by Jaspre Bark
"Ah still wish ah wa' comin' tae the camp wi' ye, Johnny," said the big guy when the pair had a moment to themselves at last. "I'da liked a few minutes alone wi' those guards who took pot shots at us."
"I know," said Johnny. "But your mission is just as important, if not more so."
"Whit, because it keeps the Consoler sweet? Ye don't really think he can git through tae that scunner brother o' his, dae ye?"
Johnny shook his head. "Not for a minute. But if he can draw Kit out into the open and distract him..."
Middenface grinned and smacked his right fist into his left palm. He understood.
"Take Kit out and this war's over before it begins," said Johnny. "Not to mention the other seven hundred thousand reasons."
A heavy footstep alerted him to the presence of somebody behind him. He turned to face the Consoler and was briefly worried. How long had he been there? Had he heard what Johnny and Middenface had said? No, he reassured himself, the Consoler's many mutations had made his gait slow and laboured. There was no way he could have snuck up on them.
"Elephant Head informs me that everybody is ready," said the Salvationists' leader. "It is time."
Johnny nodded. "We are doing the right thing, you know," he said.
"I think that may be true," the Consoler conceded, "albeit for the wrong reasons. You are a cleverer man than I gave you credit for, Mr Alpha. I think you will get your man, whatever the cost. I just hope you are proud of yourself."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LIBERATION
The convoy was two and a half hours late already.
This didn't seriously affect Johnny's strategy, but it was making his soldiers anxious. War, in his experience, was all about waiting; long periods of boredom punctuated by brief bursts of frenetic activity. Seasoned fighting men and women knew how to deal with this, but Johnny's soldiers weren't seasoned. No more than twenty of them had any kind of military experience, and only half of those had seen action. They had trained the others as best they could, but for all the pressure he had put on the Consoler to act, in his heart Johnny wasn't sure they were ready.
The rush of adrenaline that they had all felt upon taking their positions in the mountain foothills had passed, and many of them were getting the jitters. Johnny had already disciplined three men for straying from their posts. He didn't like coming down hard on them, but it was crucial that they remained hidden until it was time to strike.
He gazed down at the route the convoy would take, and at the ravine where the ambush was to take place, checking one more time that everything was in place.
"Excuse me, Mr Alpha, sir." It was Fingers, one of the mutants from the hunting party he and Middenface had followed to the Salvationist base camp. "The signal's just come through."
He handed Johnny a telescope and he focused on a promontory about a kilometre away. Johnny saw small clouds of smoke rising from it. It was the signal that the convoy had been sighted. Moosehead might have been robbed of his good looks, thought Johnny, but he had lost none of his skills as a scout. He was only sorry that his old friend wouldn't be beside him in the first skirmish.
Johnny nodded to a norm who was standing by with a bow. The archer lit his arrow and fired it into the valley below. At this signal, a small group emerged from hiding, clutching bottles and jars. Almost simultaneously, the convoy of four trucks chugged and wheezed into view, blowing out foul-smelling smoke from their exhausts. The information the Salvationist network had picked up was correct: the government was stepping up the numbers they were sending to the camp.
The Salvationists ran towards the trucks and threw the bottles and jars at the ground in front of them. The first two trucks rolled onto the broken glass and the rubber coverings on their wheels burst. Caught by surprise, the drivers couldn't stop their vehicles from swerving and juddering to a halt. Armed guards jumped out of both trucks into a volley of arrows from a hidden group of Salvationist archers. Most of them fell without ever knowing what hit them.
Two more groups of Salvationist volunteers charged down on the trucks and swiftly overpowered the drivers and the few remaining guards. Johnny swore and cursed them for their incompetence. They had forgotten the plan and moved too soon.
The third truck had been stopped by the broken glass, but the driver of the fourth had had time to see what was happening. He pulled out to avoid the Salvationist volunteers and drove around them, accelerating as he approached the end of the ravine. Johnny broke from his position and ran down to intercept him.
"Aim for the wheels, shoot at the wheels!" he shouted at the hidden archers. They obeyed, but most of their arrows missed their targets by a long shot. Some thudded into the main body of the truck, and some even struck the prisoners inside.
Three arrows struck true, however, causing the rubber around one wheel to burst apart. The truck skidded badly, spinning around and around as the driver lost control.
Johnny raced towards it, commanding a group of volunteers to follow him. As the truck came to a halt, he tore one of the doors open and leapt inside. One guard sat beside the driver - a mutant with a long, thin nose - but he was shaken from the skid. Before he had a chance to reach for his weapon, Johnny brought the heel of his hand up hard against his nose, breaking it and forcing the shattered shards of bone up into his brain. The guard was killed instantly.
The Salvationists dragged the other stunned guards off the truck and overpowered them. Hyped up with the frenzy of the struggle, they made short work of their enemies, using their own weapons against them.
"Don't kill me, please don't kill me," pleaded the driver as Johnny grabbed him by the throat and dragged him out of the truck. "I've got three kids and this is the only job I could get. They were going to deport me."
"I'm not going to kill you just yet," said Johnny. "Do exactly as you're told and I might not have to kill you at all."
Meanwhile, the volunteers had opened the backs of the trucks and the prisoners emerged blinking into the bright sunlight. When they had all been freed from their shackles, Johnny gathered them together and addressed them.
"You are no longer prisoners of the Miltonian government," he said. "You will not be locked up in an internment camp. Soon, no one will be held in that camp again. We are on our way to liberate it. We have spare weapons; you are welcome to join the fight. If you do, you must obey all commands that are given to you. If you don't, we will not think any less of you. There are men and women standing by to lead you back to safety, a day's hike from here."
Twice as many of the freed prisoners stayed than Johnny had anticipated. There weren't enough weapons for all of them so they had to improvise. Not for the first or last time that day, he felt apprehensive about the level of casualties in the coming conflict.
The volunteers went to work patching up the rubber wheel coverings. They stripped the dead guards, fixed up the holes in their uniforms, and scrubbed off as much blood as they could. The most mutated volunteers donned the guards' uniforms, while the others piled into the backs of the trucks.
As Johnny climbed into the front of the lead truck, dressed as a guard, Youngblood bounded up to him. "Johnny," he said. "I would really consider it an honour to ride with you."
Johnny looked him over. He was wearing the uniform of a three-armed guard with its dead owner's extra arm still inside the jacket. Youngblood had cauterised the stump and strapped it to himself. It was gruesome, but effective, and they needed someone up front who looked heavily mutated. He nodded and Youngblood hopped in beside him eagerly.
Johnny turned to the driver and pressed the tip of a large hunting knife up against the mutant's chest. "Now, it's up to you to make this work," he said. "I want this to go as smoothly as any normal delivery. If you give the guards at the gate any hint that something is wrong, if you even smell like you're going to cross me, I will kill you where you sit. Do you understand me?" The driver swallowed hard and nodded, then turned the key in the ignition and started up the truck.
"I never
thought I'd be glad to go back to that place," said Youngblood, "but I couldn't be prouder to be fighting alongside you. I owe you my life."
"Yeah, well, that life of yours cost me quite a bit to save," said Johnny. "You make sure you hang on to it, you hear?"
"Yes, sir," said Youngblood.
The first truck pulled up at the gates of the camp with the others behind it. The head guard sauntered over and banged on the window and the driver slowly wound it down.
"We expected you over four hours ago," said the guard.
"Yeah, well... We, er, ran into a bit of trouble."
"What kinda trouble? Terrorists?"
"No," said the driver quickly. The sharp point of Johnny's knife pressed harder between his ribs. "Hit some loose rocks on the way. Had a few blowouts. Took us a while to repair them. We didn't have enough spares. You know how it is."
The guard nodded, satisfied with the story. "I gotta ask," he said. "They've been on my ass about stepping up security ever since the escape."
He signalled for the gates to be opened and waved the trucks through. The first two carried on around to the second gate in the inner fence, which was on the far side of the compound. The remaining two turned in the opposite direction towards the guard's quarters. From their surveillance of the camp, the Salvationists knew the guards worked in strict shifts. At any one time, a third of them would be asleep inside the barracks. Johnny had figured that if they could take out these men before they woke, they could drastically reduce the camp's defences with hardly a struggle.
"Hey," one of the gate guards called out after the last two trucks. "Hey, where do you think you're going? That's the wrong way!"
Salvationists leaped out of the backs of both trucks and jumped the gate guards. Surprised by the attack, two of them went down without much trouble, but the other four put up a spirited defence. Two Salvationists were wounded, and one guard broke free, racing towards the barracks and screaming to raise the alarm. An arrow flew from one of the trucks and hit him in the throat. He fell to his knees in a geyser of blood but not before his cries for help had been heard.
Johnny cursed again. Fortune was not favouring them so far. They were losing the element of surprise. Leaning out of the window of his truck, he yelled, "Plan C. Go to Plan C!"
Trucks three and four slowed down just enough for the volunteers in their backs to leap out. Led by Elephant Head, they stormed the barracks, but the guards in the closest machine gun tower opened fire. Bullets sprayed the crowd, cutting several of them down. The trucks, in the meantime, had sped up again, driving at the towers themselves. The first struck its target dead centre and the whole structure crumpled with the force of the impact. The two guards fell from the top, but a stray bullet from the machine gun hit the truck's petrol tank.
Johnny winced as the vehicle went up in a raging ball of flame along with the three volunteers who had still been in its driver's cab. He turned swiftly to watch as truck four struck the second tower. As it smacked into its base, two volunteers were thrown through the shattered windscreen. This tower didn't fall, but it was damaged. It listed to one side and one guard fell, but the other kept his position and tried to fire the machine gun. It jammed.
A third volunteer - a giant of a man whose only mutation was his increased size - emerged from the truck and climbed the broken structure. He overcame the terrified guard easily by lifting him above his head and hurling him to the ground.
Shots rang out in the barracks and two guards came running out of its doors. They were dropped by rifle fire from behind them. Johnny took this as a good sign. Elephant Head's team must have found the barracks' small artillery before their enemies could.
A bullet flew by his ear and several more found his windscreen, shattering it. The mutant driver hit the floor and Johnny grabbed the wheel. The truck was accelerating towards the second gate. Six guards with rifles stood in its path, shooting wildly.
Johnny put his foot down hard and the guards scattered. He crashed into the gate. The bonnet of the truck crumpled and the front axle snapped, but the gate buckled and was torn off its hinges. Johnny pulled on the handbrake and the truck skidded to a halt. He jumped out as the second truck pulled up beside him.
The camp exploded into pandemonium. The guards had no means of communication so they couldn't receive orders. They reacted slowly to the attack, unused to acting on their own initiative. This played well into Johnny's hands, but the actions of the prisoners didn't. Many of them were panicked and ran for whatever cover they could find. A whole gang of them raced for the gate where two guards opened fire on them. With all this activity, it was difficult for Johnny and the Salvationists to get a clear shot at anyone.
Johnny drew his knife and shouted out orders. "We'll take the guards in close combat. Formation threes, just like we discussed." The tactic was simple and Johnny had been pleased to learn that the Salvationists were familiar with it. Three of them would attack one guard at a time; two drawing his attention while the third went in for a close-contact attack with a knife or other short-range weapon.
Flanked by Youngblood and Fingers, Johnny headed for a rifle-wielding guard. When he was in range he drew his knife and threw it, aiming for where he estimated the man's heart ought to be. Unfortunately, due to the guard's mutant physiology, he missed his mark. The guard's left arm dropped to his side and hung limp as he tried to raise his weapon to return fire. Youngblood kicked the rifle from his hand and Fingers sucker-punched him. With the guard's focus torn between the pair, Johnny went in hard, grabbed the handle of his knife, twisted it and tore it free, causing maximum damage in the process.
The guard grabbed Johnny's throat with his right hand, trying to crush his windpipe. Youngblood punched him in the kidneys and, while he was reacting to the pain, Johnny drove his knife into the guard's bicep. He relinquished his hold and Johnny sliced through his jugular vein.
He grabbed the dying guard's rifle and climbed up onto the corrugated iron roof of the ramshackle structure where the prisoners were fed slops. From here he would be able to pick off the other guards as a sniper. His first few shots, however, drew the attention of two more guards with rifles. His disguise had confused them for a while, but soon the game was up and he had made himself a target. The guards leapt out of his sight beneath the roof he was standing on and started firing up at him. Their bullets shot through the flimsy metal and one nicked his shoulder. Johnny winced at the sharp pain and rolled off the side of the roof, landing heavily on the ground.
As he climbed to his feet, a rifle butt smashed into the back of his head. The force of the blow sent bright lights ricocheting around the inside of his skull. His eyes lost their focus and he dropped to his knees, stunned.
He expected the next blow to kill him, but it never came. Instead, as his eyesight returned and his head cleared, he heard a piercing shriek of pain. He stood up slowly and turned to see one of his attackers lying facedown with a knife in his back. Youngblood had another guard on his back and was choking the life out of him with a rifle barrel.
And right behind Youngblood, a three-eyed guard was aiming a crossbow.
Johnny barely had time to yell a warning. Youngblood sprang to his feet, spun around, and took three bolts to the chest. Pure, blind rage exploded inside Johnny and he flew at the guard with his knife drawn. The guard had no chance to reload before he was knocked to the ground. Johnny sat astride him, pinning his arms with his knees, and drove his blade into the base of the guard's throat just above the collarbone. He struck again and again, blood welling between his fingers.
It was only when his battle frenzy subsided that he remembered Youngblood and rushed back over to him. The young mutant was still breathing, but he was awash with sticky, green blood that stung to the touch. Oblivious to the pitched battle around him, Johnny carried him beneath the shelter of the cast-iron roof and propped him up against a trough.
"It's not as bad as it looks," lied Youngblood. "I don't think he hit anything vital. It hurts when
I breathe, though."
"Hang on in there," Johnny ordered. "Don't you dare die on me now. Just because you've repaid me for saving your foolish life doesn't mean I'm going to let you die on me. I'll be back with help as soon as I can."
"Okay," said Youngblood with a brave smile.
Johnny surveyed the progress of the battle so far.
The barracks had been taken. Those guards who had survived the attack had either joined their comrades in the inner compound or fled the camp altogether.
The guards in the compound had been in retreat, but now they regrouped, using the prisoners as human shields. The inmates were gathered around the guards in a circle of at least five deep. They were dead scared. Months of ill-treatment and torture meant that many of them were still in thrall to the guards, but as Johnny watched, a few at the outskirts of the group found their courage and made a break for it.
To his alarm, a pair of crackling blue bolts shot out from behind them, passing through the crowd without harming anyone but exploding as soon as they found the would-be escapees. Johnny swore.
"They're using controlled detonation blasters," he said to Fingers who had just appeared at his shoulder. "How in hell did they manage to get them to work out here?"
"Listen up!" called one of the guards from the centre of the human shield. "I want you all to drop your weapons and surrender. If you don't, we'll kill all these prisoners and you along with them."
"Hold your ground," Johnny ordered. "We've got them outmanned and outgunned."
A protracted volley of blaster bolts shot through the prisoners, hitting more than twenty Salvationists and tearing them apart.