Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  Judging from the hardware he and J.B. had seen the sec patrol toting, the ville also had a good armory. With old tech surveillance and a strong sec force, plus the sheer size of the population within the ville, it would be a suicide mission to mount an attack.

  “In the end, I agree with you—Dr. Jean is evil scum, and dangerous scum. If he spreads out beyond the swamp, then it could be bad news, and make things worse than they already are out there. But there’ll be more fighters out there to oppose him. Here, he’s a shark in a lake. Out there, he’s a fish in the sea. I’ve looked around here, and I’m telling you, there’s no way you have enough hardware or enough fighters to take him on in his own territory. If you could fight and run, then mebbe—just mebbe—you could make inroads on depleting his forces. But even if you could get all your people inside without being spotted on the way, you’d still get wiped out.

  “Face a few facts, here. You might be against him, but you’re going to need more than that. You’re going to need hardware—where’s that coming from? And half the people here are either children or too old, like Beausoleil. Shit, he’ll tell you that himself. You need people old enough to have some fighting smarts, but young enough to still move at speed. You haven’t got that.

  “Truth—it’s not our fight, and I don’t want to send my people in to buy the farm because of someone else’s fight.”

  There had been a moment of silence after Ryan’s speech before Marissa exploded. Now she had calmed a little and returned to the table.

  “Let’s hear what the others have to say,” she said through gritted teeth. “Mebbe they’ll have more balls.”

  J.B. spoke next. In many ways he echoed what Ryan had said about the capabilities of the sec force, and the difficulties the old tech presented to any force attempting to gain access to the ville and fight. He finished up, “Have to agree with Ryan on this. There isn’t the armory here, or anywhere near enough fighters to make it anything other than surefire way of buying the farm. If I was in his position, I wouldn’t want to commit us to this.” He took off his spectacles and polished them, expecting another explosion from Marissa. It didn’t come.

  Instead she asked, “LaRue, Prideaux—what have you got to say about this?”

  The bald fighter screwed up his face, scratched his head and tugged at his beard. Slowly he said, “Y’know, Rissa, everything about me wants to fight them, but they scare the living crap out of me. They’ve got it nailed down tight, and even with these guys, me ‘n’ Prideaux nearly got ourselves iced in there. We could mebbe take out some of them, cause some damage, but we wouldn’t stop them.” He stumbled as he saw the expression on her face. He had been her ally in the camp, as she saw it—one of her own—and now he was letting her down.

  “Fuck it, Rissa, I’d say let’s go for it if there was any chance. But at the very least we’d have to spend a lot of time training up, mebbe try to get some more hardware. It’d take a shitload of time.”

  “Time’s something we’ve had a lot of, still got a lot of,” she murmured bitterly. “I suppose you’re gonna back everyone on this,” she added, turning to Prideaux.

  The ponytailed fighter shrugged. “Princess, you got me all wrong. You think like I’m some kind of coward who doesn’t want to fight. You really think that after we’ve stood together and blasted fuck out of whoever was against us? Shit, babe, it’s not about that. If I’d thought we had a chance of taking on Jean and a realistic chance of kicking some ass and ending his reign, then I’d be with you. But you weren’t there, you didn’t see it. It was like Ryan said. All of it. Shit like we’ve never seen. Shit we couldn’t do anything against. It’s like I’ve said all along. There ain’t enough of us, and we don’t have the firepower. I wish we did. No matter what you think of me, that’s true.”

  For once, he dropped his sardonic exterior and allowed his true self to show to Marissa. That made his words hit harder than any of the others, who she had expected to be on her side.

  “Figure it’s not really worth going any further,” Beausoleil sniffed, “but I’d still be interested in what young Lauren has to say.”

  All eyes were on Jak. What he had to say surprised them all.

  “Figure we can take them. Not easy, but it can be done.”

  There was a stunned silence. Then Krysty said, “Jak, you can’t be serious, not after everything else that’s been said. Not after what you must have seen.”

  Jak fixed her with an impassive stare. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind those immobile features, but it was some moments before he answered.

  “Wouldn’t understand. Not about what and what not possible. About what you make happen. Figure can take these people, work with them, make them better fighters. Take time, but what else we got but time? Mebbe even get some better blasters. Jean not going anywhere, and neither are we.”

  “Jak, there’s no way you could take these people and make an army out of them—not one that could beat Jean,” Ryan said. “Fireblast man, you’ve seen what it’s like in there.”

  “And you not seen what it’s like in here,” Jak replied vehemently, thumping his chest with a fist. “Can’t leave again. Once was enough. Stay and fight this time.”

  Ryan said nothing. Suddenly it made sense. Jak felt he owed these people because he’d walked out on them before, back in West Lowellton. They were his history, his home. This was the place where he was raised. It was his history, his self that was being eradicated by Dr. Jean. What else could he do? How would Ryan have felt if it was Front Royal they were talking about? It didn’t take him more than a second to realize that this had nothing to do with rational thought. It was something your conscience would make you do, regardless of the consequences.

  But he couldn’t let Jak’s imperative dictate what the rest of the companions should do. To stay and fight would be to buy the farm. He couldn’t agree to that.

  Jak had to realize that this was going through Ryan’s mind, for he said, “Want you to stay and fight. Can do this without you, but don’t want to.”

  Ryan looked at the others around the hut. J.B. shrugged. Like Ryan, he knew what a thankless and futile gesture it would be. Krysty, Mildred and Doc looked as though they couldn’t make up their minds what they wanted to do, which wasn’t surprising, as this had been sprung on them and they had all realized what it would mean if they said no.

  Ryan spoke slowly, considering every word. “We’ve been together a long time, and done a lot of things that looked triple stupe at the time. But we’ve always stuck together, and not put each other knowingly in danger. But what you’re asking now is for us to stay because you want to, and do something that’s almost certain to buy the farm. I realize why you have to do this, but I’d rather you stayed with us.”

  “Means you won’t stay,” Jak said flatly. It was statement, not a question.

  Ryan shook his head.

  “We can’t just do it like that,” Mildred exploded. “We can’t just desert Jak.”

  “You didn’t see it in there, Millie,” J.B. said softly. “Jak’s doing what he has to do, but Ryan’s right. We can’t follow on to what’s a certain chill, because we don’t have the same reasons Jak does.”

  “John, I wouldn’t have thought you’d give it up that easily,” Mildred said, looking at him in puzzlement.

  “It’s not about that, it’s about what’s best for all of us,” J.B. replied.

  “But surely it is not best for all of us if we have to leave one behind,” Doc mused. “Certainly not for that one,” he added, casting a glance toward Jak.

  “That’s what they used to call democracy, isn’t it?” Krysty asked him. “Back in the day, the greatest good for the greatest number?”

  “Not quite.” The old man smiled. “Democracy was about everyone having a say in how things were done, which I venture to suggest—”

  “This isn’t a democracy,” Ryan interrupted. “It never has been. Trader taught me and J.B. that years ago—unity is strength, you g
et a leader who you can trust, and you act on what he says. Sometimes it isn’t that easy to ask everyone’s opinion. You need a fast decision, and so you have a leader to carry the can for that shit. And don’t think that this was easy.”

  “My dear sir, that is the last thing I wished to suggest,” Doc said quietly. “The responsibilities of such leadership weigh heavily, and I would not wish to criticize the manner in which you have handled anything. It’s just that to leave Jak behind seems, somehow…” He shrugged.

  “I know, but Jak wants to do this, and he’ll do it anyway. I have to think about the rest of us. And this would be bad for us as a group. I can’t see it any other way. And I doubt if any of you can, in truth. But if you accept me as leader, then you have to accept my decisions. That’s part of the deal. Otherwise you get a new leader, and we don’t stay together at all.”

  The swamp dwellers had been watching this silently, wondering what would happen. It was Jak who broke the tension.

  “Ryan right. I stay, can’t accept his decision. But the rest of you need to be strong together. No matter how much it hurt.”

  “Yeah, no matter how much…and, believe me, it does,” Ryan said with a sad shake of his head.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ryan rested his people for a couple more days before wanting to move them out. There were still traces of fever and infections in the old cuts and sores that needed treatment. Mildred had the medications, she just needed the time to apply them. By the same token, the companions paid for their keep by helping to hunt for the slim pickings that could be found in the swamp. Ryan was mindful of the fact that the settlement dwellers were letting them stay because of Jak, and that they were using valuable supplies. There was little enough food in the settlement at the best of times, without it being used on five people who wouldn’t fight.

  Marissa was unhappy at their staying, but Jak convinced her. The other elders understood Ryan’s position—even those who didn’t agree with him—but the hotheaded Marissa was in no mood to listen to reason until Jak managed to turn her around.

  It made for an uneasy truce.

  But it did give the companions a chance to see what the settlement had to offer in the way of fighting forces, and exactly what Jak had to work with. Prior to that, they had seen only a few of the swamp warriors out in the field, hunting and running sec patrols. Now it seemed that the entire ville was galvanized to action.

  Almost immediately after his decision to stay, Jak had faced the mass of settlement folk who were waiting for word from their elders. At the behest of Beausoleil, who wanted his people to know exactly what they faced, Ryan spoke first. He outlined everything he had told the elders in the hut, and explained why he couldn’t commit his people to the fight. Behind him, the other companions were ready for the tension to break into a firefight. In many ways, they wouldn’t have blamed the swamp dwellers for this.

  And yet the atmosphere wasn’t as they expected. Many of the dwellers had their own skepticisms about the chances of taking on Dr. Jean, and their fears were confirmed by what the one-eyed man told them. But despite this, they were fired up by Jak’s words. Never one to demonstrate with speech, Jak simply told them it could be done, and he, for one, would rather buy the farm trying than walk away.

  This faith—the faith that they could win, the faith that he could mold them into a force that would be capable of overcoming the odds and taking the enemy to the wire—was enough to fire even the most skeptical. All those who were fit enough—and not too young or too old to be of some use—were willing to undergo combat training to prepare themselves. Those who couldn’t fight would be the backup, gathering what weapons there were, venturing onto trade routes to either trade for or steal weapons, perhaps even taking on some of the sec parties. Enthusiasm outstripped practicality, and it took some time for the euphoric atmosphere to descend from the heights to a more practical level once more.

  “I don’t get it. They were real down when we arrived, and now they think they can take on the whole Deathlands,” J.B. muttered.

  “Morale, my dear John Barrymore,” Doc whispered by way of reply. “There is nothing like hope to fire the human spirit. Better to live one day as a lion than a thousand years as a lamb…or something like that, I forget exactly,” he stated.

  “Doc, the meaning…?” J.B. asked, trying to figure out the sense of the old man’s words.

  Doc smiled. “It means better to die free than live a slave, or in fear,” he said simply.

  J.B. thought about this. “Yeah. If this was our fight, I guess I could see that…”

  And so the preparations began.

  “Y’KNOW, IT’S GONNA TAKE a hell of a lot more than this to get past the kind of armory that sec force has got,” J.B. said, shaking his head as he surveyed the paltry stock of arms and ammo that the swamp dwellers had amassed.

  Jak, by the Armorer’s side, tried to keep his disappointment hidden. The settlement had very little in the way of hardware. They had handblasters, a few rifles, two SMGs, a couple of shotguns, and some of the old blunderbuss-style weapons Marissa, LaRue and Prideaux had used when the friends had first encountered them.

  “Most hunting done with snare and knife,” Jak commented shortly. “Guess no real need for blasters this deep.”

  “Yeah, that figures, but this…” J.B. shook his head once more. “Jak, you’re gonna have to go out and get hold of some more blasters somehow.”

  “Can loot from sec as we go—if take it in series of surprise attacks, then take out small parties and get their weapons,” the albino mused.

  J.B. blew out his cheeks in an expression of exasperation. “That’s a slim chance, no matter how well you get these people trained. You’re talking about making no ripples until you’ve taken out a series of sec, and then using their own blasters—ones that your people have had no chance to learn to use.”

  “You think of anything better?” Jak asked him bluntly. “How deep this place? How far from trade routes?”

  “Wish I could think of something else, but there isn’t, is there?” J.B. said quietly.

  The Armorer dropped to his haunches and examined the blasters. The handblasters consisted of a number of Smith & Wesson .38 Police Specials, some 9 mm Walthers, a couple of Glocks, and some even older Colt .44’s—Peacemakers, which J.B. suspected had been looted from a museum. The store of ammo to go with these was erratic, with some of them having no more than fifty or sixty rounds apiece.

  The rifles were old Lee Enfield .303s and Sharps—again, looted from some kind of museum. There was nothing more contemporary than this. The SMGs were a couple of Uzis, and half a dozen H&K MP-5s. Again, the ammo for these amounted to very little when doled out among the individual blasters. There were two Smith & Wesson M-4000s, like the one favored by the Armorer, but again there was little ammo for a long-term firefight. The five old blunderbuss-style blasters were like nothing he’d seen before—parts of them were identifiable as being from the original blasters, but new stocks had been added to some, and the trigger mechanisms had been repaired with wire over the years. If they didn’t explode in the faces of whoever used them, it was a plus by his reckoning. There was plentiful shot for these, but their condition was a grave cause for concern.

  “Jak, there’s no way—even if we work on these—that they’re gonna be up to taking the ville on their own. Mebbe you need to rethink what you’re really hitting.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah… I mean, Dr. Jean has a stronghold on that ville, right? He controls the people with either drugs, hypnosis or old tech…mebbe all three. But that’s why they follow him. Not ’cause they really believe in him, or they’re in fear of him.”

  “So mebbe…if take out Jean, there is no other enemy?”

  J.B. nodded slowly. “Could be the only way unless you get a miracle of some kind and a wagful of hardware lands on your damn head.”

  WHILE JAK MULLED OVER the possibility of forming such a plan, he was faced with the task of shapi
ng the settlement dwellers into a fighting force. For some of them, such as LaRue and Prideaux, this was easier than for others. Those in the settlement who had been hunting already had the skills needed for a guerrilla attack, and they had accuracy with a blaster and ability with a knife. Their problems were related to their attitude. As for the others, it was a conundrum for the albino hunter. To improve their blaster skills, he would need to use precious ammo, yet without some kind of practice, they would be unreliable in a firefight. Asking the likes of Prideaux, who regularly used a blaster, where the settlement got their ammo, was of little use. It did nothing other than bring the man’s resentment and antipathy to the fore.

  “Listen, Lauren, we’ve always had to make the ammo last for a long time. You think we get many traders in these parts? Sometimes we get ships washed up on the edge of the bayou—same way you got here—and sometimes we can mebbe trade or raid a stray wag. But there ain’t no regular port of call around here, and we’ve always had to scrimp and save, and be careful. You think that’s gonna change now, just ’cause you want us all to go out in a blaze of glory?”

  “So that’ll be a no, then,” Krysty remarked to Ryan as they overheard the exchange.

  “Dammit, Jak’s taken on more than you could wish on your worst enemy,” Ryan replied.

  “So you want us to stay, help out?”

  Ryan sighed. “All it does is make me sure it was the right decision for the group—doesn’t mean that I don’t feel for Jak, though.”

  The albino would have been unconcerned if he had caught this. He had other things to worry about. Training the settlement dwellers in unarmed combat, and the art of using knives, wasn’t without its own problems. Some of the people were used to fighting, and others weren’t. And those that had scores to settle used the practice sessions to try to even these instead of working to the common good. As Jak found out as soon as the second day.