by James Axler
The enemy was gaining ground. It was a matter of getting the right distance for a spread of shot with the right distance for power. Doc couldn’t think about it, only consider that tightening in his gut that told him it was now or never.
Doc calmly stepped out from behind the buttress, raised the LeMat and fired into the middle of the enemy fighters. The roar was deafening and he remained upright and unyielding, even though his face was cut and bleeding from concrete chips. He felt shells pluck at his clothes, tearing material and snicking at his flesh, creasing the skin and drawing blood. One hit him full in the shoulder, driving him right back, the impact making him grunt. But the hardy old man had so much adrenaline pumping through his body that the wound hardly registered.
The others, scrambling under the sec door, were also hit by the debris of ricochets; stray shells hit around them and even nicked them. Most were ricochets with the real sting taken out by the time they hit. But what was left was more than enough. Agonizing, flaming pain was something that became the only way to prove you were still alive, as the blood flowed from skin tears. Not enough to slow them, but enough to hurt like hell and drive them on.
Doc was immobile. It seemed as though he had stood firm for hours, but in truth it could not have been more than a moment. Ryan grabbed him and hauled him back, firing as he raced backward towards the sec door. Doc, jolted out of his stunned reverie, followed, loosing the ball charge from the LeMat, howling like some primeval beast in a combination of bloodlust, anger and agony.
The shot charge from the LeMat had done its work. The front ranks of the enemy fighters were down, many chilled instantly, others in intense pain and buying the farm from the injuries to their heads and bodies inflicted by the spray of hot metal. The floor of the tunnel was slick with blood and gore, making it hard for the fighters behind to keep their footing as they tried to pick their way around the corpses and the barely alive, firing all the while.
Not thinking about the air around him, alive with potentially lethal hot metal, Ryan took a flying dive at the sec door. Mildred and Krysty were on their knees from positions of cover, firing around Ryan and Doc, while Jak began to tap in the code to close the door.
Ryan’s hand was securely clamped on Doc’s coat collar, and as he launched himself he brought the old man with him. Doc hit the floor and skidded along with a thud that knocked the air out of his lungs and stopped his screaming.
They slid between the doors as SMG fire impotently peppered the thick metal doors, buzzing like angry insects as it deflected harmlessly away. The companions were up and moving out of range, Ryan and Doc having scrambled to their feet. Mildred dropped back to support Doc, who had been pulled upright by Ryan. The one-eyed man was having problems of his own. The wound in his arm had opened up a little more and his sleeve was now heavy with blood. There was no time to staunch the flow.
The same could be said for Doc, who was now losing blood quickly. Almost on the run, swearing heavily, Mildred searched her med bag for something with which to pad the wound until she could tend to it properly. Doc was pale and drawn, only his immense will keeping him from blacking out.
“Leave me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m holding you back.”
“Like hell we will,” Ryan snapped. “We don’t even know where we’re going or if we’ll get there.”
“Head for the mat-trans. No fit state, but at least a jump’ll get us away,” Krysty breathed heavily.
Ryan nodded and they headed for the gateway level, none wanting to waste valuable breath on words. But they shared the same thoughts—these people knew the layouts of the redoubts, so even if they hadn’t guessed where the companions were headed, they at least knew all the corridors. That meant that rather than chase them, they were likely to send out scouts, so the companions could be met at any junction by enemy fighters.
It was useless just to watch their backs as they would in any other comparable situation. They had to watch everything.
Coming to junctions slowed their progress, as Ryan and Krysty went ahead, checking before they crossed, with Jak and Mildred supporting Doc. Ashen-faced, breathing only with the greatest difficulty, Doc was almost out on his feet and needed rest.
But there was no rest. They came to within two corridors of the mat-trans unit when it all fell apart.
Krysty and Ryan gestured the others back as another junction came into view. It was a T-junction with a corridor leading off to the left and it should have been simple. Krysty dived across the open space while Ryan swung the Steyr around the corner. She was almost across when one shot, coming out of nowhere, hit her on the foot. The silver decorations on her cowboy boots saved her. The slug hit the metal at the base of her heel, denting the silver but being deflected rather than penetrating into her foot. However, the force was enough to throw her off balance and twist her ankle. She yelped at the sudden stab of pain, but rolled with the momentum and came up into a crouch on the other side.
Ryan snapped off a shot from the Steyr and was rewarded by a hail of blasterfire that pitted the expanse of wall running between Krysty and the rest of the companions. Behind the firing, they could hear the sounds of several fighters moving into position.
“Fireblast!” Ryan cursed, realizing that Krysty was now cut off from them. There was no chance of getting across the divide with the manpower and firepower between them.
Too late—perhaps weary, perhaps the injuries beginning to dull instinct—Ryan saw a lone runner moving toward Krysty, using the buttresses as cover. But she’d seen this and snapped off a couple of shots.
Her aim wasn’t good enough. Unharmed, the enemy runner hit the sec door and closed off one end of the corridor.
Ryan realized that the enemy’s knowledge of the redoubt and superior numbers was about to win the day, and there was nothing they could do about it. Covered on two flanks, they could only go back the way they had come if they left Krysty behind.
“Ryan,” Jak called.
Ryan turned to see another batch of enemy fighters appear at the end of the corridor. A quick head count took in a dozen. They were withholding their fire, but advancing with their blasters ready.
Ryan looked at his companions: Krysty, isolated and crouching awkwardly to protect her ankle; Mildred, eyeing the oncoming enemy anxiously while trying to tend to Doc, who was now slumped against the wall, sinking toward the floor; Jak, ready, like Ryan, to fight to the last, but with only two of them?
Why wasn’t the enemy firing?
Ryan and Jak exchanged glances. If they were going to be chilled, make it quick rather than tortuous and take some of the bastards with you. Both men raised their blasters….
Chapter Seven
The enemy stood about fifty yards away. They were a bunch of misshapen men and a few women, dressed in a bizarre combination of rags and better clothes, as though they had placed their new acquisitions on top of their old rags, rather than discard them. They showed signs of mutation and inbreeding, with slack faces, deformities and some lameness among them. But they were all well armed.
The moment seemed to stretch to infinity. Ryan and Jak could feel the blood pumping through their veins, their muscles and tendons tense, their fingers tight on their triggers, the pressure building as the yielding metal began to move.
Krysty had her own Smith & Wesson up and ready. If they mowed down the others, she would have at least a degree of shelter, a moment of time on the other side of the corridor, shielded by their bodies and the greater distance, to perhaps take out a couple more of the enemy before she, too, was claimed.
Mildred glanced from Doc to the enemy fighters and to Ryan and Jak. Doc was almost delirious as he grew weak from blood loss, from weariness, from the lack of oxygen getting into his bloodstream via his still-weakened lung capacity. He was hollow-cheeked, looked like a man ready to take the last train west.
But still the enemy didn’t fire. Their blasters were raised and they should have cut down the companions with no compunction.
The voice continued. Barking, harsh, speaking something that sounded like English. Ryan looked across to Jak. The albino’s face was as impassive as ever as he returned Ryan’s gaze. Whatever was in those ruby eyes was completely unreadable. But he did raise a scarred eyebrow. Without having to swap words, both men eased the pressure on their trigger fingers without lowering their blasters.
The ranks of enemy fighters parted and a squat, fat man with a lame right leg hobbled through. He was speaking, but the words were still mangled. Now Ryan could understand why. The man had a cleft palate, which distorted his speech. He also spoke as though his throat was permanently full of phlegm, an impression reinforced by the way he suddenly stopped midsentence and hoicked a phlegmball across the floor. He finished his sentence and looked questioningly at Ryan, who shook his head; partly to clear it, partly to indicate that he didn’t understand.
The man began to speak again. This time he was slower, making an obvious attempt to be understood. By the same token, Ryan tried to concentrate, even though there was blackness closing in at the edge of his vision. Trying to concentrate on the cleft palate was helping to keep the blackness of unconsciousness at bay. The one-eyed man blinked heavily, listening intensely to what the fat man had to say. Gradually, it began to take shape.
“Think you must be triple stupe if’n you can’t even understand what the fuck I’m saying. Guess that should be your problem, if not for the fact that we’ve got you cornered and could just blast the shit out of you…. Fact is, we could make you nothing more than shit stains on the walls. Ha! Kinda funny, that is. Anyways, I’m guessing by that fucked-up look on your face that you’re starting to understand what I’m saying. Shit, fucker, just nod your head if you do…”
Ryan nodded. The man’s voice was thick, deep and the affliction to his mouth made his words heavy. But once you got the cadence and the weird rolling rhythm of his speech, it did actually start to make sense.
“Good, ’cause I got somethin’ to say. We been running around after you and you took out some of my people—not stupe fighters, but real good marksmen. Made ’em look like triple-stupe mad dogs before you cut ’em down. Now I guess I should be kinda pissed about that and mebbe I am. But fuck it, we came after you first and it ain’t our fault—nor yours—if you happen to be better fighters than us. But you’re less fighters than us—a whole lot less. And we coulda taken you apart if’n we wanted. Right now, one word and you’re history, like the rest of this pesthole planet. We’s just living out the end-times, but if’n it’s us or you, then you don’t have to be some kinda clever shit to work it out, right? I said, right?”
Ryan nodded once more. He felt tired, weak and he wondered where the rambling diatribe was going. The only good thing was that they hadn’t been chilled yet. That gave them a crumb of hope for getting out of this and that was enough to keep him clinging tenaciously to consciousness for the moment.
“Okay, so you’re still paying attention. See, I figure you must know somethin’ about this place, ’cause you ain’t running blind. Now that kinda puzzles me, ’cause far as I knows, we’s the only ones around here that knows about here. Those horsefuckers in Duma don’t know about it, do they?”
The squat man looked from Ryan to Jak and then at the others, trying to see if the name meant anything to them. His eyes were screwed up, his pendulous nose almost dangling onto his deformed lip, which no amount of stubble could disguise. He looked grotesque and absurd; this, the man who held their fate in his hands.
“Guess y’all ain’t from there, after all,” he said slowly. “Kinda figured not. And you ain’t from no convoy, ’cause there ain’t been wags out around here for ages. Saw you before the storm and waited. Figured you’d come back if’n you wasn’t chilled.”
Mildred stood up, leaving Doc, who had lapsed into unconsciousness, and stepped forward.
“Will you just tell us whatever the fuck you’ve got to say before you kill us and then get on with it? If I’m going to die, I want it to be because I’m filled with lead, not because some asshole bores me to the grave.”
The fat man looked at her, amazed. “Chill you, stupe bastards? What have I just been saying? We coulda chilled you a whole shitload a’times if’n we really wanted to—but that ain’t what we want. We wanted to take y’all prisoner, mebbe see if you could be of some use. Always use good fighters, and you need a place to rest. ’Sides, we need more fighters for our next raid. Shit’s running low and this place got cleared out long ago. We want you to join us.”
Ryan could barely believe it. This fat idiot had wanted to form an alliance, so he had chased them through the redoubt wasting his own men and inflicting damage on them. What kind of a triple-stupe moron was he?
“Why the fireblasted hell didn’t you just say—” Ryan managed to croak out before the blackness engulfed him.
“Shit, guess you better pick up old One-eye, there,” the fat man said as he watched Ryan crash to the ground.
THERE WERE STILL A LOT of questions that remained unanswered and a lot of things that didn’t add up, but the companions were in no fit state to argue right now. For whatever reasons he and his people might have had, the fat man had offered them an alliance—respite and shelter—at a time when they could fight no more.
The companions holstered their blasters, allowing some of the opposing forces to come forward. Slinging their SMGs over their backs, two men took hold of Doc, lifting him gently and supporting him between them. Mildred had to look away when she saw that one of the men had no nose, merely a pustulating hole dripping mucous where his nose should have been, his breath whistling heavily in the large, open space.
Three came forward to claim Ryan: two men and a woman. Although there was little to tell between them, as all were short and fat, shuffling rather than walking, with upturned bits of noses, tiny, unblinking eyes and warts spread across their features. All three could have been from the same family.
Come to that, many of them looked as though they came from the same small gene pool. Mildred looked at them and also at the party that came from the side corridor. They were all either small, fat and piglike or tall and thin with facial distortions. The man with no nose was very like the fighter who now opened the sec door that had cordoned them off, joining his fellows.
As they turned and began to trek back along the corridors, talking softly among themselves, giggling and looking at the companions as they walked among them, Mildred could also see that facial deformities were just one aspect. A lot of the people, particularly the men, had trouble walking. They shuffled, dragging one lame foot, like their chief. Taking as close a look as she dared without arousing suspicion, Mildred could also see that a number of them had hand or arm deformities. These seemed to be mostly among the women.
The fat man had mentioned the name of a ville, somewhere he thought they had come from. Wherever it was, it obviously wasn’t as isolated as the place where these people lived. Too many generations with only their families to interbreed. That may explain the bizarre behavior, the physical problems of inbreeding usually being matched by mental instability.
This didn’t reassure her. They were being marched out of a redoubt—Ryan and Doc both unconscious from blood loss—by a group of inbreds who were probably mentally unstable, heading toward who knew what fate?
Krysty had been having similar thoughts and she had decided to try to find out a little more. Ignoring the men and women who tried to touch her hair as they walked, laughing as the prehensile curls recoiled from their touch, she addressed the fat man who was in the lead.
“Listen, where are you taking u
s? And what were you doing down here?”
“You ask a lot of questions ’sidering I could ask the same, well, the last one, any rate. See, we’s on a scavenging hunt. No food or shit left down here. That cleaned out a whole long time ago. ’Fore I was borned, or most of them here. But mebbe there was something we could take out that was left, use to trade with the convoys. Not that the fuckers stop for us—just want Duma. But mebbe we stop them and trade. Chill the fuckers if’n they don’t. But I’s a fair man, see?”
It was an answer that, perhaps, left more questions than it answered. But as Mildred and Krysty exchanged glances, one thing was certain. Whoever these people were, their ancestors had known the secrets of the redoubt and had plundered it long ago. Which explained how they got in. The sec code had to have been handed down. Perhaps at one time their ancestors had wanted them to use the redoubt as a safe place—perhaps they had even known something about the mat-trans—though that must have all been lost and garbled long ago.
The fat man continued. “See, we was looking for things to use in trade and I guess you were, too…or at least, you was looking for some kinda supplies. You look all beat and I figure that storm couldn’t have done much for you. Specially as you came back with one less than you went with. So we all looking for something here, and it figures that it’d do us good to work together. We can always do with outsiders to help us, so I figure this is good for all of us, right?”