by James Axler
Robards opened his mouth to speak, but Baron DeMann kicked him in the chest before he could get a word out.
“This episode with the outlanders was your last chance to redeem yourself. If you hadn’t screwed up with them, I might have let you live, or mebbe thrown you over the wall into one of the mutant hordes you’ve created, but no…you screwed this one up, too, didn’t you?”
And then a look of realization and horror broke across the baron’s face. He reached over and pulled his brightly finished Colt Mark IV from his shoulder holster. The barrel gleamed in his hand as he brought it to bear on Robards’s head.
“Or mebbe you were planning on using this whole thing to get rid of me…like a diversion. Yeah, I bet that was it. The outlanders get their blasters and one of them is lucky enough to take out the baron, leaving you in charge of the ville.”
The baron’s eyes narrowed as the sec chief’s plan became clearer in his mind.
“I bet you’ve even been giving extra jolt and dreem to your men, too, so they’d be loyal to you and wouldn’t think too hard about how I was chilled under your watch.”
The baron moved his blaster closer to the sec chief’s head.
Just then a sec man came running up to the podium.
“Sec chief,” the man cried, “we think they’ve gone inside the baron’s residence…” His voice trailed off.
“The sec chief’s busy at the moment,” Baron DeMann said, pointing the Heckler & Koch in the sec man’s direction while keeping the Colt Mark IV on Robards’s head.
The sec man’s mouth moved, but no words escaped his lips. He was obviously too shocked at the sight of the baron holding a blaster to the sec chief to do anything but gape.
“Continue your search,” the baron said, not moving his blaster from Robards’s head. “I’ll be along to supervise in a few minutes.”
The sec man didn’t move.
“That will be all.”
The sec man nodded, then turned and left the scene running. In no time, news of what was going on would run through the sec force faster than a bad batch of dreem.
The baron had to end this confrontation now so he could concentrate his efforts on finding the outlanders and maintaining control of his ville.
“What was it?” Baron DeMann asked. “You had free access to all the best gaudy houses. More jack than you knew what to do with. Your choice of blasters. A hand-picked sec force. What more could you have wanted?”
Robards swallowed once, then said, “To be baron.”
“Then you should have left and started your own ville somewhere else.”
Baron DeMann positioned his Colt Mark IV directly over the crown of Robards’s head and pressed the barrel against his skull.
And then a blaster boomed.
Chapter Sixteen
Jak Lauren felt strange.
His arm and shoulder were still sore, but that wasn’t the problem. He’d had worse injuries in the past, but he’d never felt his body hum and spasm like this. It was as if his whole body was hungry for something. But what? He could manage at the moment, but he had a strong feeling that it would be getting worse, and soon.
Shaking away the thoughts of his own condition, the albino teen moved quickly around the right side of the barn that housed the wag pool.
He peered around the corner and just as the woman had said, there was a sec man in a bunker in the middle of the back wall. Taking him out would be difficult, since the man seemed to be on triple alert with all the noise coming from the rest of the ville. He wouldn’t know what was going on, but he’d know enough to think that something was up and that would make it double hard to get in close.
Double hard, but not impossible.
Around the other corner of the barn, Ryan was pitching pebbles against the wooden siding, making just enough noise to attract the sec man’s curiosity, but not enough to make him leave his post to investigate.
While the sec man was looking in Ryan’s direction for the source of the sound, Jak moved silently through the grass and weeds behind the barn.
The sec man was well trained. Despite his attention being focused on Ryan, he still took the time to look behind him at regular intervals. Jak began counting and realized he would look back every five to ten seconds.
Jak moved forward three seconds at a time before vanishing into the grass. He wanted to get closer, but the grass had been worn down around the bunker for twenty yards in every direction.
The albino teen pulled a leaf-bladed throwing knife from one of the hidden pockets inside his jacket and focused on his target. Twenty yards was a tricky throw at the best of times, and with the way Jak was feeling, it would be that much more difficult.
He waited for the man to look back, then when he turned to stare in Ryan’s direction, Jak threw the knife.
It was low and off target, sticking into a sandbag.
The sec man spun and called out, “Who’s there?” He raised his longblaster and opened his mouth to utter a challenge, but before he could get another word out, a second knife had pierced his throat.
At first he just stood there with a shocked expression on his face as blood poured out of his neck like water from a faucet. Then he grabbed at his throat and the blood streamed between his fingers in tiny rivulets. Finally his eyelids fluttered, his head wavered and he fell backward, dead.
Jak hurried into the bunker, picked up the sec man’s longblaster—a remade with a decent firing mechanism but a rough hand-carved stock and makeshift sight.
Jak raised the weapon and began firing it into the air three times while he shouted a few choice sec-man phrases.
“Hey you!”
“Stop!
“Come back!”
And then he crouched low in the bunker and waited.
ROBARDS WAS covered in blood.
Baron Schini’s snub-nosed Browning .38 was smoking.
And half of Baron DeMann’s head was missing from the corpse that was laid out in front of them.
Baron Schini moved her blaster onto Robards.
The sec chief was breathing in ragged gulps as he wiped DeMann’s blood and brains from his face and shoulders. “What do you want from me?” he asked.
Baron Schini considered pulling the trigger and taking off Robards’s head like she’d done with DeMann, but if she chilled both of them, Robards’s sec force wouldn’t let her get twenty paces before putting a dozen rounds into her back. The ville was hers for the taking, but she needed to play it smart.
“An alliance,” she said. “A partnership.”
Even though Robards was still on his knees, he was smart enough to know he was dealing from a position of strength. “I’ve got a drug operation. What have you got that I want?”
“Strength and stability. Baron DeMann is dead, but that doesn’t automatically make you baron. I’m sure there are plenty of people in this ville that’ve got an eye on the position, some of them probably more worthy of the job than you.”
Robards said nothing.
“You cut me in for say…a third of your operation, and I won’t try and take this ville over while you’re trying to solidify your hold on it.”
“What will you do for your third?”
“Transport and delivery. I’ve got three or four wags that could make the run to the eastern villes, and I’ve got horses that could expand your markets over the badlands to the west. That would leave you free to concentrate on making the stuff…and beating back the muties and addicts.”
“And if I say no?”
“Mebbe I’ll shoot you right now and take my chances with your dreem-soaked sec force, or mebbe I’ll call in my own sec force and take over the ville without your help.”
Robards hesitated. He had provided so much junk to his men that they might not be able to withstand an attack from Schini’s forces, especially not while their attention was already focused on a band of hardened outlanders.
“All right, you can have a quarter of the operation, and the right to expand
the market westward as far as you like. I’ll give you the junk at cost plus fifteen percent, and leave it up to you what you want to sell it for. Deal?”
A sly smile appeared in the corner of Baron Schini’s mouth. Even though it was just a first step toward controlling the ville outright, she’d never dreamed it would be so easy. “Deal,” she said.
They each grabbed the other’s right arm at the wrist.
Baron Schini pulled Robards to his feet.
And then they shook on it.
RYAN CROUCHED in the grass and weeds on the right side of the wag-pool barn. Jak had gotten rid of the sec man stationed behind the building and was now firing off the man’s weapon to attract the attention of the sec men around front.
Ryan waited.
The shooting and shouting had stopped behind the barn and all had turned quiet.
But the sec men weren’t going around to investigate. Ryan figured they were either scared, or they’d been told never to leave their posts. Having seen the sec force in action, Ryan couldn’t imagine they were that good at following orders.
“Ahhh, help, help me!”
Jak let out a scream of agony. If this didn’t summon the others, then they were poor excuses for sec men.
Just then, one of the men turned the corner of the barn, moving cautiously toward the rear of the building along one of the side walls.
“Jerry,” the man called out.
Jak responded with a scream.
The sec man started to run and just as he was about to pass Ryan’s position, the one-eyed man sprang from the grass and caught him in the neck with his panga. The long knife sliced into the fleshy part of the man’s neck, cutting the spinal cord and leaving the head to loll to the right as blood flowed freely from the wound in his throat.
Without wasting any motion, Ryan wiped the blood off the panga and sheathed it. Then he dragged the body into the grass and kicked dirt and dust over the pool of blood the dead man had made. Under the cover of the grass and weeds, Ryan took the man’s ammunition, as well as his ball cap, green vest and longblaster. After he’d hid the body as best he could with whatever was at hand, he ran around to the front of the barn and passed off the sec man’s belongings to Doc, who was already positioned in the dead man’s post, with Eleander providing a second set of eyes.
“I would have preferred a pith helmet,” Doc said, examining the faded blue baseball cap that had the faded words Ole Opry stenciled into the front of it. “But as a disguise I think this will do nicely. Who else would wear such a repulsive bit of clothing than a sec man?”
Ryan said nothing to the old man, letting him ramble on, not caring what he said as long as he made a convincing sec man.
When Doc was set, Ryan wondered if J.B. was having trouble chilling his sec man, but as he started toward that end of the barn, J.B.’s wiry figure came around the corner carrying a jacket, western-style hat and a double-barreled scattergun.
“Come with me,” Ryan told Eleander.
The woman hurried out of the sec man’s station and followed Ryan as he ran to meet J.B. at the second station, currently manned by Mildred and Krysty.
“Put up a good fight,” J.B. said, “but not a very long one.”
The Armorer handed the clothing and blaster to Mildred, who along with Krysty was already inside the sec man’s position, keeping watch.
“Was the sec man white or black?” she asked.
“White.”
Without a word, Mildred handed the clothing to Krysty, who bundled up her fiery red hair and tucked it up inside the western hat before slipping into the jacket.
Ryan nodded his approval, satisfied that the outside of the wag pool would be secure for a short time while they worked inside.
“Stay with Krysty, Mildred,” he said. Then he turned to Eleander. “Take us inside.”
She nodded, then led J.B. and Ryan into the wag pool.
Chapter Seventeen
At the sound of gunfire, several sec men had rushed the podium where Baron Schini and Sec chief Robards had been arguing with Baron DeMann.
“One of the outlanders,” Robards shouted. “The shot came from the upper floors of the baron’s residence. Send a squad inside and flush them onto the roof.”
Three of the sec men came to a halt and looked strangely at Baron DeMann’s body. A large part of the baron’s head was missing, and a lot of the flesh looked to be charred. The wound had all the markings of a round shot at close range, not from the rooftop of a building across the street.
“What are you looking at?” Robards asked, scowling.
“The baron’s dead,” one of the sec men said.
“That’s right, and one of them outland scum did it, and I want him dead or alive.”
“How’d they get so close to shoot him in the head like that?” another sec man questioned.
“I told you,” Robards asserted. “The shot came from an outlander positioned over there.” He pointed to the baron’s residence.
The sec men looked at the dead baron, then at the building several hundred yards away.
It was obvious what the sec men were thinking. The outlanders were all excellent shots, but this was an impossible shot, especially for just a single round. Perhaps if it had been automatic fire…
“It’s true,” Baron Schini said. “The bullet zipped past my ear just as the baron was expressing confidence to Sec chief Robards about how his sec force wouldn’t allow the outlanders to escape the ville.”
Robards nodded and gave a humble smile. Baron Schini had said just the right thing at the right time to instill pride in the sec force and diminish their curiosity over the story about the baron’s death.
“He said that?” one of the sec men asked.
“Yes, he did. So what are you waiting for!” shouted the sec chief. “Remember the baron and let’s get those bastards.”
The sec men ran toward the baron’s residence yelling war cries and screaming about avenging the baron’s bloody murder.
“I owe you one already,” the sec chief said.
“Two actually,” Baron Schini said. “One for getting rid of the bastard, and another for saving your ass just now.”
“Two then.”
“Not to worry,” she said. “I keep a very precise ledger… Baron Robards.”
Robards smiled. “Yes, Baron Robards.”
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
“Right, now let’s get rid of these stupe outlanders. They’ve served their purpose, now it’s time they were eliminated.”
THE INSIDE of the barn was empty.
Too empty.
“Any mechanics working in here?” Ryan asked.
Eleander took a look around. “There are usually three or four men working on the wags, but they must have taken the afternoon off to watch the challenge in the arena.”
Ryan nodded. The challenge had been a major distraction for the ville and the daily routine had been thrown out of order. “Well, J.B.?”
The Armorer stood by Ryan’s side with a familiar expression on his face. It usually appeared inside a redoubt when they came upon a weapons store that had been untouched over the years, and they would be spending the day digging through oily blasters and shrink-wrapped boxes of ammo and supplies. But there were no weapons here, only wags.
A half-dozen wags of all makes, models and purposes.
There were large cubed wags that the baron used for delivering his goods, and a couple of general-purpose vehicles with gun mounts to escort the larger wags.
The bus was there, too, up on blocks and in pieces, as if it might be due for some routine maintenance.
But there were also some dedicated wags that had probably proved to be quite handy in the construction and maintenance of the ville and its wall of crushed vehicles. There was a backhoe that would be useful in digging trenches, moving earth and, with the hook bolted onto the end of its shovel, moving metal hulks into position on the wall. It was a nice heavy piece of equipment, but it would nev
er carry all of them comfortably, or provide them any protection once they got out into the streets of the ville.
But J.B. hadn’t even considered the backhoe, or any of the other vehicles for that matter. As soon as he’d seen the collection of wags, his gaze locked on one in particular. It was a construction vehicle.
“The dump truck,” J.B. said, pointing to the large wag with ten wheels and a huge steel box on the back of it.
“Is that what you call it?” Ryan asked.
“We call it the up-down,” Eleander offered.
J.B. smiled. “The box on the back lifts up and down to dump whatever material it might be carrying, like dirt.”
“It brought a lot of wags to the wall from the outlying flatlands.”
“And it’s going to get us out of this ville.”
“Be vulnerable from above,” Ryan said. “One gren in that box will chill us all.”
“Better to be vulnerable to one gren than a hundred blasters.”
Ryan nodded and approached the vehicle. “Check the fuel tanks!”
J.B. unscrewed the cap of the large steel tank on the right side of the wag and grimaced at the smell of the fuel inside it. “Not diesel. Some kind of alcohol, grease-oil mix.”
“Will it run?”
J.B. shrugged.
“It burns black and stinks, but it runs,” Eleander offered.
“Can you get it started?”
J.B. climbed up into the cab and looked at the dashboard as if he were lost. There were wires hanging loosely from the panel, instruments smashed and several pieces just plain missing. There were also a few modifications, the most perplexing one being a light switch of the type you might find in a pre-Dark home.
J.B. turned to Ryan and shook his head. “Too much done to it,” he said. “Might take me hours to figure it out.”
Ryan turned to Eleander. “Can you help?”
“They keep keys in that office over there,” she said, indicating an outdoor kiosk that had been brought inside and set up in one corner of the barn.
