Running stiff fingers through her wealth of golden blond hair, Kate greeted Denver Joe with a nod, which he returned. Tracking the signal of his transmitter had only brought the convoy to a mesa, but after that it had been no great trick to guess where the bikers would be heading next and cut them off in the forest.

 

 "Nice to see you on this side of the grass, D.J.," she said amiably. "Do we have a problem here?"

 

 Denver Joe jerked a thumb at the man standing alongside. "Wants a favor," he said.

 

 "With your permission, Baron," the man said with a bow.

 

 Kate frowned. "Ain't no barons here," she drawled. "Whatcha need?"

 

 The man glanced nervously toward the imposing war wag sitting high on the riverbank, its arsenal of blasters radiating visible waves of heat as they continued looking for targets.

 

 "May I speak with him?" the man asked reverently.

 

 "The boss took lead saving your ass," she lied.

 

 "So he's about to go under the knife. No visitors."

 

 "My prayers will be with him," the man said,making some sort of symbol in the air with his hand.

 

 Behind the thick tinted plastic of the dome, a figure sat tightly in a chair, dimly seen others moving around him. But the person in the chair didn't seem to move at all.

 

 "Yeah, well, it takes more than some coldheart lead to chill the Trader," the woman said, then hawked and spit blood on the bedraggled corpse of a Devil.

 

 Accepting the rebuff, the man was lead away to a Hummer where a man was passing out predark sneakers and MRE packs.

 

 "And so the legend grows," Roberto said softly.

 

 "That's what keeps us in biz," Kate said, cracking a smile. "The more folks fear him, the less we're attacked."

 

 With bloody water lapping at his combat boots, the man nodded. "True enough, I guess."

 

 "So what was the breakage?" Kate asked brusquely, starting up the bank toward War Wag One. The side hatch was open and an armed man was standing guard, watching their approach with an M-16/M-203 assault combo cradled in his hands. An ammo pouch on his belt was heavy with spare clips.

 

 "Two of the bikes got shot up pretty bad, the rest are fine, Chief," Roberto reported, then cursed as he slipped in the mud. Kate started to offer a hand, but held back as the man scowled darkly and righted himself.

 

 "No casualties on our side," he continued, as they reached the crest and got onto level ground. "But we lost a lot of the prisoners."

 

 "Damn," Kate growled. "Okay, keep the broken bike for spare parts, then strip the dead. We'll split the blasters and ammo with the surviving prisoners. They can have any of the Devil clothing they want, except the leather jackets. Those we keep. Then we'll escort them back to that ville by the waterfall."

 

 "That's two days out of our way," he reminded her. "And we're low as hell on fuel."

 

 She shrugged. "Can't be helped. These poor bastards couldn't hold off a one-legged chicken right now. We turn them loose here, and that is the same as acing them ourselves."

 

 "I'll find room for them in the Hummers," Roberto stated; "Wasting a lot of time, though."

 

 "Time we got," Kate said, stepping through the open hatch of War Wag One. "But we needed those bikes to get control of that waterhole so we can cross the Great Salt."

 

 Yeah, it was always the same old battle, the man thought to himself, weight versus fuel. Hauling more water meant using additional fuel, which meant more fuel to carry so there was less room for water. And so on, and so on. It wasn't the Core, or the muties, or the rad storms that kept them out of north Texas, it was the Great Salt, a flat featureless desert made of pure salt. He'd heard tell there was something similar way up north near Utah called the Great Salt Lake, but this was no body of salty water. Just salt, compressed hard as rock and stretching for more long miles under the blazing white sun than he liked to think about.

 

 As the man and woman maneuvered through the ammo bins and humming comps filling the front of the big transport, the crew at the control boards and machine gun blisters hailed them in passing. Vid screens showed views from all around the vehicle, and the radio crackled with the conversations of the guards on foot patrol. With all the nukeshit in the atmosphere, a radio couldn't work for more than a few miles, but that was more than enough to give the convoy a fighting edge nobody else had in the Deathlands—communications.

 

 Safe behind a tinted Plexiglas blister, Kate watched the busy crew at their tasks and said nothing.

 

 "Okay, Jake, let's get moving," she ordered, slumping into a chair and draping a leg over the metal arm. "We got a lot of traveling before we can finally end this triple-cursed war permanently."

 

 "About time," the redheaded driver growled, starting the big diesel engines of the armored transport. "That damn Scorpion God has needed chilling for a bastard long time."

 

 SLUGGISHLY, RYAN came awake clawing for his blaster. Then recalling what had happened, he released the weapon. Groaning loudly, he raised himself off the wall and sat with his shoulder against the roof. The interior of the sideways APC was dully illuminated by a reddish glow coming from through the starboard vents and blaster ports. He could see the others laying crumpled nearby, slowly showing signs of life.

 

 Rummaging for a candle on the wall, Ryan found one and carefully used his hands to squeeze the squashed wax back into shape before using a butane lighter to ignite the wick. As weak as the flame was, it brightened the interior considerably.

 

 "Okay, we survived," Ryan said quietly, wincing as the word sent daggers through his head. "Did they?"

 

 "Damned if I know," J.B. groaned, straightening his glasses. His beloved fedora was partially showing from underneath Mildred, but he made no effort to reclaim the hat. "Dark night, it feels like we did a bad jump and landed in a cement mixer that exploded."

 

 "Any damage, John?" Mildred asked, panting from the exertion of sitting upright.

 

 "Nah, just bruised everywhere but my teeth."

 

 Extending a hand, Ryan help Doc to extract himself from a tangle of canvas webbing. "You okay, Doc?"

 

 "I only injured my pride," the scholar rumbled, straightening his rumpled clothing. "Running from a pack of overgrown bedbugs is hardly conducive to vainglorious edification.Gloria brevis !"

 

 That was old talk, from before even skydark. Ryan rubbed his chin. "Which means what?"

 

 "All glory is fleeting."

 

 "Yeah, but getting aced is forever," the one-eyed man added grimly.

 

 From the nose of the APC, Jak groaned. "My arm…"

 

 Hurrying closer, Mildred checked over the albino teen. "It's not broken, just dislocated," she said. "You know what that means.'"

 

 "Fix," he growled through clenched teeth.

 

 Placing her boot in the youth's armpit, Mildred took his limp arm by the wrist, gently turning it ever so slightly, then in one fast move pulled with both arms while shoving with her leg. There was a hard smacking noise and Jak bared his teeth from the intense pain, then relaxed to exhale deeply, gingerly flexing his fingers, then elbow. "Th-thanks," he gasped. "Better."

 

 "No charge," Mildred said, probing the shoulder with her fingertips. There was no deep tissue damage; it had been a clean separation. "How about you can do me next time?"

 

 "Deal."

 

 "Hot pipe, I can't see anything out there," Dean said, squinting through an air vent. "There's a lot of smoke."

 

 "That'll take a while to clear with no ventilation system working anymore," Krysty stated. "Unless something is on fire. Mother Gaia, what about the fuel dump!"

 

 "If it had caught fire, we'd be ashes already," Ryan stated firmly. "But we better go see, just in case."

 

 Forcing himself to walk to the rear doors, he released the handle and the hatch swung down to loudly slam against the hull. The noise painfully stabbed through his forehead, and this time Ryan touched the sore spot to find his hand coming away smeared with dried blood. Fireblast, just how long had they been unconscious?

 

 While J.B. and Dean had moved close beside the man, their blasters out and ready to give cover if needed, Ryan stepped through the hatchway and carefully stood.

 

 The garage was in ruins, the predark wags smashed against the walls, even the Hummers had been flipped over, one of them dribbling oil from a cracked engine block. Ryan relaxed a bit when he realized it was the puddle of oil that was burning and causing the dense smoke. A thick plume rose from the blaze, spreading across the ceiling in a roiling blanket of fumes. Thankfully, the fuel storage closet seemed undamaged from here.

 

 What little remained of the mutant bugs was scattered absolutely everywhere in a grisly display of pinkish organs and black legs. Several pieces of millipede were lying in the puddle of motor oil, spitting grease as they cooked from the heat. The horrendous stench hit them now, and the companions were forced to tie cloth over their faces to keep from retching.

 

 "An emperor worm by any other name," Doc muttered from behind a handkerchief.

 

 "Stop mixing your Shakespeare," Mildred replied haughtily, holding a sleeve across her face. "Even though I agree with the sentiment."

 

 Standing near each other, Ryan and Krysty shared a private look and briefly touched hands. They had taken a hell of a gamble, but it worked and they were still alive.

 

 J.B. had cut the single stick of dynamite in his possession into four smaller charges and stuck them into coffee cans filled with office staples. When the dynamite exploded, the entire garage had been filled with a brief hellstorm of flying shrapnel. More than enough to kill every bug in the room.

 

 "Unfortunately, the blast also got the wags," J.B. commented dryly, waving his crumpled hat to fan the air. "The ones that weren't wrecks before, sure as hell are now."

 

 "Better them than us," Jak said, coughing slightly.

 

 Ryan started to reply, then cursed instead. There was a clear puddle of fluid in front of the supply closet. The source was trickling fuel from a score of punctured containers. The spill was only yards away from the oil fire and extending fast.

 

 "If that goes, we're dead!" Dean cried, pulling off his jacket. Advancing to the fire, he started to beat the flames. "We've got to get this out!"

 

 "There was an extinguisher near the workbench," Doc told him, heading that way through the maze of twisted military vehicles.

 

 "No time! Quick, give me a hand," Krysty said, climbing onto the side of the APC. Standing on tiptoes, the woman lit a butane lighter and thrust it at the thick smoke, but was still too far away. Joining her on top of the transport, Ryan grabbed the woman around the waist and lifted her as high as he could until she was lost inside the layer of smoke, able to play the tiny flame against a sprinkler set into the ceiling. At first nothing happened, and Krysty started to cough from breathing the oily fumes, but refused to quit. But then after a few moments, every sprinkler in the garage released, gushing out volumes of an orange fluid that soon doused the fire and washed the floor clear of the potentially deadly fuel spill.

 

 "That's not water," Mildred said, tasting a drop by licking it off her palm: She made a face and quickly spit it back out. "Some sort of chemical composition. Must be designed for oil fire, since this is the garage."

 

 "Makes sense," Ryan stated, watching the excess flowing into hidden drains set along the walls.

 

 The stink was soon cut from the atmosphere, and the companions went back inside the APC to get out of the downpour. But after only a few more minutes, the sprinklers began to sputter, the rain of fire retardant chem foam slowing to a mere dribble, and then stopping completely.

 

 "No electricity means no pumps to maintain pressure," J.B. said, wiping his glasses clean. "Good thing this wasn't a major blaze."

 

 Just then, a millipede crawled into view from the cracked ventilation shaft in the closet, snapping its pinchers at the orange residue of the retardant covering the fuel containers. Pulling a knife with his right hand, Jak passed it to his left and threw. The blade hit the mutie in the mouth and it recoiled, snapping as blood gushed from the wound.

 

 "The blast didn't get all of them," Krysty said grimly, lowering her own knife and tucking it away. "Stay sharp. There may be others."

 

 "However, the bugs really don't like this stuff," Ryan said, brushing back his hair to tie a handkerchief around his forehead. "And that gives us an edge again." The chems were making the cut on his forehead throb with pain. Hopefully, the cloth would help. He knew that Mildred could stitch the gash shut, but there was no time right now. They had only a few candles and lots to do.

 

 "Okay, there's lot of wreckage now to block both of those cracks, so let's get moving," Ryan ordered, kicking a foam drenched mutie carcass out of his way. "We'll start with the big crack, then do the closet."

 

 "Haul out fuel cans, then push busted car against door," Jak suggested, massaging his shoulder. "Not get past."

 

 "And in case they do, we can use the flame retardant as bug repellent," Mildred said, scooping a handful off the dented hood of a luxury car and smearing it over the legs of her Army fatigue pants. "That should keep them off us, for a while anyway."

 

 "Going to need more light than these damn candles," J.B. added, scrunching his face in thought. "Mebbe I can rig a nuke battery to some headlights. Worth a try."

 

 "Some of these trucks don't appear in too bad a shape," Krysty commented. "With some luck we might get something running and drive out here, before another swarm of those damn things arrive."

 

 "What if they're outside, too?" Dean asked, sounding worried.

 

 Ryan glanced around the wreckage filling the level. "No sweat, son. Anything we get moving should easily outrun the bugs."

 

 That was, Ryan added privately, as long as there was open ground outside. If they were on the side of a mountain or buried under the debris of a collapsed predark city, it was going to be the last train west for all of them.

 

 "Besides," Doc said, nicking a dead millipede head out of the way with the pointed tip of his sword, "there is no place else for us to go but out."

 

  

 

 Chapter Six

 

  

 

 Working by the flickering glow of tallow candles, the companions emptied the closet of the fuel cans and then completely jammed it with wreckage, next pushing the corroded hulk of a Cadillac against the door to hold it closed. Then the wall crack received the same treatment. A millipede caught inside the crevice almost got Dean's hand, but missed and only sank its pinchers into the sleeve of his jacket. Instantly, the boy ducked out of the way and his father cored the bug with a handball round from the SIG-Sauer.

 

 "Tough bastards," Dean muttered, using his knife to hack up the face of the millipede until prying off the pinchers.

 

 Meanwhile, J.B. had extracted a couple of nuke batteries from the military vehicles and was trying to wire a headlight from a Hummer using a starter solenoid to control the current flow. Each time he flipped the switch, the bulb would burst from the surge of raw power. Yet the man was determined that he could fix the technical problem.

 

 As Ryan stepped away from the fortified crack to pound the solid barrier with fist, there was a dazzling wash of light, the huge makeshift flashlight rilling the garage with brilliant illumination.

 

 "Well done, John." Mildred smiled, clicking off her pocket flashlight. "Now we can… Shit, over there by the GMC!"

 

 Two millipedes hidden under a tipped over GMC 6X6 wag scurried for the darkness. But the bugs moved much too slow. The companions converged on the area and quickly dispatched the insects with makeshift clubs.

 

 "A messy job, indeed," Doc muttered, snapping his sword to the side to whip off the blood of the millipedes. Briefly, the fluid filled the words etched along the length of Spanish steel and then was gone.

 

 Testing the balance on his tire iron, Jak flipped it into the air and caught it effortlessly. "Saves ammo," he stated, prowling through the broken vehicles for more prey.

 

 A thorough search revealed that the garage level of the redoubt was clean of the deadly bugs. Checking their blasters while J.B. assembled two more of the nuke battery headlights combinations, the companions proceeded into the redoubt and a full sweep of the dark interior. The air tasted bad, sour with dust, and the emergency lights set in wall niches were dead or dying everywhere, but the nukelamps more than made up for that. Checking in lockers and underneath desks, the friends did not find another sec hunter droid, and only a few millipedes. Disoriented by the searing beams, they were easily aced.

 

 The kitchen yielded only a few cans of self-heat soup, some rice and beans. Everything else in the fridge and freezer was inedible. Added to their jerky, the staples would last them for a good week.

 

 Yanking out some of the dried venison, Jak chewed on the tough stuff until his jaws ached. But it eased the pain in his belly for the moment. Breakfast had been a million years ago, or so it seemed, and he had no idea when dinner would be coming around. Best to eat anything and stay sharp. This was sure as hell not the place for a prolonged meal, and nobody knew what was waiting for them outside.

 

 "Trade ya," Dean said, offering a stick of chewing gum from a MRE military ration pack.

 

 After a moment, Jak nodded and the items were exchanged. Chewing steadily, the two youths patrolled the darkness, their hands full of loaded steel.

 

 The supply room was empty, only a few yellow transfer papers in military code strewed about.

 

 However, in the armory the companions discovered an entire pallet of U.S. Army ammo boxes, filled with cardboard cartons of .22 cartridges still sealed in plastic. The ammo looked good, but unfortunately, none of the companions used that caliber in their blasters. But lead was lead, and gunpowder could be transferred, so they each took several cartons and stuffed them into their backpacks. The ammo would also make a good trade item. If they found a ville outside, between the cigars, fuel and these boxes of cartridges, the companions could barter for weeks of hot food and clean beds. It was quite a find.

 

 Going through the barracks, Ryan lead the way as they group checked the footlockers set before each bed. Often they found small luxury items the soldiers had left behind by accident, but such wasn't the case this time. Every footlocker was empty; not even a scrap of paper had been left behind.

 

 "Mebbe no troops ever here?" Jak asked, nudging a neatly folded blanket with the tire iron. The material collapsed at the touch, raising a small cloud of dust to cover the yellow sheets.

 

 "Could be," Ryan agreed. The barracks seemed to be more than merely empty, it felt totally deserted, as if no troops had ever been stationed there.

 

 But then, where had the tons of supplies gone? Or had they also never been delivered? Perhaps this was only a partially built redoubt, caught unfinished by the war. The idea made a lot of sense and explained everything they had seen so far.

 

 Making an inarticulate noise of displeasure, Krysty angrily pulled at the orange-soaked top of her jumpsuit. "This dried foam is becoming sticky," she complained. "Our blasters are going to jam if we don't get this crap off of us soon."

 

 "Showers should be over here," J.B. said, leading the way with his nukelamp.

 

 Bypassing the small private showers in the officers' quarters, the companions instead chose one of the big shower rooms for the troops. Without working pumps, they knew that the water pressure would last only for a very brief time, so they would have to clean off quickly and all together.

 

 Leaving the nukelamps safely outside the shower, the group gathered in the middle of the tiled room and turned on the faucets full force. There was a hiss of escaping air for a moment from the ancient pipes, then they were hit by a stinging spray still pleasantly warm. Frantically, they scrubbed the orange residue of the foam off their clothes and out of their hair and barely finished in time before the warm water turned cool, then cold and finally sputtered to a halt.

 

 "Son of a bitch, that feels good." Mildred sighed, shaking her beaded hair to dispel the excess water. With that action, there came a loud crack of glass and one of the nukelamps winked out.

 

 Rushing over to the doorway, J.B. inspected the destruction without touching anything with his wet hands. "The bulb shattered when the water hit it," he said in annoyance.

 

 "Oh, John, I'm so sorry," she stated.

 

 "My fault," he replied, cutting her off. "I should have realized that was going to happen and set these farther back. Damn, what a waste."

 

 "Still three," Jak said, squeezing water from his long snowy hair. "Better than candles."

 

 "Well, that's for damn sure. But nobody goes near the lamps until they stop dripping."

 

 "Wish we had some towels," Dean added.

 

 "Help yourself," Ryan said, gesturing at a stack of thick military towels on a shelf. The fabric was coated with cobwebs.

 

 The boy eyes the neatly folded pile of dust and mold dubiously. "You first," he muttered.

 

 "That reminds me of something an old acquaintance used to say about wishing," J.B. said, reclaiming his glasses from a steel ledge designed to hold soap. "Put a wish in one hand, take a crap in the other and see which gets filled first." The dripping wet companions shared a laugh at that.

 

 "By gadfry, sir, pragmatic vulgarity," Doc said, ringing his frock coat in both hands with surprising strength. "I think you may have created an entirely new form of philosophy there, my friend."

 

 "Okay, enough jawing," Ryan said, squishing his boots on the tiled floor as he headed for the doorway. "We'll dry faster walking than standing in these bastard puddles."

 

 Staying well clear of the hot lamps, the companions splashed from the shower and once in the locker room of the barracks took the opportunity to carefully check over their blasters. Washing off the foam had helped a great deal, but they disassembled the weapons on the hard benches to clean every part.

 

 Rummaging about in his backpack, Jak unearthed a small plastic squeeze bottle of homogenized gun oil he had looted from the armory of Nova ville so many months ago. The precious lubricant was passed around and used liberally until every blaster was in smooth working condition once more.

 

 Off by himself, Doc retrieved his LeMat from a shelf inside a locker where he had placed the blaster before entering the shower room. Although the weapon wouldn't have been harmed from the water, the black-powder charges in the revolving chamber would have washed out, drastically reducing his precious reserve of ammo and shot. Removing a damp handkerchief from his sodden pocket, Doc vigorously rubbed the sticky residue off the huge handcannon until it seemed to be thoroughly clean. But he made a mental note to properly cleanse the weapon in a pot of boiling water at the first chance.

 

 "Good as ever," Ryan stated, checking the play on his SIG-Sauer before returning the clip into the grip with a satisfying click. "Now let's see about getting the hell out of this bastard tomb."

 

 Rolling up their damp sleeves, Ryan, J.B. and Krysty each took a nukelamp and led the way back to the garage level. Setting down the lamps in a triangular pattern for maximum coverage, the companions got to work searching through the assorted vehicles for something that could be repaired.

 

 The civilian cars had been garbage to begin with and had been too close to the dynamite charges and were even worse now. Going to the military wags, the companions found another APC, but it was also stripped to the walls, the 25 mm cannon, machine guns, seats, radios, and even the engine gone. The war wag was just an armored box with a sagging door.

 

 Ryan had hoped for the Hummers, brute tough wags that could nearly go anywhere. But they had been left running and the engines were burned out, the bearings fused solid from the overheating when the oil ran out. Even the nuke batteries were dead after a century of being left turned on.

 

 "Starting to look like we'll be walking this time," Ryan said, going to the row of big GMC 6X6 M-35 wags marked with the logo of the U.S. Marine Corps. Odd that they often found different services from the predark days all mixed together in the redoubts. It was as if the government had simply grabbed hold of whatever they could and jammed the troops into the nearest redoubt to be sorted out later. Only that time never came.

 

 The first wag had its engine missing, the second lacked tires, but the third seemed in decent shape. The metal and wood framework arching over the rear section was still in good condition, solid and strong, although the canvas covering was lacking. Never installed, lost, or eaten by the bugs, there was no way of knowing. But the first wag had good canvas.

 

 "We do a mix and match here," Mildred said, sliding off her backpack. "Use parts from one to fix another."

 

 "I'll find some wrenches," Dean offered, rushing over to the musty workbenches to shift through the assortment of parts and greasy cans to locate a few tools. A sturdy toolkit yielded a wealth of socket wrenches and pliers.

 

 Checking under the front seat of the first GMC wag for a jack, Ryan unearthed a plastic box full of road flares. Two of the waxy cylinders crumbled at his touch, but the rest were still firm. He tucked one into a jacket pocket and passed the rest to J.B., who added them to the scant few materials in his munitions bag.

 

 The Armorer was grateful for the flares. Aside from the implo grens, the satchel was the lightest it had been in a long time. Some untrustworthy timing pencils, the spare boxes of ammo, the implo grens, a butane light, and that was about the lot. Good thing the droid had been in such bad condition. Using an implo inside a redoubt was as tricky as firing a shotgun inside a predark phone booth. It didn't matter which direction you were aiming at, some of it was coming right back in your face.

 

 Krysty lifted up the hood of the biggest wag and started to inspect the big diesel power plant, testing the hoses and wires and belts with her bare hands.

 

 She normally left such things to J.B., but this was a major job and all of them would have to help.

 

 "Looks good so far," she announced, bent far over the engine. "Somebody want to check the axles?"

 

 "Hold it. Before we go any further, maybe I should go outside and see where we are," J.B. offered. "Could be daylight out there. Could be a ville only a few miles away and we don't need to rebuild a wag. Just walk there."

 

 Going through the glovebox for a map, Ryan found nothing but transport papers in military code and slammed it shut.

 

 "Nuke that shit. We all go outside together," he growled. "Open that blast door, and there could be a hundred millipedes waiting to rush in. Best to be mobile when we leave in case of trouble."

 

 The mental image of a nest of the muties made the Armorer grimace in spite of himself, and he recognized the wisdom of the caution. Rabbits ran fast, but they always ended up in the stew because they were stupid. Smart and slow was how you kept your head, as the Trader always used to say. True words.

 

 As the companions worked on rebuilding the wag, a millipede scurried past the open doorway of the stairwell.

 

 "Little bastards must be hidden somewhere we haven't looked," Dean growled, starting to reach for his blaster. But the insect was already gone, chased away from the nukelamps. He couldn't imagine why J.B. had never tried making one of those before. They worked great.

 

 "Fuck 'em," Ryan decided, wiping off his hands before taking another bite of the venison jerky. He chewed for a while before continuing. "They can have the base. We'll be leaving soon enough."

 

 In short order, a jack was found and the big wag was given the best of the assortment of tires from the other wrecks. Hoses were exchanged, wires replaced, wiper blades, everything they could replace with the simple tools available. Plus, a box full of spare parts, fuses and such. Just in case.

 

 Slowly the hours ticked by and the air in the redoubt was becoming noticeably ripe from the dead bugs and sweating humans. More than once Ryan thought about opening the blast door to the outside, but decided against taking the chance. There was a small breeze of hot air coming from under the closet door. That would have to suffice until they were ready to roll. Might only get one chance at this, so be it better be good.

 

 "Well, the nuke battery is in place," Krysty said, stepping away from the engine of the wag and wiping off her hands. "We have plenty of power, and the tires are good. Just no juice left in the gas tank."

 

 "That we have to spare," Ryan said, tightening the last of the fourteen lug nuts on the rear tire. "Fill the tank, and let's take twenty additional cans, fifteen for us, five for bartering."

 

 "Why not take all of the cans we can fit?" Dean asked, then paused. "Because we have to leave room for us and supplies. Right. Never mind."

 

 "Trade juice?" Jak asked, starting to lug over the heavy fuel containers. "Ammo best. Few folks got wags, but all barons got blasters."

 

 "Fuel is better," Mildred countered, removing the cap to the fuel tank. There was a sigh of escaping fumes as dry as a Baltimore martini. God, how she missed those. "Also, fuel is less deadly if it comes our way again."

 

 "Never heard of a Molotov?" J.B. asked, lashing the exhaust pipe tighter into place with a twisted length of stiff wire.

 

 Then crawling from underneath the chassis, the man said, "Damn but that's a good idea. Make some Molotovs in case of more millipedes. We got the juice to spare, and there was a bar full of empty liquor bottles in the officers' mess. And Krysty found those foam cups before."

 

 "There was some liquid soap in the laundry, too," Dean added, lugging over a can of fuel.

 

 "Soap is good, but foam is better," Ryan said, using his panga to scrape some corrosion off a set of electrical contacts. "But we're also going to need additional water. The hot air that was coming from the cracked vent could mean we're in a desert."

 

 In exaggerated care, Jak set down the cans with a sloshing thump. "From pipes in pump room. Might be okay."

 

 "Sounds good. But I want to test anything before we drink it," Mildred warned, putting down the empty canister. "Clear doesn't always mean clean."

 

 "Okay. Both go," the lanky teenager told her.

 

 Taking one of the nukelamps, the pair descended into the stairwell, and soon the glow from their light dimmed with distance. Over at the workbench, J.B. had lined up the soda bottles found earlier and started to hack the coffee cups to pieces and making neat little piles.

 

 As Dean brought over another can of fuel, Doc joined him at the task, and Krysty took over pouring the juice into the tank.

 

 "How much fuel and water we should take is the real problem," Ryan said, thinking aloud.

 

 Cleaning the panga on a sleeve, he sheathed the blade and reconnected the electrical contacts. There was no way of checking the diesel until they started it up, so he was done for the moment.

 

 "What do you mean?" Doc asked, setting down the cans and rubbing his palms for a moment.

 

 Sitting on a wheel rim, Ryan pulled out a piece of jerky and chewed off a mouthful. "We don't even know how far it is to the nearest ville, much less the next redoubt," he stated, glancing at the dark tunnel that led to the blast doors. He had been trying very hard to think about what would happen if they couldn't open the exit. Trapped inside with the millipedes until starvation drove them mad. Better to eat a blaster than go down that road.

 

 "If we don't know for sure, let's take an equal balance," Krysty said, pouring more fuel into the tank. There was a gurgling noise as some trapped air fought to reach the surface, and she waited a moment until the turbulence was settled. "That way we're prepared for anything."

 

 "Works for me," Ryan said, standing again, his break over.

 

 Light brightened the stairwell, and the companions stepped behind the wrecked cars with hands on weapons until there was a sharp whistle announcing that everything was okay, and they relaxed. Seconds later, Mildred and Jak appeared in the doorway.

 

 "Found water," Jak said happily, pulling a hand truck up the last of the steps. The teenager then clumsily wheeled it around to then push a large steel drum into the garage.

 

 "The pipes were empty from our shower," Mildred said, carrying the nukelamp in one hand, her blaster in the other, "but we managed to find this drum and fill it with fifty-five gallons of water. It's drainage from the reactor, all we could drain from an access pump."

 

 "Nuke water?" Doc demanded arching both snowy eyebrows. "By the Three Kennedys, madam, I have never been that thirsty! Are you quite sure it is safe?"

 

 "See for yourself," Mildred suggested, holstering her piece, as Jak lowered the hand truck with a bang, the drum sloshing loudly.

 

 Removing the lid, J.B. unclipped the rad counter from his lapel and held it close to the clear fluid. The needle moved slightly.

 

 "Low rads, seems safe enough to drink," he said reluctantly.

 

 "Of course," Mildred stated, then added, "As long as we don't do it too often." The physician had no intention of trying to explain to the others that this was technically not water, but actually deutronium enriched water, heavy-water shielding for the fusion reactor. However, it was nonlethal and potable, and that was all that mattered.

 

 Warily, Ryan checked his own rad counter and got a similar reading. "It's clean, all right. Okay, we use this as our backup supply," he stated. "And the radiator gets it before us."

 

 "No prob," Dean said, rubbing his mouth with the back of a hand. Nuke water. Hot pipe, he'd rather drink mutie pee than touch a drop of that, no matter what Mildred said.

 

 "Done," Krysty stated, screwing the cap back onto the fuel tank. "That's every drop it can hold."

 

 "Put the rest in the back, and let's try the engine," Ryan said, swinging open the door and climbing behind the wheel. "Hopefully all this work wasn't for shit."

 

 Pumping the gas pedal, he set the choke and pressed the starter. The engine sluggishly turned over with a sad groaning noise that slowly started to build in speed and volume. Pumping the gas harder, Ryan adjusted the choke to make the mixture to the carburetor richer and the engine sputtered briefly, then caught with a roar, banging and clanging.

 

 Reaching under the hood, J.B. used a screwdriver to adjust something Ryan couldn't see because of the angle, and the big diesel suddenly settled down to a low roar of controlled power.

 

 "That'll do it," J.B. said with satisfaction, tucking the screwdriver into his munitions bag. "Better let her run until we're ready to leave. That'll give the seals a chance to absorb some oil before we put them under real pressure."

 

 Playing with the choke, Ryan got the engine lowered to a gentle rumble, the sputters coming with less and less frequency. They needed to run the engine to break it in before leaving, but with the ventilation system gone, the exhaust fumes mixed with the previous oil smoke and the mounting stink of the aced millipedes into a noxious reek that was getting worse by the minute.

 

 "Okay, load her up," Ryan said, resting an arm on the window. "Toss in anything you think we might need. With the power gone, once we're outside, we're not getting back in, so this is a one way trip. Strip the place to the walls."

 

 The companions moved with a purpose, eager to leave the dying redoubt. Since there were no seats in the rear of the wag, they added a couple of the better mattresses from the officers' quarters, and packed spare blankets, a shovel, spare rope, some chains, the box full of Molotovs, spare pieces of canvas from the other GMC trunks to use as patches, and all of the fuel containers they could comfortably fit. It took everybody, including Ryan, to hoist the water drum into the rear of the trunk, and they lashed it firmly in place in the middle of the fuel cans. Just a bit of extra insurance.

 

 "That's everything," J.B. said, fighting a cough from the thickening atmosphere. "Let's move out!" Slamming shut the gate and locking it into position with steel pins on both sides, he went to the front cab and climbed into the passenger seat alongside Ryan, laying the S&W shotgun between them where it couldn't be seen from the ground.

 

 "Expecting trouble, John Barrymore?" Doc rasped through the tiny slit of the rear window. There was a sliding panel to separate the cab from the cargo space, but it was open at the moment. The man was trying not to show it, but the filthy air was obviously hurting his throat.

 

 "Just getting ready for it," the Armorer said tightly, checking the action on his Uzi machine gun.

 

 "Hang on, this is going to be rough!" Ryan shouted to the people in the rear, his voice breaking for a moment. Fireblast, the air was almost thick enough to chew! His forehead was still hurting from the earlier slam, and this crap was making his entire head throb.

 

 Shifting into a low gear, he threw the switch engaging the independent drive system and started to climb over the smashed cars until reaching the floor again. Now going to uniform drive, Ryan fed the big diesel some power and the front steel grate slammed into another wag knocking it aside. The jolt shook the entire group, and the people in the back had to hang on tight and drop their nukelamps.

 

 "Putthepedal to the metal!" Mildred shouted, then paid for that by getting alungful ofthe billowing smog and almost passing out.

 

 Saving his breath, Ryandidn't reply but did as she suggestedand soon a clear area led the wagto another impasse blocked by wreckage. Using the independent drive again, he tried to keep the lumbering wag level as its weight noisily crumpled the hoodsof luxury government cars and smaller vehicles.

 

 "Running hot," Ryan growled, shifting gears and pumping gas. "Don't like that!"

 

 "Ignore it. It'llbe fine," J.B. answered, watching a millipede dart into the shadows away from the glaring headlights of the moving wag.

 

 With a hard jounce, the wag hit the concrete floor again,and now there was nothing barring their way to theexit tunnel. Designed for much larger vehicles, the GMC 6X6 had plenty of room to traverse the zigzagging path of the antiradiation maze.

 

 A dozen small cracks in the tunnel wall were brightly lit by the headlights of the vehicle, but none appeared deeper than a yard or so, and there was no sensation of a warm breeze. Actually, at this point, they would have welcomed it. Everybody was breathing hard as their lungs labored to draw in enough oxygen, and Krysty looked as if she were going to be ill at any moment.

 

 Reaching the end of the access tunnel, spanning the wall before the 6X6 was a colossal black door large enough for a predark Army tank to roll through without hindrance. The two-and-one-half ton wag was a toy in comparison. Carefully, they looked it over for any warping or discolorization that would indicate a close nuke hit, but the dense metal was as smooth as satin without a mark.

 

 Ryan braked to a halt, the companions staying alert while he slid out of the driver's seat and J.B. went behind the wheel, covering him with theUzi.Walking to the wall on an angle so that the headlights would illuminate his way, Ryan found an armored keypad set into the frame and tried the exit code, but nothing happened. Expecting that, he pried open a service hatch under the keypad and grabbed hold of the wheel. It took all of the man's strength to get the mechanism working.

 

 The wheel began to turn, gradually becoming looser, and the speed increased until there was a solid clunk. Releasing the wheel, Ryan pulled hard on the lever alongside and there was low ramble as the thick alloy door began to rise. A wave of heat washed into the redoubt, bringing a wealth of hot clean air. The companions breathed in deep, savoring the lack of smells even as wind blown sand hit the windshield of the wag with stinging force.

 

 As Ryan took the passenger's seat, J.B. hit the gas and drove toward the opening. Even as the vehicle reached the blast door, the opening rising door was noticeably slowing, the charge built by rotating the wheel barely enough to move the megatons of armored steel. As the wag drove through the opening, the blast door began to close and there was a screech of metal on metal as it caught the rear gate of the wag. The trapped vehicle was slowly being crashed. J.B. shifted gears and hit the gas, banking the steering wheel hard to angle the aft end free from the grasp of titanic blast door before any serious damage was done.

 

 With a painful screech, the gate was torn free and the door slammed shut, crashing the piece of military steel flat against the jamb of the redoubt as if it were no more than cardboard.

 

 In the silence of the warm night, fresh air washed over the companions and they drank it in gratefully. Lifting a nukelamp out the window, Ryan angled it about, but the powerful ray vanished into the distance of a featureless desert.

 

 "What the…this is salt, not sand," Krysty said, spitting and wiping her mouth. She strained to hear any sound of waves on the beach, but there was only the soft whisper of the hot wind and nothing else. It was as if they were on another planet.

 

 "Damn, it is salt. Maybe we're in Utah again," Mildred guessed, taking a drink from her canteen. "Or maybe the Nevada salt flats."

 

 Still panning the brilliant beam about, Ryan narrowed his eye at that comment. Nevada, eh? There was a couple of redoubts there they might reach. Along with some old enemies.

 

 "Could be anywhere," J.B. said, slowing the wag while trying to decide in which direction to travel. His pocket compass said they were heading west, but without knowing where they were that meant less than nothing. And he couldn't use the sextant until the sun rose or stars became visible.

 

 "Keep going straight," Ryan said, turning off the beam and placing the heavy device on the floorboards between his boots. "Often the front door of a redoubt points toward a predark city. Probably another of their safety features."

 

 "Is that why we come out of a redoubt and often find villes and ruins and such directly ahead of us?" Dean asked, his voice already sounding more normal. "Hot pipe, and I thought it was just luck or something."

 

 As the wag bumped through a low depression, his father paused before answering, "No such thing as luck," Ryan replied grimly, the wind from the window raffling his long hair. "Only brains and guts. Folks earn what comes their way."

 

 Nodding in agreement, J.B. fed more power to the wag and the companions rolled into the Stygian night of the salt desert.

 

 AS THE WAG disappeared into the darkness, the ground before the redoubt churned and a swarm of millipedes rose to the surface, snapping their pinchers and running about in circles. The bugs seemed confused that their prey had gotten away, chittering in rage.

 

 Then one millipede paused, its featureless face twitching as it tested the air, searching, tasting. With a high pitched cry, it surged to the west in hungry pursuit of the metal and heat. The rest of the millipedes soon followed, flowing across the salt like a black cloud in the stormy sky above, instincts telling them that where there was a mag field, there was always living food to be found.

 

  

 

 Chapter Seven

 

  

 

 The ocean breeze blew steadily over the solitary guard on the stone tower as the cannie watched the bobbing headlights of the motorcycle pack crawl along the cliff road toward the oceanfront ville, the moonlight gleaming off the polished skulls on their handlebars.

 

 Far below the base of the cliff, whitecaps were breaking on the smooth stones of the beach with the sound of distant thunder. There was no access to Hellsgate ville from that direction, which was why the elders had chosen to build here. The cliff was sheer, with no path or trail to facilitate passage. And the Mex Gulf was a death trap, the water filled for miles with bits and pieces of predark wreckage, mostly the rusted remains of warships, but also some scattered chunks of buildings and roads. No ship could land without being smashed to pieces. Not to mention the sea muties that pulled down ships and sometimes wandered onto the shore looking for food. Bad things, as big as houses with tentacles and glowing eyes.

 

 Shifting the longblaster slung over his shoulder, the man fumbled in a pocket of his loose clothing and found a flat box. Pressing the release, the box snapped open on squeaky hinges and he looked through the predark opera glasses to sweep the landscape and find the oncoming bikes. Under the magnification, he easily recognized the big Harley of the Blue Devils and smiled. Excellent! The bikers always had plenty of slaves to trade for slick, and afterward there would be a feast for those in good favor with the elders. The guard smacked his lips at the thought, displaying sharpened teeth. It had been too long since he had last eaten fresh meat. The hated Trader had chilled several convoys carrying food to the ville, and the cannies had been reduced to eating fish caught in nets for their daily meals. Disgusting. Only muties and slaves consumed animals. The warriors of Hellsgate ate man flesh to make them strong! Anything else was offal to feed to pigs.

 

 The elders had a long standing feud with the Trader. They wanted him chilled, but couldn't find the bastard. He wanted them aced, but didn't care to attack, not with the blasters of Hellsgate commanding the landscape. Nothing on wheels could challenge the ville's monster blasters.

 

 Placing the opera glasses back into their box, the guard walked past a crackling torch and over to a rope. He tugged hard, and down on the ground a bell rang slow and steady, announcing that outlanders were coming, but that there was no danger.

 

 Releasing the rope, the cannie went to the edge of the tower to see a group of guards holding lanterns gathered in the yard looking up at him expectantly.

 

 "The Devils are coming!" he shouted through cupped hands. "Along the cliff road! Ten bikes! Five miles away!"

 

 A big man dressed in a patchwork cloak waved in response and turned to the others standing nearby.

 

 "So they're finally here," Elder Thomas said in a low growl. He wasn't sure to be glad the long wait was finally over, or nervous that the long awaited battle was about to begin.

 

 "The day of the Devils," an old woman announced, her six fingered hands shaking with excitement. "These are not the men you know. Impostors from your great enemy."

 

 The slave wore no chains to bind her hands or feet, and she was dressed well in canvas moccasins and a thick woolen dress to keep her old bones warm. But her weathered face was grotesque, her eyes empty holes ringed by layers of scars where white hot knives had removed the orbs.

 

 "Yes, I have seen it all happen in my mind," she said, cackling. "Death comes here today." What the wrinklie didn't add, was that she saw the destruction of the ville come in the form of a ray of sunshine. What that could possibly mean was beyond her understanding, so she wisely kept quiet, knowing that she risked death by withholding information, but also at displeasing the chief elder.

 

 "So you say, witch," Thomas growled, fingering the barbed whip coiled at his hip. "You'd best to right this time, or we'll see if you do a better job without your hands!"

 

 She bowed at that, gushing affirmations until he ordered her silent. Damn talky bitch was more trouble than he liked to tolerate, but the wrinklie was a doomie, a mutie with the gift to see the future. A former elder of the Hellsgate had heard that sight weakened the powers of a doomie, and so he had her eyes removed to increase her value to the ville. Only thing wrong with her predictions was that once she told what was going to happen, that changed the course of events, sometimes drastically. The witch was correct more often than not, and thus couldn't be harmed. But the pretense of listening to advice from lowly food was repugnant to the elder, and he eagerly looked forward for any excuse to gut the woman and toss her into the stew pot.

 

 The sea breeze whipped over the tall walls of the ville, bending the torches in different directions, making a few of the men flinch as the flames got too close to their faces.

 

 "The question is, do we take the chance?" Elder Getty asked gruffly, leaning heavily on a yellow cane carved from human thigh bones. His long beard knotted into two strands to resemble the forked tongues of a snake, and he tugged on the end of one thoughtfully. "If we chill the wrong people, we could anger the storm gods and rain destruction upon Hellsgate!"

 

 "Praise be the sky gods," Elder Thomas muttered, pulling a shiny blue .38 Colt from within his shirt and tucking it into his belt with the handle turned out for a fast draw.

 

 Privately, Thomas didn't believe in any unseen gods that ruled the air. The man had traveled far in his youth, and everywhere he went the sky was a boiling mass of rads and chems. Although, Thomas had to admit, why the acid rains never fell upon Hellsgate was something for which there was no explanation. Some said it was because they were the chosen people, or because they ate man flesh to please the gods, and once a demented slave said it was merely because of wind currents from the ocean. That sacrilege sent the slave to the table of the Blood Feast, and his wails lasted long into the night. Oh, yes, Thomas remembered it fondly. The slave had been a very satisfying meal.

 

 "Four miles!" the guard in the tower shouted, silhouetted by the moonlight.

 

 Elder Getty ceased tugging on his beard. "The choice must be yours," he ordered, pointing at the younger man with a skeleton thin hand.

 

 "Accepted." Thomas sneered, pulling his blaster. "Master of the guards, call out your men! Let's get the shields in place before the Devils arrive."

 

 A sec man blew a single clear note on a ram's horn, and guards rapidly spread across the courtyard of the stone ville, shouting orders. The armory was opened wide, weapons passed out to eager hands, along with sealed jars of ammo and even a few grens.

 

 Then handlers appeared from the holding pits, their shaved heads gleaming with oil from the yellow light of the fish oil lanterns as the eunuchs whipped a line of women toward the front gate. Dressed in dirty rags, the slaves were all young, but looked almost as old as the witch, from their poor diet and the daily beatings.

 

 Teams of slaves pushed at the wooden beam holding the front gate closed, the massive slab of wood sliding along a greased notch until out of the way. Now armed sec men pushed the gate open and spread out in a defensive pattern, while the handlers lashed their charges outside the ville. For most of the females, it was the very first time they had seen the other side of the thick stone walls of Hellsgate since they had arrived so very long ago.

 

 Arching in a semicircle around the ville, the wall stood twenty feet tall and was nearly as thick, built entirely of slabs of concrete and pieces of broken warships from the beach. Many times coldhearts and muties had attacked Hellsgate, once even rival slavers from Old Mex, and they always failed to get through the imposing palisade. Even the front gate itself was composed of a framework made of railroad ties, overlaid with slabs of sidewalk concrete. It took twenty strong men to move the gate, and nothing could blast through.

 

 It was a formidable barrier made impregnable by the titanic cannons removed from the Navy ships in the sea, six breech loaders more than twenty feet long with a foot-wide barrel. There had been a larger undamaged cannon in the wreckage down the coast a mile or so, but it was simply too enormous to move by hand and machine. But the six were enough, more than any other ville had in the known world. The cannons weren't movable, resting in beds of crushed stone and timber. But the elders of the time had been very careful to aim the blasters in different directions to cover the entire arch of the great wall around Hellsgate. The few times the cannons had been used against invaders, there had been no survivors and few body parts remaining to scrape off the cliff to feed the pigs.

 

 "Okay, strip!" the chief eunuch ordered, lashing out with a bullwhip. The knotted end cracked in the air like blasterfire, making the girls flinch. "Remove every stitch! And be quick about it!" Relaying the command, other handlers also cracked their whips, urging the confused slaves on to greater speed.

 

 Hesitantly at first, the women began to remove their simple clothing, many weeping as they obeyed. Watching from the shadows outside the circle of light, the cannie guards leered at the display of flesh, and some reached out to cup the tender breasts of the women and brutally squeeze until tears of pain replaced those of shame. The eunuchs tried not to scowl in disapproval at the lustful actions, but few succeeded.

 

 Soon the rags were piled on the rocky ground, and the twenty women stood shivering in the cool sea breeze.

 

 "Chain them up!" the chief eunuch ordered, trying to keep a watch on the slaves as well as on the road near the cliff. The muted noise of the motorcycle engines could be faintly heard now, getting steadily louder. Time was short. "And be quick about it!"

 

 Now the eunuchs pushed the sec men aside and got busy shackling the naked girls to iron rings set into the main gate. Some of the smaller women couldn't reach the ground with their feet, and hung painfully from their wrists, fighting to hold on to the stout chains with their hands or else their own weight could painfully dislocate a shoulder.

 

 Surrounded by armed guards atop the wall, Thomas watched the procedure below and scowled unhappily at the terrible waste. These were farming folks, not gaudy sluts, prime meat for the Blood Feast. But now their only value was that of living armor, their lives protection against the enemies rumbling toward the ville.

 

 When the task was done, the sec men and eunuchs fled back inside Hellsgate and the gate was ponderously closed, the massive locking bar noisily sliding back into position.

 

 "One mile!" the guard shouted, the words carried away by the ever present breeze. "They're past Liar's Point!"

 

 In spite of himself, Thomas had to admit the disguise was well done. He never could have told it wasn't the real Blue Devils without the assistance of the doomie. The gang always had a few new faces among them, and the smoked bodies draped across the rear fenders looked real enough to make him hungry.

 

 Partially covered by the moon shadow of the eastern gun, a girl hanging naked from the cold gate wearily raised her head to see the headlights of the motorcycles turn off the road and head for the ville. Desperately, she mouthed words at the distant machines producing no sounds, and as the bikers charged ever closer, raw hatred filled her bruised body with strength and she finally screamed.

 

 "Please!" she managed to shout, her voice raspy from years of torture. "Kill us!"

 

 As if in response, the bikers braked to a halt along the edge of the cliff and started conferring among themselves, the headlights pulsing to the throb of the big Harley engines.

 

 "They've seen the shields, Elder," a guard said, twisting his hands nervously on an M-16 remake. "What should we do if the witch is wrong? Should we load the eastern cannon? Hate to lose all that food."

 

 Thomas started to answer the man when something caught his attention. In the glow of the brake lights behind the bikers, he could see the feet of the chained slaves. Shoes. The nuking slaves were wearing shoes! Bullshit. So the doomie was right as usual, and this is a trap of some kind. Probably poison in the bodies. There could be more to this than could be seen. The first elder often said one clever trick from an enemy usually meant two or three more were coming.

 

 "Load the second and third cannons," Thomas ordered, working the bolt action on his longblaster and sliding in the single round. "And load number four, too, just in case this is a diversion for an attack on the other side."

 

 "Yes, Elder!" the man said with a salute, and hurried while carrying his torch high, sparks flying on the wind.

 

 Standing alone in the busy courtyard, the doomie turned her wizened head toward the dimly remembered glory of the stars, a worried expression playing across her gnarled features. She felt dizzy, almost sick, her mind a whirlwind of events, the actions of the present too chaotic for her to see what would come to be. Then dimly amid the blood and the madness, she caught a glimpse of a beautiful woman with yellow hair the color of the sun. Golden hair. It was she! A wave of cold took the mutie, and there was no doubt that she had just looked upon the face of death incarnate.

 

 Lifting a box from inside his leather jacket, one of the bikers seemed to be talking to it. After a few minutes, he tucked it away and the Devils began revving their engines, making enough noise to drown out the crashing of the waves on the beach.

 

 "What are they doing?" a sec man muttered, switching the selector lever on the M-16 remake from single shot to full-auto. This was his only clip of ammo for the rapidfire, but this day was why they had been hoarding the lead. All available black powder was reserved for the big guns. The sec man hadn't personally fired his weapon in a year. There was rarely need. Only muties were insane enough to challenge the big guns.

 

 "Dying," Thomas growled, wrapping the sling of the huge longblaster around his arm to steady his aim. Aiming for the fuel tank of the big Harley, he then shifted the crosshairs and zeroed on the rider. As he caressed the trigger, the Remington blaster blew flame, and Thomas saw the Devil fall off the machine and roll straight over the cliff and out of sight. If there was a scream before he hit the rocks below, the winds carried it away. Pity.

 

 In response, the rest of the bikers drew rapidfires, while the slaves threw off their chains and cut loose the dressed bodies, pulling out blasters hidden underneath. Crouching low, they started raking the top of the wall with small arms fire, flattened slugs ricocheting off the metal and concrete. The ville guards returned fire, but their weapons didn't have the reach.

 

 Then the bikers turned off their headlights and darkness covered the landscape, with only the flashes of their blasterfire showing where the Devils were located.

 

 "Ready the second cannon!" Thomas ordered, working the bolt of the Remington and chambering a fresh predark cartridge. "Blow them off the cliff!"

 

 With the gun crew shouting directions, bald eunuchs lashed a team of slaves to move faster, loading the predark monster with black powder and broken lengths of chain. At this range, the shotgun blast of junk would chew the outlanders into small chunks of flesh, leveling anything along that entire section of the cliff. There was no escaping the guns of Hellsgate.

 

 INSIDE THE DIMLY illuminated interior of War Wag One, the dashboard and control panels cast a rainbow of colors across the tense crew. Then the ceiling speaker crackled alive once more. "Repeat, Trader One, they just aced Denver Joe and have the gate covered with slaves. Main guns are being armed. Repeat, their cannons are being loaded. Do we charge the gate, or run?"

 

 The men and women in the room exchanged tense looks, their hands tight on grips of the machine guns inside the blisters jutting from both sides of the armored transport. Nervously, the seasoned killers chewed gum to stop from fidgeting as smoking was forbidden inside the vehicle because it could damage the delicate comps operating the coms and main L-gun.

 

 "Your call, Chief," Roberto said, glancing backward from the main weapons panel. His wounded arm now hung in a clean sling, but the man could still use both hands to steer the big rig.

 

 Hunched forward in a chair bolted to the floor, Kate clenched and unclenched her fists on the handles of the periscope and watched the events happening just over the hill. Black dust, how had everything fallen apart so fast? The plan had been for the bikers to mine the gate and blow it open so the war wags could roll into Hellsgate and level the place. The gate, that damn gate! It was the only access into the ville, and even then they had to outmaneuver those sixteen-inch cannons. War Wag One had missiles, but not enough to chew a hole through that bastard wall. The armor plating from the ancient warships was proof to almost any weapon. The gate was the only way in, and now it was covered with living slaves as protection.

 

 With their diesels engines idling, two more armored wags also sat behind the hill, their lights off, exhaust puffing into the salty breeze. The additional four cargo wags were far away from the war wags in case of trouble, but well-armed with small-caliber rapidfires and a single precious flamethrower.

 

 They were ready to give cover fire and help protect the rear from a night creep, but the brunt of any chilling would be done by War Wag One and its heavy weaponry.

 

 Once again, Kate pressed her face against the cracked cushion lining the ob slit of the periscope. Switching from infrared to Starlite, the front of the ville grew into daylight clarity and she could see the naked women dangling from the chains, shouting. Probably begging for death. Her heart pounded as Kate remembered doing the same in the past, and the old scars on both wrists suddenly itched as her mind heard the whip crack of a herder's lash across her back and felt the leather cut into virgin flesh.

 

 This was all the fault of that damn pet doomie the elders had! She had to have screwed the deal, and now the whole plan was a mess. All that time spent tracking the Devils to steal their bikes wasted. Lives lost for nothing. They were stopped again by those damn cannons, with the cannies laughing in victory behind the thick wall. Mebbe the cooks already started the stoves for a special meal this night, the slaves soiling themselves in terror as the eunuchs appeared at the top of the holding pits with chains and knives, laughing at the wails of terror from the people below…

 

 Sounding like nukefall, a cannon of the ville discharged, splitting the night, a lance of flame stretching yards ahead of it. A whistling barrage of shrapnel blew across the ground with the bikes catching a couple of minor pieces. Quickly, the bikers moved their vehicles into the path of the cannon, knowing that they would be safe from another salvo for a few minutes until the weapon was reloaded. However, they also knew the dodge wouldn't work a second time. Because the next volley would be both of the eastern cannons, and from that combined spread there would be no escape.

 

 "Retreat or charge?" The ceiling speaker crackled. "You better answer us right, or we're leaving!"

 

 "Chief?" Roberto demanded. "We need a decision right now."

 

 Releasing the periscope, Kate drew in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. There was no other choice.

 

 "Tell the bikers to pull back and follow in our wake. Try to reach the walls and take out the gun crews. We're going in," she said, yanking the clip from the Ingram SMG slung over a shoulder. "Straight through the gate."

 

 The tension faded from the room, and the gunners flicked off safeties. Roberto fed power to the tandeni engines, and the war wag started rumbling around the hill.

 

 "About damn time," he growled softly, then hit a switch. "Eric, prime the L-gun. We're going to Hell!"

 

 FIRING AGAIN at the unseen biker gang, Thomas levered in a fresh round when something trailing fire streaked across the sky and hit the stone guard tower like a blinding thunderclap. The top was blown completely off the structure, stones flying everywhere to rain upon the ville, crushing sec men and slaves alike.

 

 "First elder protect us," a guard on the wall cried, dropping his blaster. "He's here. The Trader is here!"

 

 Thomas spun in the direction the startled cannie was looking just in time to see a huge war wag crest the northern hills, the armored hull bristling with blasters spitting flames. The elder forced himself to raise the longblaster and shoot at the oncoming machine even though he knew it could do no good. The thing was enormous and bristled with machine gun blisters, missile pods and stubby barrels of 40 mm gren launchers.

 

 A double flash erupted from both sides of the juggernaut, fiery contrails extending directly for the chained women at the gate, then unexpectedly arching up and over the wall at the very last moment to sharply dive inside the ville. The world seemed to explode as harsh light blossomed and the concussion almost shoved Thomas off the wall. As he collected himself a few second later, the elder could see a gaping crater in the center of the ville, with most of the barracks gone, along with the meeting hall and the gaudy house. The keep in the center of the ville seemed undamaged, but the entire glass side of the greenhouse was gone, sparkling pieces flying through the moonlight. Even as he watched, two running eunuchs were caught under the downpour and diced to pieces, the glistening shards slicing them to ribbons. Horribly alive, the men shrieked insanely as internal organs spilled onto the ground between their clutching fingers.

 

 Ignoring the dead men, Thomas gasped in horror when he saw the plants inside the shattered greenhouse were chopped into mulch, the entire crop destroyed in a split second.

 

 Shaking in fear and adrenaline, Thomas could barely believe the amount of destruction caused by the rockets. It was incredible! But even with weapons like that, the big guns could ace them in a heartbeat.

 

 "Fire!" the cannie leader shouted at the top of his lungs. "Chill them all!"

 

 But only a few blasters on the wall responded to the command, and the big guns did nothing. Turning to scream at the gun crew, Thomas saw the area strewed with bodies, the few slaves still alive strangling the eunuchs with their own chains, one slave setting a sec man on fire with a stolen torch.

 

 A slave revolt! By the first elder, they would pay for that with ten days in the iron cage, slowly cooked alive while being drowned at the same time.

 

 The stormy sky rumbled ominously as two more rockets cut through the air from the oncoming war wag, and this time hit the main gate with trip hammer force. The cries of the living shields were instantly cut off, the gate ripped from its row of hinges, the locking bar snapping apart. In a screech of dying steel, the portal sagged forward and collapsed to the rocky ground, catching the witch underneath as she frantically tried to get clear. But the old doomie was too slow, and she was crushed flat under the tonnage of burning timbers, only a sprinkle of blood hitting the paving stones of the central court yard.

 

 Exactly like a mouse when you stomped on it with a boot, Thomas thought in confusion. Almost exactly the same effect, wasn't that odd.

 

 "They did it," a guard gasped, fumbling to reload his longblaster in the darkness. "They aced the shields. But you and the other elders told us nobody would ever do that!"

 

 The cry brought the elder out of shock and back to reality. "Silence fool, and keep shooting!" Thomas snarled, backhanding the man across the face.

 

 The much bigger cannie barely reacted to the blow, then turned to stare at the elder with eyes filled with hatred. His hands twitched for a second on the stock of his blaster. For a moment, Thomas thought the guard was going to attack, but then the sec man nodded in obedience and turned to shoot at the oncoming wags.

 

 Dark clouds of dust were thrown into the air behind the thundering war machine, then two more appeared from behind the northern dunes, their studded rows of tires chewing paths of destruction through the sandy land. The Blue Devils scattered at the approach of the war wag and reformed to the rear of the machine to snipe from behind its protective bulk.

 

 Then a door was thrown open in the courtyard, admitting a wealth of bright golden light. Scrambling from the armory, a swarm of sec men rushed to the fallen gate and started firing big bore longblasters, the heavy rounds ricocheting off the side of the lumbering war wags to no effect. In return, machine guns rattled from every side of the three enemy vehicles, the heavy rounds hammering the outside of the wall and doing no real damage, but cutting down the men in the gateway.

 

 Mebbe that was it, Thomas thought in delight, shooting at the big machines. The Trader had only those few missiles. The gate may be open, but the elders could win this fight yet!

 

 "Man the cannons!" he shouted through cupped hands, clouds of blaster smoke drifting over the ville. "Fire them instantly!"

 

 "Move or you'll feel the lash!" another elder added, two sec men holding a woman by the arms to keep her standing. Her right leg was gone, the stump tied off with a belt and some rope. "Kill them all and cut out their beating hearts!"

 

 A rallying cry rose from the sec men and they moved with a will, racing toward the cannons along the eastern wall and hauling moaning bodies of cannies and slaves out of the way to reach the breech. At the third cannon, the sec men had to gun down the slaves as one tried to thrust a burning torch into a barrel of black powder. The man fell, but crawled onward still striving to reach the powder until his dangling chains caught on some wreckage and he was trapped, only feet away from his goal. As the guards converged on him with their knifes, he threw the crackling firebrand, but it missed the open wooden barrel of powder and fell uselessly over the edge of the wall and into the night. The death cries of the slave echoed throughout the chaos of the battle, but only for a moment.

 

 Then a strange, piercing sound rang out from the front war wag and the bikers stopped shooting to cover their faces and turn away. Perplexed by the sight, Thomas saw the rest of the people behind the windows and weapon blisters do the same as the odd horn sounded twice more in warning. Purely on impulse, he copied their posture, daring to peek between the clenched fingers.

 

 Then the outlanders stopped attacking as something cycled up from the roof of the lead transport, a bizarre blaster with cables and thick hoses hissing snowy clouds. As a sharply pitched whine built to painful levels, there was an audible crackle of power. Blue electric sparks flashed between contact points, and the muzzle of the weapon spewed forth a shimmering energy beam of blinding brilliance that swept along the top of the wall setting fire to everything it touched. Bathed in the lethal radiance, the sec men's clothing and hair burst into flames, and they started to scream. Then the beam touched the barrels of black powder and powerful explosions rocked the walls, sending cracks along its entire length.

 

 Thomas could only stare helplessly as the cannons broke free from their shattered moorings and rolled away, crushing more guards and scattering the supplies of powder and shrapnel.

 

 As the beam moved onward, Thomas stood and tried to shoot his longblaster at the energy gun, but his vision was blurred by a moon shadow. Turning, the elder tried to get away, but no matter in which direction he turned his right side was still covered by darkness. It took several moments for him to finally understand he was blind in that eye. By the first elder, that was why the outlanders covered their faces at the sound of the warning horn!

 

 For the first time in his life, cold fear seized the cannie lord and he suddenly had the feeling that they could lose this battle. His mind whirled at the concept. This was Hellsgate, the strongest ville in Texas. Nothing could breach their defenses! Nothing!

 

 But the sizzling beam bathed across the wall again, and Thomas dived behind the palisade, feeling the heat of its passage only feet above. From somewhere came sporadic blasterfire, then the high pitched cries of people caught in the death ray. Very cautiously, Thomas stole a glance and saw a human torch run blindly by and go right over the wall, the ammo in his gun belt igniting from the heat even as he fell to his death.

 

 They were beaten, Thomas realized, feeling hollow and empty, his courage and strength seeping away like blood from a deep wound. The elders, the cannons, nothing could stop this predark weapon! It was the end of the world. Then the beam winked out, and darkness blew over the ville like a blessing from the storm gods.

 

 Desperately crawling on his belly, Thomas reached a ladder and started down when he noticed a group of elders rush to the burning ruin of the gate armed with four lengths of stovepipe. No wait, it was the bazookas! Yes, that would stop the war machines! Victory, yet!

 

 As the youngest cannies clumsily loaded fat rockets into the rear of the tubes, the oldest men knelt amid the refuse covering the ground and aimed directly for the center of the billowing cloud of smoke filling the hole in their wall. Thomas knew that the moment the lead wag appeared it would be hit with enough explosives to stop a fleet of war wags. The wreckage could block the advance of the other wags, and the fight would be equal once more. With more shields held before them, the cannies could rally behind the bazookas and chase the outlanders into the sea!

 

 Just then, a salvo of rockets stabbed from the smoke and spread wide to hit randomly inside the ville, blowing up the last of the greenhouse and removing the corner of the elders' mansion. The building noisily collapsed as a wave of fire swept through the interior.

 

 Although badly rattled, the elders still fired the bazookas, two of the homemade rockets hitting the remains of the gate, and one arching straight up into the starry sky. The back blast from that tube ignited the clothing of a teenager carrying spare rockets. Wildly shrieking, the lad dropped the ammo seconds before the rockets exploded, blowing him to pieces. Moments later, the big war wag rolled through the smoky ruin of the gate, its every weapon blowing lead and death.

 

 Retreating behind the pile of rabble that had been the guard tower, the last remaining elders frantically regrouped and launched the bazookas once more, bright stilettos of flame stabbing through the night. The rockets hit the wheeled tank in a double explosion that deafened Thomas, and shrapnel sprayed outward from the twin strikes.

 

 Hot pain blossomed in his arm and stomach, but Thomas didn't duck for cover. Live or die, he just had to see what was happening. Silence filled the ville for a heartbeat, as the ever present sea wind cleared the air. As the smoke thinned, Thomas bit back a scream as he saw the thick armor of the mighty war wag barely dented from the impact of the homemade rockets. If a blister had been hit, the tide of battle would have changed. But the wags had rushed too fast, making the elders miss their one chance and now it was too late.

 

 Belching halos of fire, the gren launchers of the enemy vehicle started thumping, throwing explosive charges with deadly accuracy. The elders were blown apart, the bazookas smashed into trash. A group of eunuchs struggling to roll a huge barrel of black powder with a sizzling fuse toward the machine were cut to ribbons and the corpses lay there until the charge detonated, blowing them sky-high.

 

 With revving engines, the war wag lurched into motion, moving into the ville and unleashing total destruction. The bikers came next, rolling into doorways with their rapidfires spitting lead, then a second wag entered the ville, but the third parked in the open gateway and aced anybody trying to get out.

 

 Trapped in their own ville like slaves in a pit! The madness threatened to steal his mind, and Thomas scurried for cover behind the fallen barrel of the second cannon as the heavy tires of the war wag rolled close by, cracking the bones of dead guards under their weight. The noise made him sick, and he fought not to vomit.

 

 More rockets from the war wag slammed into the distant guard tower, crumbling the structure like a dried sand castle, and the enemy machine guns never seemed to stop, ruthlessly chilling anybody carrying a blaster. Then from nowhere, a shiny glass bottle arced high in the moonlight to crash onto a war wag, drenching it with sticky fire. Caught near an air vent, a man inside the wag started to scream as he burst into flames and dropped out of the sight behind the window.

 

 The sec men of Hellsgate ville cheered at the death, then instantly stopped as all three of the vehicles shook from a massed volley of missiles and grens. The fiery darts slammed through the predark brick buildings and detonated with nightmarish force, grens falling everywhere. Broken bodies went flying as roiling tongues of orange flame rose from the collapsing structures.

 

 Wiggling deeper into a hole underneath the cannon, Thomas smeared dirt on his face to help hide his presence, pausing as a war wag braked to a halt only yards away. He could feel the heat from the blasters and smell the reek of juice and gunpowder.

 

 Then there came the soft sigh of hydraulics, as a thick door cycled down from the side of the vehicle and a woman strode down the stairs with a large blaster in one hand and a squat box in the other.

 

 Tall and blond, she was pale but well-fed, wearing a battered Stetson hat, a neckerchief around her throat dangling down the front to hide her sweaty cleavage. A tooled gun belt rode snug on her belled hips, a boxy rapidfire was slung over a shoulder and a bandolier of grens was strapped across her chest.

 

 Standing with her back to the hidden man, the blonde holstered the weapon and started to talk into a green box, a shiny silver stick rising from the top reflecting the beams of the headlights.

 

 "Confirmed, the eastern guns are down. Concentrate on the cliff," she said, walking through the destruction, but always keeping her back to the war wag for safety.

 

 From across the courtyard, a group of the motorcycles raced by going in that direction, bounding over the bodies and rubble with frightening speed.

 

 Crouching low in the dirt, Thomas couldn't believe it. They obeyed as if hearing her commands. Obviously the box somehow relayed her voice to the bikers. Could this be their leader? Thomas thought in growing amazement. Was this the legendary Trader? Praise be to the storm gods and the first elder for delivering the enemy into his waiting hands. With her as a hostage, the battle would be over.

 

 Sliding the .38 Colt from his belt, Thomas eased back the hammer, covering it with his other hand to muffle the click until it locked into position. But there had to have been some noise, because the blonde started to turn his way, with a blaster in hand. No time to try for a capture, he would have to chill her on the spot. So be it! Quickly raising the blaster, Thomas aimed for her belly and a booming report sounded.

 

 Gushing blood from the ragged stump of its neck, the headless body of Elder Thomas flopped lifeless to the ground, the Colt discharging a single shot as it tumbled over the paving stones to land near Kate's combat boots. She turned to see Roberto standing in the doorway of War Wag One, a smoking shotgun in his good hand.

 

 "Thanks," Kate said, holstering her piece. "Oweya."

 

 "Always got your six, Chief," Roberto answered, the double barrels of his sawed-off sweeping the area for any new targets.

 

 "Okay, I want people over at the holding pits to start freeing the slaves," she said into the radio, the command repeated from the loudspeakers set in the hull of War Wag One and echoing across the mounting turmoil of the smashed ville.

 

 "They'll want revenge," Roberto said, breaking open the sawed-off and dropping the spent cartridge to slip in a fresh one. He jerked it upward and the breech closed with a solid snap. "Not only on their former masters, but any of their fellow slaves who worked for the cannies. Could get damn messy."

 

 Her face a mask of controlled hate, Kate looked over the battleground, the dead and the dying mixed with the rubble and refuse.

 

 "Let them," she said in a voice of icy granite. "What's the status of the laser?"

 

 "We're almost out of fuel for the reaction chamber," Roberto reported. "Plus, a few more minutes of use and the main lens would have cracked. It's just not designed for this kind of fighting."

 

 "But it did the job. Give Eric my thanks. The man works miracles."

 

 Just then, a ricochet zinged off the armored prow of the wag only inches from the woman. Instantly, Roberto fired his shotgun at the distant sniper, and Kate dropped the radio to draw the Ingram and hosed a long burst from the rapidfire. Fighting to clear a jam from his bolt action, the coldheart on the rooftop got stitched across the chest by the 9 mm Parabellum rounds and fell away spraying bright blood.

 

 Snapping the sawed-off shut, Roberto grunted at the sight. "Good shot," he said, stepping closer. "Bastard was out of my range."

 

 "Can't control a rapidfire with one hand," Kate said, bending over to retrieve the radio. "All gunners, secure this courtyard! I want every roof cleaned of sec men, and I mean right fucking now!"

 

 Every gunner inside the three armored transports did as requested and the crisscrossing barrage of .50-caliber rounds from the vented machine guns tore the roofs apart, shattering the red tiles and sending two more snipers to the last train west.

 

 "Roofs are secured," a voice reported crisply over the radio.

 

 "Good," she answered. "Jeffers, Daniels, Dink, start a recce of the buildings and watch for boobies. The locals are fond of traps. Be safe and shoot everybody you find."

 

 "All of them?" the voice asked, startled.

 

 "Confirmed," Kate growled. "If they ain't in chains, put lead in their head!"

 

 "Will do, Chief!" The radio crackled, even the short distance affected by the rads in the sea.

 

 "Knives are cheaper," Roberto stated, staying close to the woman, the sawed-off held level at his waist with both hands.

 

 She shrugged in reply. "Fuck it. We got the ammo. Besides, I'll damn well not lose another one of our people cleaning out this viper's nest," Kate shot back furiously. "Ten rounds now will save us a hundred in the future."

 

 There was a scrambling motion at the base of a second guard tower, and from the gaping doorway stumbled a bloody man in robes with both hands raised. Roberto fired before Kate could even register the fact, and as he fell the cannie elder was then torn apart by crisscrossing blasterfire from a dozen directions.

 

 "Standard divvy among the dead?" Roberto asked, tightening his lips into what could have been a grin as he reloaded again. The 12-gauge sawed-off did a nuking amount of damage, but he was always shoving in shells. Too bad there wasn't such a thing as a clip fed shotgun. Wouldn't that be a pisser?

 

 "Not this time," the woman answered. "We turn the entire contents of the ville over to the slaves. They earned it in ways we don't want to think about. Then we divvy half of our food with them, too. Toss everything found in the kitchens and storehouses into the sea. It's all dirty. Who knows what they used to bake the bread, or fried the fish in."

 

 Mebbe human fat, Roberto comprehended, going queasy. Dark night, he never would have thought about that. "Good call, Chief," he stated, swallowing hard. "I'll see it done personally. But we're still taking shine and fuel, right?"

 

 Removing her hat, Kate fanned away the smoke from the burning buildings, the fumes carried a reek of burning flesh that made her cringe. "Damn straight, all we can carry," the woman added without any trace of humor. "From here we can finally risk a journey to the north."

 

 Roberto frowned. By that, she meant across the Great Salt. A hellzone considered by many to be the bleeding ass of the Deathlands with its rad storms, quicksand, tornadoes, muties and worst of all, the Scorpion God.

 

 Machine gun fire sounded from somewhere in the ville, ending with a wailing scream, followed by cheers. Sounded like the slaves were free and already equaling some old scores.

 

 "Be a mighty good day when we ace the Scorpion," Roberto said grimly. "A lot of debts to be paid there, too."

 

 "More than you know," Kate muttered, tucking her hat back on her head.

 

  

 

 Chapter Eight

 

  

 

 Sucking on a dry piece of jerky, Krysty was taking her turn behind the wheel as dawn began to lighten the eastern sky behind the wag. Straight ahead, the bright headlights of the old wag bounced wildly with every irregularity of the ground, and she was forced to slow to a mere crawl to keep from crashing into the occasional hole or rock. She hoped nothing attacked the wag, because at this miserable speed, they couldn't outrun a fat baron.

 

 When Ryan was driving the wag, at first it had seemed they were following a predark road buried beneath the salt. But soon it became obvious that this was merely a wash, the vestigial remains of a dried river that snaked through the desolate landscape. Aside from the shallow depression of the river, the land was flat and featureless without even mountains on the horizon, the largest dune of sandy salt only a few feet in height. It was as if the world had been sandpapered smooth.

 

 No, it was sandblasted smooth, Krysty corrected, by the bombs of skydark. Whatever had once been here had to have been mighty important in the old days for it to receive such a concentrated bombing. Some sort of military base, or factory town. Had to have been big.

 

 Sitting in the passenger side of the cab, Dean scowled alertly at the endless vista of dried salt with open hostility, J.B.'s scattergun expertly cradled in his hands. The boy carried a harmonica in his shirt pocket, a gift from long ago, and he was slowly getting fairly good on the instrument. But for some reason he felt the music would have been inappropriate. Dean found that he was sometimes a little nervous when it was just him and Krysty, kind of as if he were a small kid being watched over by a parent, instead of a young man of nearly thirteen years standing guard. The weirdly mixed feelings confused the hell out of the boy. Mildred told him it was normal for him to feel that way. He was in transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence, it was called. Dean wished it would just pass him by.

 

 Buried under a pile of blankets, the rest of the companions were sleeping in the rear of the vehicle, huddled in a group to share body heat and help fight off the nighttime chill. It had to have been dawn when they arrived at the redoubt, but as they escaped from the installation, the warmth quickly faded from the air and the desert turned deeply cold. Krysty and Dean had the heater under the dashboard to keep them comfortable, but the rest simply had to cope as best they could.

 

 As the sun slowly ascended, it burned away the blanket of polluted clouds and filled the desert with the rosy gleam of predawn, turning everything delicate shades of pinks. Soon the biting chill was no longer whistling into the cab from around the mismatched doors, and the woman turned off the heater to save juice. Once long ago, in an Alaskan redoubt, Krysty had studied a map of the old world. This could be the middle of the Australian desert, literally thousands of miles away from anything. Every drop of fuel needed to be saved until the companions had a better idea of where they were headed.

 

 Slow miles passed as Krysty continued rolling on through the brightening desert. As they jounced through a shallow crack in the riverbed, the land gently rose into a swell and Krysty realized she was no longer in the wash. Maybe the predark river had turned at some point, or went underground, there was no way of telling. But now the wag was rolling across the desert floor, the heavy tires crunching steadily on the crusty salt ground. She debated trying to backtrack and find the wash once more, but decided to stay on course. J.B. had placed his compass on the dashboard, and the needle was still pointing due west.

 

 "Damn, there's nothing in sight for miles," Dean said, leaning out the window. "Mebbe we should stop and take a rest. Let J.B. find out where we are, and such."

 

 "I was thinking the same thing myself," Krysty replied, grinding gears. "Also, the engine has been starting to run hot. Might be something wrong."

 

 "Might be low on water," he suggested, glancing at the gauge.

 

 "Could be," she agreed, easing the speed of the rattling wag to the merest crawl. "But it's best to make sure."

 

 Slowing to an easy halt, Krysty turned off the engine and waited while the machine rattled to a complete stop before setting the parking brake. Warily, the two companions checked the area around them before leaving the cab. Walking across the ground, their combat boots steadily crunched on the crust of dried salt.

 

 "Well, one good thing about this stuff," Dean muttered, shifting his grip on the scattergun. "At least nobody can sneak in close without being heard."

 

 "That's for damn sure," Krysty agreed, a hand on her own blaster. "Unless it was flying, but I don't see anything around for a screamwing, or skeeter, to eat."

 

 The boy nodded in agreement, but kept a closer watch on the open sky for any signs of movement. Aside from the departing toxic clouds, the air was a clear azure blue and thoroughly empty.

 

 Reaching the rear, Dean stood guard with the shotgun while Krysty untied the lacings holding the canvas flaps shut and threw one aside admitting the morning sunlight into the back of the wag. Amid the water barrels, fuel cans and piles of backpacks, there was a lumpy mound of mixed blankets with a few boots sticking out from underneath.

 

 "Good morning!" Krysty called, shaking the nearest boot. "Rise and shine."

 

 The mound of blankets stopped snoring and started to break apart under her urgings.

 

 "Already awake. Been for a while," Ryan said from the shadows in the corner, and the man stepped closer into the light. Mildred had been afraid that his head wound might be serious to make him slip into a coma if he went to sleep too soon, so the one-eyed man reluctantly decided to back her call and stayed up the whole night. Much as he wanted some sack time, Ryan was bastard sure he didn't want it to last forever. Head wounds chilled in a way no other wound did.

 

 "You look like hell, lover," the redhead said to the disheveled man.

 

 He grunted at that and stiffly climbed down from the rear of the wag onto the hard ground. Loose white sand was blowing across the land, and Ryan again tasted salt in the air. This was no desert, but an ocean. Some of the nukes during skydark missed their coastal targets and hit the sea bottoms, throwing up boiling tidal waves of salt water dozens of miles across the mainland, sometimes hundreds of miles. Over the years the salt mud dried into a thick crust over the once living soil, forming hard flat deserts.

 

 "Makes the Washington Hole seem almost like Eden," J.B. said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses as the creeping dawn began to fill the rear of the wag, warming it noticeably.

 

 Soft thunder peeled in the shifting clouds, sounding like distant artillery as J.B. slapped his fedora into shape and tucked it on the back of his head. At least they wouldn't have to worry about acid rain for a while. That was something good, at least.

 

 "Broke down?" Jak asked, appearing from under a pile of blankets. The rosy tint of dawn was already fading to become the clear hard light of daytime.

 

 "Nope, but the engine is running a little hot," Krysty replied. "We thought it best to stop, give it a rest."

 

 "And make breakfast," Dean added.

 

 "Better check hoses first," Jak mumbled, holstering the blaster and shuffling forward to jump off the end of the wag. His boots sank inches deep into the salty sand. He hated the desert and longed for a smell of a proper bayou again.

 

 Shoving away the blankets, Doc gave a bone cracking yawn and ran stiff fingers through his silver hair.

 

 "What a desolate location," he rumbled, exiting the vehicle to blink at the reflected dawn. "We could be in the middle of the Sahara or the Gobi desert for all we know."

 

 "Could be the Painted Desert of New Mexico," Krysty added. "Sure isn't Colorado or Ohio."

 

 Stretching to work off the fog of sleep, Ryan became alert at that remark. Ohio was neutral territory, but there were a bastard lot of folks who wanted their hides in New Mex. That was the very heart of the Deathlands.

 

 "Well, I'll have us fixed in a few minutes," J.B. stated, pulling the minisextant from his jacket pocket and looking through it to sweep the sky until locating the sun.

 

 "I'll make coffee, if somebody starts a fire," Mildred offered, fighting off a yawn. She spent the night spooning with John, but any trace of a romantic interlude had been neutralized by the close presence of the rest of the companions also huddled under the blankets.

 

 "No wood for a fire," Dean said, gesturing around them. "Nothing."

 

 "Damn, you're right," the physician grumbled unhappily. "Guess it'll be an MRE of meat loaf for breakfast, and cold coffee."

 

 "We've had worse," Krysty commented, opening her backpack to pull out a tin mess kit. "Better than boiled boot."

 

 Mildred made a face. That had been a hell of a meal. The closest they had ever come to starving to death.

 

 "Be right back," Ryan announced, drawing his blaster. Stepping behind the largest dune for a few minutes, the man soon returned zipping up his fatigues.

 

 "Got our position yet, J.B.?" he growled.

 

 "Not just yet. Too many clouds in the way," the Armorer answered, squinting through the sextant. As carefully as possible, he centered the unobstructed sun in the lens, balancing the horizon against the half mirror inside the optical device. This gave him the reading and writing down the numbers, he did a few calculations and checked the plastic map from his backpack.

 

 "We're back in Texas," J.B. said, lowering the sextant. "About six hundred miles away from that gateway at the Grandee."

 

 "Good enough," Ryan said, rubbing his unshaven jaw. The gateway wasn't a redoubt, just a stripped down mat-trans chamber, but it would take them to a redoubt. If it still worked.

 

 "Six hundred miles is a mighty long way." Krysty sighed, loosening her collar. "Especially in this heat." Her bearskin coat was hanging from a bolt in the back of the wag, a little extra cover in case the others needed it during the cold night. Now it seemed like she wouldn't be needing it during the day, either. Already she could tell it was going to be a scorcher. Good thing they had a lot of water, even if it was slightly radioactive.

 

 Just then, a trio of tiny red scorpions scurried out from under a rock, closely followed by a much larger black scorpion. The black arachnid grabbed a red one and started tearing it apart on the spot, stuffing the juicy gobbets into his mouth. The other two made good their escape under another rock, while the third was being eaten alive.

 

 A scratching sound seemed to fill the air. The companions pulled their blasters and glanced around. But aside from the scorpions battling each other, there was nothing in sight anywhere.

 

 "Could be the wind," Dean said hesitantly, as if not believing the possibility himself. The wind in the Deathlands often played tricks, making faraway things sound right behind you, sometimes even making sand seem to be splashing pools of water. Back at Nicolas Brody's school, he had heard of people lost in the desert going feeb from the wind and the heat.

 

 "Something is wrong here," Krysty said, her hair flexing and curling. "Do you think we could be standing on a…"

 

 Then the sound came again with a haunting familiarity, and icy-cold adrenaline flooded Dean's body as he saw the surface of the desert moving like a low wave in the water from something underneath the salty crust. Then the crystalline sheath cracked and a featureless head appeared with pinchers snapping.

 

 "Bugs!" Dean shouted, kneeling to fire the shotgun across the swarm, as the compacted salt broke apart and out rushed a carpet of millipedes flowing their way like a river of death.

 

 A dozen millipedes were blown away from the barrage of flechette rounds, but the rest just kept coming as unstoppable as the dawn around them. The muties had to have been following the wag since it left the redoubt. Either that or the desert was infested with them. Bad news either way.

 

 "Get the wag moving!" Ryan ordered, squinting against the wash of daylight behind the bugs even while triggering his softly chugging SIG-Sauer. Fireblast, the damn things couldn't have chosen a better time to attack! With the light in their eyes it was triple-hard to aim, and once the insects were among the companions they would be reduced to scraps in a few minutes.

 

 The closest to the cab, Krysty scrambled inside the wag and started to crank the engine. Meanwhile, the rest of the companions threw down a wall of lead, salt dust mixing with black blood as the insects died, but kept on coming nonetheless, as mindless as a storm. Rushing to the back of the wag, Ryan grabbed a Molotov from the wooden box, lit the rag fuse and smashed the bomb directly in front of the bugs, the pool of fire momentarily slowing their advance.

 

 Shoving the Uzi into Mildred's hands, J.B. frantically rummaged in his munitions bag and pulled out an implo gren. Setting the release, he pulled the ring and threw the gren hard toward the bugs clustered around the Molotov puddle. The millipedes scattered momentarily as the sphere hit and bounced a few times to finally land behind the insects.

 

 "Missed!" Jak roared, his Colt blowing fire.

 

 "Like hell I did!" J.B. shouted, grabbing the canvas side of the wag and bracing himself. "Hold on!"

 

 Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of searing blue light and a muted roar that became a powerful rush of air that almost pulled the companions off their feet in a whirlwind of loose salt as the predark device created a microsecond well of super condensed gravity. Then the field was gone with only a steaming hole to mark the spot.

 

 The implosion had aced only a handful of the bugs, but dozens more had been pulled backward from the vacuum of the reverse blast, and were scrambling about madly in the smooth glass crater totally confused. Precious time had been bought, with only a few of the muties still comings pinchers snapping. But more were heading their way again with every tick of the clock.

 

 On the ground, the black scorpion dropped its partially finished meal and raced away for safety under a rock.

 

 "Use another!" Dean cried, hammering the bugs with his Browning. "Use them all!"

 

 "Too close! Get off the ground!" Ryan ordered, scrambling backward into the rear of the wag, his blaster throwing hot lead. A millipede squealed as a score of legs were ripped off its belly by the 9 mm slug, but it continued to move, bleeding badly but very much alive.

 

 Throwing a couple more Molotovs into the fire of the first one to spread the blaze, Doc and Jak then shoved Mildred into the wag and jumped in after her, with Dean close behind. Taking back the exhausted Uzi from the furious physician, J.B. fed it a fresh magazine from his munitions bag and stitched a line across the foremost wave of bugs. But exactly as before in the redoubt, the wounded kept coming until they died.

 

 The wag vibrated, the exhaust pipe belching smoke as Krysty fought to get the stubborn diesel to turn over. What could be wrong with the thing? Hellfire, it was still warm from before, power read good on the dashboard and she knew there was plenty of fuel. Mebbe the mix was too rich? Pumping the gas pedal and pulling the choke all the way out instead of in, Krysty hit the starter and the engine briefly sputtered, paused as if stalling, then surged into rife.

 

 Moments later, the millipedes rushed underneath the wag, biting at the tires, the dead scorpion and the dropped wrapper from an unconsumed MRE pack. Several started to crawl up the sides of the wag, and Krysty used her Smith & Wesson to blow off a twitching head that appeared at the open passenger-side window.

 

 "Come on, get this heap moving!" Ryan bellowed, exchanging clips.

 

 The noise of the bugs was getting deafening loud, and he wasn't sure the woman had heard him when the wag started rolling forward, the bugs cracking like popcorn beneath the wide tires.

 

 But by now the millipedes were swarming over the vehicle, the companions firing in every direction.

 

 Barely reloading in time, Dean fired as a millipede crawled into view around the side of the awning. Headless, the bug stayed on the material, pumping blood from its neck until Mildred kicked the legs loose and it fell away.

 

 "Son of a bitch little bastards!" Mildred cursed in revulsion. God, she hated bugs!

 

 Holding his bare sword in a tight grip, Doc dropped the hammer on the LeMat as he spotted a shape moving on top of the canvas sheet covering the rear of the wag. A patch of material the size a fist was torn away, and the corpse fell away, but another took its place.

 

 "Haste is our salvation, madam!" the scholar told her, yanking back the big hammer on his weapon, searching for a clear target. A movement on the floor almost made the man shoot, until he realized it was an implo gren that had fallen out of J.B.'s munitions bag. The thought of what would have happened if he had shot the predark bomb made his blood run cold. That had been a close call! Too close.

 

 Throwing the engine into high gear, Krysty tried to build some speed as she gamely fought to maintain control of the shuddering wag across the uneven ground. Every loose item in the vehicle was shaking and jumping, and as the wag went through a jagged ravine a fuel can went over the tailgate, followed by a blanket and a shovel. Holding on for dear life, the companions tried to keep fighting, but the gyrations were making it impossible to stay on their feet, much less hit what they were aiming at. Unfortunately, the bouncing and crashing seemed to have no effect on the multilegged bugs.

 

 "Go slower!" J.B. ordered, dropping a magazine for the Uzi.

 

 "Faster!" Dean yelled, over his banging 9 mm Hi-Power.

 

 "Mother Gaia!" Krysty cursed, and the wag slammed down and then brutally up again, tilting so far to the right that it almost flipped over sideways before violently righting itself.

 

 With the jolt, bugs and people went tumbling about. Then with a ripping sound, the ropes holding the big water barrel tore apart and it crashed to the floor. The lid popped off and out gushed the nuke water, washing away ammo clips, MRE packs, spent brass and a couple of dead bugs. One large millipede stubbornly stuck to the corrugated floor until Jak shoved his blaster between the dripping wet pinchers and blew out the rear of its ugly head.

 

 Nearly slipping on the wet metal floor, Ryan couldn't understand where the bugs kept coming from. The main swarm was far behind, which only left… Fireblast! He should have realized that sooner. Had to be dizzy from that earlier knock to the head.

 

 Stumbling across the jumbled supplies, Ryan found the wooden box of Molotovs and stuffed two into his shirt. He wanted more, but that was all he could carry. Holding on to the ribs that supported the awning, he made it to the front of the wag and slashed open the side of the canvas with a stroke of his panga.

 

 "Slow down when I tell you!" Ryan shouted through the passenger-side window.

 

 "I'll be ready!" Krysty replied, both hands white from their death grip on the shaking steering wheel. Her blaster was in its holster even though a millipede clinging to the outside of the driver's-side gave her an unobstructed view of the grinding fangs in its segmented mouth. If she removed a hand from the wheel to shoot it, the wag would crash at its current speed, so she could do nothing but pray that the glass was strong enough for a little while longer.

 

 Holstering his blaster, Ryan held on to the rib while he used a butane lighter to ignite the rag fuse. "Now," he cried, throwing the bottle forward.

 

 Not daring to use the brakes, Krysty took her foot off the gas and downshifted to try to control the deceleration.

 

 Immediately, the wag sped forward and the Molotov hit the hard desert salt to explode into a pool of fire.

 

 Seconds later the slowing wag drove through the middle of the flames, letting them play across the bottom of the chassis. Childlike wails of pain rewarded the tactic, and a rain of burning bugs fell to the ground in their wake.

 

 As Ryan threw the next bottle, Jak passed him another Molotov, and the companions did it again and again until there was only silence from below.

 

 "Should be clear by now," J.B. said, both legs splayed as he rocked to the motion of the lolling wag. At the lower speeds, the Armorer had no trouble staying on his feet.

 

 "We're not quite done," Ryan growled, grabbing hold of the tubular steel frame supporting the sideview mirror, and swinging into the cab to land on the seat near Krysty.

 

 With both hands tight on the wheel, the redhead leaned far back and he fired the SIG-Sauer, the soft chug lost in the explosion of shattered glass as the last millipede was blown away.

 

 "Now it's finished," he said, brushing the ejected brass and glass pebbles off her clothing. "You okay?"

 

 "Been better," Krysty muttered, dropping the speed of the wag even more. The gauges were still reading hot, and she could only hope the engine hadn't been damaged in the firefight.

 

 Tick by tick, the seconds slowly passed until the companions were a mile away from the battle zone, and they started to relax when a strong stink filled the wag.

 

 "It's coming from under the hood," Ryan said with a frown, sniffing the rank cab air. Even with the windows open, it smelled like a roasting boot in here.

 

 "Could be an aced bug frying on the manifold," Krysty replied, furrowing her brow in concern. "Should we stop and check?"

 

 "No," Ryan decided. "Keep going. The farther we get from those bugs, the better."

 

 Steering around a small crater in the salt, Krysty started to agree when the engine went completely silent and every gauge in the dashboard swung their needles high into the red danger zone.

 

  

 

 Chapter Nine

 

  

 

 Throwing the gearshift into neutral, Krysty quickly killed the ignition and let the wag coast along until braking to a full stop in the lee of a small dune.

 

 "Get sharp, people!" Ryan commanded. "Those things could be hot on our ass." Climbing down from the cab, he checked the clip in his blaster. Four rounds remained, and he had two more loaded clips.

 

 Wearily, the rest of companions climbed off the big vehicle and spread out behind it with their blasters at the ready. However, they knew there were no more Molotovs, and only three implo grens remained. A couple had been lost in the tumultuous fight through the salt flats, and their ammo reserves were low.

 

 If the bugs returned, the implo grens were the first line of defense, then blasters, and after that, they would be reduced to knives and running.

 

 After checking under the chassis for any unwanted passengers, Ryan, Krysty and J.B. went to the front of the wag, and Ryan flipped up the hood with the others covering him in case a bug was waiting inside. But the engine was clean of insects, only some scattered bits of fibrous black material and thick streamers of oily smoke.

 

 "Burned through a fan belt," J.B. said, lifting a piece for inspection, then dropping it and blowing on his singed fingers. "Two of them, in fact. Look down there."

 

 Leaning on the nuke battery, Ryan could see the damage, and agreed it wasn't from the Molotovs. Just old belts that shredded under the strain. "It was running hot before the bugs appeared," he added. "This wag is dead."

 

 "Can we fix it?" Krysty asked, looking between the two men. "Cobble something together with our belts, or rope, or something?"

 

 "Mebbe," Ryan replied sullenly, the lack of sleep wearing on his nerves. He felt constantly angry, and the throbbing of the gash on his forehead was affecting his judgment. "Hell, I don't know. All our boots laces tied together wouldn't take the strain. We could buckle some belts together, but they wouldn't fit. Too wide."

 

 "And what rope we have is too thick," she added. "We could loosen the weave, but that could take a hell of a lot of time."

 

 "And the longer we sit still, the closer they get."

 

 "Well, we're sure as hell not going to walk six hundred miles."

 

 "Might have to."

 

 "And mebbe not. Now it could just be this heat, but I got a crazy idea," J.B. said slowly, tilting back his fedora. "Might work, might not, but I'll need a really sharp blade, the best we got."

 

 "Mildred, bring a scalpel!" Ryan called, motioning the woman over.

 

 "To fix a wag?" the physician replied, coming their way.

 

 "What are you planning to do?"

 

 "J.B. has a plan," Krysty replied, stepping back to give the others some more space to work.

 

 Reaching into her satchel, Mildred pulled out a small canvas bundle. The scalpel was really only an box cutter blade from a high school art department, but it was the sharpest, thinnest blade they owned. "Whatever you're planning is going to ruin the edge," Mildred stated, passing over the blade. Even though the blade was segmented, every portion was precious.

 

 "Can't be helped, Millie," J.B. said, starting to loosen a retaining bolt with a big crescent wrench. After a few moments, Mildred could see what he was planning to do, and bent over the engine to lend a hand where she could, her slim fingers reaching deeper into the complex machine than his muscular hands.

 

 "Okay, we're not going anywhere for a while," Ryan stated, moving away so he wouldn't block their light. The dune was throwing a much needed shadow across the hot vehicle, cutting the harsh sunlight to a tolerable level. "We better get hard in case they come back. We're going to need a lookout, and you're the lightest, Dean, so up you go, son."

 

 "Check!" the boy cried resolutely. Grabbing hold of the exposed ribs of the tattered awning, Dean pulled himself onto the roof of the wag. Balanced precariously on the riddled canvas, the boy shaded his face with a hand to try to see into the eastern light if the bugs were still in pursuit.

 

 "No sign of them!" Dean called down.

 

 "Yet," Doc added, removing his sword from its ebony stick and plunging the steel into the salty ground nearby for fast access.

 

 With a breeze spreading his frock coat like dark wings, the scholar expertly purged the spent chambers of his LeMat and started the laborious process of reloading the black-powder weapon. Three chambers were still charged, but Doc never liked to have such a thin defense between himself and the world. Time and time again, the universe had proved it wasn't on his side, and Doc never planned on giving it an even break.

 

 Whistling to get Dean's attention, J.B. tossed up his Navy longeyes and the boy made the catch. Extending the telescope to its full length, Dean scanned the simmering desert.

 

 "Let us know if anything comes this way," Ryan directed, thumbing another round into the clip to finish the reload, then returning it into the grip of the SIG-Sauer.

 

 "Even if it's just a whirlwind or a tumbleweed," he added grimly. "They got the drop on us last time from underground, so stay alert."

 

 "Gotcha," Dean answered, the brass length of the telescope held in both hands for a steady view.

 

 "Use fuel cans," Jak said from the rear of the wag, passing down a container. "Set perimeter. Bugs come, we shoot."

 

 "A firewall," Krysty grunted. "Best we can do, I'm afraid. Here, pass one over."