by James Axler
Moving the Hummer to the far side of the road, Ryan carefully watched the oncoming truck. The driver wasn't wearing a blue shirt. They could just be some folks leaving the area. Or sec men in disguise. The one-eyed man debated chilling the strangers purely as a precaution, and decided against it.
Maintaining its speed, the truck swung away from the Hummer, twenty feet of open space separating the vehicles. As the machines got closer, Ryan nodded and casually saluted at the other driver, and the gesture was returned.
"Big man," Krysty commented, her revolver in her hand but tucked out of sight. "Looks a bit like Ryan."
He snorted in reply. "Everybody has scars."
Almost alongside each other, the truck began to slow, and the driver pointed at the Hummer. The bald man in the passenger's seat rolled down his window and stared at the companions, first in puzzlement, then shock.
"Nuking hell, it is them!" he shouted, displaying pointed teeth. "Chill them all!" Instantly, the predark wag veered across the road, its engine revving with power.
"They're going for a ram!" Ryan warned, hitting the gas and sharply twisting the steering wheel.
The M-60 started chattering, and the sec men in the other wag fired back with an assortment of handblasters. The windshield on the truck exploded into pieces, while rounds ricocheted off the sides of the Hummer.
Firing one-handed, J.B. hosed the truck, but it was already too late. The hood blew off the wag, steam erupted from the punctured radiator and the truck slammed into the rear fender of the Hummer in a crash of glass and screech of metal. Jak went flying from his position behind the M-60, and the Hummer spun about from the collision, brakes squealing.
Shaking and bouncing, the damaged truck rattled to a halt, the front bumper crumpled tight onto the right tire, slicing the rubber into shreds.
On the berm, Jak rose and started limping after the Hummer, firing his .357 steadily at the stalled truck. The driver was fighting to start the engine again, but only getting whirring noises. However, the sec men in the rear opened fire on the pale teenager with their blasters. Trapped on flat ground with absolutely no cover, Jak flinched as a hot round scored past his cheek, singeing his skin.
"Cover him!" Ryan shouted, slamming on the gas and racing forward.
The companions opened fire with every weapon they had as the war wag streaked across the road to pass straight by Jak and slam into the truck. The impact knocked the sec men off their feet, the armored Hummer almost flipping over the large truck.
Jumping from the military transport, Doc and Krysty grabbed Jak by the arms and hauled the teenager off the road. Once he was in the Hummer, Ryan backed way from the truck and spun in the dirt, guiding the wag down the road at top speed.
"Those were cannies!" Dean stated, snapping off more shots at the broken wag. The men were stumbling around the vehicle in a daze, firing their weapons blindly.
J.B. slapped a fresh clip into the Uzi and worked the bolt. "Silas hiring cannies as blues?"
"More likely they stole the truck," Doc stated, blowing flame and thunder at the men with his LeMat. A cannie with a bandaged foot recoiled from the subsonic arrival of the .44 miniball, his left arm gone from the elbow down. "And I sincerely hope they ate the previous owners!"
"Vicious old coot, aren't you?" Mildred asked.
"Just practical, madam. A dead Silas can do us no more harm."
As the truck dwindled in the distance, the Hummer rolled around the curve in the dirt road, and Ryan immediately slowed. Directly ahead of them, a flat wooden bridge stretched across a gently flowing river.
"Fireblast! How many rivers do they have here!" Ryan cursed, then ground to a halt. "There isn't time to defuse another bastard land mine!"
Munitions bag in hand, J.B. hopped from the Hummer and started off at a run. "I'll check! Mebbe it's clean!" The companions readied their blasters, as the man rushed to the shore. Wading into the icy water up to his waist, J.B. looked under the bridge and turned toward the others.
"Triple load!" he shouted through chattering teeth. "Same as before! Ten, mebbe fifteen to defuse!"
"Do it!" Ryan shouted, gunning the engine. "We'll hold them off if they're stupe enough to try again."
Mildred gave a sharp whistle, and Jak started firing the M-60. Rattling and shaking, the predark truck appeared around the curve, the cannies steadily firing their blasters. Blue smoke trailed from its tailpipe, telling of serious engine damage. The headlights were gone, smoke poured from under the hood, but it was still moving, building speed and coming straight toward them this time.
As the companions cut loose with every weapon they had, Ryan studied the battlefield. Dense trees lined both sides, so there was no chance of driving through those. They couldn't cross the bridge, and if they tried to swim across the river they would be sitting ducks for the cannies to pick off with longblasters. Oddly, the battered truck was coming straight down the middle of the road, as if inviting the companions to try to get by, which made no sense. The Hummer was faster and armored, so no way could the cannies stop it with another sideswipe. Then the man saw the others were throwing handfuls of something out the sides of the wag. One of the objects hit a rock and loudly detonated.
"Blasting caps! Those'll blow our tires to pieces."
"But why did they come back?" Dean asked, rummaging in his clothes for another clip. Briefly, he made a mental note that he should make a vest or something with nothing but pockets for spare ammo. Yeah, that was a good idea. "We weren't chasing after them."
"It's the Hummer," Krysty stated, thumbing fresh cartridges into her blaster. "We busted their wag, so the cannies want this as a replacement."
"And us for supplies," Mildred added grimly, working the pump on the S&W shotgun she'd borrowed from J.B.
The boy registered surprise at the statement, then fierce hatred. "Let them try," he growled, for a split second sounding exactly like his father.
The truck was only fifty yards away and coming faster all the time. Spitting a curse, Ryan turned in his seat and stared hard at the bridge. Sure enough, there were small metallic dots scattered over the weathered planks. More blasting caps had been strewed about to stop anybody from following them across. Only now the small explosives might also set off the land mines and chill J.B. while he was working underneath, and there was no way to tell him of the charges on top of the bridge. They were trapped.
Having no choice, Ryan started tying off the steering wheel with the rope. "Get ready to go EVA!" he shouted, throwing the wag into neutral and shoving the stick on the gas pedal. The engine roared to life. "We've got to take them here on the road!"
"What for?" Jak demanded from the sputtering M-60. The dangling ammo belt was nearly gone, but the teenager still rode the machine gun on full-auto.
"Just do it!" Ryan shouted, throwing the Hummer into gear. The wag lurched ahead, tires spinning in the dirt.
Spewing smoke and blasterfire, the rattling truck loomed before the companions. Through the broken windshield, Ryan could see the cannie driver watching eagerly as the two wags closed with frightening speed. Then the scarred man's toothy expression rapidly changed as he realized the Hummer wasn't trying to get around, but was on a collision course.
"Now!" Ryan shouted, diving from the wag. He hit the ground hard, but managed to roll off the blow and stopped, lying on his side, blaster still in his hands. Jak and Doc landed nearby, Mildred and Krysty close behind. There was no sign of Dean.
Slamming on the brakes, the cannie driver bellowed in rage as the two vehicles violently smashed into each other, glass shattering over the sounds of crunching metal. Every loose item in the Hummer went flying as its armored grille pushed in the front of the truck, the working engine propelled backward into the cab, crushing a man with a snake tattoo on his face.
Somebody began to scream as fuel gushed from a hole in the gas tank, pooling on the ground under the destroyed wag. Bleeding and dazed, the cannies stumbled from the truck, slipping on the shards of glass
scattered on the road.
Stiffly, Ryan rose from a crouch and leveled the SIG- Sauer. "Light them up!" he shouted, and started firing.
Steady on one knee, Doc triggered the LeMat four times, and a cannie flew backward to slam into the truck, his faceless corpse sliding to the road, leaving a smear of pulped organs behind on the crumbled metal chassis.
Lying on the berm, Dean was snapping off shots, and Mildred cut loose with the shotgun, the flechette rounds cutting a cannie in two.
Spotting his lost Colt Python in the dust, Jak dived for the blaster and came up firing, the .357 hollowpoint rounds blowing fist-sized holes in men and truck. Hit in the shoulder, a cannie dropped the ammo clip for his AK-47. In panic, he ran away but got only a few yards before reaching the blasting caps. The first blew off a foot. Crying in shock, he fell to a knee and that, too, was removed. The man collapsed to the ground and was torn into bloody pieces.
Then a large cannie lifted another as a shield and sprayed the companions with a Kalashnikov on full-auto, the machine gun fiercely chattering.
Hastily reloading, Krysty felt a tug on her bearskin coat, telling of a near miss. As she dived for cover, Ryan slapped in a fresh clip, stood and fired. The 9 mm round punched a neat hole in the forehead of the dead man, an explosion of blood and brains washing over the cannie behind him. Blind, the scarred man dropped the corpse and started to randomly shoot his blaster. Krysty hit him in the shoulder, but he didn't stop firing. Dean got him in the thigh, and Jak buried a knife in his gut. Bleeding from a dozen wounds, the cannie dropped the spent blaster, drew a knife and charged, shouting insanely. Stepping out of the way, Ryan and Mildred both put lead in his chest, and finally Doc removed his head completely with a deafening discharge from the .63 smoothbore of the powerful LeMat.
The companions stood tensely, listening for any movement, waiting for another attack. Minutes passed slowly, and the fire under the truck died away as the fuel was consumed.
"Okay, it's clear," Ryan decided, holstering his piece. "Let's gather the blasters and get going. That smoke is going to attract attention we don't want."
"Why didn't the big guy die faster?" Dean demanded, removing the partially loaded clip from his blaster and inserting a full magazine.
"Went berserk," Mildred replied, holstering her ZKR target pistol. "There was so much adrenaline pumping through his body, he could have continued fighting for quite a while. It's rare, but does happen sometimes in battle."
"He took that many slugs and stayed alive?"
"Oh, no, he was already dead. Just still moving."
"Mutie?" the boy asked.
The physician sighed. "Quite the human thing to do."
"Hey, look at this," Krysty said, lifting a bare leg.
"There are shackle scars on his ankle. These men were slaves."
"Escaped Silas," Jak replied, recovering his blades from the dead men. He wiped them clean on the clothes of one of the fallen, then on an oily cloth from the pocket of his fatigues. One blade he slid up his sleeve; the other went into a boot.
"Which means overseers could be on their trail," Ryan stated, finding the Steyr and checking the blaster for damage. It was dirty but otherwise in fine shape.
Slinging the longblaster over a shoulder, Ryan hurried to the Hummer. He started the engine and tried to drive it off the truck, but the wag seemed stuck on something underneath. Shifting gears, Ryan fought with the entangled wag, only making matters worse before admitting defeat.
"Sounds like a broken axle," he stated, climbing from the Hummer. "We walk from here."
A sloshing sound announced the arrival of J.B. from the river. As the Armorer walked onto the shore, he was holding another large lump of plastique. "Bridge is clear," he told them wearily. "Not yet," Doc said, pointing with his swordstick. "It is covered with blasting caps."
Turning, J.B. snorted. "We can use some branches to simply sweep them into the river. No prob."
"Unfortunately, the Hummer is out of commission," Ryan said. "The front axle is busted, and the truck is dead. We forcibly removed the engine and burned off the fuel."
"So I see," J.B. mused. "Must have been a hell of a fight. Any chance they can be pushed?"
"Pushed?" Mildred repeated. "We move them to the bridge," J.B. said, rubbing his arms for some warmth. He was chilled to the bone, but there was no time to change clothes now. "Hopefully, nobody will come looking for us, or the cannies, if they think we're already dead."
Understanding the plan, the companions got busy. Krysty stood guard duty while Doc cut branches off the pines trees and J.B. cleared the bridge. Then they emptied the Hummer of supplies, filling their backpacks with everything they could comfortably carry. Shoving the wag backward the few yards took all of them working together, the broken axle refusing to turn very fast. But the companions eventually got it to the middle of the bridge. The truck rolled much easier, and soon it was nose to nose again with the Hummer.
"Leave some supplies and blasters," Ryan ordered, studying the wreckage. "This has to look real. Silas is no fool."
"Can we still take along the M-60?" Dean asked. "No way they could know we have one."
"Their wags' have 'em," Jak replied curtly. "If gone, what think?"
The boy frowned. "You're right. Leave it behind."
"Better move a couple of cannies to the Hummer to make the body count balance," Mildred suggested.
While that was done, Ryan gave J.B. one of his dry shirts. Even buttoned shut, the garment still hung loosely off the smaller man, but his teeth stopped chattering and his hands ceased to shake.
Feeling better, J.B. placed the large wad of C-4 from the land mines on the bumpers of the wags, and Ryan poured the extra fuel from their spare canister over both machines. Then everybody moved across the bridge before J.B. set the charges with one of his precious predark timing pencils.
The friends headed into the trees, the bridge far from sight when the first flat explosion sounded, closely followed by a cavalcade of smaller detonations, crunching wood and multiple splashes.
"Sure hope that works," Mildred said, watching the birds take flight overhead, frightened by the noises.
"Find out soon enough if it doesn't," Ryan replied, walking into the growing shadows of the Tennessee pine trees.
Chapter Nineteen
The carpeting of pine needles underfoot made walking pleasant, and the companions put several miles between them and the ruined bridge before stopping for a needed break.
"How far away are we?" Krysty asked, sitting on a tree stump. Unfolding some silver wrapping, she popped a stick of hundred-year-old chewing gum into her mouth and started to suck the flavor from the confection. It took too long for the stuff to get soft enough to actually chew. The wrapper she tucked into a pocket to hide the fact they had been here.
"Tell you in a minute," J.B. said, sliding on dry socks from his backpack, then his shoes. His pants had dried from the quick march, and he had changed into one of his own shirts a good mile ago.
Moving to a grassy area where the branches didn't block a view of the sky, the Armorer used his minisextant to shoot the sun. "We are…yep, just south of the Shiloh battlefield, east of the redoubt and west of the ville full of those inbred crazies."
"I remember them," Mildred said, scowling, easing her med kit to the soft ground. "That's probably where Silas gets his sec men."
"Indeed, madam, sec men or his slaves," Doc stated, taking the opportunity to reload the LeMat. The bulky weapon was difficult enough to charge standing still, and impossible to do so while walking. His sure hands used a small brass brush to purge each individual firing chamber, spent black powder raining like ebony snow. An exact measure of fresh powder went in next, then the lead ball and finally a wad of cotton. He tamped down each charge with the built-in lever, then smeared a dollop of grease on the chambers as protection from wetness and a lethal chain reaction cross firing.
The physician nodded while awkwardly massaging her stiff shoulder. Mildre
d knew she was carrying too many medical supplies but couldn't force herself to leave anything potentially useful behind.
Screwing the cap back on his canteen, Ryan wiped his mouth and glanced at the sky. "Day's nearly done," he said. "We'll use what light there is left to head east toward the redoubt from here on. Need to make sure we have someplace to retreat in case of trouble. If it's clear, tomorrow we'll start sweeping the valley in sections and find the base."
"Then chill all blues," Jak said, rubbing the scratch on his cheek from the near miss before. There was a faint taste of blood in his mouth, and when Jak turned to spit he saw a tiny flower struggling to grow through the thick layer of needles. Hawking into the bushes, the teenager gently pushed the needles away, giving the tiny plant a fighting chance. His wife had always like daisies.
"We ace the blues and Silas. That way, we can be sure he'll never bother Front Royal again," Ryan said grimly, picking up his longblaster. "Or anybody else, for that matter."
Stealthily, the companions moved through the forest. The tall green pines were dense, the air fresh with their clean scent. There were no signs of people having ever been in these woods, not even debris from predark houses. The land was pristine, almost primordial. Occasionally, the call of a wild bird would echo through the branches, or a squirrel would race by. Dean tracked the passage of the rodents with his blaster, but didn't fire. He knew they were too close to the blue shirts to risk shooting at anything.
Forcing their way through some blackberry bushes, the companions paused at the sight of a bear tunnel going through some of the thickets. Placing a finger on the trigger of his longblaster, Ryan knelt to look inside the dim recesses of the thorny bushes.
"Nothing in sight," he announced.
Jak kicked at some dried droppings on the ground. "Month, mebbe more. Bear long gone."
"Odd," J.B. said, picking a berry off a bush and inspecting it carefully. "Animals don't usually leave a ready source of food."
"Mebbe he got chased away by a bigger bear," Dean suggested.