Lone Gunfighter of the Wastelands

by Rachel Aukes

  Reuben bristled. “That’s because we chase criminals. The guilds don’t exist to carry out personal vendettas.”

  Sloan smirked. “You don’t? It seems to be that the guilds will do whatever they’re paid to do.”

  “There are some lines I won’t cross.” Reuben practically spat the words.

  “And that decision has led to the death of your guild, your friends, and you.” Sloan lifted his chin. “I’ll see you at noon.”

  Joe watched Sloan walk away.

  “I don’t like that guy,” Rex said.

  Joe nodded. “For the second time ever, we agree on something.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  “It was a good idea, hitting a patrol team,” Kit said as he pulled off his shirt. The bio-wraps around each hand made him clumsy, and he couldn’t lift his right arm more than halfway without doubling over in pain. Val had her boots, pants, and shirt off before he’d removed his shirt.

  Val shrugged as she pulled on the pants belonging to one of the two murcs lying unconscious on the ground. Then she grabbed his shirt. “We need uniforms for our plan to work, but they’ll know something’s up when these two don’t report in.”

  He kicked off his boots and slid his pants off. He grabbed the murc’s pants and pulled them on. He reached for the shirt, wincing as he attempted to put it on.

  Val watched him. Before buttoning her shirt, she rolled her eyes. “Here, I’ve got it.” She helped him slip his injured arm into a sleeve.

  He tried not to look at her cleavage as she assisted, but he couldn’t help but notice that she had plenty of curves, nice curves.

  She frowned as she buttoned his shirt. “You have a lot of scars.”

  He glanced down at his chest and shot her a crooked grin. “You’re checking me out.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was not checking you out.” She stepped away before finishing his shirt and began buttoning hers.

  “If you say so.” Kit’s grin faded as he struggled with the final buttons on his shirt. Pinching his fingers brought pain with the motion. Val groaned, and he looked up to see her struggling to button her shirt as well. But where he struggled because of his injuries, her shirt looked to be a size too small on her chest.

  “You can try my shirt,” he offered, his cheeks heating.

  She shook her head. “I think they’re the same size. I’ll make it work.”

  As soon as they’d finished dressing, they grabbed their gear and headed to her cutter. She started handing little orbs to Kit. “Here, put these in your pockets.”

  He held one up in the early dawn light. “Flash bombs? I’ve never seen them so small before.”

  She smiled. “Made them myself. I call them my Baby Betties. They’re pressure-sensitive, so a hard throw will set them off. Be sure not to get knocked on the ground with them in your pockets, or else you’ll need more than a few painkillers to recover from that.”

  “Thanks for the tip.” He slid them gently into his cargo pockets.

  She grabbed several strips of tape with bulbous dots running down the center and slid them carefully into her chest pocket.

  He eyed the explosive strips. “You came prepared.”

  “I’ve been preparing to take on the Sloans for a long time. I’ve had the admin building staked out for even longer.” She shook her head. “But no matter how well prepared you are, something unexpected will always pop up.”

  She grabbed a pair of black gloves from the center console. “These should hide your bio-wraps. Someone may get suspicious when they see a soldier walking around with two hands wrapped.”

  “I figured I’d just tell them that I tried to cook and failed.”

  “I take it you’re a bad cook.”

  “I’m certainly not a good cook.”

  Kit tugged them on. The pressure hurt his wounds, but once they were on, they seemed to cradle his injured hands.

  Val drove them through Cavil. She cocked her head as she looked for the sun. “Red sky at morning. That’s good luck, I think.”

  Kit chuckled wryly. “I think red skies bring the opposite of good luck. Plus, that’s only for ships. We’re a thousand miles from the nearest body of water.”

  “I’ll take every bit of luck I can get,” she said.

  Val drove them to the MRC building. In the courtyard, they saw stands being set up and a single wall being erected. Kit grimaced. “Looks like Sloan wasn’t joking about a public execution.”

  He turned away from the spectacle and pointed to an alley where Silver Shark was parked. “That silver cutter over there is mine. Park near it, but not too close. Cat, no doubt, has eyes on it.”

  She gave Silver Shark an appraising look. “Nice cutter.”

  Inside, he beamed. “Thanks.”

  They strode across the road and into the building without being noticed by the soldiers posted at the entrance. Once inside, Kit said, “We need to find where they have the brig.”

  “It’s just above the barracks,” Val said.

  He shot her a questioning glance.

  “I wasn’t always a sheriff,” she said. As they walked on, she added, “The murcs didn’t have any government experience, so they based their policies and procedures on Zenith State’s.”

  Her comment made Kit suspect that Val’s experience had come from Zenith rather than from being on the other side of the law, especially since the way she moved and spoke conveyed military experience. No wonder she had a dislike for the Ravens. Val and Kit had served on opposite sides during the Revolution.

  She guided them straight to the brig even though there was no sign posted until they’d traveled through two sets of secured doorways, both of which opened with the keycards the patrol team had had on them.

  Two murcs stood guard at the third door.

  “We’re here to relieve you,” Kit said.

  The pair of guards looked at each other, confused. “But we just got here ten minutes ago.”

  Val shot them. They fell, and she stood over them. “You’re relieved.” She nodded at the panel on the wall. “Open the door.”

  Kit looked through the small window in the door before swiping his stolen keycard, prompting the door to open. Val grabbed a boot on each unconscious soldier and dragged them through the doorway. Once through, she dropped their legs. They looked at the three cells. Two stood empty. The third contained two hunters in exoshields and a young man in the blue MRC uniform. All three prisoners stood and stared.

  “Did any of you call for a rescue?” Kit asked, and swiped his keycard on the panel next to the cell. The bars retracted into the floor.

  “I knew it,” Rex said and turned to Joe. “I told you so.”

  Joe ignored Rex and tilted his head toward Kit. “Good to see you’re still alive.” Then he realized who stood next to him. “Val?”

  “I came to kick your ass for leaving me in the lurch, but I see you just got yourself into even more trouble.”

  Joe shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “We have to hurry if we’re going to find Sara and Sloan,” Kit said.

  “You really think you can rescue us and try to save the girl? Last time didn’t turn out so great,” Rex said.

  “You didn’t have me last time,” Val said.

  “What do we have to do?” Reuben asked, stepping forward.

  “Follow my lead,” Val replied. “We’re going to be up against a lot of murcs, so I need all of you shooting.”

  “I don’t have a weapon,” Reuben said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get you one,” Val replied crisply.

  Joe noticed that Kit was holding a blaster in his left hand even though he was right-handed. He was also wearing gloves, even though murcs rarely wore gloves. He met Kit’s eyes. “You’re injured?”

  “Nothing that a little rest and relaxation won’t fix,” Kit replied.

  The floor rumbled beneath their feet. Reuben looked at the ground. “You feel that?”

  Joe looked at Val. “What’s tha
t?”

  She smiled. “That’s what I call a diversion.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  “The counter shut off at zero. It’s time. Take the shot,” Romy said.

  “I’m not ready yet,” Nick grumbled without looking up. He lay on his stomach, holding an honest-to-God real rocket launcher. Romy sat next to him, holding a blaster, and constantly scanning the area for soldiers beyond the boulder they hid behind. Pride bloomed in his chest. He was going to be a hero.

  Romy blew out a breath. “Seriously, Nick. I’m close enough I could hit it with a spit wad from here.”

  “Val’s counting on us. She says everything falls apart if I miss the shot. I can’t miss this shot.” He wriggled beneath the weight of the launcher. Through its scope, he saw the mechanical jumble of pipes and tanks, which Val called the oxygen processors. She’d said they were extremely flammable, but he wasn’t so sure. He’d shot metal plenty of times before, and it’d never burst into flames for him. But he’d also never had a rocket launcher before.

  “You won’t miss. I believe in you,” Romy said.

  Nick kept the mechanical beast in his scope. It was pretty easy since the giant unit filled the entire view. Val had said that as long as he hit the processor, the grenade from the rocket launcher would do the rest, but she’d also said that the tanks were the best parts to hit, so he aimed very carefully.

  His finger pulled the trigger, more jerkily than he should’ve, but the trigger was a harder pull than he’d expected. There was a whoosh, and if Nick had been standing, he would’ve been knocked on his butt by the recoil. A smoking ball zoomed through the air, and he watched—it felt like slow motion—as the ball rammed into the oxygen processor. There was a really cool explosion, followed by a series of even cooler explosions.

  His jaw dropped, and he looked back at Romy. “Did you see that?”

  “Finally,” she said. “Let’s go.” She pulled him to his feet, he hefted the rocket launcher, and the pair ran toward the open-air cutter parked behind a store. Grundy Campo sat behind the vehicle’s yoke, all hunched over like he always was. The man looked older than dirt, and his skin looked about the same color and texture as most of the rocks in the Midlands. Romy was faster than Nick and reached the vehicle first. She dropped the blaster into the back seat and reached out for the launcher. Nick handed it to her—she tossed it in the back seat too and covered everything with a heavy, musty smelling blanket—and then he jumped into the front seat alongside her.

  “Nice fireworks,” Grundy said as he pulled away.

  “What are fireworks?” Romy asked.

  He looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “Magnificent things. I’ll show you pictures.”

  “Can’t you drive any faster?” Nick said.

  “There’s no need. Those murcs don’t care about some old geezer and a couple of kids.” Grundy glanced up at the sky. “Besides, it’s a nice day for a Sunday drive.”

  Nick frowned. “It’s Thursday.”

  “Figure of speech,” Grundy answered, and continued driving slowly through Cavil’s roads. Nick debated if he could walk faster than Grundy drove and decided he could, but didn’t voice his opinion.

  Grundy had called his vehicle a convertible, but Nick just figured that was a fancy name for a cutter missing its top. The breeze blew at Nick’s hair, and although it was hot, it felt good because it dried his damp shirt. He’d been nervous when he fired the launcher and was sweating like he’d just finished a game of soccer.

  “Look happy, like you’re having a grand ole time riding along with your gramps,” Grundy said.

  Nick frowned. “Why?” Then he noticed the blue vehicle speeding toward them. His eyes widened. Romy forced a laugh—it sounded awful—and he forced a wide grin and belted out, “Ha ha.”

  The transport whizzed by without even slowing. Nick leaned back in his seat and grabbed his chest.

  “Good job back there, kids,” Grundy said as he turned a corner. “You two are quite the actors. Now it’s up to Sheriff Vane and her deputy to do their part.”

  Chapter Sixty

  “The key to going up against greater numbers is chaos,” Val said after the rumbling receded. “The lower levels have just lost their oxygen supply, and the failsafe systems should’ve automatically sealed all vents. That means everyone underground will be forced to come up for air.”

  “I didn’t realize this building had lower levels,” Reuben said.

  “It has two levels below this one. It’s where all the servants are, the barracks, and the control centers. That means there’s about to be a whole lot of people smashed into the atrium,” Val explained.

  Joe disarmed the unconscious guards. He kept a blaster for himself and handed the other to Rex. Of the two keycards, he gave one to Reuben and kept the other.

  Val and Kit led the way through two sets of doors. Joe followed with Reuben safely behind him, and Rex covering their rear. When Val glanced back, she frowned. “You’re limping.”

  “Long story,” Joe said.

  Kit opened the third door, flooding their ears with the sounds of panic and shouting.

  Val glanced back. “Try to keep up.”

  She picked up the pace. She and Kit pushed against the rattled crowd of servants and murcs making their way outside. It was like running against a strong wind. Joe had had no idea how many people were living in the building. Most looked to be servants in dirty, tattered clothes. His gut turned sour. Gabriel Sloan had been running on slave labor right under Joe’s nose, and he’d never noticed it. That Joe hadn’t seen it meant that he didn’t want to see it, and he realized that he’d long since broken from his ideals of a free world. He was no better than the Sloan brothers for allowing people to be used like that.

  He gritted his teeth and pushed through the crowd. The fleeing people, including the soldiers, were panicked enough that they didn’t pay any regard to the pair of hunters walking through the atrium in exoshields. The group of five rescuers made slow progress through the tide until they passed Sloan’s office door and reached the next entrance.

  “How do you know he’ll be inside?” Joe asked.

  “Because he has a safe room in his personal residence,” she replied swiftly.

  Kit swiped his keycard, and the door marked PRIVATE opened to a small foyer. They stepped inside to meet a pair of murcs standing guard at the next door. The pair didn’t react when they saw Kit and Val, but when they saw the hunters behind them, they startled and rushed to raise their weapons. Kit and Val fired first, each taking down one guard.

  Val grabbed a blaster off a fallen guard, and held it out to Reuben.

  “That wasn’t so hard,” Rex said.

  Val looked over her shoulder. “We’re not even inside his residence yet.”

  Kit placed his ear against the door before looking back. “I can’t hear anything.”

  Above the door, a sign read, Know thyself.

  Rex giggled. “I know every inch of myself, some parts better than others.”

  Val turned to him and winced.

  Joe slowly shook his head and walked past him toward the door.

  Kit opened the door. Blaster fire shot out through the doorway.

  Everyone ducked. Val pulled out two small balls and threw them through the opening. “Cover your eyes and ears!” she yelled.

  Joe barely had time to close his helmet’s sensors before the flash grenades went off. When he reopened them, he saw Val motioning for him. “Exoshields, take lead.”

  Rex gave a drawn-out sigh and hoisted his blaster. “If you’re gonna go, go memorably.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Kit shot the panel next to the door, making it impossible for anyone else to open it from the other side.

  Joe eyed Reuben, who was clutching the blaster like it was his lifeline. “Stay behind everyone,” Joe commanded.

  “I’ll be fine,” Reuben said, sounding not at all fine.

  Joe gave him a single nod, turned, and steppe
d through the doorway to find a second foyer, this one far more lavish than the one he’d just left. Two murcs were dragging themselves up—the flash grenades Val had used seemed to have less bang than ones Joe had used previously. Rex walked up to each murc and shot them point-blank.

  Kit closed the door behind him and flattened against a wall. “We’ve got more coming.”

  Val flattened against another wall. Reuben just stood there, so Joe yanked him out of the center of the foyer just before blaster fire shot through the space he’d occupied.

  Joe fired down the hallway and realized, with some surprise, that it was his first shot since leaving the prison cell.

  Val pulled out more of the mini flash grenades and threw them down the hallway. “Eyes and ears!”

  The grenades blew, and Joe was running before the light returned to normal. His injured leg, albeit weak, supported his weight. As soon as he was clear of the hallway, he started shooting at anything moving in the room, hoping none were servants but willing to shoot them regardless. The flash had knocked down at least a half-dozen murcs, but three were already back on their feet. Joe took one down before the other two fired. He spun away, firing back as he did so.

  Rex’s gunfire joined his, and Joe used the relief to aim his blaster at a murc using a sofa for cover. He took him out with a single headshot. Shots hit Joe’s back like fiery mud balls, and he turned around and started firing at reinforcements entering from another entrance. Two of those reinforcements wore exoshields.

  “We’re getting close!” Joe yelled as he dove behind a fallen murc. He lay down a barrage of blaster fire, and the murcs fell back into the hallway they’d emerged from seconds earlier.

  “Kit, throw some Baby Betties!” Val shouted.

  Kit reached his right hand into his pocket and winced. Val batted his hand away, stuck her hand into his pocket, and pulled out more flash grenades.