by James Axler
The raiders were sorry to see the sec chief come back empty-handed.
But the muties along the way were happy for the fruit, and now thought of the raiders as friends.
DEBBY RETURNED to her cabin an hour later.
“Did you find Mildred or Krysty?” Ryan asked.
“I found both of them in the nursery,” she said, handing a few fresh fruit to Ryan. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“How were you able to get there and back without arousing suspicion?” Maurice asked.
“I told the sec men along the way I was having women’s problems. They didn’t seem too interested in hearing the details and let me through to the nursery.”
Ryan took a bite of an apple. “Did Mildred and Krysty tell you anything?”
“They sure did. Mildred said to tell you they were healing a sec man who the one-eyed outlander cut with a leaf-bladed throwing knife.” She said the last four words very carefully so as to not make a mistake.
Ryan was confused for a moment, then understood that Jak was somewhere close by.
“And Krysty wanted me to give you something.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“This.” She pulled Ryan’s SIG-Sauer from beneath her dress, and two full clips from the deep cleavage between her breasts. “She said you’d know what to do with it.”
Ryan took the blaster in his hand, quickly checked it over to see that it was in good working order and then stuffed the clips into his pockets.
“And I guess she was right,” the woman said.
“Did she say anything else?” Ryan asked.
“Yes. She said, ‘See you after dark, lover.”’
Chapter Thirty-Six
J.B. sat on the hood of the wag, wiping down his Uzi. The .50 calibers and the cannon were in as good a working order as he could manage. The wag was running better now, too, but it was clear that one or more of its eight cylinders was dead, and there was no guarantee it would be running long enough to get them all out of the farm complex.
They’d get in on the back of the wag, but getting out might just have to be done on foot.
Just then Doc called out to him. “I believe Jak and young Dean are returning from their recce.”
“Are they alone?” J.B. asked.
“Afraid not. Jak seems to have picked up a wild hare or some sort of squirrel.”
J.B. jumped down off the wag to meet the two youths.
“There’s something happening on the farm,” Dean said excitedly. “There’s sec men all over, but Jak sent a message to Dad. Man, what a message—”
The information was coming too fast, and with too much noise for J.B.’s liking.
He waved his right hand at the boy to cut off his words and turned to Jak. “What happened?”
“Slaves all inside. Outside looks someone escape. Mebbe Ryan, mebbe not. Sec men on triple red. Stuck sec man in leg with knife. Send message to Mildred. No mistake. Tonight be ready.”
J.B. nodded.
“I could have told you all that,” Dean said, visibly disappointed.
“I know, but I wanted the facts first.”
Doc interjected. “Quite often, young Mr. Cawdor, someone’s life will depend on the rapid exchange of information. Although we have got plenty of time to go before sundown, it is still a good rule to obey.”
“All right,” Dean said, dejected. “I’ll make a note of it for next time.”
J.B. put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “C’mon, you can tell me all about it while Jak puts those squirrels on the spit.”
Dean’s face lit up in excitement. “Well, there was only a six-inch gap in the fence and…”
“FRUIT?” RHONDA ASKED, holding an apple in her hand.
“Said they don’t trade breeders for food,” Ganley said.
“But you told us that they send wag trains to the eastern villes all the time, trading breeders for all kinds of supplies. Not just blasters.”
“They do. I’ve seen them do it.” The sec chief shook his head. “Felt to me like their trader was busy with some other problem right now and just wanted to get rid of us, quick as he could.”
“I got that impression, too,” Franz said.
Ruznicki nodded. “Me, too.”
“So,” Rhonda said, “what do we do now?”
“We wait for dark,” Ganley said, pulling a peach out of the bag of fruit they’d brought back to the camp. “And then we take from them what they wouldn’t give us in trade.”
CLARISSA RETURNED to the wag late in the afternoon. She was being trailed by a few muties, but they were hanging well back and seemed more concerned with the farm than following her.
“Muties are ready?”
“They can’t wait to get inside,” Clarissa said. “But there’s something else you need to know about.”
“What’s that?” J.B. asked.
“Traders at the farm today.”
“We saw them,” J.B. said. “Did their business and went away.”
Clarissa shook her head. “Not quite. There’s more to the group than the ones trading. They’re camped to the south of the farm.”
“What want?” Jak asked.
“Not fruit—that’s for sure. They dumped half of what they traded for on their way back to their camp.”
“That is strange,” Doc commented.
“The muties loved it,” Clarissa said. “They’ve circled their camp waiting for more.”
Jak looked at J.B. “Call off tonight?”
J.B. was silent a moment, noting that the sun was low in the western sky and less than an hour from sliding below the horizon. “No. There’s no time,” he said. “Ryan, Mildred and Krysty are expecting us tonight.”
“What about the traders?” Clarissa asked.
“If they wanted more than fruit, my guess is that when our blasters light up the dark, they’ll be on our side.”
THE SUN WAS ALMOST GONE from the day and the sky was streaked in a rainbow of fiery reds, glowing oranges and searing yellows. Flashes of greenish-blues cut between the hues like portals to another time.
It was a beautiful sight, one few had the time to admire.
For Grundwold, the setting sun meant he had failed. The one-eyed outlander was still hidden somewhere on the farm, and his chances of escaping the complex outright would improve with every minute of darkness.
“Should I call back the sec men to guard the main building through the night?” Fillinger asked.
Grundwold considered it, but knew he couldn’t tell the baron that the outlander was still on the loose. And as long as he kept searching, he hadn’t failed. “No more than a dozen men,” Grundwold ordered. “Turn on the lights and leave the rest of them out there in the orchards.”
“But they’ll be easy targets to chill for a single man in the dark,” Fillinger stated.
The sec chief realized he was putting his men at risk, but there was no other choice; the search had to continue. “If one of them gets chilled, then at least we’ll know where the one-eye is.”
Fillinger was silent a moment, then said, “What about the baron. He’ll want a report.”
“Find Norman Bauer,” Grundwold said. “Tell him to send two breeders to the baron’s quarters. That should keep him busy for a while.”
Fillinger nodded, then turned to carry out the sec chief’s orders.
“Now,” Grundwold muttered. “Let’s go find the outlander.”
THERE WAS a single knock on the door before it opened.
Ryan had been sitting on the edge of the bed and only had time to dive to the floor between the bed and the wall. His SIG-Sauer was in his hand and ready to fire, but he resisted the temptation to rise up with his blaster blazing. He’d be able to take out the first sec men, but there would be more coming through the door without another way out of the cabin.
“What is it?” Maurice asked. “You’ve already been through here twice today.”
Ryan slid under the bed and looked out from beneath it through
a slit in the overhanging sheets.
The sec man had ignored Maurice’s comment and was looking at Debby, who was still lying on the bed. “You,” he said to her. “Let’s go!”
“Go where?” she asked, dutifully getting up from the bed and putting on a bathrobe. “What have I done?”
“Nothing wrong,” said the sec man. “You’re going to see the baron.”
Debby looked over at Maurice with a pained expression, then at the bed where Ryan had been only second before. “Is it a celebration? Did they find the one-eye?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why is the baron calling for me?”
“Not the baron, sec chief Grundwold,” the sec man said. “He wants the baron kept busy while we continue the search.”
“Oh, my pleasure,” Debby cooed, in what Ryan knew were words solely for the sec man’s benefit. She was in love with Maurice and he was in love with her, but they could never admit it. Not yet, anyway.
“Let’s go.”
At the door she stopped, turned back to face Maurice and said, “If you get busy tonight, please don’t forget about me. Don’t leave me behind.”
“Never,” Maurice said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Baron Fox was lying back on his round, oversize bed, looking through another stack of predark hard-core skin mags. This one was called Dominas and featured naked and provocatively dressed breeders subjugating men in a variety of different ways.
The baron turned the page and there were two women, one dressed in red, the other dressed in black, standing on a naked man. Each of the women wore spike-heeled shoes and the heels were pressing into the man’s flesh, threatening to break the skin at any moment. In photo after photo they moved slightly so that their deadly shoes pressed against the man’s arms, throat and face. In the last photo, the woman in black had taken her shoes off and was smothering the man with her stocking-covered feet. The man seemed to be turning red from lack of oxygen, but like in all the other photos, he had an enormous erection.
Here were breeders acting as he would, as the baron. The men in the photos were the slaves, happy to be humiliated, punished, physically injured, by the wickedly evil breeders.
The baron wondered if he might be able to experience such a thrill. It was unlikely, since he was the baron and if he let himself be dominated by any of his breeders, it would be looked upon as a sign of weakness. He’d been able to keep Grundwold in line, but if the man detected a weakness, he could use it to his advantage.
Perhaps, the baron thought, he could subject himself to such breeders, and then chill them, so that they would take what they knew of the baron to the grave with them. It was certainly a possibility, one that would prevent Grundwold from learning that his baron could be controlled under the right circumstances.
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Enter,” the baron said. He’d been expecting Norman Bauer, but was surprised to see a sec man enter.
“What is it?”
“Breeders, Baron,” the sec man said nervously.
“I never asked for any breeders,” the baron said, putting the skin mag aside for now and rising from his bed.
The sec man let the two breeders enter the baron’s quarters. They were attractive, perhaps on the heavy side, but good breeders. Good rutters, too, the baron admitted, as the larger one had visited him before. “Sec chief Grundwold sent them, sir.”
“What?”
“He knows you’ve had a stressful day and could use some breeders to unwind.”
“He said that?” the baron asked, the anger rising within him.
The sec man, obviously frightened of the baron, simply nodded.
“He hasn’t caught the one-eyed outlander yet, has he?”
The sec man shook his head.
“Triple-stupe fucker,” the baron shouted. “And he thinks I’ll just forget about his incompetence by sending me a couple of breeders.”
The sec man stood still and silent.
The two breeders were trembling in fear.
“I was hoping he’d show a little imagination in his search, but he’s just as triple-stupe as the rest of you.” The baron went over to a dresser and pulled open the top drawer. In one fluid motion his hand slid inside and came out with a blued steel 9 mm Luger blaster. He turned to the sec man. “Find the sec chief and tell him to meet me in the nursery.”
“Yes, Baron.”
“And find that redheaded gaudy slut of an outlander and bring her to the nursery, too.”
The sec man ran off to carry out the baron’s orders.
“If the sec chief can’t find the one-eye, then maybe we can use his friends to draw him out.”
The two breeders remained.
“You two wait for me here,” the baron said. “I’ll be back.”
THE SUN WAS GONE from the sky.
The raiders had just finished building a pair of wooden ladders that would help them get over the fence and into the compound.
“All ready?” Ganley asked.
“Ready,” the raiders answered in a jumble of voices scattered over several seconds.
“Then let’s move.”
J.B. TAPPED HIS FINGER on the key, waiting for word to come from the back of the wag that everything was secure and the rest of the group was ready to move.
When Jak and Dean were in position behind the .50 calibers, Doc was in the wag’s bed overseeing the cannon shells and Clarissa was riding shotgun with J.B.’s Uzi at the ready, J.B. grabbed hold of the wag’s key and turned it.
The starter motor turned over weakly, the engine sputtered and then stopped.
“Want us to push?” Clarissa asked.
“Not yet,” J.B. answered. He turned the key again and the starter let out a series of slow protesting groans. The engine sputtered once more, but this time it suddenly roared to life.
J.B. beamed proudly as the work he’d done on the engine over the course of the day had paid off. The engine was running more smoothly than it had in the morning, and he was confident it would keep running for as long as he needed it to.
“Hang on!” he said, then put the wag into gear.
The wag lurched forward.
J.B. drove slowly in darkness, not wanting to try the wag’s lights. If they worked, it would help with the driving, but it would make the wag a good target for the farm’s sec men. As it was, all they had to shoot at was a sound in the darkness and such things were hard to hit at the best of times.
Their plan was simple.
They would use the 37 mm cannon to take out the farm’s electric supply. That would shut off the lights, shut down the electric fence and generally create chaos within the complex.
Then they’d use the weight of the wag to break through the front gate.
Once inside the complex, Clarissa and Jak would head into the main building to look for Ryan, Krysty and Mildred. J.B. would select strategic targets for the 37 mm cannon, such as sec towers, wags and emergency electricity and lighting while Dean and Doc would use the .50 calibers to keep the sec force under cover.
Depending on how the wag stood up, J.B. would stay with the wag they had, or they’d try to take one of the baron’s wags from inside the barn.
While all this was going on, Ryan, Krysty and Mildred would be working their way out from the inside of the complex, splitting the sec force, chilling sec men and distracting other sec men from the front gate.
Add to that the muties, who would be streaming in through the gate and over the fence, taking out sec men and eating them raw, and the slaves themselves who would have been warned about what was coming and would be all too eager to escape or chill their former masters.
Organized chaos, J.B. thought. He’d have preferred to sneak in with a precision strike, but the electric fence made that too difficult, and they had the firepower to go in with blasters blazing. So why not go with their strengths?
And it was all going to start going down in less than five minutes.
“Grundwold,” the baron shouted.
The sec chief stepped forward. “Yes, Baron.”
“You’re no longer sec chief.”
Grundwold’s mouth opened to utter words of protest.
But the baron didn’t give him a chance to respond. He raised his Luger and shot the man in the shoulder, sending him flying backward against a supply cabinet.
“Anyone else have anything to say about Grundwold’s demotion?” the baron demanded.
No one said a word.
Mildred moved toward the sec chief to see if he’d been fatally shot.
“Leave him!” the baron ordered, then turned. “Fillinger!”
“Yes, Baron.”
“You’re my new sec chief now.”
“Yes, Baron!”
“Take this fire-headed gaudy slut outside and have her walk the grounds in the lights of a wag. Put two sec men on her, a blaster trained on each side of her head. Tell the one-eye either he comes out of hiding, or we’ll blow her pretty little head clean off her shoulders.”
“Yes, Baron!” he said with obvious glee.
Mildred moved closer to the bassinet that held her blaster.
“C’mon, Red, let’s go for a walk,” the baron said.
Krysty remained where she was. Mildred inched still closer to the bassinet.
“I said let’s move.”
Suddenly a loud boom thundered from somewhere outside. Several glass containers in the nursery shook. Babies were awakened from their sleep and began to cry.
The noise was followed by several seconds of silence.
“Find out what that was!” the baron ordered.
Sec men began running up the stairs.
A second loud boom sounded, and then all the lights went out. The entire building was shrouded in inky darkness.