Jak countered, shoving the vented barrel of his blaster through a knothole. “Let’s see if smart!” Leaving the M-16 in place, he went to an open window and started firing his Colt Python.

Catching a sec man dashing between two clumps of bushes, Jak winged the man on the fly. Spinning from the impact of .357 Magnum round, the sec man came up with a boxy Ingram MAC-10 steadily spitting flame.

One of their horses screamed on the ground floor as the wild stream of lead seemed to go everywhere but toward Jak. He responded with a single booming round. With most of his head gone, the sec man outside dropped on top of the weapon, the Ingram still chattering underneath.

“Crappy range,” Jak explained, quickly going behind a post to reload the revolver.

“As if I ever doubted you, young Phoenix,” Doc replied, spraying his assault rifle along the side of the barn. There came the answering yelp of a wounded wolf, then the wall shuddered as something large and heavy crashed into the other side.

“What does that make you, Achilles?” Mildred demanded, stroking the trigger of her weapon rifle. At each shot, a wolf died, then the weapon jammed, a bent brass cartridge sticking out of the ejector port.

“One was the tutor of the other, madam!” Doc replied in a haughty manner, then shuddered as the impromptu tourniquet slipped free and fresh blood pumped from his wound.

“Any second now!” Ryan shouted in warning.

Outside the barn, the saddlebags of the burning motorcycle jumped as a round of spare ammunition ignited from the heat of the flames. Another cartridge cooked off, as did several others in rapid succession, then the saddlebags thunderously blossomed as a ripping fusillade of rounds cut loose.

Everybody dived for cover as the barrage of random lead went flying: trees, bushes, barn, snow and even the corpses jerking from the arrival of hot lead. For a few seconds it sounded like Doomsday. Then the pipe bombs in the saddlebags detonated in unison. The motorcycle disintegrated in a thunderclap, ragged chunks of metal flying out in a wild corona. Branches were knocked off trees by a piston, the drive chain slammed through the wall of the barn in a splintery explosion, a wolf was beheaded by a muffler, and a sec man shrieked in pain.

Stumbling from the bushes, Baron Rushmore was holding the tattered stump of his left arm, a torrent of hot blood pumping from the ghastly wound.

Instinctively, Mildred grabbed her medical kit. “I could save him,” she whispered to nobody in particular, the conflict of professional ethics and moral necessity clearly tearing her soul apart.

“Their thanks for doing that would be to cut your throat,” J.B. said, firing the Uzi into the shaking greenery.

Nodding in understanding, Mildred sagged slightly, then straightened and hurried to the window. Several of the Little Eden sec men were rushing to the aid of the fallen baron, a burly woman yanking off a dirty neckerchief to use as a tourniquet.

With surgical precision, as if she was removing a malignant tumor, Mildred drew the ZKR revolver and shot each of them in the stomach. Cursing at the top of their lungs, the wounded sec men grabbed their crimson bellies in a futile effort to staunch the hot river of life leaving through the gaping hole.

Floundering through the deep snow, Rushmore struggled to reach the burning bike, his bloody arm desperately stretching for the flames to cauterize the ragged end. But halfway there, he simply lay in the snow and went still, his last breath visible in the cold air for a few seconds before it faded away.

“Sometimes you scare me, Dr. Wyeth,” Doc said, thumbing fresh .44 rounds into the LeMat.

Reloading her weapon, Mildred said nothing in reply, her thoughts on the matter deeply private.

With a crash of glass, something hit the far side of the barn, and that spot burst into flames.

“Suck on that, outlanders!” a sec man said loudly.

Molotovs! Ryan had been worried they might be smart enough to think of those.

“If anybody has a clever idea, now is the bastard time to start talking!” he snarled, triggering the Steyr Scout at any shadows moving outside the barn. A wolf yelped in pain, then a sec man cursed, and another fire erupted.

“Give me sec,” Jak said unexpectedly, holstering his blaster.

Rushing to a window, he checked outside. There were bodies and debris everywhere, but directly behind the barn was a smooth vista of pristine snow, aside from a few footprints and tire tracks. The ground sharply angled away in a steep incline, and there was nothing to use as cover for a mile, just flat, smooth snow. It would be suicide for them to try to get away on that side. The sec men would bust a gut laughing at how easy it would be killing the companions as they waddled through the deep snow.

“If you’re thinking about what I think you are...” Krysty warned hesitantly, firing the assault rifle. The 5.56 mm hardball rounds punched clean through the old planks, and she heard the dull thud of a body falling to the ground.

“Got better idea, tell now,” Jak said, grabbing the plywood gate from a stable and ripping it free.

Laying the smooth side on the ground, he added two gates more on top, then started looking around the barn. A sharp whistle caught his attention, and Ryan tossed over a coil of rope. Making the catch, Jak began lashing the three sheets together.

“Are you insane?” J.B. demanded, firing the S&W shotgun. The bushes rattled and a sec man cried out in pain, but there was no high-pitched scream of a confirmed kill.

“Never expect,” Jak muttered, vigorously rubbing a candle across the plywood.

“You got that nuking right!”

“Madness is often the best defense,” Doc said, clambering down from the hayloft to help with the work.

Together, the two men quickly coated the top sheet of wood with a thick layer of candle wax, then Doc liberally used an entire can of precious gun oil.

Flipping the makeshift sled over, they started piling on the saddlebags. The chill was starting to leave the air inside the barn, and the horses were becoming frightened by the growing cloud of smoke. It took both men to control the animals and get the saddlebags without an injury.

While they tied the bags into place, the other companions maintained a strong defense. But in spite of that, two more Molotovs crashed onto the barn, the fire quickly spreading across the old wood.

“Wish we had time for rails,” Jak muttered, looping the straps of the saddlebags around the twisted remains of a broken hinge.

“And I wish we had a fully loaded twentieth-century Apache gunship,” Doc retorted, doing the same thing.

Every side of the barn was ablaze now, the air thick with smoke, and the rest of the companions came down from the hayloft to help with the work.

“We’ll only get one chance at this,” Krysty said, driving a knife into the top sheet of plywood. It went only in halfway, so she used the plastic stock of the assault rifle to hammer it in to the hilt.

“All need,” Jak said, bending to push the sled. Amazingly, it moved rather smoothly across the frozen dirt, then promptly caught on a rock.

Cutting loose with their blasters, Doc and Mildred fired long bursts of lead outside, spent brass flying in high arches, while the others went on their hands and knees to quickly smooth a path toward the rear wall.

“Any grens?” Ryan asked, yanking free some of the rusty remains of a cowbell and tossing it aside.

“One,” J.B. stated. “You?”

“Same.”

“Good enough.”

Taking positions behind the pile of saddlebags, Ryan and J.B. primed the grens, then gently tossed them across the barn. The spheres landed in the dirt directly at the base of the burning rear wall.

“Time to die, outlanders!” a sec man called from somewhere.

A few seconds later a powerful double explosion rattled the entire barn, splintery planks crashing and snapping. Even before the smoke cleared, the companions looked up and the rear wall was gone, broken planks still flying through the air.

Putting their backs to the task, they shoved the crude sled across the floor and out of the barn onto the smooth snow. As it started to build speed, they dived on board. Grabbing on to the looped ropes, they braced for the sled to come apart, or stop moving, or start spinning helplessly around. However, it kept moving, slowly increasing in speed until the barn was a hundred feet away, then two hundred....

“Gaia, it works!” Krysty shouted, both hands tight on a knotted lashing.

Behind them, the horses galloped out of the swirling cloud of smoke, heading in different directions. In ruthless efficiency, the Little Eden sec men gunned down the animals, then started bitterly cursing that there was nobody riding them.

“Sayonara, suckers!” Mildred shouted, making a rude gesture.

The replies from the sec men were lost in the distance, but they seemed to be holding their sides and laughing.

“Why would they do that?” J.B. asked with a scowl.

“Look straight ahead!” Krysty shouted over the rush of the snow.

Craning his neck, J.B. peeked over a saddlebag to see the hill angle sharply downward. If there was an end, it was lost in the distance.

“I think this is a ski trail!” Mildred shouted.

“Is that good?” Ricky asked hopefully.

“No!”

Steadily, their speed accelerated until the trees alongside were only a blur of colors. Loose snow billowed high behind them, forming a wintry contrail that blocked any further view of pursuit.

“If we hit anything at this speed, we’re shit in a can!” J.B. shouted, holding on to the rope with both hands.

Experimentally, Ryan tried lowering his combat boot into the snow behind them to act as a tiller, and possibility regain some small measure of control. As he made contact, the sudden drag almost jerked him free, and Ryan quickly raised the boot.

Just then, the sled hit a bump and all of the companions were tossed into the air. Still clutching the ropes, they came back down hard, the old plywood gate loudly creaking from their combined weight.

“This bloody contraption is falling apart!” Doc yelled, grabbing on to the rattling plank, and trying to hold it in place.

“We may have to jump off!” Krysty yelled, her hair sparkling with an effusion of snowflakes.

“Agreed!”

“Toss supplies first!”

“Cliff!”

Everybody tried to see, and a split second later the sled was airborne. The companions cursed as each of them got the stomach-tingling sensation of uncontrolled flight, then the sled started to angle downward

“Lake below!” Jak shouted in relief.

“Frozen?”

“No!”

“Relax your muscles!” Mildred yelled over the rushing wind. “We’ll break fewer bones!”

“Fewer?” Ricky repeated at the top of his lungs.

“Ricardo, follow the bubbles!” Doc interrupted as the shimmering expanse of blue began to expand underneath them. “When you are under water, do not trust your sense of direction! Follow the bubbles!”

Confused for a moment, the youth then grimly nodded in comprehension.

“Ready...and...jump!” Ryan shouted, releasing the rope. As he did, the wind yanked him away, and chaos filled the universe for an unknown length of time. Then Ryan slammed into icy-cold water.

Chapter Thirteen

Ryan came awake gasping for breath, then a surge of adrenaline flooded his body and he sat up clawing for the SIG-Sauer. The blaster wasn’t on his hip, and he started to curse, when he spotted it lying on a clean cloth alongside his pile of straw.

Taking the weapon, Ryan saw that he was lying on a clean blanket draped over a pile of straw. The makeshift bed was inside a big wooden buckboard wag that had a patched canvas tent stretched over iron hoops, affording a lot of room inside. The other companions were nearby, also lying on piles of straw and blankets. Their boots had been removed, but they were placed next to each person, along with their backpacks and weapons.

Okay, not prisoners, Ryan realized, checking the SIG-Sauer for any tampering.

The weapon was fine, but he was covered with scabs and bruises, some of them turning the most glorious shades of green. The minor injuries were already half healed. Just how long had he been unconscious?

The rest of the wag was filled with an assortment of wicker boxes and wooden barrels. Strapping on his gunbelt, Ryan listened for any conversations, but there was only the gentle murmur of the wind, the crackle of a fire and the muffled noise of horses snorting. This sounded like a campsite.

Rummaging around, he easily found the Steyr and both of his bandoliers. Whoever these people were, he owed them a tremendous debt. When the companions hit the lake, all he remembered was Doc’s last words, and then trying to reach the light overhead, his lungs aching to drag a breath while he was under water.

Shuffled to the rear of the wag, Ryan kept a hand on the holstered handblaster. The buckboard containing the companions was just one of several forming an arc around the remains of a large campfire. Big logs burned through in the middle, but the ends remained untouched. Clearly, a cook fire had been made, and then abandoned. Curious.

There was a score of oxen contentedly eating grass in a nearby field, and a dozen horses tethered to a running line between a couple of large trees. Ox to haul the wag, horses for riders. Ryan felt a chill go down his back. Nobody sane would attack a camp, and leave a valuable prize like these trained animals behind.

Just then, somebody in the wag coughed and rose from his or her bed.

It was Krysty.

Ryan smiled. He was immensely pleased to see that she appeared fine, just decorated with a variety of bruises and scrapes as colorful as his own. More importantly, all of her clothing was intact, and in the proper order. She hadn’t been harmed in any way.

Stiffly moving forward, Krysty looked across the deserted campsite. “What happened, lover?” she whispered, a hand resting on the S&W blaster tucked into her belt.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said honestly. “But my best guess would be that some travelers gave us shelter and then...” He shrugged.

Frowning deeply, Krysty went back to her bed and started pulling on her cowboy boots. “Where are the rapid-fires?”

“Over here,” Ryan said, gesturing to a wicker hamper filled with their assault rifles, magazines and loose ammunition. Everything was in fine condition, and the longblaster appeared to have been thoroughly cleaned and oil.

“At least we weren’t jacked,” Krysty said, reclaiming her weapon. “Or anything else.”

“Good to know,” Ryan said, and pulled her close for a fast kiss. It lasted longer than expected.

“Ahem! I see we’re not prisoners of anybody this time,” Mildred asked, sitting upright and brushing her beaded plaits off her face.

“Honored guests would be more like it,” Krysty said, standing at the mouth of the wag, one hand on a curved wooden rib. “Only our hosts seem to have vanished.”

“Trap?” Jak growled suspiciously. The young man almost seemed alien in just pants and shirt. His camouflage jacket hung from a peg in one of the wooden ribs holding up the tent.

“Funny kind of trap where you heal the prisoners, and arm them.” J.B. snorted, pulling on his glasses.

“Just because we have blasters,” Doc rumbled, “does not mean that we are armed, John Barrymore.”

Realizing the brutal sense of that statement, Ryan quickly field-stripped the SIG-Sauer to check for any missing parts, or blockage in the barrel. But the weapon was in perfect condition. Remarkably so, considering it had gone swimming with him in that icy lake.

As an experiment, Ryan aimed at a distant tree and squeezed the trigger. The gun softly coughed, the baffled suppressor working, and an old bird’s nest exploded into a hundred pieces.

“We’re armed,” Ryan stated, holstering the blaster.

“Wonder how long we’ve been out?” Ricky said, glancing outside. “There’s no sign of any lake in the area that I can see.”

“Days, mebbe longer,” Ryan said, thoughtfully scratching a cheek. Fireblast, he thought, had somebody shaved him?

“Must of stunk worse stickie,” Jak said, slipping on his jacket. “Everything washed. Hope no one hurt by razor in collar.”

“Even my wounded leg has been tended,” Doc said, gently fingering the area. “The hole in my pants has been patched, and I can feel a bandage underneath the cloth.”

“Better let me see,” Mildred commanded, grabbing her medical bag. “Get them off.”

“Really now, madam,” he huffed. “I feel fine.”

“Drop your pants, Doc!”

Muttering under his breath, Doc stood and undid his belt—which had been restored to its proper place—to let his pants fall to his ankles.

Leaning close to his thigh, Mildred inspected the white cloth bandage, then ripped it off without a warning. Caught off guard, Doc used a four-letter word that most of the gentlemen from his time normally pretended didn’t even exist.

“Beautiful,” Mildred said, running her fingertips across his skin.

“Madam, please!”

“I meant the needlework.” She laughed, looking upward. “Whoever stitched your wound closed did an excellent job. This was done by a pro with a nice tight hand.”

“May I get dressed?”

“With all due haste,” Mildred said, turning away. “I’ll just pretend that’s a morning glory, and you weren’t getting fresh.”

Utterly mortified, Doc glanced down to see it wasn’t true, and made an inarticulate noise. “Most amusing,” he growled, pulling up his pants. “Your career in vaudeville remains intact.”

She grinned. “Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Try a waitress, they’re delicious.”

Warily, everybody checked themselves over and found only the expected collection of bruises and scrapes, expected from the long battle in the mountains.

“Half healed,” Jak said, scowling at a greenish bruise. “How long?”

“Four days,” Mildred stated. “And they used some sort of a liniment on us to ease the pain.”

“Damn!”

“Well said. If nothing else, I want a bottle of that for us.”

Gathering their weapons, the companions next descended upon the stores of food. Their own supplies were present, along with a lot of dried kelp, smoked fish, jerked fish, salted fish in pepper sauce, fish sausage, and loaves of bread with tiny pieces of fish and kelp cooked inside.

“I think our hosts live near water,” J.B. said, ripping off a chunk of the bread and swallowing it nearly unchewed.

“That much is certain,” Ryan said, gnawing on a piece of acorn bread. “It would also explain how they found us in that lake.”

“Cold,” Jak said with a shiver.

“Like the heart of a baron,” Doc rumbled in agreement, nibbling on a smoked trout.

“So where are they now?” Krysty mumbled around a mouthful of kelp, her hair expanding and curling. “Our hosts, I mean. Makes no sense to patch us up, then abandon us in the middle of nowhere.”

Nobody spoke for a few minutes, and the question hung heavy in the air. Outside the wag, the warm wind ruffled through the trees, carrying the smell of green growing plants. Softly, thunder rumbled, warning of an approaching storm.

“Well, I’m damned glad nobody suggested just taking the wagons and leaving,” Mildred sighed, screwing the cap back on a canteen.

“Can’t steal from friends” Jak stated, cutting a slice of cheese from a large wheel. “Even those don’t know.”

“Well said, Mr. Lauren!” Doc exhorted, smiling proudly at the young man. “The Bard himself could not have put it more succinctly.”

“We must be far away from that snow,” Ricky smiled, wiping his mouth on a sleeve. “I can’t even see any mountains in the distance!”

“I can,” Krysty said, squinting at the horizon. “But they are very far away, past that forest. A week or mebbe more on foot.”

Going to the edge of the wag, Ryan jumped to the ground. It was only a yard, but he went to a knee. Slowly standing, he flexed his muscles, checking for any unusual aches. But he felt fine. Just weak.

In short order, the rest of the companions joined him on the ground, stretching and cracking their joints.

“Okay, let’s recce the place,” Ryan suggested, drawing, leveling the Steyr.

With their weapons at the ready, the companions walked slowly around the campsite, checking into each of other wag. They expected to find corpses inside, blood splatter, or spent brass, but all of the buckboard wagons were empty, aside from some neatly rolled bedding and wicker baskets full of camping gear. Supplies for a dozen people. Adults, no children.

“The people are gone, but the horses remain,” J.B. said, adjusting his fedora to a more comfortable position. “Can’t be slavers or cannies, or they’d also have taken us, too.”

“Yeah, I don’t like this,” Ryan stated, sucking on a hollow tooth. “Either, the travelers went to some place so close that horses weren’t needed or...”

“Yes?” Mildred asked hopefully.

But the man merely shrugged in reply.

“Tether line for twelve horses,” Jak said, pointing. “One missing.”

“Okay, the boss rode while the others walked behind,” Mildred stated, resting the stock of the M-16 on a hip. “That sounds like a hunting party.”

“Or another rescue,” Ryan said.

“From the condition of the campfire, I’d say our hosts left about an hour ago, maybe less?”

“Sounds right,” Ryan said. “The second group, anyway.”

“The only reason the guard would leave,” Krysty said slowly, testing the words, “would be to check on the others of their group.”

“Left because we not kin,” Jak stated, straightening his jacket. Flexing his hands, knives dropped into his palms. He flipped them once in the air, then returned the knives up the sleeves.

“I’m liking this less all the time,” J.B. said, swinging around his shotgun to check the load. “We better find these folks fast, before they’re riding the last train west.”

“Or worse,” Doc grumbled, leaning on his swordstick.

“That loads my blaster,” Ryan stated, scratching under his eyepatch for a moment.

Apparently, even the old leather had been cleaned, but there was a soapy residue left behind that was itching like crazy. Removing the patch, Ryan spit on the leather and rubbed it clean on his pants before putting it back. Much better.

“First thing, we need to rebuild the campfire,” J.B. said. “The sun is already low in the sky, and we’ll need some sort of a guide to find this place again in the dark.”

“Done,” Doc said, limping away.

“Exactly where are we, anyway?” Mildred asked. “Is this still New Hampshire?”

Extracting the mini-sextant from under his shirt, J.B. shot the sun, split the horizon and did some rough mental calculations. “Still in New Hampshire,” he announced. “Just a little farther east than we intended to go.”

“The location changes nothing,” Ryan growled, working the arming bolt on the Steyr. “The travelers saved our butts, so let’s return the favor. Everybody sweep the perimeter, standard two-on-two formation. Let’s find their tracks.”

“Or tracks of who took,” Jak said, “but left us.”

Softly, thunder rumbled into the nearby mountains, and lighting flashed between the dense orange clouds.

“Rain coming,” J.B. muttered, shaking the excess water off his glasses. “I don’t smell sulfur so it’s probably not acid rain.”

“But we better hurry or the tracks will be washed away,” Krysty added as lightning flashed in the distance.

Sweeping the perimeter of the campsite, the tracks were easy to find, the travelers obviously not attempting to hide them in any way.

Proceeding on foot, the companions covered a good mile through flowering fields and lush grasslands before spotting something over the horizon.

At first, it just seemed to be a weathervane a long distance away, but as they came closer it was soon apparent that the thing wasn’t a device for telling the direction of the wind.

“Those are propellers,” Mildred said in surprise. “But much too big for a helicopter....my God, is that a boat?”

“Ship,” Jak corrected as the bulk of the destroyer came into view.

Sticking straight up from the ground like a tent peg, the colossal Navy vessel rose several hundred feet into the air. Vines and creepers covered most of the ship, along with countless bird nests, the accumulated streaks of old feces effectively masking the structure.

“A battleship!” J.B. tilted back his fedora. “Man, oh man, if that’s even relatively intact, we can salvage all sorts of things.”

Studying the ground, Ryan scowled. “Jak, the horse trail and footprints lead straight here?”

“Both.”

“Okay, the first group went on a recce, or a salvage, makes no difference,” Ryan stated, studying the boat. “And when they were late coming back, the second group went to check on them, and also disappeared.”

“I smell a trap,” Doc stated with a dour expression. “Yet honor demands we find our unknown benefactors at any cost.”

“Or chill the bastards who aced them,” Krysty said in a stern tone.

“Without a doubt,” Mildred told her, “you are the most dangerous pacifist I have ever known.”

Walking along, Krysty thought about that for a moment. “Thank you?”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome, my friend.”

However, the battleship was a lot farther away than the companions had first guessed, the sheer size of the monolithic vessel throwing off their perspective.

The gently rolling fields of grass around the vessel had a familiar rippling pattern that told the companions this was more nukescaping. Scattered around the plants were rusted pieces of unrecognizable machinery that steadily got larger.

At the base of a low hillock, they found an old packhorse tethered to a stand of willow trees. A roan mare, the animal was standing with her head bowed, and she was foaming slightly at the mouth. The ground around the animal was bare of any grass, and even the bark of the tree had clearly been chewed by the starving animal.

Hurrying closer, Jack poured some water from a canteen into his palm, and let the mare lap a little.

“Not too much, or it’ll come back up,” Mildred warned.

“Know that,” Jak said, gently stroking the horse.

The mare was almost too weak to drink, but the water seemed to give her strength, and the young man fed her most of the canteen, a little at a time.

Meanwhile, Ricky and Doc ferried over several armloads of green grass and piled them at the base of the trees.

The mare nickered in delight at the food, then started munching away.

“The travelers expected to haul away something,” Krysty said, checking inside a saddlebag. “This is full of empty canvas bags.”

“Brass,” Ricky stated, as if that ended the discussion.

“A sage observation,” Doc rumbled, resting the M-16 on his shoulder. “Lord knows they have enough fish to feed Poseidon, so they must be here for weaponry. But it could be the ship itself they desire. Predark metals are enormously stronger than anything a Deathlands smithy can forge with charcoal and a billows.”

“Yeah, better keep the packhorse tethered,” Ryan said, watching the area for anything suspicious. “We may need her for the ride back to the camp.”

J.B. looked at the colossal ship rising upward from just the other side of the hillock. This close, the companions could see that the battleship was relatively intact, just seriously crumbled, the middle span actually folded together like an accordion. The main blasters were still attached, but twisted around to point in crazy directions.

“Sure, we can handle whatever got the travelers,” he said softly, working the pump action of his M-4000 shotgun.

Assuming a defensive formation, the companions swept up the hillock, each pair watching the other.

Cresting the top, they crouched low to study the area beyond. Spreading in front of them was an obvious impact crater, the grass smooth and level for a hundred feet. Smack in the center of it rose the battleship, the prow deep underground.

“It must have fallen straight out of the sky after some Navy base got nuked,” Ryan added, cradling the Steyr.

Most of the battleship was covered in ivy, the companions tightening the grip on their weapons at the sight of any leafy vines. Countless small bird nests were clustered on every flat surface, especially what remained of the control island.

Incredibly, all of the glass in the windows was still present, demonstrating that they had to have been made of some sort of plastic, and not glass. But all were solid white from decades of accumulated avian excrement.

The remains of machine guns, radar dishes, and even the depth charges were still in place, just so heavily corroded their original shapes could be determined by sheer guesswork. Bright yellow lifeboats edged the deck, many of them swinging freely from old chains to creak softly as they swayed in the breeze.

“Why isn’t it crushed into the size of a pancake?” Ricky asked suspiciously.

“Anything from the modern Navy would have been,” Mildred said. “Satellites and speed were considered the best defense in my time.”

“But these old Nuke War ships were monsters,” J.B. said with an odd note of pride in his voice. “I’ve seen hulls that were three-feet thick.”

“How could it possibly float with a hull that thick?” Ricky asked.

“Now, according to Archimedes—” Doc said, then abruptly stopped when he saw the annoyed expressions of the other companions. “Trust me, they just did,” he finished lamely.

“A yard of solid metal, reinforced by deck plates and a frame of welded girders...” Krysty noted, her voice trailing off in thought. “Saw something like this once before, but it was sticking out of a mountain, and impossible to reach.”

“Amazing. I wasn’t aware the Navy had any of these still in service back in my time,” Mildred said, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “Maybe it was a training vessel, or in a maritime museum.”

“No live ammunition then?” Ryan asked.

She frowned. “Probably not. Maybe a little to teach the swabbies how to operate the old-fashioned cannons just for the sake of tradition. Ships were switching entirely over to missiles in my day. They didn’t use guns anymore.”

“Why?” Ricky asked, unable to take his eyes off the towering metal giant.

“Well, missiles were lighter, went farther and hit harder,” Mildred explained, “and with better accuracy.”

“Fair enough,” Ricky said. “Let’s go!”

“Tracks lead straight to,” Jak said, pointing at the smooth field of grass.

“Are there any tread marks or oil spills?” Ryan asked, looking over the smooth grass. He was an expert hunter, but Jak’s skills at tracking were amazing.

“Tread marks? You think this wreck might be guarded by droids?”

“Clear, just boots,” Jak slowly, studying the ground with half-closed eyes.

“Good. Then lead the way,” Ryan commanded. “We go in the same place they did.”

“So if trap, we find?”

“Yeah.”

In the background, the thunder rumbled again, louder and closer.

“Not sure about the wisdom of going inside a giant metal ship during a lightning storm,” Doc said.

“These big bastards got hit by lighting all the time at sea,” J.B. retorted with a snort. “They’re safe enough once we’re inside.”

“Indeed, as always, the devil is in the details,” Doc said as thunder sounded once more.

“If we encounter a droid, shoot the eyes,” Krysty said, switching the assault rifle to single shot. “Then run like nuking hell.”

All across the ship, birds rustled in their nests, and sang sweet songs of warning. Several of them took flight, but most of the birds stayed, concerned, but not overly frightened at the arrival of the humans.

Reaching the vertical deck, Ryan experienced a second of vertigo, then his mind adjusted to the perspective of standing upright in front of something that should be underfoot.

“Dizzy,” Ricky said, shaking his head.

The vines hung thick along this section of the deck, and Doc reached out to finger one of them.

“Fake,” he announced softly, looking up the vine. It went straight into a dark hatchway, the door hanging open. “This is actually a knotted rope, the leaves are plastic.”

“A secret entrance,” J.B. said with a broad smile. “There surely is something here that the travelers wanted just for themselves.”

“And something too big to get all at once,” Krysty added. “Mebbe they’re not hauling something away, but repairing the nuke reactor.”

Quickly, both Ryan and J.B. checked their rad counters.

“All clear,” Ryan stated, slinging the Steyr over a shoulder. “Okay, I’m on point. J.B. is next and Krysty last. Doc and Ricky, stay here to guard our backs.”

“Here take this,” Mildred said, passing him a small flashlight.

Pumping the attached handle several times, Ryan pressed the switch and the old bulb gave off a weak beam, barely visibly in the daylight. “Better than a candle,” he commented, tucking the device into a shirt pocket.

The climb was easy, the knots large and well spaced. When he was near the hatchway, Ryan paused to listen for any movements, then proceeded inside as fast as possible. He rolled off the rope onto the sideways wall with the SIG-Sauer in one hand and the Steyr in the other.

Reflected light came through the doorway at their feet, but it faded quickly into the gloom. Beyond that was a stygian blackness. Checking the flashlight in his pocket, Ryan saw that it had gone out. Pumping the handle produced no results, and he cast it away. After so many years, the device had finally died. Finding a new bulb would be next to impossible.

Lighting a candle, just for a moment, Ryan thought that he heard a low moan of pain, then J.B. climbed into view.

“Nuking long climb,” he grunted, squeezing through the hatchway.

“Or mebbe you’ve had one too many burritos,” Ryan suggested in friendly ribbing.

“Screw you, Ryan. We hardly ever get to chow down that much!”

Then Mildred appeared, huffing and puffing. “Long climb,” she wheezed, squeezing through the hatchway.

J.B. offered her a hand inside, then they moved away as Jak easily climbed into the ship, closely followed by Krysty.

“Hey, what happened to my flashlight?” Mildred demanded.

“Dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead. Candle?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t like this,” Krysty said, glancing around the thick maze of shadows. “With all of these metal walls, we could easily get chilled by one of our own ricochets.”

“Then not miss,” Jak suggested, peeking into an open doorway. Inside, was a sideways bathroom.

“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that,” Krysty muttered, raising her candle to check the overhead wall. There were deep deposits of a black residue.

Prodding it with a fingertip, she took a sniff. “The travelers used pitch torches in here,” Krysty said.

“Found them,” Mildred whispered, waving a hand.

Partially hidden behind a stanchion was a plastic bucket filled with sticky pitch and two wooden broom handles. Pulling them out, the companions lit the torches with their butane lighters.

Spitting and popping, the torches gave off a lot of bright light, the smoke rising to the wall overhead and crawling away to disappear into a tiny room full of rusted machinery.

Following the smoke stains on the wall above them, the companions carefully proceeded into the huge vessel. Rats and insects had chewed on everything edible over the years, rendering the organic furnishings unrecognizable debris. Only the occasional belt buckle remained in the litter, reflecting the torchlight like rectangular eyes. There were no bodies, but even under the best of conditions those would have crumbled into dust after a hundred years or so.

It was difficult for Ryan to get his bearing inside the sideways vessel, his mind kept trying to realign everything. The deck was now a wall, the walls were floors, the doorways open holes into darkness. Ladders and fireman poles were impossible to use. The angle completely wrong, they now were crossbars blocking the way. But some of the stairs were still serviceable, if you walked careful and slow.

Miles seemed to go by as they penetrated deep into the battleship. Twice, they lost the trail and had to go back to try other corridors, and once the smoke led them directly to a set of stairs rigged with a high-explosives mine. The trap was crude, and easily deactivated, but now they went slower, and more carefully. Apparently the travelers hadn’t wanted anybody else to share in their find. Whatever it was.

Spotting a wall locker overhead marked with the standard symbol for Emergency, Krysty warily pried it open and stepped back as several plastic-wrapped bundles dropped out.

“Are those survival packs?” Mildred asked in surprise.

“Seems so,” Krysty said, pulling out a knife. “Sometimes it pays to be literate.”

Ripping off the plastic wrapping, she unearthed several plastic mirrors for flashing at passing planes, sheathed knives, tubes of shark repellent, bottled water, fishing nets, suntan lotion, saline pills, ten MRE food packs, a flare gun and a full box of flares.

“Damn, most of these are dead,” J.B. said, inspecting the flares and tossing some away. “But these four are still live.” He tucked them and the pistol into his munitions bag.

“Those food packs still intact?” Ryan asked, glancing around the darkness for any reactions to the discovery. But the great ship was as quiet as an undiscovered tomb.

“Two of them have pinholes in the Mylar,” Mildred said, tossing those into the corner. “But the rest are undamaged.”

“Excellent. Self-heats?”

“No, just food packs.”

“Good enough.”

On the next level, loose cables dangled everywhere, along with piles of smashed electrical equipment, debris, swivel chairs still bolted to the vertical floor.

“Auxiliary command?” Ryan asked, holding his torch closer to a detailed wall map showing the coastline of somewhere. Everything was neatly labeled, but the unknown language didn’t even give a hint to the ship’s home port.

“Or fire control,” Mildred replied. “Even these old monsters used a lot of electronics for targeting. The main guns had a range of twenty miles.”

“But only see eight miles at sea,” Jak said, impressed. “Shoot over horizon?”

“With amazing accuracy.”

Returning to the main corridor, the companions were somewhere near the middle of the vessel when there came a loud boom from outside and the entire ship trembled slightly.

“I think that we just got hit by lightning.” Krysty gasped as the emergency lights over the exits briefly flickered into life...only to die away again.

“The primary wiring is still intact,” Ryan said in surprise. “Mebbe you’re right about them fixing the reactor, after all.”

“Power can mean droids,” J.B. told them as there came another boom and the lights flickered once more.

“If we encounter a sec hunter droid, we leave,” Ryan stated coldly. “This is a bad place for a fight. We owe the travelers a lot, but not everything.”

Thunder boomed again, and there came the distant sound of rain. Moments later a cool breeze blew through the corridor, carrying the clean smell of fresh rain.

“Whew, not acid,” Jak exhaled. “Worried about Doc and Ricky.”

“The old coot is a pain in my ass, but he has enough sense to stay out of the acid rain,” Mildred said, then paused to turn toward a side corridor, her nose twitching. “Does anybody else smell blood?”

“I do.” Leading the way, Ryan entered an office of some kind, a pile of furniture pushed into a corner: desk, file cabinets and comps, all smashed into a nearly unrecognizable jumble. A murky light came from a porthole in the wall, the unbreakable plastic window mostly obscured by overlapping layers of bird shit.

Lifting open a desk drawer, Jak scowled at the sight of a broken bottle, the labeled faded into obscurity, but he recognized the design as a famous Scottish brewery. Another drawer yielded only crumbling papers, rusty paper clips and an open box of pencils.

“I can use those!” Mildred said, using a rubber band to bind the pencils together before tucking them into her medical bag.

“Here!” Jak said, kneeling on the wall.

There were several revolvers scattered around a navigational chart, along with a fully loaded crossbow.

“No blood splatter,” Mildred said, looking around. “The travelers must have been taken alive.”

Ryan frowned. “Or ran away.”

“Think it’s another vine master?”

“I hope not,” Krysty added softly, her posture bent forward slightly as if she was about to burst into a run.

“Sense anything?” J.B. asked.

“Too much,” she replied, rubbing a temple. “With so many people dying so violently inside the ship...”

Taking a revolver from the wall, Ryan cracked open the cylinder and checked inside. “Not fired,” he said, closing the weapon with a snap of the wrist. “They were caught by surprise.”

“Is that a Chinese blaster?”

“Sure enough.”

“Coldhearts want same as travelers,” Jak stated, then frowned. “Why not chill here?”

“And who leaves working blasters behind?” J.B. asked. “That makes no sense at all unless—” A cough sounded in the darkness, and something flew across the office to hit the Armorer in the throat.

Staggering backward, J.B. crashed into the desk. His glasses came off as he collapsed against a wall, the Uzi tumbling away, his fingers feebly twitching.

Chapter Fourteen

Rushing to J.B., Mildred plucked a small feathery dart from his throat and cast it aside.

“Blowgun!” Jak snarled, firing a long burst of the M-16 into the opposite doorway.

The stuttering muzzle-flash illuminated the darkness in every direction, briefly revealing a naked woman covered with garish tattoos, and holding a long bamboo pipe. The perfectly imbalanced 5.56 mm tumblers stitched a line of red geysers across her body, and she went spinning away to slam into a wall, then dropped from sight into the shadows.

“John’s alive and awake,” Mildred said quickly, pouring raw shine over the tiny wound. “The drug, or whatever it is, only seems to induce a kind of temporary paralysis.”

Raised voices could be heard, and a drum began loudly beating.

Yanking out a gren, Mildred pulled the pin and started to throw it where the female vanished, then stopped. “Goddammit, some of the travelers might still be alive!” Reluctantly, Mildred put the pin back and stuffed the gren into a pocket.

“Make a backblast!” Ryan commanded, dropping the Steyr to grab a file cabinet and fling it toward the open doorway. It landed in a loud crash, and a drawer popped free to land near J.B.’s outstretched hand.

As Krysty dragged the man to safety, the rest of the companions threw everything they could on top of the desk until there was a huge pile of debris that completely blocked the doorway.

A few moments later, excited voices could be heard on the other side. Then a comp monitor was yanked away, and a man’s face peeked through. He was covered with tattoos, with his teeth filed to needle points.

Cannies!

Firing from the hip, Ryan shot the cannie between the eyes. As the dead man fell back, Mildred tossed her gren through the opening, and Jak stuffed a chair in the opening.

On the other side of the crude barricade, the companions could hear angry shouting as the metallic sphere loudly bounced along the metal walls. Then a powerful detonation rocked the area, hellish light ripping away the darkness, as the explosion shoved back the pile of furniture.

Even before the reverberations of the blast finished echoing along the maze of metal corridors, the companions rushed forward.

The steaming bodies of cannies were in tatters, but enough chunks of them remained for Ryan to see the men and women were in fact not naked, but were wearing skintight outfits of a pale material that made them appear nude.

“Camou?” Jak asked with a frown.

“Tight clothing like this won’t snag on anything while climbing through wreckage,” Mildred explained, checking the belt pouch of a headless torso. “It’s called a combat suit.”

Warily, Mildred extracted a small leather bag from the pouch, and dumped out the contents. “This vessel isn’t American, but Chinese. Lord alone knows how it got this close to the East Coast.”

“Still crew,” Jak confirmed.

“No, these can’t be the descendants of the crew, or else they’d have raided the survival packs years ago,” Ryan stated. “These are outlanders who made a home in the battleship. Lots of people would come to recce this place.”

“Meals on wheels,” Mildred said under her breath, pawing through the assortment of wooden darts and slim bamboo vials. Each of them was stopped up with a piece of hard rubber clearly carved of a car tire, one of them still had tread.

“I beg your pardon?” Krysty asked, swinging the M-16 back and forth to try to cover both doorways.

“Food delivered to your home,” Mildred said, putting the bamboo vials into her medical bag. “Damn it, the cannies are only carrying more of the same toxin. There’s no sign of an antidote!”

“Why carry? Not want food wake early,” Jak observed in cold logic.

Something skittered in the darkness just outside the nimbus of the flashlight, and all of the companions cut loose in various directions in case it was a diversion. A piercing scream of pain announced a kill, and in reply two blowgun darts smacked into the walls behind them.

“Okay, Mildred will stay with J.B.,” Ryan ordered. “We’ll hunt for the travelers. If we’re not back in ten, leave.”

The ZKR already in her hand, Mildred frowned. “But—”

“That was not a request, Mildred,” the man snapped, turning to advance into the darkness.

Reaching an intersection, Ryan ducked under a set of stairs, then swept past a large pump set in the middle of the corridor for no known reason.

This section of corridor was surprisingly clear of debris. Immediately suspicious, Ryan spun just as a cannie dropped from a hole in the ceiling behind him. A blowgun was already in his mouth. But as the man sharply inhaled through his nose, Krysty shot him in the belly.

With a startled gasp, the cannie stumbled backward over the pump housing, then started choking from the dart lodged in his throat. As he fell, Ryan shot him in the face to end the matter. Then the companions raced on, zigzagging through the dark maze of sideways corridors, inverted deck and compressed hatchways.

Trying to follow the beat of the drums, Ryan quickly realized that it was moving the same as them.

“Fireblast, we’ve been chasing each other around in circles!” Ryan growled angrily. “We need to find someplace to hide, and let them come to us.”

“Here!” Jak whispered, gesturing with his assault rifle.

Off to the side was a tilted door, the condition clearly indicating that the companions were dangerously near the section of the battleship that had compressed from the impact of the fall.

With Krysty and Jak standing guard on either flank, Ryan eased inside, then tossed his torch forward. It landed near a jumbled pile of tables and chairs.

“This must be the galley,” Krysty stated. “Can’t think of a better place to ace cannies.”

“That was our initial thought, too,” a woman said from the shadows.

Diving away from each other, the companions came up with their weapons primed.

“Damn, you’re fast,” a man said from within a pool of darkness. “Now don’t start blasting! I’d hate to be chilled by the very weapon I pulled out of the mud and helped clean.”

Travelers? “We don’t talk to shadows,” Ryan growled. “Now, step into the light, or I’ll chill you where you stand.”

A moment passed, then another.

“Fair enough, I suppose.” The man sighed.

There came the rustle of clothing, and two people appeared in the torchlight. The man was huge, heavily muscled, with callused hands that seemed made for killing. There was an AK-47 assault rifle cradled in his arms, the barrel tipped with a long bayonet, the razor-sharp edges blackened with candle soot.

Alongside him stood a woman, small and slim, with wide eyes and a generous mouth. She had a small automatic handblaster tucked in a canvas shoulder holster, a machete at her side, and a U.S. Mail bag slung across her chest.

If there were more people behind them, none came forward.

“Nice to see you folks up and around,” the man said, resting the assault rifle on a shoulder. “I’ll assume it was you chilling cannies that I heard earlier?”

“A question first,” Ryan said, the Steyr rock-steady in a two-handed grip. “How many animals are at the campsite?”

“Animals, or horses?” the woman asked in a rich, velvety voice.

“Don’t be a smartass, Nye,” the man scolded. “He wants to know if we’re cannies pretending to be norms, or the folks who pulled them out of the lake.”

“Oh, of course, Colonel,” Nye replied, hunching her shoulders in embarrassment.

“Colonel?” Jak asked.

“Colonel Cameron Fife, sec chief for Concord ville.” He waited for a reaction, and when none came the man continued. “Concord...Baron Linderholm?”

“Sorry, never heard of him,” Krysty said politely.

“Not from these parts, eh?” Fife observed, then jerked a thumb to the right. “Anyway, this is Jody-Lynn Nye, our chief healer.”

“The only healer!” she said defiantly.

“Same difference.”

Somewhere in the distance, a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the metal confines of the battleship until it sounded like an entire village of people was being horribly tortured to death.

“Ignore it,” Fife scoffed. “That’s just the cannies trying to lure us out of hiding.”

“Says you,” Ryan stated gruffly. “Last chance.”

Fife frowned, then accepted the rebuff. “Okay, we have eleven horses tethered at the camp,” he stated. “Plus, twenty oxen. Also, I left an old roan mare named Gertie tied to a willow tree near a hillock. She’s got white socks, a scar on her left ear, likes carrots and farts a lot. Good enough?”

“No,” Krysty said, still partially hidden behind the steel doorway. “Tell us about your food.”

“Clever,” Nye said with a slow smile. “The last thing a cannie would notice is the grub. Let’s see, we brought along fish, fish, fish and more fish. Plus, bread...with a little fish in it. That enough?”

“Almost,” Jak said. “If doc, what color eye under patch?”

Instinctively, Ryan touched the leather patch.

“Damn, you’re suspicious folks,” Fife grumbled.

“There is no eye,” Nye stated, a hand on her mailbag. “Just a hole. Looks like a knife wound. Done with a stiletto most likely. One stroke, from a left-handed norm. But I could be wrong.”

“You’re not,” Ryan said with a humorless smile, swinging away the Steyr. Then he offered a hand. “The name’s Ryan Cawdor, and this is Krysty Wroth and Jak Lauren.”

“Thanks for saving our lives,” Krysty said, lowering her blaster, but keeping it in her hand.

“Glad to help,” Fife said as they shook.

“Nice to finally have a name to the face I shaved,” Nye added, smiling sweetly.

“You did a good job, too,” Krysty stated, running a palm along Ryan’s cheek.

Taking the hint, Nye shrugged and looked away.

“Any more of you?” Ryan asked, returning to business.

“Just us,” Fife muttered, touching a bloody bandage on his arm. “Those damn darts got the rest of my people. I think some of them are still alive, but the rest...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Try rescue with just two?” Jak asked incredulously.

The colonel shrugged. “At the moment, she’s all I have.”

“Besides, any decent healer also knows how to chill,” Nye stated, patting the sleek .32 Ruger blaster in her shoulder holster.

“Glad to hear it,” Ryan said.

“Got antidote for darts?” Jak asked.

Nye frowned. “Sorry, there is none. But it wears off in an hour.”

“Damn.”

Just then there came a flurry of raised voices in the distance, and something exploded.

“Another trick?” Krysty asked with a scowl, her hair flexing.

Fascinated, Nye stared at the woman, while the colonel didn’t seem to notice it at all.

“Just a booby, what my grandpop called a landmine,” Fife said. “We managed to plant a few as diversions before coming here.”

“The cannies won’t come here,” Nye stated, her brow furrowing.

“Why?”

In reply, Nye lifted the torch from the floor to illuminate the ceiling.

“Gaia...” Krysty whispered, her hair going motionless.

The floor had been removed from the galley, joining it to the room above, so that the two would make one huge area. Lining the distant ceiling were rows of human torsos hanging from chains. All of the limbs had been removed, along with the heads, the internal organs and the skin.

“This is their larder,” Fife said, curling a lip in disgust, “for lack of a better word.”

“Triple smart,” Ryan said, impressed. “This is the last place the cannies would check for invaders. This is where everybody else is trying to stay out of.”

Fife almost smiled at that. “You think like a sec man, Cawdor.”

“Thanks, and the name’s Ryan.”

“Cam, to my friends,” the colonel stated. “So, we here for the same reason?”

“We are,” Ryan said, “if it’s to rescue your people and chill cannies.”

“That loads my blaster.”

“Saved our lives,” Jak stated. “Repay.”

“Oh, the sins of honor are paid in blood, both by mortal men and the gods above,” Nye said in a singsong voice, as if quoting a poem.

“Something like that,” Ryan agreed, pausing to listen for any sounds in the outside corridor.

“Hear something?” Fife asked, swinging up the AK-47 assault rifle.

Ryan started to reply when he noticed that the man and woman were both wearing clothing in a camouflage pattern—dark green mixed with splotches of brown and black. Perfect for hunting in a forest.

“At least they’re not wearing green, like that Granite Empire sec man back at the clearing,” Krysty said. “Cam, I think we have a mutual enemy.”

“Yeah, that bitch Angstrom,” Fife agreed. “We intercepted a carrier pigeon that said the king was dead.”

A piercing shriek ripped through the darkness, the anguished cry echoing along the steel corridors.

“Nuking hell, that’s Davis!” Fife snarled. “It’s not a trick this time. They’re cooking one of my men alive.” He stared at the three companions. “The two of us didn’t have a fragging chance of getting anybody out alive, but with five blasters...” He paused expectantly.

“Lead the way,” Ryan replied, hefting the Steyr.

Charging out of the galley, Fife and Nye bolted through the darkness as if intimately familiar with every inch of the convoluted corridors. The companions followed along as best they could, hoping the light from their torches wouldn’t impede the rescue attempt.

Reaching an inverted set of stairs, Fife climbed them like a monkey, then grabbed an overhead pipe and swung himself through an oval doorway. Nye and the companions stayed right on his heels.

Crawling along the support beam of a loading crane, Ryan and the others looked down into the cargo bay. Even sideways, it was still enormous, all of the former crates and boxes removed to form an open circle in the middle.

This was obviously a new site for the cannies, as they had canvas hammocks slung from bolts in the wall, with wicker baskets underneath filled with personal possessions: sneakers, knives and a lot of human scalps.

More importantly, draped with gray canvas, a dozen cannies were hidden on top of the ring of crates. Armed with crossbows, they were obviously waiting for the invaders to come charging in through the angled doors.

“Feebs,” Nye muttered, covering the slide of her handblaster with a hand to try to mask the sound as she chambered a round.

“They think us,” Jak whispered, switching the assault rifle to full-auto.

Inside the circle of crates, five members of a sec team were hanging from sideways poles, their wrists lashed together on top. Helpless, the captives were suspended by their bound wrists, the positions clearly designed to be as painful as possible. The sec team had been stripped, men and women, the skin covered with lash marks, and a few shallow bites.

That invoked an unwanted comparison to the larder, and Ryan fought back a surge of temper. Only cold and precise actions would save these people now. A berserker attack would only get all of them chilled. They had to stay calm, think first, then move fast.

In the center of the circle was a large bonfire made of tree branches and assorted small pieces of wooden furniture. His wrist and ankles chained together, a naked man was suspended over the crackling flames, the smoke rising upward to crawl along a sideways wall and out a buckled hatchway.

“Davis,” Fife said unnecessarily.

Holding on to the other end of the chains, a large, burly cannie was raising and lowering Davis into the fire. As his screams ebbed, the cannie would raise him again, then shift position, so that a different portion of the man’s body would be lowered into the fire, and the screams renewed.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” Nye asked.

“Start shooting and chill everybody,” Fife said, lowering the barrel of the AK-47.

“Wait,” Ryan countered. “Krysty and Jak will shoot the fire, while I snipe the cannies as a diversion.”

With a scowl, Fife stared at Ryan, then at the Steyr. “That silencer actually work?”

“Bet your ass.”

“Shoot the fire?” Nye asked incredulously.

“When the fight starts,” Krysty explained, “the cannies will let go of the rope, and Davis will fall into the flames. He’ll be aced in minutes unless—”

“He lands on deck,” Nye finished. “Damn, that’s good. Colonel?”

“Follow me,” Fife said, crawling away along the girder.

As they disappeared into the roiling smoke, the laughing cannies lowered Davis into the flames again, his screams were much louder at first, then noticeably weaker as he was removed.

“Not survive another,” Jak stated.

“Then let’s hope Cam is faster than he looks,” Ryan returned, lowering the barrel of the Steyr and stroking the trigger.

The shots came fast, the soft coughs unheard over the laughing and the screaming. Then the drum stopped as four of the cannies collapsed to the floor, blood gushing from gaping wounds in their necks.

In unison, Krysty and Jak cut loose with all of their weapons, the fusillade sounding like a thousand blasters. The twin streams of 5.56 mm rounds scattered the pile of burning sticks across the filthy metal floor, and a fat cannie yelped as her leg got burned, then a rolling stick landed in a pile of dirty clothing that promptly caught fire.

Twisting frantically around, the cannies tried to find the source of the bizarre attacks, and Ryan continued to remove them as fast as possible.

Suddenly an explosion rocked the entire cargo hold, and the locked doors were blown off their hinges to flay into the stacked crates. Like a house of cards in a high wind, the crates shifted and came tumbling down, the cannies hidden on top screaming in rage, then shrieking in pain as they became trapped then juicily crushed to death.

Releasing the rope, the rest of the cannies inside the circle dived for their weapons, and Davis smacked onto an empty deck. Limply, he hit the deck and cried out, then rolled off the searing-hot metal, fresh blisters forming on his already discolored shoulders.

While Ryan reloaded, Krysty put a full magazine into the cluster of cannies, the fiery wreath of 5.56 mm hardball rounds punching clean into their bodies and ricocheting off the metal walls to come right back at them again from behind. Torn apart, the jerking cannies howled and cursed as if dropped into a meat grinder full of stinging bees.

Diving to the side, one cannie rolled into a kneeling position with a blowgun in his mouth. Exhaling hard, he sent a dart into the darkness overhead, and Krysty cried out, the noise oddly trailing away into a melodious crooning.

Pulling his bound legs to his chest, Davis lashed out with both legs and slammed his heels directly into the groin of a cannie. The man shrieked and dropped his blowgun to double over and grab his injured genitals.

Kicking upward again, Davis knocked the stunned cannie away and he hit the wall, his head slamming into an exposed stanchion with a sharp crack. Reeling slightly, the cannie slid to the floor, blood covering his face. Wiggling closer, Davis started pawing for the sheathed knife on his belt.

Screaming obscenities, another cannie produced a crossbow and fired. The bolt slammed into Davis’s shoulder, going completely through and pinning him to the unconscious cannie.

As Davis struggled to get free, the cannie quickly notched another quarrel into the crossbow. But before he could fire, an assault rifle chattered. The crossbow was blown into splinters as the cannie spun wildly, his life splattering across the ancient crates.

Moments later a deep silence filled the cargo hold, broken only by the crackle of numerous small fires and the low moans of the dying.

“Clear!” Ryan called down from the crane.

From a deep pool of shadows, there came a bright flash of light and the boom of a shotgun.

“Clear,” Fife replied, walking into view. Cracking open the breech of the weapon, he extracted the spent cartridges and thumbed in fresh.

“Good, I’ll tend the wounded,” Nye said, holstering her handblaster.

“Just our own, healer,” Fife instructed, pulling out the machete. “I’ll handle any cannies still sucking air.”

She paused, then nodded in acceptance and started pulling rolls of bandages from the leather mailbag.

Several minutes later Ryan and Jak appeared carrying a limp Krysty in their arms.

“Jody-Lynn!” Ryan called as they gently eased the woman into an empty hammock.

Busy wrapping a bandage around the arm of the burned sec man, Nye looked up and frowned. “Did she catch an arrow?” she asked, quickly tying off the strip of white cloth.

“Dart,” Jak said, failing to keep the worry out of his voice.

Grabbing her bag, Nye hurried over and briefly examined the unconscious woman.

“Well?” Ryan asked impatiently

“Just let her sleep,” Nye said, rising once more. “She’ll wake with a nukestorm of a headache, but be fine as shine otherwise.”

“Thanks, good to know,” Ryan said, the tension leaving his shoulders.

“We get all,” Jak asked, glancing around at the smoky carnage.

“Fifteen hammocks, fifteen cannies,” Fife said, wiping the blood from his machete with a dirty cloth. “Sounds like a clean sweep to me.”

“Good,” Jak said, resting his weapon on his hip. “Only one round left in rapid-fire.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Fife said, sitting on a steam pipe jutting from the wall. “My baron will fill your pockets with live brass as a reward for this. These sons of bitches have been hounding my men for months. We never did know what was chilling our people. I thought it was a howler or mebbe a droid.” With a wan smile, he sheathed the blade. “Just glad they’re aced at last.”

“Sorry that we only saved five of your people,” Ryan said, removing a partially spent magazine from the Steyr to insert a full one. “But this could have been worse.”

“A lot worse,” Fife heartily agreed, taking out a canteen. Removing the top, he took a long drink.

“Out of curiosity, what’s in here that your baron wanted so bastard much?” Ryan asked, resting a boot on a rusty winch. “Brass...meds...comps?”

“That’s ville biz,” Fife replied, taking his time to put the cap back on the canteen.

“Make it part of the reward,” Ryan suggested, not moving.

“All right, fair enough,” Fife said, slowly standing. “Come on, it’s this way.”

Cradling the AK-47 in his arms, the sec chief strode out of the cargo hold and into a dimly illuminated corridor.

Chapter Fifteen

“Nothing?”

“Nothing at all, ma’am.”

“Impossible! Totally impossible!”

“I’m afraid one of the outlanders is extremely skilled at tracking,” Major Svenson reported, loosening his collar. “That means he’s equally good at covering their tracks.”

Sitting in a folding wooden chair draped with the thick fur of an albino wendigo, Queen Angstrom gave no reply for several minutes. Privately, she raged while outwardly watching the sec men refill the fuel tanks of the Fire Hammer with the last of the spare cans.

The journey down from the mountains had been long and hard. She had lost more than a dozen men to frostbite alone before the weather began to warm, and then they were hit by endless waves of muties in every shape and size. Obviously they were dangerously close to a major rad crater, but that didn’t matter. There would be no rest, no sleep, no pause for any of her sec men until the assassin Ryan was lying at her feet, trussed like a pig for the butcher and begging for his life.

Angstrom felt her heart quicken at the monstrous plans she had for the man, and when she told the major he had gone pale and asked to leave the tent. Excellent! That was exactly the reaction she desired. The death of this Ryan needed to be legendary! Generations from now mothers would frighten their children with only snippets of his grotesque years existing in the twisted hell of her revenge! Suddenly the burning need to hug her husband almost overwhelmed the woman, and she lowered her face, breathing in small gasps to try to not cry in public again.

“Your Majesty?” Major Svenson asked.

“What? Oh...very well,” Angstrom stated, forcing herself to sit upright. Slowly she crossed her legs. “Send a pigeon back home to demand fresh troops, fresh horses, more supplies and every drop of fuel and shine available.”

“All of it, ma’am?”

“All of it.” Snapping her fingers, Angstrom saw a slave rush forward with a tray of sandwiches and a tankard of beer. “Also have the Sky Master send pigeons...no, make that hawks, to every ville that I control.”

“With the message...”

“The hunt continues?” Corporal Goldberg asked, hooking both thumbs behind his gunbelt. “That sort of thing, ma’am?”

“Oh no,” Angstrom said as the slave knelt to offer her the tray. She took the beer, then waved the old woman away.

“The message will read—” she took a sip “—every baron is to send out sec men to hunt for the coldhearts. Find and bring them to me alive. Alive. Underline that.”

The colonel did so.

“The reward for bringing them to me alive is...Greenwater ville.”

“Ma’am?” Major Svenson gasped, his eyes wide in disbelief. “An entire ville?”

Draining the tankard, she smiled. “That is correct. That fat old fool who runs the ville needs to be replaced, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, scribbling away.

“With a reward that large, you’ll soon have every merc, slaver and coldheart this side of the Great Salt hunting Ryan and his gang,” Goldberg said with a crooked grin. “Even Linderholm’s own people may revolt at the chance of their own ville!”

“Exactly.” Angstrom practically purred, leaning back in the chair. “I’m glad that you understand.”

“Does...does this offer extend to your own troops, ma’am?”

Svenson scowled at the question, but Angstrom merely chuckled at the display of raw greed.

“Yes, it does, son of a traitor,” she whispered. “Would you like to be a baron?”

“Yes, my queen!”

“As who would not? Oh, and Major?”

“Yes, my queen,” Svenson replied in a tight voice.

“Add to the message that harming any of the outlanders is a hanging offense.”

He frowned. “Merely a hanging?”

“Ryan aced my husband,” Angstrom replied in a tight voice, her lips quavering slightly. “Anybody who denies me the pleasure of his death will be horribly punished. Publicly, we’ll say a hanging, but in truth I will personally toss them to a vine master.”

* * ** * *

SEVERAL DAYS LATER, the Concord ville convoy was rolling across the wide-open soybean-covered prairies of northern New Hampshire, the blue-green plants waving gently in the warm breeze.

The rain had come again the previous night, but once more it was free of sulphur, and in the morning the air had smelled fresh and clean, unlike anything the companions had experience in recent memory.

“Ah, New England.” Doc sighed, then his face fell, and the man slumped lost in the memories of the past.

At the front of the buckboard wagon, Fife, Nye and J.B. were huddled in a hushed conversation about the item recovered within the battleship.

“So you’re telling me,” J.B. said adjusting his eyeglasses, “that this barrel is full of guncotton?”

“Oh no, that could chill us all.” Fife laughed as the wag jounced through a rain gully in the dirt road. “This barrel is filled with soft grass, the barrel inside that is filled with water, and it’s the little barrel suspended inside that is filled with guncotton.”

“Not packed, of course,” Nye added, turning from the front seat of the wag. “The material often detonates if compressed too much.”

“Yeah, I know,” J.B. said, touching a small glassy scar on his neck. “And this is what you use in your blasters?”

“Cut with a lot of powdered charcoal, of course,” Fife said, patting the barrel affectionately as if it was a loyal dog. “We got six of them on this trip, and just one will load our blasters, make pipe bombs and charge the ville wall cannons for the next year!”

“We call it Black Cotton,” Nye said proudly, as if she had coined the term.

“Appropriate,” Mildred replied. “Our own blasters use something very similar, just with a lot of inert additives. They called it smokeless gunpowder back in the day, but it really was just fulminating guncotton.”

“Battleships use?” Jak asked, stropping a knife on a small whetstone.

“Nothing better,” Mildred said. “Although, you do have to handle it with care. This is one of the most powerful chemical explosives ever created.”

“This we know,” Fife said. “The first time we loaded a brass with nothing but guncotton, the blaster and the sec man holding it disappeared in the fireball that sent bits and pieces of him raining down across the whole ville.”

“The falcons ate good that day,” Nye said, “I can tell you.”

“What will you do when the stores of the ship run out?” Ryan asked,

“Go back to black powder,” Fife said with a shrug, “and keep trying to find the formula for gunpowder.”

At that, J.B. arched an eyebrow, but Ryan shot the man a stern look, so he said nothing. The Concord sec men had saved the lives of the companions, and now were in debt to them after the rescue. But friendship and honor had an odd way of disappearing before the wealth and power offered by having the secret to making gunpowder.

Loudly cracking their bullwhips, the sec men driving the convoy of wags accelerated the lumbering teams of oxen and started curving away from the flatlands into rough countryside full of brambles and fallen trees.

“Muties?” Jak asked, leveling his assault rifle.

“Rad pits,” Fife stated, holding on to one of the curved wooden ribs of the wag as it bucked over something. “There are ruins to the west of here. You can see them glowing at night. Anybody goes near them and the rad sickness hits.”

“Hair loose, teeth fall out, anal bleeding, vomiting, bloating and death,” Nye said, rattling off the litany of woes. “The only cure is a sharp knife from a close friend.”

Pulling a map from his bulging munitions bag, J.B. carefully checked the area. “Nothing here worth hitting with a nuke,” he said, trying to hide a smile. “Just forest and farmland.”

“Or possibly a graveyard,” Krysty said, attempting to sound casual.

Warily, the companions glanced at each other.

“Must have been a wild shot, far off target,” Ryan said, craning his neck to look at the cloudy sky overhead. “The Trader always said the Seven Sisters did more damage trying to save America than the enemy missiles ever did on purpose.”

“The Seven Sisters?” Nye asked, crossing her arms. “Don’t tell me you believe in that nonsense about a bunch of comp-operated sats that shot down the wrong nukes during skydark?”

“I’ve heard stranger tales,” Krysty said, massaging the bandage on her throbbing neck.

Normally the woman healed much faster than the other companions. But whatever the cannies had used to poison their darts seemed to have the exact reverse effect. She had slept twice as long as anybody else, and was healing much slower.

“Fancy rapid-fires you got there,” a short sec woman said in frank appreciation. “Where did you find them?” She had long black hair tied off in a ponytail that hung to her waist and there was a jagged scar across one cheek.

“Alaska,” J.B. said, which was almost the truth.

She scowled. “Where’s that, near Boston?”

“On the other side of the continent, near the Western Islands.”

“Across the Great Salt? Nuke me running,” she said. “That’s ten thousand klicks of rad-blasted sand, mountains of salt, no water and endless muties.”

“There are a few villes here and there,” J.B. said. “And even a small lake, but it’s hidden and tough to find.”

“Yeah, like a virgie in a gaudy house!”

“No, it’s real enough.”

“Don’t know if that’s firing true, or mutie shit,” the sec woman said with a chuckle, slapping a knee, “but you sure do tell them big, Four-eyes!”

Sharp fangs showed when she laughed, and J.B. flinched at the sight.

“Something wrong?” she asked, squinting an eye.

“You’ve got fangs,” J.B. said.

“Yeah, most people do. Just not as big.”

“Reckon that’s so.” J.B. relented amiably and extended a hand. “The name’s Dix, J. B. Dix.”

“Betty Mohammed. My friends call me Fangs.” She smiled invitingly.

“Do they?”

“Nope! Just shoving a blank up your breech.” The woman laughed, punching him on the arm.

“So, you’ve been from one side of the world to the other?” Fife asked quizzically, pulling out a knife.

“There and back again,” Ryan answered honestly.

For some reason that made Mildred smile, but she didn’t share the joke with the others.

“Now, that kind of knowing could be mighty useful,” Nye said cagily. “Any chance you folks are looking for work?”

“Always can use a couple more studs on the wall,” Fife said, taking out a hard roll and cutting off a slice. “Sure as hell need more healers and gunsmiths! Concord is a good ville, fresh water, strong walls, no whipping post.”

“None?” Mildred asked in surprise.

Taking a small bite, Fife started to chew doggedly. “Nope. Baron Linderholm won’t stand for it,” he mumbled, “and I agree. Just a waste of time. Somebody breaks the law, we hang them on the spot, or throw their ass out the front gate.”

“We’re norms!” a sec man growled from the front seat, shaking the reins. “Why in the nuking world would we want to act like a bunch of muties, tearing each other apart?”

“Why indeed?” Doc mumbled, resting both hands on the silver lion’s head of his ebony swordstick. “Most astute, I heartily concur, sir!”

Swallowing, Fife glanced sideways. “Got yourself a real lib’ary there,” he said, cutting off another slice. “Bet he knows a ton of whitecoat stuff.”

“Library,” Doc corrected. “Indeed, I do, sir. Once I was a teacher, and would dearly love to do so once again, if only to assist your own redoubtable ville—”

“Library,” Nye interrupted, pronouncing the word correctly.

Doc smiled. “You are a fast learner, madam.”

“Better be, stupes die hard and fast in these hills,” Nye stated with conviction.

Just then, Davis gave a low moan from the rear of the wag. Grabbing their bags, Mildred and Nye rushed closer.

“How is he?” Fife asked, squatting with the AK-47 across a knee. The bayonet on the end was clean now, the feathered edge mirror-bright.

Clutching his own weapon, Ryan got the feeling that the man wouldn’t let go of the Russian rapid-fire until he had been buried for a year, and mebbe not even then.

“Seen worse,” Ryan said. “Can you do anything for him?”

“Not too much,” Mildred replied, gently smearing a blue paste across the blisters and scorch marks. The sec man groaned at the contact, then slumped and went blissfully quiet.

“What’s that?” Nye asked eagerly, staring at the inside of the medical kit.

“Mixture of sulfur and eucalyptus leaves, with a little tea tree oil,” Mildred replied. “It’ll help with the burning and ease his pain some.”

“Some?”

“Best I have. Sorry.”

“Better than nothing, I suppose,” Fife growled, his displeasure obvious.

That night, the two groups made camp near the foot of a truncated hill. Parking the wags in a full circle, firewood was gathered from the nearby forest, water gathered from natural spring bubbling out of a granite boulder.

“We camp here often,” Fife explained, hauling a bucket over to the fire.

Dinner was mostly beans and fish, augmented with the beef stew from the MRE packs recovered by the companions. The enclosed slice of military-grade nutcake wasn’t particularly popular, but the chewing gum and coffee were circulated with delighted cheers that helped lighten the mood of the group.

Sometime during the joyous meal, Davis quietly expired. After the meal, Mildred went to check on the man and spread the news. Fife himself dug the grave at the base of an old yew tree. There was no ceremony, or holy words spoken, but the somber reverence of the moment moved everybody deeply.

“Pity he has to be out here,” Fife stated. “No sec man should be buried outside the wall.”

“Isn’t proper,” Betty agreed solemnly. “But his wounds were already beginning to reek, and another three days in the wag...”

“I know,” Fife replied. “I just don’t like it much.”

Walking back to the campsite, Ryan and Krysty stayed close and didn’t speak until they were alone.

“He really wasn’t much older than Ricky and Dean,” Ryan said, using the heel of his combat boots to gouge a couple of shallow hip-holes in the soft earth.

“Think we’ll ever see him again?” Krysty asked, laying down a thick sleeping bag.

“Probably not,” Ryan said, unbuckling his gunbelt and placing it aside. “My son is a grown man now, on his own and traveling the Deathlands. Most likely he’s hoping not to run into me.”

Krysty pulled off her boots. Gathering a handful of sweet grass, she rubbed the inside of her boots to kill the sour smell of sweaty feet.

Ryan did the same thing.

Lying on the sleeping bag, the man and woman wiggled until settling their hips into the shallow depressions and getting comfortable.

“Doc’s graveyard could be just over that hill,” Krysty said, stretching her arms.

“Yeah, but we can’t leave the convoy yet,” Ryan said, rubbing his unshaved chin. “Not until Cam and the others are safe in their ville.”

“Because you gave your word?”

Unable to put the complex matter into words, Ryan merely shrugged in reply. For some things, a man just went by his gut instinct: love, revenge and honor.

In the woods, something gave a low hoot, making them both grab blasters. Then the noise came again, and a large owl took off on a hunting flight.

“Hard to image a world where a bastard owl didn’t make a whole ville rush to defend the walls.” Ryan chuckled, thumbing the safety back on the SIG-Sauer.

Staying close, the man and woman said nothing for a long time, sharing the rare moment of privacy under the clear night sky. The eternal stars twinkled as brightly as ever, and the couple could just barely see the crumbling remains of the ring around the moon.

Most of the people were asleep by now, the few on guard duty sitting around the crackling campfire, the reddish light throwing hugely distorted shadows onto the tents covering the wags.

Unexpectedly, Betty started playing a harmonica, and several other sec men started singing along, something about home and hearth. Sitting off by herself, Nye produced a corncob pipe and began stuffing the bowl with minced cornsilk, mixed with something else that gave off a strong herbal scent.

“Alone at last,” Krysty said, taking his hand.

Ryan squeezed her hand in return.

As this was neither the time nor the place, no consideration was given to the possibly of intimacy. The man and woman simply stayed close to each other, savoring the rare moment of peace deep inside the savage heart of the Deathlands.

However, in the morning one of the younger sec men named Charlie Ownes was discovered to be missing, along with his blaster, horse, saddlebags and one of the smaller barrels of guncotton.

Chapter Sixteen

The dirt road wound through the looping hills and spreading grasslands like a drunken snake. In a staggered line, the drivers of the Concord wags kept a healthy distance from each other, that way, if one of them exploded, the blast would not also set off all of the other precious barrels of guncotton.

Along the way, the convoy passed the partially buried ruins of a predark shopping mall. The stores had been looted many years earlier, but Doc and the rest of the companions asked Fife to stop for a few minutes so that they could do a fast recce anyway. In spite of the adroit repairs done by Nye, some of their clothing was in bad shape and steadily getting worse every day.

Unfortunately, Ryan and the others found nothing useful, aside from some underwear and a few mismatched socks. However, Doc located a costume shop, and mixed among the more bizarre and outlandish theatrical outfits were much needed replacements for his nineteenth-century trousers, frilled shirt and frock coat. Sealed inside an airtight shipping container, the Civil War costume was in excellent shape, and Doc gleefully exchanged his own worn clothing for the superior facsimile.

Returning to the convoy, the companions assumed their earlier positions, and it rolled away once more, the drivers impatiently cracking their whips over the teams of oxen.

“Nuking strange duds,” Nye muttered, looking over Doc. “Something wrong with buckskin?”

“Indeed there is,” Doc said, minutely adjusting his new cuffs. “I am not Davey Crockett.”

“Who?”

“Exactly, madam!”

Sitting at the front of the lead wag, Colonel Fife was driving, with Ryan alongside riding shotgun, the Steyr lying across his lap.

Ryan had been pleasantly surprised to learn that all of the sec men took turns at the work of maintaining the convoy, from the easy work of driving, or digging a latrine. Nobody in the Concord force was above getting his or her hands dirty, including the sec chief. The son of an East Coast baron, Ryan considered that very wise. The first step toward tyranny was a baron forgetting that he was just an ordinary man with an extraordinary job. There were no nobles, or bluebloods, or any of that high-born nonsense. People were just people.

“Ownes...” Fife growled, shaking the reins for no reason. In response, the team of horses quickened its walk to a trot.

“At least we’ve got back the barrel of guncotton,” Ryan reminded, tracking a shadow moving in the undergrowth. Without warning, a sleek opossum burst into view to streak across the bracken and tackle a rabbit, then dash away with the bloody corpse victoriously held in its teeth.

“Yeah, we did get it back,” Fife muttered. “But only because his fragging horse went lame.”

“True, but was that our good luck,” Krysty said from the rear of the wag, “or his bad planning?”

Glaring over a shoulder, Fife grunted in amusement. “Probably a little of each,” he admitted with a weary grin. “Still would have loved to put some lead in the head of the dirty little traitor. Jacking his own ville. It’s...it’s...”

“Unthinkable?” Ricky supplied, both hands busy darning a hole in his sock.

“Exactly!”

“Now, I wouldn’t use a head shot, those are too quick,” Nye said, sharpening a predark scalpel on a whetstone. “Blast him in the knees. It hurts worse, and he’ll be a crip afterward.”

“Double punishment!” a sec man guffawed, taking a piss out the rear of the wag. “Now you’re talking sense.”

“Good Lord, I thought you were a healer?” Mildred gasped in admonishment, looking up from writing in her journal.

Spitting on the whetstone, Nye continued grinding the blade. “First and foremost, I work for my baron.”

“Frag him,” Jak drawled, thumbing fresh bullets into an empty magazine. “Coward not worth brass to ace.”

“True enough,” Betty stated thoughtfully. “Then again, we do have lots of rope.”

A ragged laugh filled the wag at that, and there followed a jovial conversation on more colorful, and less sensible ways, to execute the would-be thief.

Asleep in the back, J.B. and Doc were curled up in a soft mound made of sleeping bags and soft hay, their rhythmic snoring almost musical.

Slowly relaxing in the sunlight, Ryan listened to the sec men bitch, and lie, and blow off steam, but always kept a careful watch for any unusual movements in the greenery along the serpentine road. Occasionally he would spot a fox in the bushes or a squirrel in the trees, but nothing big enough to spend a live round. Which was good, and bad. The convoy had lots of guncotton, but lead and brass were another matter entirely.

Oddly, there seemed to be few muties in this section of the state, which was probably just the result of overkill. When the horrid things appeared a generation after skydark, a weakened and starving humanity had bravely rallied against them in a manner never seen before in the annals of history. The ruthless slaughter went on for years.

Afterward, muties were few and far between in the area, and villes became prosperous, then began to spread.

Unfortunately all sorts of new muties seemed to be making a serious comeback in recent years, and again Ryan wasn’t sure if that was just natural evolution in action. Most of the creatures people called muties were in fact genetic creations, designed and bred in predark laboratories as organic weapons.

“Lunch!” announced a sec man opening a wicker basket and passing out smoked fish with small loaves of cornbread.

“Loaves and fishes,” Doc said, making a crude sandwich.

Mildred scowled. “Don’t go there,” she warned.

“I, madam? Never!”

Sometime around late afternoon, the Concord wags broached a series of low hills, and started across a vast expanse of wetland that skirted the ragged shoreline of a huge lake, or possibly an inland sea. The waves were a deep azure, as clear as spring water, and large schools of fish could be seen darting around in the shallows and inlets.

“Welcome to the Nelson Archipelago!” Fife announced with obvious satisfaction. “Almost everything here belongs to Baron Linderholm, and Concord ville.”

“Almost?” Ryan asked, resting a boot on the seat.

“There are some coldhearts hidden among the inlets,” Fife replied brusquely. “Fish-stealing bastards who’ll stick a blade in your back faster than crapping on a campfire.”

“How often do they attack your ville?” J.B. asked, using a moist towelette from an MRE foodpack to clean his hands.

“Mudders attack Concord?” A sec man laughed, picking his teeth with a twig. “Shitfire, Four-eyes, they’ve never even gotten close! We got the biggest—”

At a sharp cough from Nye, the sec man stopped talking and wordlessly continued his after-diner dental care.

“The biggest...?” Ryan asked.

“That’s ville biz,” Nye said bluntly.

“Alas, it would seem that we are still considered outlanders.” Doc sighed, templing his fingers. “Strangers in a strange land.”

“Less every day,” Fife added, steering the wag around a white marble obelisk sticking out of the dirt road. “But you’re not from my ville, or blood kin. Just friendlies.”

“Same here,” Ryan replied coldly.

For a long moment the two big men looked at each other in silent communication. Then they both nodded and turned their attention back to the road.

Clustered along the shoreline, fiberglass cabin cruisers tied to stubby trees. More of them skimmed across the gentle waves. The crews threw nets overboard and hauled them back full of wiggling fish. Sporting a red bandanna, the captain of each boat would examine the catch before it was tossed into the hold.

Every now and then, they would throw a fish overboard for some unknown reason. Opening a third eye, a fat trout wrapped tentacles around a man’s arm and tried to bite his neck. As the captain wrestled with the mutie, a sailor stepped in close, withdrew a flintlock blaster and blew off the creature’s head.

Even before the roiling cloud of gunsmoke cleared, the captain flipped the decapitated mutie back into the lake. Meanwhile, the disembodied head flipped and flopped across the deck, still snapping at anybody who got close.

“I’m not going swimming in that,” Ricky commented, running fingers through his dark hair.

“Wise choice,” Krysty stated, easing her blaster back into its holster.

As the convoy rattled over a wide wooden bridge, Fife sharply whistled and the boat crews spun with weapons in their hands. Then he whistled again and they relaxed to wave in greeting.

“Password?” Ryan asked without an expression.

“Sorry, don’t know what you are talking about,” Fife replied coolly.

“I guess they’re all just music lovers.”

“Could be, could be.”

Angling away from the lake, the convoy started directly toward a walled village. Along the way, they passed large fields of corn surrounded by a tall wall of notched logs, the top sparkling with embedded pieces of broken glass.

“They cleared a forest, then used the felled trees to make a wall,” J.B. muttered, tilting back his hat. “Triple smart!”

“Nobody steals from Concord,” Nye stated, slinging her mailbag over a shoulder. “Not twice, anyway.”

A wide bulwark had been dug around the village, a deep gully dug into the earth, the loose soil piled high alongside. Combined, the bulwark was twenty feet tall and bristling with pungi sticks.

The dirt road led to the only visible breach in the bulwark, and Ryan could now see that the village wall itself was built from the usual mishmash of anything and everything; bricks, cinder blocks, highway K-rails, notched logs and concrete slabs. Coils of barbed wire hung along the walls like military ivy, and armed sec men walked along the top carrying crossbows, blasters and throwing axes.

“Those tough learn,” Jak said. “But kill good.”

The front gate was made from overlapping pieces of assorted sheet metal, riveted and welded together to a formidable whole. Tall wooden guard towers rose from inside the wall, offering the sec men inside the cupolas a commanding view of the road and bulwark.

“The design on the sleeves, those lines of circles,” Mildred said, leaning forward. “Are those decorations or medals of valor?”

“Number of muties aced?” Ricky asked.

“Nothing like that,” Betty replied. “It’s to show who’s in charge. One rung means you’re a private, two for a corporal, and so on.”

“An actual chain of command,” Doc observed. “But is that not dangerous? During a fight, the enemy would know whom to shoot first.”

“Which is why the sec chief doesn’t wear them,” Fife said, raising an arm to display its complete lack of embroidery.

“And just before a fight, we ditch our coats,” Nye said, reaching into her bag to pull out a green jacket. Sliding it on, she brushed off the triple rings of a lieutenant.

Using an elbow, J.B. nudged Ryan, and he smiled in return. He was impressed with the ville, and starting to like their baron more all the time. If the man wasn’t a jolt addict, despot or a sex deviant, as so many of the others often were, the companions might stay here for a while and get some much needed rest before continuing onward to the next redoubt. It had been a long time since he’d last shared a warm bed under a strong roof with Krysty.

As the convoy approached, a bell started to ring and the gate swung ponderously aside. Rolling through, Fife again gave a loud whistle, and this time it was returned with a flourish.

Once inside the ville, the companions studied the place carefully, just to make sure that the colonel hadn’t lied to them about anything. But Concord seemed to be everything he had claimed. The streets were paved with bricks, the homes clean, and there was no sign of a whipping post, just the standard gallows for executing ordinary criminals.

“I’m liking what I see of this place,” Mildred said, pointing down a side street.

Past the blacksmith and a tanner, Ryan could see a row of small cinder-block buildings with doors marked with a half moon. The latrines were a good block away from the closest artesian well, and surrounded by a patch of fragrant wildflowers to obviously help cut the mandatory smells.

“Smart. Cinder-block outhouse stay warm in winter,” Jak said in approval. “No freeze to seat.”

“Been there, done that,” Doc said, rubbing his backside. “In my youth, I often carried more splinters in my rear than you could imagine.”

Suddenly a bell started to ring and people rushed from every building to smile and wave at the sec men in the wags, and to point at the companions. Laughing in delight, little children started running alongside the rattling buckboards. The sec men tried to maintain a stern professional demeanor, and failed completely.

“Whacha bring us this time, Sergeant?” a gaudy slut called out from the doorway of a tavern.

“Predark cigs and cinnamon sticks!” a sec man yelled back.

Whooping in delight, the woman twirled around, her skirt rising high enough to show her wears.

“Dark night, the ville folk love them,” J.B. said with a crooked smile. “Haven’t seen that in a long time.”

“Indeed not, John Barrymore,” Doc rumbled, gesturing gallantly to the passing crowd. “It takes me back to our sylvan days at Front Royal.”

“We damn near died there,” Mildred scoffed.

“True, but that was not the fault of the baron.”

“Speaking of which,” Ryan said, jerking his chin to the right.

Off in the that direction was a small park in the middle of the village, the grass and trees neatly trimmed. There was even an old gazebo. That was an ordinary sight in the past, but these days it bordered on the bizarre.

“The ville is rich,” Ricky stated bluntly.

A pair of shiny brass cannons from the Civil War stood on either side of the gazebo. Set behind sandbag walls, with a pyramid of cannonballs close by, it was clear that these were functioning weapons and not merely decorations.

Sitting inside the gazebo was a pair of people. As the convoy rolled closer, they stood and went to the railing. The man was middle-aged, and tall, almost gangly, with a wild shock of fiery red hair, a brown mustache and a neatly trimmed black beard.

Curious, Ryan and Krysty glanced at Mildred.

“Norm,” she said dismissively. “He’s probably of Norwegian descent.”

Obviously the local baron, David Linderholm wore similar clothing to that of the sec men, except that he also wore a police-issue bulletproof vest, the outer layer of twilled fabric dotted with shiny gray disks of flattened miniballs. A museum-quality Martini-Henry longblaster was slung over a shoulder, and there was a throwing ax hung at his side, the leather grip worn from constant use.

“Nice,” Jak whispered, but oddly didn’t seem to look directly at the baron.

A few feet away from Linderholm stood a young woman barely out of her teenage years. Still blossoming into womanhood, she was short and slim, with long red hair almost the exact same color as the baron’s, and the most amazing pair of jet-black eyebrows. Her shirt was white silk and covered with intricate embroidery that highlighted her burgeoning figure, and her pants were predark denims in remarkably good shape.

“Is that the baron’s wife?” Ryan asked, hefting the Steyr onto a shoulder.

“Nuke no!” Fife snorted. “That’s his daughter, Sandara.”

“Everybody calls her Sandy,” Nye said.

Defiantly standing with fists akimbo, Sandara Linderholm might have been pretty if her nose hadn’t been broken sometime in the past and set poorly, giving it a slight tilt, so that she seemed to be scowling.

The handle of a Japanese katana was visible over a shoulder, and a holstered Colt .38 revolver rode low on her hip. Her gunbelt was lined with bullets, the soft lead noses cut in a crisscross pattern to convert them into deadly dumdum rounds.

“Greetings, Baron!” Fife bellowed, reining the horses to a stop at the edge of the park.

“Hello, Cam,” Linderholm replied warily. “You’ve brought guests, I see.”

“Honored guests!” Fife stated, setting the hand brake, then hopping down to the ground.

“Are they?” Sandara asked, a hand dangerously close to the holstered blaster.

“Absolutely, my lady,” Fife replied, snapping off a salute. “These folks rescued my men from the cannies inside the battleship, and helped us chill the whole nuking lot of them!”

A startled hush swept the crowd.

“The cannies are aced?” Linderholm asked.

“Are...are you serious?” Sandara demanded, her face flushed with excitement.

“Absolutely!” Nye added, climbing down from the wag. “We recovered enough of their poisoned darts for me to safely perform operations for the next decade.”

“How many people did we lose?”

“Six chilled,” Fife stated. “But it would have been all of us without Ryan and his people.”

“And the cannies are actually chilled?” Sandara insisted.

“Deader than DeeCee,” Nye said, dropping a handful of the broken blowguns onto the grass.

Throwing his hat into the air, Baron Linderholm cut loose with a whoop. The rest of the population took up the cry, and for a few minutes there was general pandemonium.

“Blind Norad, this is good news,” Linderholm said, hurrying down the stairs to cross the lawn. “Welcome to Concord, outlanders!”

While a mixed gang of sec men and ville folk started carefully unloading the barrels of guncotton from the wags, the groups exchanged names and pleasantries.

“Okay, to biz,” Sandara said. “How much do we owe you as a reward?”

“No charge,” Ryan stated. “Chilling cannies is the duty of every norm.”

“We were glad to help,” Krysty said, tucking a loose strand of hair into her collar to keep it still.

“No reward?” Linderholm asked slowly.

Fife cleared his throat. “Actually, Baron, I promised them all of the brass they could carry.”

“How much?” Sandara gasped.

“That was after the fight,” Ryan corrected with a scowl. “A null deal, just battle talk.”

“Not mercies,” Jak stated, as if that was a vital point.

“All of the live brass they can carry...” Linderholm shook his head, then burst into a grin. “Is more than fair. Those fragging man-eaters have been a hot nuke up my ass for ages. I couldn’t be happier to learn they’re finally eating dirt.”

“How about we settle for...fifty pounds of guncotton,” J.B. said, removing his hat and straightening the brim. “Along with a month of room and board?”

“Now that’s a deal!” Linderholm chuckled, then spit into a palm.

Removing a glove, J.B. did the same and they shook.

“Done and done,” Fife growled, shifting his AK-47 to the other shoulder. “Now that you folks are going to stay for a while, I’ve got a bottle of some predark shine called whiskey hidden at the Sleepy Dog tavern. I say we crack it open and seal the deal.”

“I’d rather have some food first,” Krysty said honestly.

“Something fresh would be nice,” Mildred added. “That is, as long as it’s anything but fish.”

“Then follow me!” Linderholm shouted, starting down the street. “The Sleepy Dog has got the best fried dog you ever tasted.”

In a loose conglomeration, the two groups proceeded past predark homes, new log cabins and a surprising number of mobile homes anchored in concrete slabs. Constant cheering greeted their appearance, ville folk and sec men waved in greeting, and gaudy sluts kept rushing forward to try to kiss everybody.

“Sinatra eat your heart out,” Mildred said, rubbing crimson lip rouge from a stained cheek.

“Now, I want to hear all of the gory details of the chilling,” Linderholm said. “Leave nothing out.”

Jak shrugged. “We shoot, they fall.”

“A man of few words.” Linderholm chuckled. “You’ll get along just fine with my daughter.”

“Together, they probably have a vocabulary of six, mebbe seven words.” Nye snorted, matching the stride of the much larger baron to stay as close as possible.

“Don’t need lot, if hit bull’s-eye,” Jak stated.

“Damn straight!” Sandara said, slapping him on the back. “Well said!”

In reply, Jak bumped her with a hip. Caught off guard by that, Sandara fiercely blushed and shifted position to walk on the other side of her father. But she kept looking back at Jak.

Deliberately slowing his pace, Doc eased Jak away from the rest of the group. “Careful there, lad,” he whispered. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, Sandara has never been...I mean, she is the baron’s only daughter...”

“Virgie. Yeah, know. Don’t like?”

“Virgins? Nothing wrong with that, dear boy. Everybody was one at some point of their life.”

“No like her?” Jak asked, watching the young woman walk along, chatting with Ryan and Krysty.

“Indeed, I do like her,” Doc said. “However...” He paused, uncertain how to proceed.

“Not born yesterday,” Jak said. “Be gentle, tell truth. Rest, her choice.”

“Please excuse me, dear Jak,” Doc said with a gentle smile. “Sometimes your youth makes me forget that you were once a married man with a family.”

A shadow seemed to cross the albino’s face, then Jak dismissed the memory with a shrug. “Long ago,” he said, moving away to walk alone for a while.

A few blocks later the group reached the Sleepy Dog. A converted prefab hut, the tavern occupied an entire block, and seemed more than capable of holding the entire population of Concord if necessary. A large wooden sign hung above the front door showing the namesake of the tavern.

Inside, the air was pleasantly smoky from three stone fireplaces and a brick hearth, which had fish frying in cast-iron skillets. A dozen redwood picnic tables recovered from a city park were randomly arranged across the spacious floor, and in the far corner, a very old man was softly strumming a guitar. His face was hideously scarred, and a tied bandanna hid whatever remained of his eyes.

“It’s the outlanders!” a short bartender shouted, brandishing a demijohn that sloshed clear fluid. “Drinks are on the house!”

“No, I’m paying for the shine, Peter!” the baron replied, claiming a table. “And my friends want some food first. Anything but fish, right?”

“Nuke you, David!” the bartender shot back. “My tavern, my rules. The outies eat and drink for free.”

Leaving the counter, he hurried over. “What do you want, folks? We got moose, elk, and some nice cow that’s only a day old. Still fresh enough to moo if you get it mad.”

“Anything with horns or hooves,” Ryan said, taking a seat. “One more trout and I’m going to grow gills.”

Everybody in the tavern laughed as if never hearing the old joke. The baron gestured for everyone in his group to take a chair.

Nudging Krysty aside, Jak managed to sit next to Sandara.

“Good work, cut yourself?” Jak asked, pointing at the dumdum rounds.

“Of course!” Sandara said. “That’s the only way to make sure the rounds don’t blow up in your blaster.” Then she softly added, “We have a man in town, Jeff Tannenbaum, like you.”

“What, from bayou?”

“Albino.” Sandara chuckled, resting a hand on his arm. “Not a mutie, just nuking pale.”

Jak smiled. “Most folks not know difference.”

She leaned in closer. “I’m willing to bet a live brass that’s a bad idea.”

“Got that in crosshairs,” Jak stated, gently patting her hand.

Sandara openly blushed at that and quickly said, “Would you like to see my workshop where I cut the rounds?” Her voice faded after that as if speech was no longer possible.

“Aces,” Jak said softly. Standing, he pulled out her chair.

Rising, Sandara blushed again, and they walked out of the tavern together.

“Don’t think we’re going to be seeing either of them for a while,” J.B. said quietly, placing the Uzi on the table. Friendly ville, or not, a close blaster made good sense.

“Here’s to new friends,” Linderholm said, pouring a round of liquor into wooden cups. Tossing off the shot, he poured another. “I hope the boy has stamina.”

“He’s a good man,” Ryan said, leaning back in the chair.

“Certainly hope so,” Linderholm said, taking a sip. “You’ll understand that if I hear her scream, I’m sending in fifty sec men with clubs.”

“But what if Jak is the one yelling for help?” Doc asked with a grin.

Caught in the middle of a swallow, Linderholm nearly choked. “By thunder, I hope he is!” The man laughed.

“I knew Jak liked her from the moment he learned that she cut her own dumdums,” Mildred said with a small smile. Under the table, she bumped J.B. with a knee, and he returned the favor.

“Well, sure,” Fife said, pouring another round. “Man or woman, if you can’t fight, you can’t fuck. What could be plainer than that?”

“I cut my own dumdums,” Nye said, not looking at anybody in particular.

“Yeah, you do,” Fife said, taking a drink. Then he stopped and looked at the village healer as if he had never seen her in the light before. “Damn fine work it is, too,” he said, reaching over to top off her plastic mug.

“I didn’t think you noticed,” Nye whispered.

“Didn’t,” Fife said honestly. “But I do now.”

“Good to know,” Nye replied, fingering the condensation on the outside of the mug.

The colonel rested an arm on the table. “Yes, it is Jody-Lynn.”

Just then, a bevy of busty young serving girls arrived carrying charred wooden platters staked with massive T-bone steaks. The sizzling was audible from yards away.

“Good Lord, those must weight five pounds each!” Mildred gasped, backing away slightly. “We can’t eat these, they’re enormous!”

“Yep, the best I have!” Peter stated, wiping his hands clean on a towel. “Now, eat up. The second course is a lovely roast of bear.”

“Bring it soon,” Linderholm said, tying a napkin around his neck.

“I could eat a bear roast,” Ricky said confidently, pulling out a small knife. “Anything for dessert?”

“Perhaps a second bear roast?” Doc asked jokingly.

Furrowing his brow, the boy gave the matter some serious consideration when there came the a ringing clang.

“Any chance that’s the dinner bell?” Mildred asked, hope fading on her face. “Or a fire alarm?”

“Nope, invaders,” Fife growled, standing and swinging around the AK-47. He worked the arming bolt and started for the exit. “Razor up, people! Everybody to the wall, the ville is under attack!”

Chapter Seventeen

Exploding out of the tavern, Ryan and the others raced across the ville. Moments later, Jak and Sandara joined them, running up the street. If their clothing was slightly in disarray, nobody was tactless enough to mention the fact.

Everywhere, sec men and civilians were scrambling to their posts: teenagers setting out buckets of water to help fight fires, a group of old sec men loading the pair of Civil War cannons near the gazebo, and a couple of very old women were herding small children into a cellar. Slamming the thick door closed, they sealed it with a padlock, then started stacking rosebushes on top to hide the entrance from casual view.

“They’ve got this down to an exact science,” Mildred noted, sprinting along.

“It’s not our first attack,” Nye answered, checking her blaster. “Baron, do you think it’s the cannies seeking revenge?”

“Already?” Linderholm asked in disbelief, then he relented. “Mebbe it is. Who else would dare to attack my ville after we slaughtered that gang last year?”

“Only that bitch Angstrom,” Fife growled, yanking the napkin from his neck to cast it away.

“Is the Lexington ready, Father?” Sandara asked.

“Ready as she’ll ever be,” the baron replied.

“Is that some sort of weapon?” Ryan asked.

Looking sideways, Linderholm gave him a brief smile, but said nothing.

Reaching the entrance to the ville, the companions saw that the locals were preparing for a full-scale war, not just a fight. A gaudy slut was holding a large wicker basket filled with paper cartridges and flints. As the sec men raced by, another girl would give each of them a handful.

Directly above the front gate, a team of bare-chested men was sweating and cursing to work the crank on a giant crossbow. Ryan recalled that Doc called the weapon an arbalest. The drawstring was braided cable as thick as his thumb, and as it locked into place, a sec woman carefully loaded a sharpened baseball bat.

“The first one has her name on it, Baron!” a waving sec man called out.

“Literally!” the sec woman added, lifting the bat high to display the crudely carved letters.

Flicking a bullwhip, a burly sec man was driving a team of struggling horses to drag a huge limestone block along the ground. As he reached the gate, he stopped the horses and freed the reins. Immediately a group of girls darted forward to start hammering wooden stakes into the ground to help anchor the colossal doorstop.

“Smart, even if the gate is breached, they still can’t get in,” Krysty noted, the M-16 held in both hands.

“Or us get out,” Ricky added nervously, licking dry lips.

“This is no time to leave. The balloon is going up!” J.B. growled, thumbing fresh shells into his shotgun. Then he added, “Would you really want to leave these people?”

After a moment Ricky stood a little taller. “No,” he said with new determination.

J.B. slapped him on the back. “Good lad!”

Everybody got out of the way as Baron Linderholm and his people started climbing the wooden stairs going up the wall. Ryan and the companions followed close behind.

Reaching the top, everybody spread out to get a look, and not offer any snipers a nice group shot.

“Blind Norad, that’s a nuking army out there,” Linderholm muttered, holding out a hand. A sec man slapped a Navy monocular into his palm.

“Angstrom?” J.B. asked, adjusting his glasses.

“And I suspect most of her sec men,” Ryan answered grimly.

Filling the breach in the outer bulwark was a large crowd of armed men surrounding a LAV-25.

“Gods of the atom, they’re all carrying rapid-fires and pipe bombs...” Linderholm muttered, dialing for better focus.

Abruptly, Sandara turned. “You! They’re here for you!”

“Told you had trouble in highlands,” Jak stated truthfully.

“Exactly what kind of trouble?” Fife demanded, carefully loading a 40 mm shell into the gren launcher attached underneath the AK-47 assault rifle.

“Ryan aced an elk, and King Angstrom come out of the bushes claiming it belonged to him,” Krysty said, pulling a gren from a pocket, and removing the duct tape from the arming level. “We offered to share the meat, but then he saw our blasters and attacked. He was killed.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Angstrom,” Linderholm said, returning the Navy monocular. “He always did like to take what belonged to others—elks, wives, villes, he didn’t care.”

“Might makes right,” Mildred said mockingly. “That was the philosophy of the Nazi party.”

“Never herd of that ville, but for a king he was a nuking big coward,” Fife added. “Never did like to attack from the front.”

“The bastard was yellow as week-old piss,” Nye added, working the top bolt on a boxy MAC 10 machine pistol. “His wife was the true ruler. Bitch. Guess she’s in charge for real now.”

“Bad range,” Jak noted.

“Weak hands, the curse of a healer.”

“Ain’t it the truth,” Mildred said, hefting her assault rifle. “Best thing about the M-16 is a near lack of recoil.”

“Triple smooth,” Jak agreed, tucking a spare magazine into a shirt pocket for easy access.

“No recoil? How is that possible?” Sandara asked skeptically.

An amplified voice boomed from a loudspeaker bolted to the side of the APC. “Send me the outlander named Ryan, and I will leave. The Granite Empire has no feud with Concord!”

“Low, not zero,” Jak said, working the arming bolt. “Has ‘hot gas’ bolt chamber.”

“What?”

“Explain later,” he growled, taking aim.

A corporal turned. “With your permission, Baron?” he asked eagerly.

Linderholm waved a hand.

“Hey, Angstrom!” the sec man snarled, leveling his flintlock and firing. “Kiss my hairy ass!”

The weapon boomed, issuing a huge cloud of gray smoke, a dagger of flame extending for almost a yard. A split second later the miniball harmlessly ricocheted off the armored hull of the APC.

“Damn, it’s not painted wood.” Nye sighed, lowering her weapon. “That is real predark armor.”

“Best we’ve ever seen,” Ryan added bluntly.

“The Fire Hammer can’t be harmed by any weapon you own,” Queen Angstrom boasted over the loudspeaker. “Give me Ryan and we will leave in peace!”

“Mutie shit!” Fife bellowed. “Like that bitch is gonna just go away...after bringing an army to our front gate!”

“Angstrom is so twisted,” Mildred added, “she eats soup with a corkscrew!”

That invoked a gale of laughter from the sec men on the wall, and somber faces brightened.

“Any suggestions on how we should proceed?” Linderholm asked, pulling out a fat 40 mm shell from the leather pouch. Opening the breech of the gren launcher, he shoved in the shell and gently closed the weapon. “A straight attack, or to lure them closer?”

“Straight attack,” Sandara returned, hefting an AK-101 assault rifle. Her Kalashnikov was nearly identical to the one carried by her father, except that it had a folding wire stock and possessed a 12-gauge shotgun bolted under the main barrel rather than a grenade launcher.

“Lure the crazy bitch closer,” Fife said with a cruel laugh.

“Do we get a say in this?” Ryan asked gruffly.

“No,” Linderholm stated. “You’re guests in my ville, so protecting you is my job.” Then he smiled. “Not that I’d mind if you lend a hand when the lead starts flying.”

“Deal,” J.B. agreed, working the stubby arming bolt on the Uzi machine pistol.

“Baron Linderholm!” The queen’s voice boomed once more. “The outlanders are assassins who chilled my husband while he slept! Give them to me for execution, and we will leave in peace. My quarrel is not with you, or this ville!”

The sec men on the wall responded with catcalls and amazingly rude gestures.

Going to a wooden supply box, Fife flipped up the lid and moved aside the tray of paper cartridges for the flintlocks, to withdraw a fat pistol with a stubby barrel.

“Yeah, just keep talking, bitch,” Fife growled, cracking open the breech and shoving in a long 20 mm cartridge. “Waste all the time you like.” With a jerk of his wrist, he closed the weapon.

“We knew this day was coming years ago,” Nye added confidently, “and made plans.”

“How stop last wag?” Jak asked, looking down at the Civil War cannons in the park, and up at the giant crossbow above the gate.

“We have a war wag of our own,” Fife said, aiming the blaster at the open sky, then stroking the trigger.

The gun belched smoke, the 20 mm shell going high. As it started to curve back down, the magnesium charge detonated and exploded into a brilliant green fireball.

Doc frowned. “Your war wag is outside the ville?”

“Has to be,” Fife replied, reloading the flare gun.

“Well?” Queen Angstrom loudly demanded. “Last chance, old man!”

“Enough of this shit. Give ’em hell, boys!” Baron Linderholm bellowed through cupped hands.

Hidden ports in the front gate slid aside, and the Civil War cannons were shoved through, their fuses already sizzling. As the Granite sec men scowled at the tiny black muzzles, both 6-pound Napoleons rocked back as fiery black smoke thundered from their mouths.

The first line of Granite Empire sec men appeared to disintegrate in the volcanic discharge, then the next line fell in tatters and the third line dropped screaming, their bodies riddled with gushing holes.

“Stainless-steel ball bearings,” Fife said with an odd note of pride. “We got them from the office chairs in the battleship.”

“The chairs?” Ryan asked.

“Done that myself in the past,” J.B. said, hunching his shoulders. “Thankful for the fat asses of old Navy officers!”

As the lake breeze cleared away the billowing clouds of smoke, the killing field was littered with pieces of human bodies, only a couple of them intact enough to try to drag themselves away from the monstrous cannons.

Rising from within the APC appeared a squat black box. There came a low electric hum, the front of the box irised open and out lanced a scintillating rainbow that burned a hole completely through the armored gate.

Unstoppable, the energy beam extended across the ville, beheading sec men and ville folk, setting fire to a tree in passing, and burning a deep gouge in the side of the Sleepy Dog. The sign caught fire and a high-pitched shriek came from inside the prefab building.

As every sec man on the wall cut loose with a longblaster, the Napoleons fired again, the thundering double discharge spraying out bent nails, copper pennies and wood screws. More of the Granite Empire sec men died screaming.

Angling upward, the black box started to hum again, the front irised open wide.

“Down. Everybody get down!” Ryan commanded, diving for the stone.

Already keyed to battle pitch, most of the sec men obeyed. The few who foolishly stayed shrieked as the laser swept along the top of the wall. Their flaming bodies staggered blindly before the ammunition in their gunbelts cooked off to messily finish the job.

On command, the sec men operating the arbalest fired, the baseball bat slamming into the APC. The impact actually made the steel chassis ring briefly, then the laser lurched into operation again and burned the crossbow out of existence.

Firing his M-16 at a suspicious piece of ground, Doc was rewarded with an answering cry of pain, and a sec man rolled out from underneath a blanket covered with a thick layer of dirt. As he limped away, Doc aimed, but withheld from shooting the escaping man in the back.

“Fire the cannons again!” Mildred said, grabbing the arm of the baron. “Keep firing as fast as you can!”

“But we’re out of cannonballs,” the man started.

“Don’t need them! It’s the smoke you want. It weakens the laser!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Tell them!” Linderholm commanded over a shoulder, firing his big Martini-Henry.

With a nod, Sandara took off at a full sprint. Just for a moment, Jak watched her go, then turned his full attention to the battle going on in the killing field.

Digging in for a pitched battle, the Granite Empire sec men were firing from the top of the dirt bulwark, their rapid-fires chattering nonstop. Spent brass tumbled down the slope like autumn leaves.

Wisely keeping low, the Concord defenders waited until there was a pause when the enemy reloaded, then they stood and fired. The flintlocks boomed, and whole sections of the bulwark erupted, the bodies of the enemy sec men flying away to patter down into the lake.

“You mined the bulwarks?” J.B. said, slapping a fresh magazine into the Uzi.

“Never leave an enemy an escape route,” Linderholm stated defiantly, then jerked backward as part of his head was blown off from an incoming miniball.

Nearly decapitated, the baron staggered, then dropped onto the wall and went still.

“The baron is aced!” a sec woman bellowed.

A sec man added, “Then long live Sandara, our new baron!”

Jak frowned at that, but said nothing.

Shouting battle cries, the ville sec force redoubled its efforts, handblasters, shotguns, and even a couple of rapid-fires firing freely.

Spitting the acrid taste of spent black powder from his mouth, Ryan shoved in another magazine, and continued picking off snipers in the distant trees. Every time he saw a flash, he answered back, and a Granite Empire sec man tumbled into view, gushing red life.

Retreating from the unexpected resistance, the enemy sec men took refuge behind the bulwark, as the Fire Hammer rolled closer, the front of the black box once more irising open wide.

As the laser began to loudly hum, everybody on the wall took cover. But this time the beam burned holes through the Napoleon cannons, first one, then the other. The stores of guncotton behind them erupted in harmless fury, the columns of roiling fumes reaching high into the sky. Then the lovingly repaired Civil War exhibits were gone, the brass barrels melted into a puddle on the stony ground.

The laser came again, a slightly wider beam hitting the wall, not penetrating the ten solid feet of limestone. Instead the wide beam quickly began heating the stone, and it loudly cracked apart, chunks falling away to make a gaping crater.

“How do we stop that thing?” Fife growled, firing his AK-47 at the war wag. As the magazine cycled empty, the colonel tossed it aside and fumbled for another. Then he spotted a familiar face moving among the crowd of Granite Empire sec men. “Bannister!”

At the shout, the thief paused, and Fife grabbed the Martini-Henry longblaster from the twitching hands of the dead baron. Levering in a fresh cartridge, he aimed and fired, catching Bannister in the shoulder as the man dived behind the Fire Hammer.

Reloading, Fife shot at an exposed boot. The short-chamber cartridge blew it in two, but there was no response. Cursing at himself for mistaking a corpse for the live man, the sec boss reloaded and fired at anything that moved near the APC, each time moving a little faster and smoother.

Already hit a dozen times before by miniballs and assorted blasterfire, the headlight on the APC shattered under the triphammer arrival of the titanically huge slug. Instantly the laser swung in his direction.

Without bothering to light the fuse, J.B. whipped a pipe bomb forward. As it fell into the laser, the pipe bomb violently detonated. Temporarily defused by the explosion, the beam splayed around harmlessly for a moment. On the wall, everybody cheered, only to go quiet once more as the renewed beam stabbed out again and again, burning fresh holes through the limestone blocks.

In the bamboo cupolas of the guard towers, a couple of sec men leveled long sections of PVC pipe at the Fire Hammer, hissing fuses dangling from the aft end. In sputtering fury, a salvo of homemade rockets lanced from the crude bazookas to miss the machine and bury themselves into the ground underneath the war wag. Then more rockets streaked away from the other guard towers, all of them oddly missing the Fire Hammer and going deep into the earth all round the APC.

“Wait for it...” Nye smirked, reloading.

As if suspecting a trap, the people inside the Fire Hammer sent it lurching into motion, but it was too late. The ground around the machine erupted into a gigantic fireball that engulfed the APC. For several minutes writhing flames licked at every inch of the Granite Empire war machine. Somebody screamed from inside, and briefly a rapid fire chattered. Then the flames faded away, leaving a visibly blackened chassis.

“We did it!” a sec man cheered as if they had just won the fight.

“Didn’t do shit,” Ryan growled, ducking for cover.

Abruptly the black box cycled back into view again. As the front irised open, the incandescent energy beam swept sideways across the guard towers, neatly severing the thick wooden beams off their frame.

As the cupolas slid off, the hapless sec men inside could only scream as they plummeted toward the earth. Then they hit, and the screaming stopped in a crackling explosion of splintering wood and shattering bamboo.

Clutching her U.S. mailbag, Nye dashed down the stairs, charging toward the ruined towers.

Meanwhile, the laser shifted targets and began burning holes in the ville gate, the overlapping layers of sheet metal turning bright red from the brief passage of the beam.

A sleek cabin cruiser steamed into view out on the lake mist. The Gatling gun mounted on the Lexington’s foredeck began banging steadily, and ricochets zinged off the armored chassis of the Fire Hammer. A dozen sec men nearby fell in bloody ruination as the heavy-caliber rounds tore away their lives. Then one of the Fire Hammer’s military tires exploded off a rim, and the loudspeaker was torn away, the dangling wires visibly crackling with fat blue sparks.

Quickly, the PEP laser swung in the vessel’s direction and fired. But the shimmering beam missed the speeding boat to only hit the lake. The water erupted into steam at the contact, dead fish falling back down like manna from heaven.

Angling around, a rocket launched from the Lexington to slam into the rear of the APC with deafening results. For a few moments the Fire Hammer was lost inside the swirling cloud of dark smoke. Then the fumes dissipated and everybody could see that it was completely unaffected.

Swiveling around again, the black box irised open, and the laser flashed. Grabbing his face, a sailor screamed, then burst into flames. As he stumbled into the lake, the laser stabbed out again to core the Lexington completely. In a sputter, the diesel engines died and everybody jumped off the ship. A moment later the huge stores of fuel and ammunition below decks thunderously detonated. The entire lake seemed to jump as the deafening blast obliterated the cabin cruiser, and a dozen dead sec men smacked into the rocky shoreline with horrible results.

Scrambling up the stairs, Sandara returned to the wall just in time to see the ship destroyed. She started to speak, then stopped and glanced at the body of her father only a few yards away.

“What now, Baron?” Fife asked.

“Are we surrendering?” a sec man asked, pausing in the act of ramming a nimrod down the barrel of his flintlock.

“Surrender?” another sec man snarled, lowering his weapon. “Are you a feeb? We just lost! The Lexington was our big punch, and it didn’t scratch the bastard tin can.”

“That’s not what we need to damage,” Ryan said, quickly removing the sound suppressor from the barrel of the Steyr Scout.

“Why are you doing that?” Ricky asked, inserting a fresh magazine into the DeLisle.

“The silencer slows down the lead,” Ryan said, “and for this I’m going need all of the speed I can get.”

“Then use my father’s Martini-Henry,” Sandara said, taking the blood-streaked longblaster from Fife. “Its round is a nuke lot more powerful than your 7.62 mm.”

“True, but I also need accuracy,” Ryan said, going to the edge of the wall and kneeling on the hot stone.

Assuming a firing position, Ryan looked through the telescopic sight and focused on the black box atop the LAV-25. Experimentally, he fired a round. As expected, the speeding bullet ricocheted impotently off the dense military armor.

Encouraged by the total destruction of the cabin cruiser, the Granite Empire sec men were starting to rally over the bulwark again, their blasters firing constantly. The Concord sec men were answering back in tightly controlled bursts.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Ryan calmed his mind and patiently waited for a target to present itself. Timing. Everything was timing.

Loudly building power, the black box rose into view once more and swung to aim at the ville gate. As the front irised open, Ryan fired a single shot. Exposed for only a moment, an armored coaxial cable was snipped off and the iris slammed shut, only to then snap open completely.

Quick-firing, Ryan put three hardball rounds directly into the resilient lens before it slightly cracked, then shattered completely.

As the laser stabbed outward, the deadly beam went wide, spraying out in every direction. Hit from behind, the Granite Empire sec men screamed as their hair and clothing burst into flames. Turning in shock, others then grabbed their faces, pawing blindly at their blistered eyes.

Lurching into motion, the Fire Hammer began rolling away from the men on the ville wall, banking sharply to turn and desperately race away. In a ragged formation, the Granite Empire sec men followed after the escaping APC, firing every step of the way, but at what wasn’t precisely clear.

“Yee-haw!” a sec man yelled, brandishing his flintlock. “We got her on the run, boys!”

“We won?” a wounded sec man whispered, unable to believe the words.

“No, we didn’t,” Fife stated in a tired growl. “The queen has merely retreated to make repairs to her laser.”

“This war is far from over,” Ryan added.

In ragged stages, the cheering died away to be replaced by deeply worried expressions.

Slinging her father’s enormous Martini-Henry longblaster over a shoulder, Sandara held out a hand and a sec man gave her the monocular. “It will take her a week to get parts from her home ville,” she declared, dialing for focus. “So we have that much time to make repairs.”

“Better only count on half of that,” Krysty stated. “I’d say her sec men will ride their horses into the ground to get the parts as fast as possible.”

“Three days?” Frowning, Fife turned to look over the ville. Most of the small fires were already extinguished, and some sec men were struggling to make repairs to the gate.

“Wood to patch predark steel,” Jak drawled in disapproval. “Not keep out stickie, never mind war wag.”

“Agreed,” Sandara said. “But what else can we do? That war wag burned through five years of defenses in ten minutes!”

“Unfortunately there’s more bad news,” Fife growled. “I saw one of our sec men with her. A man called Bannister...he wasn’t a prisoner.”

“A traitor?” Sandara seemed to have trouble getting out the word.

“I’m afraid so, Baron, and with his knowledge of our defenses...”

“Mutie shit,” a sec man laughed. “There’s no way that bitch will risk Blackie here putting another hole in her precious las!”

“Never seen shooting like that in my life,” a sec man added, reloading his flintlock. “What kind of scope you got on that longblaster?”

“Wasn’t the scope,” Fife stated. “It’s the man.”

Unaccustomed to praise, Ryan said nothing, not really sure how to respond.

“Sandy...I...that is...Baron?” a sec woman asked, hobbling closer. The right leg of her pants was gone, the bare thigh swaddled in bloody bandages, and a piece of bamboo was tucked under her arm as a crude crutch.

Sandara waved away the fumble. “What is it, Corporal Harrigan?”

“Any chance we could get the pirates on our side?” Harrigan asked, scratching her head, “mebbe offer them a slice of the jack if they attack Angstrom from behind?”

“Oh, they would happily agree to that,” Sandara replied gruffly. “Then cut a deal with the queen to attack us instead.”

“We’re alone on this, Corporal,” Fife added.

Nodding, the sec woman hobbled away, picking up dropped blasters from the scattered bodies lining the top of the bloody wall.

“Better send out some runners to do the same thing in the killing field,” Krysty said. “A lot of the Granite Empire sec men left rapid-fires behind. Those will be very useful when the queen returns.”

“A good idea,” Sandara said. “Colonel, send out the gaudy sluts.”

“With some of the less badly hurt sec men as protection,” Fife added, swinging up his AK-47. “A few of those corpses don’t look quite aced enough to suit me.” He fired a round and a distant corpse jerked at the impact. He fired again and another supposed corpse cried out in pain, then went limp.

“Use knives,” Jak suggested. “Save brass.”

“Our sluts prefer axes,” Fife told him grimly.

“Then give them axes, Colonel,” Sandara said, almost smiling. “Better also tell our Sky Master to unleash his birds. All of them. I want them killing every pigeon in the Five Mountains. Nothing must get through. Nothing!”

Just then, a section of the limestone wall loudly cracked apart, and a large chunk tumbled away to slam onto the ground below.

“Now, Angstrom wants us bad,” J.B. stated. “So, she will be back. But only after making sure Ryan can’t hurt her war wag again.”

“And how could she do that?” Sandara asked, rubbing her once-broken nose with a clenched fist.

“The battleship!” Doc exclaimed excitedly. “Bannister will tell her about the heavy-duty plastic we found there. With a sheet of that protecting the lens, no amount of gunfire would be able to inflict damage.”

Sandara scoffed. “Bah, plastic windows are easy to break!”

“Military plas,” Jak explained. “Clear like glass, tough like iron.”

As she realized the dire implications, Sandara went pale, then straightened her shoulders. “So what’s the plan? Haul all of this plastic away and hide it in a cave, or something?”

“There’s not enough time for that,” Ryan replied. “We have to do this fast and dirty.”

“Does the ville have any bikes?” Mildred asked.

Fife frowned. “Bikes...you mean, Harleys? Sure, we have nine or ten in prime working condition. Lots of juice, too.”

“Good. We’ll need them, all the juice you can spare and two barrels of guncotton.”

“Why?” Sandra asked quizzically.

“Guncotton,” Ryan restated. “The best you have.”

“Why?” Sandara repeated.

“To blow up the ship?” Krysty said, starting down the wooden stairs.

“You don’t need a whole barrel to set off the rest of the ammunition stored onboard,” Fife snapped, looking over the edge of the wall. “Our biggest problem is always trying to make the damn stuff not explode!”

“Don’t need it for the ship!” Ryan shouted, hurrying downward.

Fife frowned. “Then what—”

“I’ll explain on the way!”

Chapter Eighteen

Lumbering along through the forest, the grizzly bear paused, uncertain at a strange sound, a sort of low growl that was rapidly increasing in volume. Standing on his hind legs and spreading his massive shaggy arms, the grizzly loudly bellowed to announce that it was ready to fight anything!

A split second later the Fire Hammer crashed through a stand of saplings and slammed into the creature. With every major bone shattered, the bag of fur and blood flew away to slam into a boulder with sickening results.

With brakes squealing, the Fire Hammer rocked to a full halt and the top hatch flipped up.

Rising into view, Queen Angstrom looked around the forest clearing. There was a bloody cloth wrapped around her neck where flames from the Concord rockets had come licking through a blasterport. The unexpected attack would have killed her for sure if the APC hadn’t automatically slammed shut every port and air vent. She hadn’t even known the machine could do such things. But the ancient whitecoats of DeeCee had certainly saved her ass this day.

Then Angstrom frowned, fingertips touching her badly burned throat. What a nuking disaster! She had been absolutely positive that this night she would be contentedly dining in the great hall of Concord, sipping mulled shine and watching the outlanders beg for mercy as wild dogs gnawed off their bound limbs. Instead she had been forced to flee, to run for her life like a slave from a cruel overseer when the laser had broken.

Angstrom still wasn’t precisely sure if the weapon had overheated, or if the outlanders had somehow managed to shoot out the control cables. Of the two choices, the first seemed much more likely. The second possibility would require marksmanship from Ryan that bordered on the supernatural.

A few moments later what remained of the Granite Empire mounted troops arrived, the sec men on the motorcycles judiciously keeping their machines away from the horses as the exhaust fumes frightened the animals, making them occasionally buck and toss off the riders.

“Okay, this will do,” Angstrom announced in a gravelly voice, a hand touching her aching throat. “Make camp, establish a defensive perimeter...” She smiled. “And cut me some steaks off that bear!”

When the rest of the Granite Empire sec men arrived an hour later, the camp was well established, with a perimeter fence of pungi sticks, a latrine dug, a prisoner bound to a tree and fat juicy steaks roasting over a cheery fire.

Looking as if they had just escaped from the grave, the bedraggled sec men were heaving for breath, many of them still bleeding from small wounds that hadn’t been bandaged yet.

“Wash and get some food!” Angstrom directed, lounging in a folding chair. “There’s clean water to the right, shitters to the left.”

Dumbly nodding, the sec men shuffled away, dragging their weapons along behind them in the dirt, too tired to even lift their blasters anymore.

Counting on his fingers as the weary men and women trundled past, Major Svenson scowled unhappily. “Ninety-two, my queen,” he announced. “Less than a third of what we attacked with.”

“So I see,” Angstrom said, wrapping the soft fur of the wendigo across her lap. “How are the repairs going?”

Softly, there came muffled clangs from inside the Fire Hammer, closely followed by a stream of wildly inventive cursing.

“As well as can be expected.” Svenson sighed, squatting in the grass. “We have plenty of spare wiring to make a new cable, and another lens, but until we find some way to prevent it from happening again...” He looked up at the woman. “My queen, do you think Ryan really shot out the cable from that distance?”

“No.”

“But he has a scope on that fancy longblaster...”

“Bah, it was just a lucky accident, nothing more!” Angstrom dismissed smoothly. “With all of the lead that was flying around, a ricochet was bound to get inside.”

Inhaling deeply, Svenson glared in annoyance at the APC parked across the clearance. The dancing flames of the campfire brightly illuminated the hulking machine, revealing every minor dent, along with the blackened scorch marks from the rocket attack.

“Then our war wag has a serious weakness,” Svenson said bluntly.

“So it would seem,” Angstrom replied, plucking at a loose thread in the embroidery of her shirt.

“We don’t dare to attack Concord again until... Is there anything we can do to fix the problem? Bannister can’t help us with this.”

“Oh yes,” Angstrom said, looking up with a hard smile. “There most certainly is.”

After dinner, and a few hours of sleep, Angstrom and the others strolled over to the prisoner.

His limbs splayed like a starfish on the beach, Charlie Ownes was tied to a large birch tree.

“I do so hate torture,” Angstrom said with a practiced sigh. “Perhaps we should just chill him.”

“Whatever you wish,” a sec man answered, pulling out a large knife.

“No, wait!” Ownes screamed, his eyes wild in terror. “I know the wall! I know every inch of the ville!”

“But we don’t care about that,” Queen Angstrom said quietly. “We want to hear about the battleship you told Sergeant Goldberg about.”

“Corporal, ma’am,” the man said hesitantly.

She smiled. “Not anymore.”

“Thank you, ma’am!”

“The ship?” Ownes asked in confusion. “Sure, no prob. I can help you get all of the guncotton you want.”

With a snarl, Major Svenson punched Ownes in the stomach. Unable to bend over, he gasped and choked, fighting to breathe.

“Dirty little traitor, I’d rather die than betray my ville!” he snarled, grabbing a fistful of hair. Pulling Ownes’s head to the side, he exposed the big vein in the side of the neck and produced a large knife.

“I’d rather live!” Ownes shouted, tears running down his face.

“Would you now?” Angstrom said, holding up a restraining palm. “Then tell us everything about that ship again, especially those plastic windows that can’t be broken.”

Quickly, Ownes repeated everything he had seen and heard while inside the predark battleship.

“And that’s everything?” Angstrom asked.

“Yes, Queen Angstrom, everything!” Ownes said urgently. “Set me free and I can lead you directly there.”

“No, I believe that you’ve told us enough to find the hidden ship,” she replied coldly. “Only now we must make sure this isn’t a trap from Linderholm.”

“It is the truth, I swear it!” Ownes said with a wild tone in his voice.

“Ah, but how can we accept the word from a traitor?” She sighed, snapping her fingers.

Pulling knives, the sec men advanced on the captive and cut away of his clothing, not really caring if they sliced the skin underneath. Naked, and dripping blood, Ownes trembled all over, and shamefully soiled himself.

Prepared for that, a sec man threw a bucket of cold water across the man, washing away the filth.

“Now, this is how it will go,” Angstrom said in a cold voice. “The major will ask questions, and you will answer them. Then he’ll torture you to make sure you’re telling the truth. When he’s satisfied, you die. Fair enough?”

“No, wait, I’ll talk!” Ownes cried, tears running down both cheeks. “You don’t have to...I’ll talk! Tell ya everything ya wanna know!”

“Yeah, you will,” Svenson seethed, reaching out to grab an ear.

“Don’t forget to ask about the cannies!” Angstrom called over a shoulder as she strolled back toward the campsite.

The screaming lasted long into the night, and with the coming of the dawn, Ownes’s corpse was buried with the rest of the trash.

After meticulously checking over the repairs made to the Fire Hammer, Queen Angstrom got comfortable behind the controls, fired up the big diesel engines and started driving due east toward Impact Valley with her army of mounted sec men close behind.

* * ** * *

THE NEXT DAY, the sun was directly overhead by the time the companions and Concord ville sec men arrived at the crashed battleship.

During the night, the group had only briefly stopped to relieve themselves or to refuel. Everybody was filthy, the crude ponchos tied around their clothing thickly coated with so much road dust and leaves that they each resembled a corpse freshly escaped from the grave. The windshields and headlights were caked with squashed bugs of every description.

“You were right,” Fife groaned, stiffly rising from the motorcycle. “It’s cracked open like a clam.”

Before them rose the unbroken expanse of the impact mound, and on the other side of the hillock was the underbelly of the great vessel.

“Had to be,” Mildred said, forcing her fingers off the handlebars. “Or else there wouldn’t have been a breeze blowing through the ship. The main air vent is located in the prow, and that’s buried fifty feet underground.”

The strongest part of any oceangoing vessel, the keel for military vessels was designed to withstand a staggering amount of punishment, including torpedo hits. However, the possibility of dropping straight down from the sky hadn’t been included in any theoretical engineering specs.

Incredibly, the keel was still intact, merely bent out of shape. But the hull on either side had split open when the top deck compressed, the conflicting forces too much to absorb. Through the gaping wide hole, the smashed remains of the engines were clearly visible.

“Good call, Millie,” J.B. said, wiping his glasses clean. “Now we have a private entrance, while the others have to use the front door.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Betty demanded, jerking off her poncho and creating a whirlwind of filth. “Wanted to keep that private in case you came back to jack the wreck?”

Easing out of her own poncho, Mildred gently lowered the stiff blanket to the ground. “Something like that,” she admitted.

“Friendlies, not kin,” Ryan reminded them harshly, removing a filthy bandanna from around his head.

Frowning at that, Fife then snorted a laugh. “Fair enough! I would have done the same myself.”

“Too bad we don’t have one of those bazookas,” Ricky said, stomping his boots, dirt and leaves cascading away. “We could put a rocket right into that breech and blow the whole thing from here!”

“And the concussion would crush us into jelly,” J.B. stated, putting his glasses back into place. “We need to get inside and set a bomb with a ten-minute fuse....no, make that fifteen.”

“Mayhap twenty, would be wiser,” Doc rumbled, pulling the M-16 assault rifle from the gunboot alongside the front yoke. “Just in case of trouble.”

“Well, I got enough fuse for an hour.”

“Good man!”

“I hates to think of all guncotton gone forever.” A sec man sighed deeply.

“Guncotton is easy to make,” J.B. replied. “Dark night, I can teach you how to do it from bedsheets and predark coins.”

Fife stared at the man as if he had suddenly grown tentacles. “Are you serious?”

“Dead center. A little distilled water, a few weeks of sunshine, and you’ll be making enough of the stuff to level Cobalt Mountain.”

“Bedsheets and coins? You’re nuking insane,” Betty stated, then gave a toothy grin. “What else would you need?”

“We’ll tell you later,” Ryan said, pointing at the battleship.

Nodding, Krysty swung up a crossbow, took aim and fired. The heavy bolt slammed deep into a pine tree on top of the hillock, trailing behind it was a long length of twine feeding through a loop at the end of the bolt.

Carefully pulling on one end of the twine, Krysty started dragging a much thicker length of rope up the hillock to the tree. She had a little trouble maneuvering it through the greased loop, but finally succeeded, and held both ends of the rope.

Taking turns, the companions climbed up the steep mound, and soon were standing on top looking down into the crater on the other side. Mildred and Ricky stayed behind to guard the bikes and the climbing rope.

“We’re taking a big chance here,” a sec man muttered, scowling at the titanic vessel. “Even if this plastic stuff exists—”

“Does,” Jak interrupted.

“That don’t mean Angstrom is going try to get some,” the sec men retorted.

“Oh yes, it does,” J.B. replied, both hands holding the long Navy telescope. “Incoming, two o’clock, main entrance!”

Swinging up the Steyr, Ryan looked through the telescopic sight. The trees along the top of the hillock were so thick it took him a few moments to find the distant breach in the curved mound. Then he saw the boxy APC park directly in front of the breech, surrounded by a score of sec men on motorcycles. Then a second wave arrived on panting horses.

“Fireblast, Angstrom brought along everybody,” Ryan cursed, lowering the longblaster. “I think she plans to hold this ship, and loot everything useful.”

“Concord doesn’t stand a chance against her fragging laser and troops armed with barrels of guncotton,” Fife stormed, clenching and releasing his fists. Silently, the sec chief looked at the satchel of pipe bombs on the ground, and then at the battleship, his face becoming oddly calm.

“Before we cross the Rubicon, there are other things to try,” Doc said, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “We are far from dead yet.”

“Well, there’s no way we can blow up the breach now to stop her from getting inside,” Krysty stated, squinting into the distance.

“Will be,” Jak stated, snatching the bag of pipe bombs. Turning, he sprinted into the pine trees and soon disappeared from sight.

“What’s he going to do?” Betty demanded with a scowl.

“Buy us time,” Ryan answered gruffly, grabbing the ropes and throwing them down the inside slope. “Now let’s move with a purpose, people!”

Scrambling into the crater, the group raced closer to the battleship. While Ryan and Fife stood guard, the others fired crossbows at the lowest rent. Trailing knotted ropes, the grappling hooks arched into the darkness. Two fell back, three didn’t, and were quickly anchored.

“Secure,” a sec man reported, tugging a rope hard enough to lift himself off the ground.

“I’ll take point,” J.B. said, starting to climb up the rope, going hand over hand.

He had gotten only a few yards when more crossbows fired, and soon Ryan and Fife were climbing alongside. Long minutes passed in tense silence as the three of them concentrated on getting inside the battleship.

The lightest of the trio, J.B. was first, and as he reached into the rent, a flock of wrens took flight, screaming and cawing at the unwanted intrusion.

“At least, we know there’s nothing waiting for us,” J.B. said, wiggling over the buckled edge of the thick steel plate.

“Nothing that eats birds,” Fife muttered, swinging up a boot, then rolling through the rent. A loose lace caught on a bolt, and he jerked the boot free, the string snapping in two.

Climbing above the opening, Ryan warily lowered himself onto the side of a large piece of machinery, his eye blinking to try to quickly adjust to the darkness.

The interior of the engine room was in total chaos, wire, pipes, cables forming an incomprehensible maze, as if a robotic spider had been hard at work building a web here for the past century. The air smelled dank, and clusters of softly glowing mushrooms were growing in random piles of windblown dirt.

Everywhere gargantuan machinery loomed above Ryan, seemingly paused in the act of falling. Pistons larger than cars swung loosely overhead, making the man feel like an ant about to be stomped by a boot. Broken gears and huge conduits formed nightmarish jumbles of rusty steel, and huge piles of dry leaves were everywhere underfoot.

“If this was a wooden ship, we wouldn’t have to go in any farther,” Fife muttered, flicking a butane lighter into life. “We could put the barrels of guncotton in here, set fire to the leaves and just go.”

“Yeah, and if cows pissed gasoline we’d all be riding in wags,” Ryan retorted, twisting a road flare into action. The magnesium flame surged bright and strong, banishing the gloom, but casting strange shadows on the titled walls and floors.

“Stay sharp! We gotta move fast, and this place is a giant deathtrap,” J.B. said, holding a hurricane lantern high. It was a gift from the new baron, and the strong blue flame showed the decades of rot in shockingly clarity.

“I hear you,” Ryan replied, stepping over the pile of dirty rags that had once been a Navy jumpsuit. Only the patent leather shoes were still in good shape, the plastic coating protecting the leather from the ravages of time, insects and weather.

Drawing his SIG-Sauer, Ryan carefully proceeded deeper into the machinery, kicking the piles of leaves aside to try to reveal the wall underneath. The plates were covered with flakes of corrosion the size of dinner plates, but the metal still seemed strong. At least, he hoped it was. They were at the rear of the vessel, and a fall from here could send them bouncing down an endless series of corridors to land as only a sprinkle of teeth and loose hair at the distant prow. It was a sobering thought.

“We should be roped together,” J.B. said, edging past an open doorway. There was only darkness inside that seemed to extended forever.

“That would only slow us,” Fife muttered, then he cursed as there came the sound of shattering glass and he vanished.

Quickly inching closer, Ryan and J.B. were relieved to see the panting sec chief standing on top of a desk inside a sideways office.

“Think I found the way inside,” Fife said, jerking a thumb. In the tiny glow of his butane lighter, stairs were barely visible past a sagging bulkhead.

Turning, Ryan whistled sharply. It was answered by the call of a whip-poor-will, and Krysty climbed over the rent and wiggled inside.

“Watch where you step!” Ryan said. “This place is a deathtrap.”

“So I see,” Krysty said as two more sec men climbed in through the rent.

In a feathery rush, more birds exploded out of the darkness, and they both dodged aside. With a gasp, one of the sec men tripped on the warped steel and tumbled backward out through the rent.

Rushing forward, Krysty instinctively reached for the falling sec man even though he was already yards away, then she flinched as he hit the ground.

Going to the body, Doc checked for a pulse, then looked upward and sliced a thumb across his throat.

Muttering a quick prayer to Gaia, the woman solemnly turned away from the rent and lit another hurricane lantern. “Okay, Cam, where are the main blasters?” Krysty demanded, her hair coiling tightly to her head.

“Not sure,” Fife said from the office. “I know how to find them from the bottom, but doing this backward is like trying to cut your own hair.”

“Difficult?”

“Nuking near impossible.”

Going to the rent, Ryan shook one of the grappling hooks loose and coiled it around an arm. Returning to the office, he firmly set the hook inside the twisted wreckage of some sort of pump, then tossed the coil through the open doorway.

“We follow the main waterlines,” Ryan said, climbing down the rope. “The last thing that any sailor would want is a fire in the ammunition bunker, so one of the water pipes will lead us directly there.”

“If not?” Betty asked with a scowl.

“Then we blow a hole in the side of the ship,” Fife snarled in reply, “find the front and crawl up the cannons to get the guncotton. Now shut up and run!”

* * ** * *

EASING THROUGH THE pine trees, Jak paused when he heard the sounds of diesel engines. Going prone, he carefully crawled forward through the layers of old nettles and soon found the edge of the breach.

Almost directly below was the APC, dark smoke huffing from the louvered exhaust vents.

The machine was surrounded by sec men on motorcycles, checking their weapons and coils of ropes and torches. Clearly, Ryan had read the queen correctly. She was here for something inside the wreckage.

“How big a piece, ma’am?” a sec man asked, stuffing a hacksaw into his backpack.

“A foot square will do fine,” a woman answered through a blasterport of the APC. “But get as many as you can, and in different sizes.”

“Going to armor the whole laser?” another sec man asked, his clothing and weapons marking the fellow as some sort of officer.

“Every damn inch,” the woman replied. “The next time Ryan tries a trick shot, I’ll burn out his remaining eye, then serve it to him on toast!”

The mob of sec men gave a polite ripple of laughter.

Biting the fuse on a pipe bomb down to a mere nubbin, Jak lit it with his butane lighter and rolled it over the edge.

The laughter abruptly stopped as the lead pipe thumped onto the ground. Snatching up the pipe bomb, a sec man tried to throw it away, and the blast tore him apart, limbs and organs smacking into the APC. The rest of the sec men staggered under the deafening concussion, and several fell off their motorcycles, reeling drunkenly.

“Creeper!” a sec man snarled, firing a pump-action shotgun as fast as he could work the action. He emptied the weapon at the pine trees on top of the hillock, the flurry of nettles ripping away to gently sprinkle back down.

“What?” a sec woman asked, cupping a hand to her bleeding ear.

Biting the next fuse dangerously short, Jak set it burning, then actually waited an entire second before throwing it. He heard the bomb clang off the top of the APC, then came a strident explosion.

As the shrapnel hissed through the air, Jak risked a fast peek. Apparently the pipe bomb had bounced off the PEP laser and fallen on the far side. Protected by the armored bulk of the machine, the Granite Empire sec men had only been buffeted by the concussion of the explosions, and nobody seemed to be even slightly injured. However, they were all staggering even more than before.

“There he is!” a sec man yelled.

Jerking backward, Jak felt the hot passage of a bullet score his cheek. Damn! Then all of the sec men cut loose with their weapons. Dirt danced from the arrival of the hardball rounds, bark fell off tree trunks and nettles exploded into the air, creating a green whirlwind.

“Get that son of a bitch!” a woman bellowed.

Listening to the furious sec men, Jak quickly withdrew as they tried to climb the steep mound. Gently bringing up his assault rifle, Jak patiently waited for a face to appear over the edge. But from the grunting curses of the people, it seemed the incline was too steep and the ground too soft. The combination making a climb impossible. Suddenly, Jak had a newfound respect for the crossbows and climbing ropes of the Concord sec men. Biding his time, Jak waited a few minutes, then lit two more pipe bombs and rolled one down the inner slope, then the other over the opposite side.

As the first one arrived, the sec men dashed away, only to then thunderously encounter the second. Tattered bodies went flying high, and a couple of the motorcycles whoofed into flames, the ammunition in the saddlebags quickly cooking off until it sounded like pitched battle between a thousand troops.

In a rumble, the diesel engines of the APC roared to life, and the machine raced away.

Knowing what was coming next, Jak dropped the rest of the pipe bombs and started running for his life. Speed was his only hope now.

Over the soft crunch of the nettles under his boots, Jak could hear the low hum of the PEP laser building power...then he hit the ground and braced himself.

A moment later something as bright as the sun swept along the top of the hillock, the thick trunks of the pine trees exploding as their sap instantly boiled into steam. Hammered by wood chips from every side, Jak pulled his camouflage jacket over his head, and stood to make a desperate dash back along the curving mound.

Again and again, the laser lanced out, the trees detonating like bombs before toppling over to loudly crash into one another. As a pine tree in front of him burst into fire, Jak thought this was the end. Then the laser moved on, igniting other trees, and he realized that the beam couldn’t actually reach the crest of the mound from the ground below. The angle was wrong!

Until the APC pulled back farther, Jak thought sagely. That sent a surge of cold adrenaline through the young man, and he redoubled the effort to race away from the mauling power beam.

Soon, machine guns and assault rifles added their fury to the one-sided battle, but just as quickly they faded into the distance as Jak pounded through the forest. The cool air in his face washed away the reek of the burning pine, and he grinned like an idiot when he saw the crossbow bolts sticking out of the trees ahead.

Forcing himself to pause, Jak whistled like a chickadee and was answered by a robin.

Clawing his way through a tangle of bushes, Jak saw Ryan and the others climbing up the inside slope.

“Find?” Jak panted, holding an arm to a stitch in his side.

“Stand here a few minutes, and you’ll find out,” Ryan growled, pulling up the ropes and tossing them down the exterior slope.

As the people scrambled down the mound, they jumped the last yard to save a moment, then raced for the motorcycles. Standing nearby, Mildred and Ricky already had their machines running and pointing in the correct direction.

“I figure if you came running, every second would count,” Ricky said in unnecessary explanation.

“Triple smart!” J.B. shouted, removing a barrel of guncotton before straddling a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

“Time?” Krysty demanded, jumping onto her machine and gunning the engine.

Removing the second barrel, Ryan shoved back the kickstand and revved his motorcycle. “Three minutes!”

Jak shot the man startled look.

“Bad fuse,” Fife explained with a shrug.

“Wait!” Mildred said, pressing wavy pieces of cloth into his hand. “Stuff these into your ears!”

Obediently, the companions did so, making sure the plugs were in good and tight.

“What is this shit for?” a sec man demanded, looking at the strips of cloth as if they were covered with worms.

“Do as you’re told, Private!” Betty snarled, stuffing the soft wads into her ears.

Grumbling compliance, the sec man followed orders.

Their rear wheels spinning, the companions and the Concord sec men threw out a spray of loose rocks and dirt as they raced away from the impact mound and directly into the forest.

Wildly zigzagging between the trees, the world was eerily quiet from the plugs in their ears, and there only seemed to be the muffled sounds of their labored breathing. Slowly, time ticked away as they attempted to get as far away from the predark battleship as they possibly could.

“Time?” Doc bellowed at the top of his lungs. He had a pocketwatch, but it was tucked into his vest and would require releasing his grip on the handlebars, which at the current speed would be tantamount to suicide.

“Any second now!” J.B. replied, bent low behind the dirty windshield.

A thick silence enveloped the forest, and there wasn’t a sound for the longest period, then a blinding light blossomed behind the companions. Frantically braking to a halt, they turned off the bikes just as a warm hurricane ripped across the landscape.

Hugging the heavy machines, the companions and the people of Concord held on for dear life, digging in their boots, as the powerful wind bent the pine trees, yanked bushes from the ground and sent a host of tiny animals helplessly airborne. As the hot wind began to ease, an unexpected earthquake shuddered through the ground, rattling their teeth and shaking the motorcycles until it seemed as if they would break into pieces.

Dust filled the air, and Ryan hawked to clear his throat when he saw a roiling mushroom cloud begin to form in the distance, the thick column of fiery black smoke rising steadily upward as if escaping from the very bowels of hell itself....

Chapter Nineteen

The steady beat of a drum filled the tiny cave with a sense of home and helped to cover the sounds of the cannies eating their dinner.

In the flickering light of the fire, they appeared to be naked, but each was warmly dressed in tight clothing made from tanned human skin, carefully bleached to match the same tone as their own.

Thick canvas was stretched across the opening of the cave. It served to hold back the evening chill and to hide their presence from wandering creatures both norm and mutie. An enemy might find them, but would never know their numbers or strength until it was far too late.

Everybody was armed with bones knives and blowguns. But several of the hunters also wore animal-leather gunbelts around their waists, the blasters and bullets gleaming with fresh oil.

“Animal flesh,” Little Flower muttered as if that was the foulest thing in the world. Using a sharpened stick, she extracted a small morsel of charred meat from the crackling fire. “This isn’t going to fill our bellies, or fuel our revenge!”

“However, at the moment, it’s all we have,” Iron Fist answered, the swirling patterns on his chest showing that he was the new leader. “So, shut the fuck up and eat your bear.”

“Day-old bear,” Little Flower snarled, choosing another piece in the flames.

“Pity about that body in the ground,” Black Sunshine said. With a sigh, the girl glanced longingly at the mouth of the cave. “If only the machine people hadn’t buried him with their nightsoil...”

“There will be all of the fresh meat you wish after we capture the outlanders,” Iron Fist growled, using an oiled cloth to polish a Winchester longblaster.

“Blasters aren’t the way of our ancestors,” Emergency Exit muttered. Surreptitiously, the old fat cannie flashed a frightened look at the machine weapon at her hip. “They were wise and at one with Nature. They listened to the Earth, and hunted with club and bone, knives and ropes, blessed rock and holy darts!”

In loose unison, the rest of the cannies paused in their meal to repeat the words in a ritual chant.

“Unfortunately those days are gone,” Iron Fist returned, awkwardly loading the bullets into the side receiver of the Winchester. Flipping the longblaster by the lever as he had seen the outlanders do, he was delightfully rewarded with satisfying clicks as the weapon loaded a fresh bullet and primed itself for combat.

“Now it is the Time of the Blaster,” Broken Rock stated, stroking a .44 AutoMag as if it were a loving pet. “A new moon of fire and steel!”

The drumming stopped as a dark shadow appeared at the mouth of the cave. All of the cannies grabbed the new weapons, fumbling to thumb off the safeties and chamber rounds.

“Meat!” Sweet Willow cackled, shuffling into view carrying a large burlap bag slung over a hunched shoulder. “I bring fresh meat and news of our enemies!”

Eagerly, the cannies surged forward to relieve her of the burlap bag. Inside were a dozen human arms. The intoxicating smell was overwhelming.

“Real food!” Little Flower grabbed a limb and tore off a piece of flesh with her pointed teeth. “S’good!”

“Blessings upon you for both of these gifts, Greatmother,” Iron Fist said, advancing to kiss her on the forehead. “I praise the Sky God that you have returned to us alive and unharmed.”

“I very nearly didn’t return,” Sweet Willow said bitterly. “But I did as you commanded and returned to the vertical ship to hide in the trees like a birdling.”

Shuffling over to a cut log, she sat heavily and pried off her moccasins to wiggle her toes in the heat of the fire. “The outlanders and the machine people had a mighty battle. The fields were covered with fresh bodies, and there was so much blood you could taste it in the air!” She sighed in memory.

“And the news, Greatmother?” Razor Wire prompted gently.

“Did they come back?” Black Sunshine asked eagerly, lowering her arm.

“They did,” Sweet Willow stated resolutely. “And they destroyed the ship. The blast was so great my ears are still ringing.”

“Lies!” Rising from the ground, Shadow Cliff waddled forward to tower over the old cannie. His arms and legs were so heavily muscled they bulged, making a normal gait for him impossible. But nobody ever laughed at the man because they had all seen Shadow Cliff rip the head off a stickie with his bare hands.

“Sadly, it’s the truth,” Sweet Willow said. “The ship is gone, returned to the sky from which it came.”

“More lies!” Virtually a giant, his strength was unbelievable. Shadow Cliff seemed to fear nothing, except his tiny wife, a fact that caused a great deal of amusement to the rest of the cannie tribe, but always very far away from the towering colossus and his deadly hands.

“I was there, you were not!” Sweet Willow shot back defiantly, a hand going to the knife sheathed behind her back.

The two cannies stood facing each other for a long moment, the tension in the air palpable.

“By the Long Dark Night, she tells the truth!” Shadow Cliff laughed, slapping her on the shoulder. “So you saw them, but did they see you, little one?”

“Does the worm see a cloud?” Sweet Willow retorted, slowly releasing the knife.

“Tell me of their leaders,” Iron Fist said, squatting, the Winchester balanced across his thighs.

“It was hard to tell who was in charge at first,” Sweet Willow said, bending to massage her feet. “They all carried blasters and talked constantly.” She smiled. “But the one-eyed man was always obeyed.”

“Ryan,” Iron Fist growled. “Did they call him Ryan?”

“They did,” Sweet Willow said with obvious satisfaction. “And they bragged about killing our people last moon and freeing the meat from the blessed fire.”

“Were they all there?” Black Sunshine asked eagerly.

“Oh yes, the one-eyed giant and his friends.”

“They have returned,” Iron Fist breathed. “That is excellent news.”

“Maybe not. The mountain men have brought along their iron box that chills with a rainbow,” Sweet Willow added. “And the outlanders now ride machines instead of horses.”

“The laser?” Iron Fist asked. “This is not good news. It chills farther than a bullet can fly.”

“Who cares about the mountain men? The outlanders are riding machines and that means they aren’t as smart as we feared,” Shadow Cliff said, cracking his oversize knuckles. “Only fools ride machines! What machine can make another? What machine can fuel itself by eating grass?”

“Machines are also fast,” Razor Wire reminded him, removing a metal ring from one of the hands before gnawing on a finger. “Much faster than the best horse. True, my friend?”

Frowning deeply, Shadow Cliff nodded. “True.”

“Bravery like this must be rewarded,” Iron Fist said, going to a bundle of cloth near the hammocks. Unfolding a section, he extracted a sleek .32 Remington blaster and tossed it over.

“Thank you!” Sweet Willow gushed, tucking the weapon between her ample breasts.

“You earned it,” he said. “Now, which direction were they traveling?”

“Toward the Damaged God,” Sweet Willow replied, lowering her voice reverently. “Or maybe the Forbidden City.”

“Are the mountain men forcing the outlanders toward the god?” Little Flower asked. “Are they to be a sacrifice to the Humming Air?”

“I think it is the other way around,” Sweet Willow stated. “The outlanders are trying to trick the mountain men into following them into the Forbidden City.”

“Blood for blood?” Iron Fist whispered thoughtfully. “Then perhaps we can help make that happen.”

“Why should we assist the outlanders to do anything?” Shadow Cliff asked in confusion.

“To fill our bellies with revenge,” Iron Fist snarled, pulling a knife. Going to a smooth section of the cave wall, he began to scratch a diagram on the hard rock. “But first, we will need a crowbar to open the rusted gate, and torches for the long dark tunnel....”

* * ** * *

A THIN HIGH-PITCHED whining filled the world, and Ryan forced his eye open with a groan.

As expected the man felt sore all over from the concussion of the staggering explosion, and in the distance, the mushroom cloud was still rising and expanding. There was a small patch of clear blue sky directly above the cloud, and the polluted clouds surrounding the area crackled with lightning as if trying to cauterize a wound.

“Any...anyb-body chilled?” Ryan croaked, the voice barely human.

“Not y-yet,” J.B. mumbled, slowly extracting himself from around the motorcycle.

Straightening his glasses, the man blinked the world into focus. Everybody seemed alive and relatively undamaged, just kind of slack in the face as if extremely drunk. Incredibly, the forest looked...well, ragged, as if it had lost a bar fight with some bigger and tougher forest. Most of the branches were bare, the ground covered in a thick carpet of nettles and leaves.

Scattered randomly around were numerous birds and squirrels, feebly twitching their tiny legs. Then the man saw a stickie sprawled across an elderberry bush. Its chest rose and fell normally, but its arms dangled impotently over the bush, its sucker-tipped hands swaying a few inches off the ground.

“Stalicky,” J.B. slurred, dragging around the Uzi and clumsily trying to work the arming bolt.

But before the man could fire, a gunshot rang out and the stickie jerked then slumped completely, pale blood dribbling from the neat hole in its head.

“Any others?” Krysty asked, glancing around, the S&W hammerless blaster in her fist smoking slightly.

“Just...the...one,” Ryan observed.

“Something wrong, lover?” Krysty asked, shaking some leaves from her flexing hair.

“Not a bastard thing,” Ryan said, forcing himself to stand. The universe swirled around him for a moment, then everything settled back into place and he took a deep breath.

“Who’s dead?” Mildred slurred, craning her head over the lumpy saddlebags of a motorcycle. A small line of blood trickled from her nose, but otherwise the woman appeared fine.

“Incredibly...none of us has expired...dear lady,” Doc wheezed, rising stiffly. “Although I...have no way...to account for...such a phenomenon.”

“B-blind luck?” Betty wheezed.

“As good a...hypothesis as any.”

Removing the bits of cloth from his ears, Ricky shook himself like a dog coming out of the rain. “Damn,” he panted. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“Nuke?” Jak asked, opening a canteen to take a long drink.

“Just a lot more guncotton in the hold than we expected,” Ryan said weakly, pouring some water from his own canteen into a palm, then rubbing his face.

“Okay, let’s go back,” Fife said, standing tall. “Gotta make sure Angstrom is aced.”

“You think she lived through that?” a sec man asked.

“No,” Fife said, pulling the AK-47 from the gunboot of his motorcycle. Deftly, he attached the bayonet. “But I gotta see her corpse before I report it to the baron.”

“Sure thing, Chief,” another sec man groaned, then gave a ragged laugh. “Hey, mebbe she’s aced, but the APC is still working. Be nice to drive home in that!”

“Let’s go find out,” Fife said, checking the magazine in his assault rifle.

“Fireblast!” Ryan snarled, swinging up the SIG-Sauer and firing a fast three times.

The hard coughs of the silenced weapon startled everybody for a moment, then they were shocked wide awake at a soft hoot coming from within the bedraggled forest.

As the people clawed for weapons, a stickie stumbled into view, bleeding profusely from a chest wound. It feebly wiggled an injured arm, then eased down to the ground and went very still.

“I know the triple-stupe bastards love fire and explosions,” Fife growled, hefting the AK-47. “But you don’t think that big blast—”

He was interrupted by a series of soft hoots coming from the forest, inhuman shapes shuffling in and out of sight behind the bare trees.

“Get on your bikes!” Ryan commanded, grabbing the handlebars and muscling the machine back onto both tires.

Rushing forward, J.B. helped Mildred while Doc did the same for Ricky.

“On the double, people!” Fife said in a normal tone of voice, the assault rifle clenched tightly in his hands. “Ryan, six o’clock.”

Turning, Ryan scowled at a stickie coming out from behind a birch tree and fired from the hip. The 9 mm Parabellum rounds punched an escape route for life through the misshapen head of the mutie, and it sat with a thump, grayish brains oozing out of the two holes.

Spotting another stickie, Doc aimed the LeMat, then paused. The telltale boom of the .44 round would draw more stickies. The companions were up and moving, but far from their normal selves, and a pitched battle with an unknown number of stickies would be ill advised.

Holstering the blaster, Doc pulled the sword inside his ebony swordstick, when there came a hard cough, much louder than the SIG-Sauer, but nowhere near as loud as a regular handblaster.

The lumbering stickie violently jerked backward as most of its head was blow away by the incoming .45 soft-lead bullet from Ricky’s DeLisle carbine.

Saluting the marksmanship with a wave of the sword, Doc saw the boy scowl and quickly raise the carbine, then withhold fire.

With a hideous scream, Betty was dragged into the trees. Red blood gushed as the stickie yanked off big gobbets of flesh from her arm and face, and she fired a flintlock handblaster into its belly at point-blank range.

Hooting loudly, the stickie flew backward into a pile of nettles, the smoky discharge of the .66 handcannon seeming to repeat endlessly across the vast barren forest.

Instantly other hoots seemed to come from everywhere, more and more of them every second.

Grimly, Fife fired a single round from his assault rifle into the dying woman, then shouldered the weapon to climb onto his Harley-Davidson.

“No need to be quiet anymore,” he snarled, twisting the throttle to rev the engine. Black and gray smoke spewed from the duct-tape-wrapped exhaust pipes, and the flathead engine faltered, then came back strong.

“Head back toward the battleship!” Ryan commanded, taking off with a roar. “That’s the one direction the bastards won’t be coming from!”

“But that’s where they’re all heading,” a sec man snapped back. “We’ll be surrounded!”

“Just stay on my flank!” Ryan snarled.

As the companions quickly made a triangle-formation, two of the Concord sec men looked at each other, nodded, then turned their bikes around to speed away into the forest.

“You nuke-sucking cowards!” Fife snarled, drawing the shotgun holstered at his side. He fired both barrels, but the range was too great, and the spray of double-00 went wide, only rattling the bushes and tree limbs.

Then a piercing shrike came, and one of the sec men raced back into view, blood splattered across the windshield.

“They got Frank!” he shouted, his face distorted with fear. “Ripped his entire face right off and ate it. Ate it right fragging there!”

Still holding on to the throttle, Fife said nothing, his gun hand twitching slightly. The he abruptly holstered the weapon. “We’re heading for the battleship.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir!” the sec man replied with a hasty salute. “Lead the way!”

“You first, Private,” Fife countered, a hand resting on the worn wooden grip of the sawed-off shotgun.

Casting a forlorn glance at the colonel rings on his sleeve, the sec man shrugged and followed the departing companions.

“Trouble?” Doc asked, dropping back a little to ride alongside the colonel.

“Nothing serious,” Fife said, then sharply veered his bike as a group of hooting stickies came out of the woods.

Their arms waving, the stickies were dressed in rotting strips of cloth taken from their many victims, the mismatched layers only serving to highlight the many differences between them and gene-pure norms. Their eyes never seemed to blink, they had no lips, and their mouths were small, as if they were nearly invisible.

As the two men shot past the stickies, one of them nearly tagged Doc’s shirt.

“Wretched monstrosity!” Doc raged, triggering the LeMat.

The big-bore handcannon boomed, and the stickie fell, pale blood gushing high from the severed artery in its neck. Unfortunately the smell of blood only seemed to excite the others, and more stickies surged toward the two men, trying desperately to reach the tasty man-flesh.

Unable to reload the sawed-off Remington with one hand, Fife hauled out the AK-47 and put a long burst from the assault rifle into the stickies. The 7.62 mm hardball rounds stitched a line of holes across the creatures, but the bullet holes in their bodies closed after only yielding a few drops of watery blood.

Swinging the assault rifle like a scythe, Fife used the bayonet to slash open the throat of the stickie, with equally poor results.

“Head shots, Colonel!” Doc yelled, firing the LeMat six more times. Two stickies dropped dead, and three staggered away, badly wounded.

Coming to a ragged halt, Fife hastily yanked out the spent magazine and slammed in a fresh one as three more stickies converged on him. Using both hands, he put short controlled bursts into each face, and the creatures fell gushing life. But as he revved the engine, one of the dying stickies grabbed a fender. As Fife started driving, the bike veered to the left. That was when he saw the corpse still firmly clinging to the fender by a sucker-covered hand.

Fighting to control the bike, Fife hauled out the AK-47 and used the bayonet to hack at the corpse even as several more stickies advanced.

Firing from the hip, Doc got two, and then two more with the shotgun attached under the main barrel of his LeMat.

With a sputter, the Harley’s engine started to choke from the blood fouling the intake. Dropping the bayonet, Fife twisted the throttle, trying to blast the engine clear, and it stalled.

Muttering curses, he frantically tried to get the engine going again, as Doc circled him, firing single rounds from the M-16 assault rifle.

“Get off and climb behind me!” Doc shouted.

“I’d only slow you down!” Fife snarled, trying once more to kick the big bike alive. “Leave me!”

“That is not going to happen, sir!”

“Go! That’s an order!”

Suddenly there came the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle, and the head of a stickie exploded, then another, and a third.

“Get your ass moving!” Ryan bellowed from a small clearing.

Surrounding him, the rest of the companions, and the last few Concord sec men were now steadily firing their weapons, chilling stickies in every direction. However, every booming discharge served only to attract more of the creatures.

Working the throttle, Fife tried again, slower this time, gambling his life. In a throaty roar, the engine rumbled with power, and he shot away, almost popping a wheelie in the nettles.

“Well done, Cam!” Doc laughed in triumph, gunning his own engine.

“Thanks for saving my life!”

“Anything for a friend, dear fellow.”

Staying alongside each other, the two men joined the rest of the group, and everybody streaked away, toward the fading mushroom cloud.

Curving past the smashed hillock, Ryan saw a lot of the massive chunks of the battleship strewed around, along with several pulped bodies. But there were very few motorcycles, and there was no sign of the APC whatsoever.

“Looks like Angstrom escaped!” Krysty shouted, darting past a stickie messily consuming a ruined human brain. An eye was still attached, the orb swinging freely from the end of a long white ganglia.

“Somebody survived!” Ryan shot back, blowing the head off a stickie ripping open the chest of a corpse. “I just hope they don’t know how to operate that laser!”

“Cows and gasoline, lover!”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan growled, angling sharply away from the epicenter of the explosion.

“Guess this means we better check those ruins,” Fife returned, wheeling his mount around. “Your rad counters better work, or we’ll all be chilled by dawn!”

Chapter Twenty

Groggily, Queen Angstrom awoke in total darkness.

For a moment the woman wasn’t sure if she was awake or not, the blackness was so complete. Blackness and absolute silence. There was only the sound of her own breathing.

“I’m buried alive,” Angstrom whispered, terrified of getting either a confirmation or a denial. But there was no response, only a dense imposing silence and unrelenting pressure on every inch of her body.

Dimly, the woman recalled seeing a bright light just before she heard the loudest noise she had ever heard. Then every blasterport and air vent slammed shut, and weird balloons exploded from the walls and ceilings, crushing her helplessly to the command chair.

Everything after that was total chaos: tumbling, turning and twisting sensations as if she was rapidly spinning, difficulty breathing, monstrous heat, more indescribable noises, and a deep penetrating vibration that threatened to tear her apart. Overwhelmed, Angstrom had finally passed out, absolutely positive that she was on the last train west.

“But here I am,” she said softly, struggling to move with no success. “Sergeant, are you alive?” There was no response from the rear of the APC.

Unexpectedly there came a flicker of light. It came and went so fast Angstrom wasn’t sure it had actually happened. It happened again, rippling brightly across every control panel in the APC. The balloons holding her prisoner softened a bit, then collapsed completely.

Shoving them aside, Angstrom sat upright in the command chair, both hands pressed hard against the smooth armrests.

“What in nuking hell is going on?” she demanded loudly. The woman was furious, but unable to keep the sound of fear out of her voice.

Bizarrely, one of the ancient video monitors set into the main control board began to pulse with a soft greenish light, and a single word scrolled across the screen. “Rebooting.”

Her heart stopped beating for a second. “Hello?” Angstrom called, a hand going to one of the handblasters on her gunbelt.

“Online, Commander,” the monitor scrolled, and the interior of the APC was flooded with light coming from the main control board, the curved bank set into the ceiling and all of the different size monitors.

Muttering curses, Angstrom shielded her face with a raised hand. “Who the fuck are you?” she demanded.

As more of the controls illuminated, the monitor scrolled, “Unit Designation Unknown.”

“All right, what are you?”

“U.S. Army Experimental Prototype LAV-99.”

The ancient whitecoat words sent an icy spear of fear through her bowels, and Angstrom struggled to breathe. A comp, she was talking to a comp, and it thought she was the former commander. Desperately she struggled to remember everything the ville whitecoat had told her about predark machines

“The...the plate on the door says LAV-25,” she said carefully. “You look like a Piranha-class LAV!”

“Camouflage, Commander. This is an NBC-Class transport, Model 25, generation 99.”

“Which means?” she snapped impatiently.

“Experimental armor transport is resistant to nuclear, bacteriological and chemical attacks.”

“Is that what happened?” Angstrom asked. “Was I nuked?”

“Checking...negative, sir. Sensors indicate a purely conventional chemical explosion.”

“Conventional it says!” Angstrom laughed, looking for the sergeant again. This time she found him. The techie was aced. Apparently there were no balloons in the rear of the APC, and he was partially merged with the Harley.

“Who is going to fix this thing now?” Angstrom muttered furiously.

“Do you wish to activate auto repair?”

Listening to her own breathing, Angstrom said nothing, thinking furiously.

“Sensors indicate damage to all primary and secondary systems.” There was a pause. “No response from the Pentagon or Cheyenne Mountain. Do you wish to activate auto repair?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she said in a small voice. “Fix everything.”

Tiny hatches opened all over the interior of the machine and out scampered small machines that resembled black spiders. Scurrying everywhere, some of the spiders swarmed over the corpse in the back, while others popped open the control board and disappeared into the maze of colored wiring. There came ting flashes of light, followed by the familiar stink of hot metal.

“How long will this take?” Angstrom asked breathlessly, finally holstering her blaster.

An empty progress bar appeared on a monitor.

“Six hours, forty-three minutes,” a masculine voice replied.

“You’re a man?”

“No. The onboard simulation is gender neutral,” the man said, then it switched to a soft female voice. “Or is this better?”

“Much,” Angstrom said, settling back into the chair. Whole banks of previously dark screens were now illuminated, words and numbers scrolling by in a speeding blur. “Is that eating a lot of...how much fuel do we have remaining in the tanks?”

“Checking...zero fuel. Operating on emergency power source.”

Slowly, the ceiling lights brightened and a cool breeze began to blow from a nearby wall vent, dissipating the reek of the dead sergeant.

“Excellent,” Angstrom said, turning her face fully into the air flow. “What’s the power source?”

“Nuclear batteries. Present power levels are at...half capacity. Cannot maintain full operations for more than...twenty-seven days.”

“A month!” She laughed in relief. “That’s more than enough to get me back home, then I’ll fill the fuel tanks with whatever you need. Is shine okay or—”

“Alert, we are under attack,” the computerized voice calmly interrupted. “Authorization needed for immediate defensive measures.”

“What’s happening outside?” Angstrom asked, her heart beating wildly. She strained to hear the sounds of blasters, or grens, but there was only the gentle murmur of the air vent and the clicking spiders.

In ragged stages, a row of monitors pulsed into life showing different angles of the APC. Dozens of stickies were crawling over the machine, pulling on the door handles, trying to get inside.

“Enemy unknown,” the APC said. “Possible genetic weapon. Maximum environmental seals now engaged.”

“Muties! They’re muties,” Angstrom snarled, utterly disgusted with such an intimate view of the horrid things. One of them was only an inch away from a video camera, and she could see straight down its inhuman gullet.

“Mutants?” the APC asked.

With a shiver, Angstrom turned away. “We call them Stickies.”

“Identification accepted, Commander.” A glowing green crosshair appeared on the center monitor, and it swung around to settle on the face of the largest stickie. “Destroy or ignore?”

“Chill them all,” Angstrom growled, tightening her grip on the armrests.

“Kill order confirmed.”

Across the control board, meters swung their needles high into the danger zone, and a low hum filled the interior of the APC. On the monitors, the stickies began thrashing wildly. Their bodies burst into flames and fell away as electricity surged through the armored hull.

“Excellent,” Angstrom whispered, an almost sexual surge of pleasure coursing through her at the sight of the slaughter. “Now, tell me what else this...what else you can do. Tell me everything!”

“Of course, Commander,” the APC said, and the monitors began scrolling lists of command and functions....

* * ** * *

A CRESCENT MOON dominated the clear night sky, the twinkling stars shining as brightly as polished diamonds. The so-called Seven Sisters could be clearly seen orbiting the world, and far to the northeast roiling clouds of toxic chemicals rumbled on the horizon, heat lightning flashing to warn of an approaching storm.

On the ground, Ryan and J.B. were waving big sticks back and forth along the old highway, while Fife and the rest of the companions stayed with the motorcycles, watching their every move.

“Easy does it...” Ryan said, walking backward until the rad counter in his hand stopped clicking. Reaching into a pocket, he extracted a white stone and laid it down at that point.

“Stay razor,” J.B. answered, the rad counter silent at the end of his stick.

“Clear...no, wait!” Ryan cursed as the rad counter gave a single click. As he turned to the left there was a flurry of clicks, so he went to the right until silence returned. Once more a white stone was laid down.

The area around the ruined city was riddled with hot spots, but no actual bomb craters. The companions could only guess that some old world stuff called Depleted Uranium had been used here. The so-called dead-lead from nuke reactors was often machined into bullets. Super dense, the stuff made lead seem as soft as cheese. It punched holes through anything, and was often still hot enough to register on a rad counter a hundred years later.

“Look at the trees and the mountains,” Mildred said, pouring some water from a canteen onto a handkerchief and mopping her face. “There is no blast damage, or mutations that I can readily see. This must have been an air burst.”

“A nuclear explosion in the air,” Doc said with a pronounced frown, never removing his gaze from the distant forest. When Angstrom returned it would be from that direction. Almost certainly.

“Strange, town not hurt,” Jak said, squinting in that direction. “Still got windows, no fire damage.”

“Perhaps it missed,” Ricky said, the DeLisle carbine tight in his two-handed grip.

“Nuke missed?” Jak laughed, studying the surrounding hills.

“I’ve seen a gren miss,” Ricky replied. “They went off close enough to knock people down, but nobody got aced.”

“It happens,” Krysty agreed. “The glow scares away most people, and any animals coming this way would simply walk along the highway, going right over the buried shells—”

“And die,” Mildred finished, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. “An untouched predark city...”

“What my ville could loot from such a place,” Fife added, his eyes bright with greed. “Meds, tools, books, comps, generators...the list is endless.”

“So is this bastard field,” Ryan told him, going carefully around yet another hot spot.

The hole in the macadam was small, but his rad counter was going crazy. If these were Depleted Uranium rounds, they had to be incredibly huge, 40 mm rounds at least. That sounded more like a Navy gunship, or an Air Force interceptor than anything else.

The M-16 strapped to his back had a 40 mm gren launcher, but he only had a couple of shells, while this nameless city was slammed with hundreds of them, maybe thousands. An invisible rad wall, only the ionization at night made the deadly radiation visible.

“Think somebody deliberately made a hot fence to keep out folks?” J.B. asked, swinging the stick back and forth. “Mebbe protect the graveyard?”

Ryan shrugged. “Why not? It’s the fastest way to encircle a town that I’ve ever heard.”

Reaching the city limits, Ryan and J.B. paused to take a brief rest, then continued onward. However, the moment they stepped past the faded sign, the clicks stopped completely.

“We’re in the clear,” Ryan announced at last, taking the device off the end of the stick and returning it to the lapel of his shirt.

“Come on!” J.B. shouted, waving at the others.

Very carefully following the zigzagging trail of stones, the rest of the group slowly pushed their motorcycles to the town limits.

“Had fun before, this not it,” Jak drawled, inching along.

The last in the line, Fife picked up all of the stones and tossed them far away to make sure that nobody else could follow them into the ruins.

“Grave town?” Ricky said, squinting at the old splintery sign.

“Groveton,” Mildred corrected. “But I can see why you choose another pronunciation.”

“No, he’s right. This is Graveyard!” Krysty exclaimed. “This is what Doc meant. Not an actual cemetery, but the name of the town where—” She stopped short and cast a furtive glance at the Concord sec men.

“Where we’ll find a bank?” Mildred finished for her.

“Exactly!”

“Indeed, this rustic locale does seem vaguely familiar to me, dear lady,” Doc said uneasily.

“What are you folks talking about?” Fife demanded with a puzzled scowl.

“I’ll explain later,” Ryan said, quickening his pace.

The small mountain town lay in front of them in windswept disarray. The front lawns of the homes had spread to become a jungle of ivy, roses and kudzu. The streets were dotted with abandoned cars and pickup trucks, their bodies streaked with rust, and the tires long ago eaten by insects.

A couple of the newer cars had withstood the passage of time, the fiberglass chassis just as bright as the day they had come off the assembly line. Those vehicles with the windows all rolled up, had the drivers still sitting behind the steering wheels, the desiccated corpses slumped forward.

The main street was covered with leaves, and a small tree was growing out of a pothole alongside the sagging wreck of a public works truck. There was a park in the center of the town, now reduced to brambles and bracken, only the hat of a bronze statue still visible from the overlapping layers of ivy and bird droppings.

There were no real skyscrapers, the tallest building no more than ten stories high, not including the water tank on top. All of the windows were so dirty they appeared to be painted a frosty white.

“How find bank?” Jak asked, scowling at the ivy-covered buildings. “Sign gone.”

“Hey, my bike is almost out of juice,” a sec man said. “So why don’t I leave it in the middle of that rad field to lure folks in?”

“Egad, what a dastardly suggestion,” Doc said with a pronounced scowl. “That might slay innocent pilgrims!”

“Still a good idea,” the sec man insisted, then went stiff. Twitching slightly, he started to make strange gargling noises, then a wellspring of blood poured out of his mouth and he fell limply to the dirty pavement.

As Mildred rushed to the fallen man, Fife shouted as he tossed away his AK-47 assault rifle. It landed with a clatter on the broken sidewalk, a stubby arrow sticking out of the wooden stock.

“Cannies!” Jak snarled, spinning to try to locate the source of the attack.

“Get the bikes together!” Ryan snarled, stepping fast to the side. “And keep moving!”

Quickly, the rest of the companions pushed their motorcycles into a circle and ducked behind them. As J.B. did, an arrow slammed into the seat of his Harley, right between his fingers.

“You okay, John?” Mildred asked in concern, holding tight to the drive chain.

“Never better,” J.B. replied, flexing his hand. “Dark night, that was close!”

“Is Roger aced?” Fife asked, pulling his sawed-off Remington.

Ricky craned his neck to look at the body. “Yes, sorry.”

“Arrow in the back,” Fife stated, cracking open the breech to check the shells. “Hell of a way to get chilled.”

“Thought the cannies would be using darts to take us alive,” Doc rumbled, stroking the trigger of the assault rifle. A mailbox dented from the arrival of a 5.56 mm round, the ricochet shattering the front window of a small cottage.

“Not anymore, I guess,” Ryan snarled, risking a shot into the weeds.

More arrows arrived then, the wooden shafts smashing into splinters on the steel frames of the big Harleys. A tire went flat, J.B. lost his hat and Mildred cursed as she got cut across the shoulder, the barbed tip only reaching cloth and not the skin underneath.

“Where are?” Jak demanded, clearly furious that he couldn’t locate the snipers. “Rooftops?”

“Sewers!” Ricky shouted, firing the DeLisle carbine. The rifle coughed and a man screamed in the darkness behind the rusty grille.

Now everybody cut loose, pouring hot lead into the narrow gratings. But there were no more cries of pain or any more arrows.

“Hold it, they’re gone,” Ryan said, reloading the Steyr. “This was just a probe to test our reactions.”

“Yeah, but they’ll keep sniping, trying to take us out one at a time,” J.B. added, reclaiming his hat, “until they can rush the last few survivors and take them alive.”

“Not gonna happen,” Fife retorted, pulling a pipe bomb from his backpack. “When I go, I’m taking some of them with me!”

Defiantly, the man shook it at the windy city. “You want me?” Fife bellowed. “Well, here I am mutie-humpers!” There was no response, then a flight of ravens arched out of a field of spiky weeds in the park.

In a sweeping motion Doc emptied his assault rifle across the field and was rewarded with an anguished cry of pain that warbled into silence.

“Stay icy, Cam. We’re not on the last train yet,” Ryan said, slowly standing. With a weapon in each hand, he waited, half expecting another attack. But there was only the gentle murmur of the breeze through the thick green foliage and the distant rumble of thunder.

“Smells like acid rain,” Krysty said with a scowl. “We better find cover.”

“Preferably one with lots of brass,” Ricky added.

“Bank or police station?”

“Police station,” Doc stated. “What keeps people in, also works to keep out invaders.”

“Jails are a natural fort,” Ryan agreed.

“Better leave the bikes,” Fife ordered, using his boot to press down the kickstand. “They’ll only slow us down, and we can pick them up on the way out of town.”

The thunder rumbled again, only much louder this time. Oddly, it didn’t stop, the noise steadily increasing in volume and power.

“Angstrom!” Krysty cursed just as the APC appeared on the road leading into town.

As the halogen headlights crashed on, the companions scattered into the ruins.

Chapter Twenty-One

Rapidly separating, the companions and Fife dispersed into the ruins, jumping over fences and crawling through fields of grass, trying to put as many things between them and the oncoming tank.

Pausing to remove the sideview mirror from a car, Ryan took refuge behind a brick wall, then used the dusty mirror to sneak a peek over the top.

The APC was slowly moving straight up the middle of the street, as if the buried slugs of radioactive material meant nothing to it whatsoever. The large black box on top constantly swiveled left and right, like it was searching for targets, but the front flaps were tightly closed.

Broaching the city limits, the APC deliberately changed course to knock over the abandoned motorcycles, the eight massive military tires crushing the front yoke of each Harley into mangled trash.

“You can run, Ryan,” a voice boomed from the loudspeaker set alongside an empty machine gun mount, “but you can’t hide!”

In reply, several weapons peppered the armored hulk of the APC from different directions, the bullets ricocheting off harmlessly, only leaving behind shiny smears.

As the black box swiveled away, Ryan stood and fired twice. Instantly both headlights winked out as halogen lamps shattered with the arrival of the hardball-tipped 7.62 mm rounds.

Pneumatic brakes hissing, the APC rocked to a halt, and tiny hatches opened to release a swarm of spider-like droids that swarmed over the smashed headlights.

“Take them!” J.B. shouted from the roof of a garage.

Everybody cut loose once more, only this time the incoming lead smashed the little droids apart.

“Fools!” Angstrom laughed over the loudspeaker. “I can do this all day!”

As the hatch popped open once more, pipe bombs with sizzling fuses arched out of the ruins to land all around the APC. A moment later the machine was engulfed with overlapping explosions, the droids were obliterated and a woman screamed from inside the APC.

Moving quickly to a new location, Ryan barely got behind an RV with flat tires before there came a low hum and the laser slashed across Groveton. TV antennas were snipped off, a dozen roofs caught fire, trees whoofed into flames and telephone poles toppled over, the attached cables dragging down the next one in an endless series of splintering crashes.

Stepping into view from behind the bronze statue in the park, Doc emptied his assault rifle at the APC, the hail of bullets bouncing off the armored black box.

Then the beam moved across an office building. The laser burned off the accumulated layers of crud in a microsecond, then the mirrored windows briefly reflected the beam back, splashing it randomly across the town before violently shattering.

As the rain of twinkling shards descended into the street, a large cannie covered with tattoos dashed out of hiding, his clothing and hair ablaze. Beating at the flames with his bare hands, the cannie ran straight into the deluge of falling glass and was vivisected alive.

Stationed behind a tanker truck, J.B. smashed the padlock with the butt of the shotgun, then twisted the release valve. It took some straining on his part, then the wheel turned free. There came the strong exhalation of trapped fumes, but not a drop of gasoline came out. Biting back a curse, he moved on to a strip mall and disappeared into the back alley.

Trailing a leather belt, a pipe bomb came flying over a small cottage. It missed the APC and landed amid the wrecked motorcycles. Quickly revving the engine, Angstrom started to move away when the pipe bomb exploded, the blast setting off all of the additional stores of explosives, fuel and ammunition in the rear saddlebags.

A roiling fireball completely engulfed the APC, and it briefly disappeared within the fiery smoke. Taking advantage of the distraction, the companions openly charged across the debris-littered streets to converge at the police station.

“Where’s J.B.?” Ryan panted, his hands clenching the Steyr.

“Strip mall,” Krysty said breathlessly.

“Must have found something good,” Ryan replied, worrying the stock of the Steyr.

“Unless he located a National Guard armory full of LAW rockets we’re shit out of luck,” Fife growled, checking the 40 mm gren in the launcher.

“Will that ace the APC?” Ricky asked hopefully.

“Wouldn’t scratch the paint,” Fife replied honestly.

“Hey, over here!” Jak whispered, waving a hand from around a corner of the building. “Found coal chute!”

Dashing around the police station, Fife rammed the bayonet of his AK-47 into the wooden jamb, and actually bent the longblaster before the lock ripped free and the chute opened. As the expected gases inside vented, the companions stayed very still, listening for the approach of the APC. Or the hum of the laser.

As the fumes abated, the companions scrambled into the gloomy basement of the old police station. The coal bin was empty, long abandoned in favor of a hulking gas furnace that sat inert on the other side of the tiled expanse. Completely finished, the basement had a terrazzo floor, wood paneling and a drop ceiling. A row of comps was situated at a long table alongside a row of green file cabinets, and behind a locked steel gate were rows of shelving filled with neat lines of lumpy objects sealed inside airtight plastic bags.

“This is the evidence room!” Mildred whispered in delight. Pulling a knife, she forced the lock, then slashed open a bag to extract bottles of multicolored pills and stuff them into her medical kit.

“We can loot the place of pharmaceuticals later, madam,” Doc said, grabbing her wrist.

Mildred bridled at that, then nodded.

“On the other hand,” Krysty said, lifting a bundle of long red sticks from a shelf.

“Dyno?” Fife asked. “If that’s sweaty...”

“Dry as a bone,” Krysty replied stuffing them into a pocket of her bearskin coat.

Everybody else spread out, searching for anything useful among the orderly stores of confiscated items. Most of it was tiny vials filled with white chunks, purses, cash and other useless items. But there were also several hunting rifles and revolvers, the ammunition bagged right alongside the weapons.

Checking the closets, Ryan paused at the totally unexpected sight of a vanadium steel door. The smooth metal was unmarked, appearing to be brand-new, and there was a small keypad set into the jamb. Without a doubt, this was the entrance to a redoubt. Nothing else used a vanadium door. The companions had found similar redoubts before, usually hidden inside a government building.

However the question was, what to do? The companions could now easily escape from the APC outside, but that would involve taking Fife along. Ryan didn’t even have to ask to know the colonel would never leave his ville undefended. There might be weapons inside the armory of the redoubt, but that would mean revealing the existence of the underground bases to the man, and again, Fife would almost certainly give that information to his baron.

Survival and honor briefly struggled within the man, then a grim Ryan closed the door and turned away. If Fife died, the companions would escape into the redoubt. If not, they’d fight by his side until the end. There was no law in the Deathlands, there were only men who kept their word, and those who didn’t.

“Find anything useful?” Fife asked, thumbing fresh rounds into an empty magazine for his assault rifle.

Ryan recognized the bullets as armor-piercing rounds. “Nothing as good as that brass!” he said with a straight face.

Furrowing his brow, Fife looked hard at the other man, as if sensing that something was wrong.

Outside, something loudly exploded.

“I’ll check the offices,” Ryan said, heading for the exit.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Going up the stairs, Ryan was careful to place his boots on the extreme edges of each step to not make the old wood squeak. He had no idea if the APC had a mike for detecting distant sounds, so it was wise to play it safe. Reaching the ground floor, he went directly past a holding cell and carefully separated a venetian blind to look outside.

Still smoldering, the APC was now parked directly in front of city hall. From inside the smoky APC, a heavy machine gun began chattering, and cars parked along the street began wildly jerking from the arrival of the .308 armor-piercing rounds. White-hot tracers made the passage of the stream visible in the daylight, and soon a there was a score of small fires scattered along both sides of the street.

In short order, the air was thick with swirling smoke, the APC only a dimly seen silhouette in the billowing clouds.

Charging out from behind a ragged hedge, four cannies sprinted down the street, keeping far away from the collection of burning motorcycles, as they headed straight out of town.

“Think they’re going to try to circle around?” Krysty asked. “Attack us from behind?”

“I think they just boarded the last train west,” Ryan said simply.

Almost immediately, the cannies began to twitch and stumble, then slap at themselves as if being attacked by stinging insects. Moving ever slower, they began wildly scratching all over, their fingernails leaving bloody furrows.

Several of the cannies paused as the seat of their pants turned a dark red. Staggering along, soon all of them were leaving behind crimson footsteps. Drunkenly, the cannies staggered, beginning to weave aimlessly while coughing. They were almost at the end of the roadway when a young woman bent over and loudly vomited blood.

At the splashing noise, the laser on top of the APC swung around fast. With a low hum, the scintillating power beam swept across the dying cannies, slicing them neatly in two.

“Thank Gaia, it was fast,” Krysty whispered. “But it makes me wonder how they got into the city without using the road?”

“Some tunnel that led directly into the sewers,” Ryan said. “They were probably told it was the only safe way into the town.”

“Guess they weren’t smart enough to figure out that also meant it was the only safe way to leave.”

“Well, now that they’re gone, we still have to stop a bastard predark tank with our bare hands.”

“Not quite,” J.B. said, setting down a handful of gallon cans. The man reeked of smoke, but was smiling widely.

“How is house paint going to help?” Mildred asked with a scowl.

“It’s not paint,” Ryan said, drawing his panga. Using the tip of the eighteen-inch weapon, he pried off a lid to reveal a fine silvery powder inside.

“That is aluminum oxide, and this is ferris oxide,” J.B. said proudly, setting down another can. “They’re used to change the tone of latex paint. But if combined correctly, along with a few ordinary household products—”

“They make thermite,” Krysty finished, eagerly opening another can. “J.B., there must be fifty pounds of mixture here!”

“Easily,” he said with a grin.

“Never heard of thermite,” Fife stated.

“Burns hot, melt steel,” Jak said, replacing Ryan and Krysty as a guard at the window.

The tank was no longer on fire, and was now shooting the laser randomly, setting more houses ablaze in a desperate search for the companions. “Laser soon here,” he warned brusquely.

“Thermite, right.... Look, Krysty found some dyno,” Fife began tolerantly. “Mebbe we can blow off the tires and flip that tin can into a ditch. What do ya think?”

All conversation stopped as the laser sliced across the second story of the police station. There was a tremendous rush of heat from above, followed by a lot of assorted crashing. As dust sprinkled down from the ceiling, the companions raced back into the basement.

“Give me your pipe bombs,” Ryan said, yanking his out and twisting off the top.

Digging into their backpacks and clothing, the group produced eight more pipe bombs.

While Ryan carefully emptied all of the guncotton into a neat pile, J.B. got busy with a plastic bucket from the janitor’s closet. Using a rolled-up arrest report as a crude funnel, he got busy mixing things in the bucket, then refilled each of the lead tubes.

“That should do it,” J.B. said, hefting a pipe bomb. “Now, I don’t know how hot these will burn cut with dynamite. There was no time to mix them properly, so once the charges ignite—”

“Run like hell,” Doc finished in his deep bass. “We understand, John Barrymore. Fizzle or flare, we must be ready for both.”

“Will this help?” Ricky asked, dragging over a large sheet of plastic. “I got it from the front desk.”

“Laser go right through,” Jak said with a frown.

“How about these?” Mildred asked, her arms full of black PVC pipes. “I ripped apart the plumbing in the shower room.”

“Not need more,” Jak said, then smiled. “Yes, do!”

“Yeah, this’ll work fine,” Ryan said with a brief smile. “Cut them up into sections the same size as the real bombs.”

“Dummies?” Fife asked with a thin smile. “A little distraction never hurts.”

Everybody got to work fast. The job was just barely completed when there was a loud crashing from above and the ceiling bulged.

As Ryan glanced upward, Fife shoved him aside and a chunk of terrazzo dropped through to slam into the floor where the man had just been standing.

“Thanks,” Ryan panted, touching a bloody scrape on his cheek.

“Anytime,” Fife said with a wink, heading for the coal chute.

Returning to the alley, everybody took a couple of fake bombs, along with the real ones.

“Better load them with dirt, or we’ll never get any decent range,” Ryan suggested, scooping up a handful from the ground and pouring it into an empty tube.

When that was accomplished, the group spread out until finding a house with a clothesline. Grabbing the line and slicing it into short lengths, they tied them to the pipes, making petards.

“Just don’t get hoisted on your own,” Doc quipped.

Mildred snorted. “Funny. You’re a funny guy.”

Issuing smoke from every window, the burning police station started to collapse as the group went across the backyards, staying as low as possible until nearing the APC. Crawling on their bellies through some rosebushes, they reached a wooden fence and carefully stood, braced for the deadly flash of the laser.

“Give me Ryan, and you can live!” Angstrom called, her booming voice over the loudspeaker no longer even trying to sound sincere.

Lighting the fuses, the group got the pipes spinning, then let them fly. Even as the first salvo was airborne, they started on the next, and then the third.

Down the block, the laser paused in destroying the town for a moment as the clattering rain of plastic and lead pipes fell on the nearby street.

“What, these toys again?” Angstrom said shrilly, a touch of madness in her voice. “Why not try begging for your lives? Or better yet, ace Ryan in front of me, and I will let those who chill him escape!”

There was no reply.

“Last chance!” Angstrom growled over the loudspeaker.

Just then, one of the pipe bombs burst apart, sending out a spray of lumpy chunks that rolled along the pavement hissing and spitting.

Mocking laughter came from the loudspeaker, then another pipe bomb violently exploded, showering the APC with a fine spray of thermite. Flaring into incandescence, the allotropic mixture burned across the armored chassis, the loudspeaker, gren launchers, machine gun pintle, and all of the minor fixtures, turning a bright cherry-red before simply falling away.

Screaming obscenities from an air vent, Angstrom swept the laser along the street. As the beam touched a pipe bomb, it instantly melted, revealing there was nothing inside but dirt. But the next pipe exploded, sending out another burning wave of thermite.

That ignited two more pipe bombs, then all of them. In only seconds, the APC was coated with white-hot flames that steadily increased in temperature, the thermite actually using the metal itself to fuel the hellish inferno.

Briefly, the bulletproof tires smoldered, then exploded off the rims, and the APC dropped two feet to the road in a thunderous clang. Next, the black box sagged, and the laser slashed in a zigzag across the town one last time, randomly destroying anything it touched before abruptly winking out.

Already a cherry-red in color, parts of the APC chassis began drooping, when a glowing hatch slammed open and Angstrom rose into view. Half of her face was gone, the flesh charred to the bone, and her clothing writhed with smoke, little flames licking along what remained of her hair.

Screaming, Angstrom threw something away just before combusting into flames and dropping from sight back into the melting APC.

Bouncing merrily along the dirty pavement, the smooth metallic sphere came to a rest near a rusty stop sign, then gave off the oddest musical tone.

“Implo gren!” Ryan yelled, throwing himself backward. Frantically, everybody scrambled for a handhold, and braced for the coming holocaust.

A split second later the device activated. Instantly, an intense gravitational field of unbelievable force created a roaring hurricane and everything was sucked into the subatomic vortex.

Rapidly escalating in force, a violent maelstrom rushed inward, carrying along leafs, tree branches, corpses, spent brass, roof tiles, street signs, sidewalk slabs...even the sizzling APC itself was dragged into the powerful reverse explosion. Desperately digging their fingers into the ground, the cringing companions were brutally pelted with hurtling debris of all sorts and types. Then the very ground started to break apart, chunks flying away, and the companions began to slide helplessly toward the raging gravitational whirlpool.

Then as fast as it had been created, the vortex vanished. Already in motion, the winds continued to sweep along the streets, loose debris and trash swirling around aimlessly until finally settling back down to earth.

“Son of a mutie bitch...” Ryan coughed, releasing his grip on a fence post. All of the slats were gone, sucked away by the violently implosion, only the deeply driven posts remained, all of them dangerously tilted.

“What in the name of holy heaven was that?” Ricky panted, stuffing the pockets back into his clothing.

“An implo gren,” J.B. muttered, pulling the crumpled fedora from inside his jacket. “Dark night, when I saw that baby bouncing down the road...”

“Yeah, me, too,” Krysty agreed, giving a humorless chuckle. “Never been so close to becoming one with the Earth Mother before.”

“Indeed, madam,” Doc wheezed. “For a moment, I could have sworn that I heard St. Peter call my name.”

“Me, too,” Mildred admitted, swinging around her medical bag to its proper position.

“Wrong direction, madam,” Doc said, then smiled. “But I am glad you are still here.”

“Ditto, you old coot.”

Shuffling forward, Ryan paused at the curb. Only a few yards away was a huge hole in the pavement. Easily fifty feet wide, the interior was mirror-smooth, a mathematically perfect half sphere.

“Where’d everything go?” Ricky asked in confusion.

“Still here,” J.B. said, slapping his hat back into shape. “Just compacted to the size of dust.”

“Even the APC?”

“Most of it,” Ryan replied, pointing a finger.

A short distance down the street, a small fiercely glowing puddle of molten steel stood where the APC had been. Wisps of black smoke wafted in the artificial breeze, carrying the disturbingly sweet smell of roasted pork.

“Long pig,” Jak said, making a face. “Hate smell of cooking human, even enemy.”

It took Ricky a moment to understand, then he slapped a hand over his mouth and struggled not to breathe.

Just then, a low moan came from the rosebushes.

Hurrying over, Ryan pulled away the thorny branches to reveal Fife lying tangled in the exposed roots. His clothing soaked in blood, the deathly pale man was gasping for air, a jagged piece of aluminum siding sticking out of his head.

Shoving the other companions aside, Mildred quickly knelt beside the trembling man, and expertly ran her fingertips along the ghastly wound.

“L-ive...?” Fife asked, fighting for breath.

“No, it’s too deep,” Mildred whispered with a catch in her voice. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“F-figured...d-don’t feel any p-pain...bad sign...” Fife coughed. “Ryan?”

“I’m here,” the man said, slowly drawing the SIG-Sauer.

“O-owe m-me,” Fife whispered, blood flecking his lips. “P-pay now...”

“In full,” Ryan promised.

“B-bury me...in ville.”

Startled, Ryan paused. “What?”

Suddenly, Fife reached up, a bloody hand grabbing his arm. “Take me home!” he gasped, blind eyes looking at infinity. “Bury in ville...take me home! Let baron know the ville is safe.” With a ragged sigh, the man went still and the hand fell away.

Listening to the gentle wind, none of the companions spoke for a few minutes.

“There’s the door to a redoubt in the cellar of the police station,” Ryan said, holstering the weapon. “Once the fire dies away we can easily get inside and jump out of here.”

“Yes, I know,” Krysty said. “We all saw it.”

“Besides, Concord is a day away on a bike,” J.B. said, tilting back his fedora. “On foot, it’s a week, mebbe more.”

“A very long walk, indeed,” Doc stated, brushing back his silvery hair.

“Cannies, muties, along way,” Jak added, checking the load in his Colt Python handblaster. “Triple hard go both ways.”

“Agreed.” Bending, Ryan lifted the body of the sec chief and slung him over a shoulder. “We better find something to wrap Cam in and get moving then,” he said, starting down the long street to what remained of the town.

* * * * *

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ISBN: 9781460312636

Copyright © 2013 by Worldwide Library

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