With Ryan and J.B. now gone from the main drag, the bar sec was reduced—particularly the area where Conroy and his crew had taken over one bar for the night. The hired mercies had been drinking for several hours, and had pleasured themselves with the sluts they had hired. This was where it began to get difficult. The women were used to any kind of sexual act or kink, but when one of the mercies began to wave a broken bottle around and suggested its use as part of a floor show with one of the women, she could see herself not getting out alive, and retaliated by grabbing a bottle and breaking it over his head. Blood streaming, the sec man pulled a remade Walther PPK and chilled her on the spot. The sight of one of their compatriots being chilled caused the other sluts to forget they had been hired, and to fight back.

 

 Before too long, the bar had become a battleground, with a firefight and hand-to-hand spilling out onto the drag.

 

 A bar sec patrol who knew Ryan and J.B. should have been on duty went to what they assumed to be their assistance. They found themselves embroiled in a pitched battle that was already starting to attract revelers from other bars who were spoiling for a fight.

 

 It was only a short while before word got back to Yardie, forcing the fat sec man onto the streets of the ville.

 

 "Shit." He whistled through his teeth as he surveyed the pitched battle that had escalated along the main drag. "What the fuck is One-eye and Four-eyes up to?" he continued. Turning to his lieutenant, he snapped, "Halve the sector patrols and posts. Get them in here now, before we get outfought."

 

 "Yeah, sure," his aide agreed, before adding, "What about the baron? He wanted you."

 

 "Fuck," the fat sec chief swore. "What the hell is going on here tonight? And where the fuck are Ryan and J.B. when they should be sorting this?"

 

 It was a question to which he would have found the answer incredible.

 

 THE COMPANIONS DISTRIBUTED their belongings among themselves, took a few precious moments to check their blasters were loaded and ready and set off from the med building. Jak and Dean knew the outskirts of the ville better than the others, who had been confined mostly to the med building or the main drag during their stay in Crossroads, and guided them through the residential areas and past the tilled fields. In the distance, the sounds of the firefight going on along the main drag could be clearly heard.

 

 "Sounds like Conroy's boys got a little boisterous," J.B. commented laconically.

 

 "Yeah, shame we weren't there to stop it," Ryan added.

 

 "Wait!" Jak said sharply, indicating that they get into the shadowed cover afforded by some of the dwellings.

 

 Ryan had let Jak and Dean lead the way, with himself and the Armorer bringing up the rear. Mildred and Krysty walked each on one side of Doc, and they had traveled in a tight line, breaking only when they had to cross open ground, where they had traversed the distance singly, the others providing cover.

 

 And now Jak's finely tuned hunting senses had given them a warning. They melted back into the shadows of the shacks as three sec men came running past them, cursing and loading their blasters as they ran.

 

 "Well, well, that is most interesting," Doc murmured after they had passed from earshot. "I would assume, from their direction, that they are from a sentry post."

 

 Ryan agreed. "Looks like things have really heated up. The outsider with the pox and Conroy's mercies getting blaster happy. Guess that fat bastard Yardie doesn't know what to do except pull in all his sentries."

 

 "Making it easier for us to slip away," Krysty finished.

 

 Jak turned and looked at them, his white, scarred face highly visible under the moonlight, even in the shadows.

 

 "Mebbe only some sec go in—still keep frosty," he commented.

 

 Ryan nodded. "Triple red still, everyone. Lead on, Jak."

 

 The albino said no more, but moved out into the moonlight, leading the companions along the edge of town. They skirted the tilled fields, with the southerly blacktop cutting across the lands to their left. As they left the built up area of the ville behind them, Jak led them on a zigzagging path that took them through the scrub areas that had the most cover. Suddenly, with a gesture for them to stop, he pulled up.

 

 "Sec post?" Ryan whispered.

 

 The albino nodded. "Think deserted. Wait."

 

 Without another word, the albino disappeared into the undergrowth, using the scant cover between their position and the sec post with such care that he was invisible even to the companions, who were trying to follow his progress.

 

 Within a few minutes, Jak had returned.

 

 "Empty," he said brusquely. "Must be in ville."

 

 "Good," Ryan murmured. "This is what we need. Move out, but still keep low and on triple red."

 

 Falling into the familiar formation, with Ryan in the lead and J.B. at the rear, they began to move through the scrub and out beyond the deserted sec post. The scrubland across the old, disused fields provided them with some cover until they were able to cross to the ditch at the side of the blacktop, and from there head south.

 

 After a half hour's progress, Ryan called a halt and asked J.B. to take a sextant reading for their position. The Armorer complied, and then said, "We need to move over there—" he gestured across the blacktop "—if we're heading southwest. How far out do you think they're camped?"

 

 Ryan shrugged. "Could be some way. I'd guess they'd put at least two days' distance between themselves and Crossroads, just for sec purposes."

 

 "Gonna be a long haul, then," Mildred commented. "And what if we miss them?"

 

 "They not miss us, if get close." Jak grinned.

 

 Despite the fact that the area seemed deserted, and it was dark, they still crossed over the blacktop one at a time, keeping low while the others provided cover for whoever was making the trip. Vigilance couldn't be dropped for a moment.

 

 Once they were all over, they headed into the scrub and the first clump of dwarf elms before establishing a camp. Ryan took first watch while the others tried to snatch some sleep. They had no idea how long it would take them to find the Gate, and they would need to be awake and alert when the sun rose once more.

 

 FOR TWO DAYS they trekked across the lush earth of the region. There was no sign of a camp, and no indication that anyone other than themselves had passed that way for some time, which was no surprise. They knew from experience that the Gate could camouflage a camp better than any other tribe or group they had come across, and they knew that the tribe was also adept at covering its tracks. And yet it seemed that this land had been unspoiled by human habitation for some time.

 

 The first day was uneventful. The trek wasn't difficult, and it was merely a matter of covering the territory and keeping alert for danger. The fact that there was no sign of anything except small mammals and birds made it hard to keep their alertness on triple red. Perhaps that was why the events of the second day caught them unawares. It was a double disaster that caught them off guard.

 

 Since daylight on the first day, they had been aware of a hill much like the one that they had emerged from when leaving the redoubt some weeks before. It was right in their path on a southwesterly course, and from the first they had marked it as a possible Gate camp. Certainly it was wooded enough to provide cover, and its raised sides would enable the tribe to scout the land for miles around. So when they finally reached the foot of the hill, they ascended with caution. There was no sign of any human life, but this was, after all, the Gate tribe. Anything was possible.

 

 "Of course, it does strike one quite forcefully that perhaps they are camped on the far side of the hill," Doc commented as they climbed.

 

 "Well, we'll find out soon enough," Mildred said, looking back.

 

 The gradient of the hill wasn't particularly steep, but it did have a few signs of soil erosion, and in places parts of the rock and soil had fallen away to form sudden ledges. They were passing just such a point, and as Mildred's foot came down on the spot where Ryan, Jak and Krysty had just walked, the soil and scree beneath, holding the earth onto the rock, began to move.

 

 Mildred didn't even have time to register the shift of the earth beneath her feet before she was pitched sideways by the sudden space that appeared underneath her. She felt herself turn in the air, as if in slow motion, as she began to fall. The sky and the hillside turned around her, and she was aware of her companions appearing at the corner of her vision, jolted from view by the crack of her head against the rocks, barely cushioned by their covering of soil, as she turned head over heels, her thick coat providing some protection from the impact of her body on the rocks.

 

 "Millie!" J.B. yelled from above, moving forward to see her tumble over down the side of the hill. He edged closer, testing the loose surface as he watched her body hit the hillside like a rag doll.

 

 Dean's hand restrained him. "Wait! Any closer and you'll bring the rest of it down on her!"

 

 J.B. stepped back quickly, suddenly snapped into an awareness that the younger Cawdor was right. The soil, scree and rock along the path where they had just walked was loosened to such a degree that it could tumble at any moment.

 

 Below them, Mildred had come to a halt. She knew that every bone and muscle in her body ached, but at the same time that nothing was badly damaged. She had been lucky, but this luck was holding only by a tenuous thread.

 

 The disturbance of the falling rocks had roused a flock of birds that nested in the dwarf elms on the summit of the hill. They rose, large and dark against the sky, with a deep cawing and croak of a call. Looking up, Ryan could count about twenty of them, and they didn't look friendly.

 

 Krysty had also observed them.

 

 "Somehow I don't think we'll find the Gate here, and I think I know why."

 

 "Me, too," the one-eyed man agreed. Glancing down quickly at where Mildred lay—conscious but dazed and unmoving—he added, "She's easy meat for them right now, if they want."

 

 It was a shrewd assessment of the situation. The birds—the like of which they had not previously seen in this seemingly peaceful area of the land—were obviously hostile, circling and forming to dive down on the companions below.

 

 "Ryan, would I be correct in assuming we must draw their fire in order to prevent the good Dr. Wyeth becoming a target?" Doc shouted across the gap in the hillside to his leader.

 

 "Got it in one, Doc. They're mean looking bastards, and Mildred's still out of action. We can get her after we've got rid of them. Wait till they swoop."

 

 The companions didn't have long to wait. With one circling motion up above, the flock turned and dived on the waiting companions as they stood on the hillside path. Ryan raised his Steyr, Jak had the .357 Magnum Colt Python ready, Dean raised his Browning Hi-Power and Krysty steadied her aim with the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Model 640. Doc raised the LeMat percussion pistol, deciding that the shot charge would do most harm, and he would use that first, while J.B. raised his Uzi, set to Rapid Fire, with which to sweep blasterfire across the flock.

 

 It was at that point, as they were about to begin, that Mildred began to move on the hillside below. She, too, could see the flock of birds above, and although she couldn't see her companions preparing to fire, she was well enough aware of the wildlife across the land to know that the birds were hostile—and she was vulnerable. She pulled her Czech-made ZKR target pistol from its holster, but was painfully aware of how slow her fall had made her. As she struggled to raise the pistol, all she did was make the flock aware of another—and relatively defenseless—piece of prey.

 

 As the flock descended, some of the birds suddenly veered away from the main group and began to dive toward Mildred, who was still slowed by her injuries and was only just drawing the ZKR.

 

 "Dark night!" the Armorer cursed, seeing them break away. He changed the angle of his Uzi, so that he could fire into the group of birds as it passed him. As the birds drew level with the path on which he stood, he squeezed gently on the trigger, pressuring until the machine blaster kicked with the white heat of rapid fire, spraying almost molten death into the middle of the birds. He moved the Uzi side to side, trying to take them all out in one blast.

 

 He was almost successful. Most of the birds were ripped apart in midflight, their calls harsh among the chatter of the machine blaster as their chilling rattled in their throats. A rain of feather, blood and flesh fell upon the side of the hill, splattering the rocks and earth and covering Mildred in their stench.

 

 But not all the birds were dead. Two of them had managed to avoid being chilled by the expedient of being on the far side of the group, and so protected from the majority of the Uzi fire, which embedded itself in the rest of the birds. And as the two homed in on the struggling Mildred, she had a chance to see how big they were. Looking like eagles, they had bodies the size of an average dog, and a wingspan that kept them flying far enough apart for her to have to adjust her aim rapidly if she were to take out both of them.

 

 Something she didn't feel possible as all her muscles protested. She took aim at one of the birds, and the shell from her ZKR flew straight into the creature's head, blurring it into a spray of blood, feather and bone. The lifeless corpse kept coming, and hit the ground near her with a sickening thud. She tried to readjust her aim, but her injured arm failed to respond.

 

 The bird had to surely land on her, beak and talons tearing at her weakened and unprotected body.

 

 And then the bird changed trajectory, veering sideways to hit the ground near her, a trail of blood and intestine pouring from the hole ripped in its side. Looking up, she saw Doc staring down, the LeMat aimed in her direction, the ball charge having taken out the danger.

 

 Doc's previous shot, spreading grape shot charge among the flock that had headed for the path, had done much damage. Judicious shooting from the others had chilled individual birds, leaving only the falling corpses to endanger them.

 

 J.B. looked across to Doc.

 

 "Damn fine shot," he said thankfully.

 

 Doc grinned. "One endeavors to do one's best, my dear John Barrymore. Now, shall we try to rescue poor Dr. Wyeth?"

 

 AFTER THEY HAD PICKED their way down the hillside and collected Mildred, Ryan decided that they would travel around the bottom of the hill until they reached the far side. It was obvious that the Gate would not have set up camp where there was such a predatory flock—at least, not without neutralizing the danger. It wasn't worth risking another earth slide like the one that had nearly chilled Mildred, who was bruised and aching, but otherwise unharmed. It took her the best part of a day to get back to speed, and so their progress was slow, but at least she was alive, and without any major injuries.

 

 It took the best part of the following day for the companions to get beyond the shadow of the hill, and they had just entered a patch of wooded land when Krysty stopped them.

 

 "What is it?" Ryan asked, but the question was unnecessary, as one look at her hair, curling protectively around her head and neck, told him all he needed to know.

 

 "I'm not certain exactly what, but there's a need to be wary here," she said slowly.

 

 Ryan nodded. "Okay. Blasters ready, triple red. We'll stay in formation, but keep it tight and real frosty."

 

 The words were unnecessary. The companions knew that Krysty's mutie sense acted as an early warning, and whatever was ahead of them, they would be ready…or so they thought.

 

 The trees were more of the dwarf elms, and what they lacked in height they made up for in the density of their cluster. The roots were aboveground, making the floor of the wood uneven, and a trap for less than cautious feet to catch and break among the rock hard wood. There was no direct path, only an uneven trail that wound through the trees. The light was poor as the overhead canopy of leaves was thick, and cut out most of the light from the sun. They were groping their way through in this semidarkness, and were listening intently for any other sign of activity.

 

 Jak suddenly stopped. "Others," he hissed, "coming from left, right—mebbe six, seven—and quick!"

 

 Ryan strained his ears and stared hard into the gloom. It was almost impossible to see or hear anything, except…

 

 "Fireblast! They're almost on us," he yelled, raising his SIG-Sauer.

 

 "Where the hell are they?" Mildred shouted. "I can't—"

 

 She was cut short as a slender figure dropped from the trees above and onto her shoulders with a bloodcurdling and deafening scream. It was the cue for other warriors to drop from above. Their opponents had managed to travel through the branches of the trees without disturbing the foliage enough to be visible to any except those with Jak's highly developed senses.

 

 The albino had looked up as his enemy had fallen, and had palmed a knife with which he now engaged his opponent in combat. Falling with her—for he could see it was a woman—he pulled her to him and then used the momentum to part them, turning to come to his feet before her with the knife held in the palm of his hand, blade outward. She did likewise, and it was only when they were in such close proximity, and easily visible, that their mutual identities became apparent.

 

 "Tammy!" the albino exclaimed with shocked surprise.

 

 "Jak! Shit, who else could it be but you who'd nearly get the better of me with a blade!" the Gate warrior exclaimed, a smile of surprise cracking her face.

 

 At the sound of this exchange, the fighting came to a surprised halt, as Gate warriors recognized those they had attacked, and the companions pulled back from their sudden line of defense. Warrior faced warrior, glad that combat had not proceeded further.

 

 "Well, well, by The Three Kennedys," Doc said wryly. "We were just saying how nice it would be to bump into you once again."

 

  

 

 Chapter Five

 

  

 

 Astonishment on the part of the Gate sec party was matched only by relief from the companions. They had found their quarry after several days where it seemed as though they were wandering without aim. For the Gate, however, there was none of this relief, only joy.

 

 "Just you wait until we get you back to camp," Tammy said excitedly. "They won't believe it… especially Gloria," she added, with a glance at Jak.

 

 "Then let's get moving," Ryan agreed. "Mildred got caught in a landslide, and she needs as much rest as possible."

 

 "Hell, it ain't that bad, Ryan," Mildred protested, but as she flexed her still aching muscles and they, too, protested, she added, "Then again, maybe it's not such a bad idea."

 

 The two groups picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and Ryan and his people followed the Gate sec party as they began to weave a way through the dense woodland. They seemed to head toward the heart, where there would surely be little room for a tribe the size of the Gate to camp, particularly if they wanted to erect camouflage barriers like the ones they had used before the mat-trans jump.

 

 "By the goddess," Tammy said to Jak as they moved, almost gabbling in her excitement, "I thought we'd lost you guys forever. What the hell happened back there?"

 

 "Long story," Jak said simply. "Talk later."

 

 "Yeah, guess so. The main thing is that you're all here, right? And we can get those fuckers now."

 

 Even though Tammy and Jak were at the front of the sec party, the companions and the rest of the sec patrol were close enough to hear this exchange.

 

 "You mean the Illuminated Ones? You've seen them around here?" Ryan asked urgently.

 

 "Hell, yeah—more than that," Tammy replied. "But wait till we get back and celebrate your arrival. Gloria will tell you all."

 

 Ryan was about to press the matter, but was stayed by a hand from Doc. Panting a little from his exertions in keeping up with the fierce pace set by the Gate, he said, "I know you are impatient, friend Ryan. We all are. But you know that these women cannot be hurried."

 

 Ryan nodded. He knew that Doc was right, but all the same he felt a mounting sense of impatience as they continued their journey at a rapid pace.

 

 A journey that was over before any of the companions had a chance to realize it. Tammy let loose a whistling call, followed by a series of guttural whoops, and it seemed as though a bank of foliage opened up before them, revealing a clearing where the Gate had set up its camp. Although all their camouflage, most of their wags and a lot of the tents had been left behind—from both haste and necessity—during the flight after the Illuminated Ones, the armory had been intact, and the tribe had obviously used its trading opportunities and skills to acquire more tents and materials and construct another set of camouflage shields from the materials around them. Certainly, they had disguised their whereabouts as adequately as when the companions had first encountered them.

 

 As the sec party and the companions entered the camp, there was considerable interest. Obviously, they had been intercepted by a routine patrol that should have found nothing, and should not have returned this early. However, the interest soon turned to a buzz of excitement as Ryan and his people were recognized by the Gate members who could catch sight of them. They found themselves greeted by shouts and joy and disbelief, and it was almost impossible to return the greetings that started to flow. Dean, in particular, was looking out for Jon. For a second, he almost hoped that Pietor would be in among those greeting them, even though he could recall only too clearly the grief they had shared at the chilling of their friend. Suddenly Jon appeared from among the throng, the disbelief fighting for space with the sheer joy in his expression.

 

 "Dean! How the fuck—?"

 

 "Tell you later," Dean cried, "but it's good to see you again!"

 

 There was no time for any more words to be shared before he was swept on by the tide of the Gate people, now propelling the companions toward the tent where Gloria—the queen of the Gate—held court.

 

 "Wait till she sees you, man—she'll be so pleased, sweets," Tammy whispered to Jak, a big grin splitting her face.

 

 Jak's visage was as impassive as ever. It was rare for him to let pleasure or pain show on his face. But although he was about to encounter Gloria once more, it wasn't joy that rilled his heart, rather, it was dread.

 

 The nightmare of the mat-trans dream still haunted him, and a part of him was on triple red for the Gate queen to come from her tent and try to rip him to shreds, her body covered with the open sores of the pox.

 

 He stood, all activity around him tuned out, waiting for Gloria to emerge. It was as though the Gate, his compatriots, the camp, the woodland—indeed, the whole world—were blotted out, and there remained only himself, face-to-face with his destiny.

 

 The tent flap parted, and he could hear the husky, sweet tones that he knew so well.

 

 "What the fuck is all this stupidworks noise about? Has everyone gone plain stupe or—" Gloria emerged into the open, straightening and staring the companions full in the face. She stood silent for a moment, her mouth open in surprise. She was still the same Gloria: whip thin, muscles glistening under her tan, the cut-off denims and shirt showing much of her taut skin, her eyes liquid under that mane of flowing red hair… and not a blister, pockmark or sore anywhere on her body. Jak breathed a mental sigh of relief, and relaxed, the pleasure at seeing her again now flowing through him.

 

 Gloria broke the silence that had fallen over the tribe with a wild whoop.

 

 "Glory be to Gaia! I never thought we'd see you again—any of you, but especially you, babes," she added, throwing herself into Jak's arms and kissing him full-on, her tongue expressing things that words couldn't.

 

 A cheering broke out from the Gate, and Gloria stepped back. "This is truly a miracle! Now then, this we've just got to celebrate!"

 

 Ryan stepped forward. "Gloria, glad as we are to see you, we've been searching for you for a reason. We—"

 

 He was stopped by a raised hand from the Gate queen, who—despite being tiny next to the one-eyed warrior—had the authority to silence even Ryan Cawdor without question.

 

 "There is nothing so pressing that we can't party down when the need arises. Tomorrow we will talk of what we've done and where we've been and even of what we have to do, sweets. But right now, we chill out and celebrate. Remember, honey, chilling out can stop you being chilled."

 

 Ryan stared at her for a second, but as her face cracked into a grin, the one-eyed man found himself following suit.

 

 And so the celebrations began.

 

 ALTHOUGH THE CELEBRATION didn't end until first light, such was the restorative powers of the tribe that the companions found themselves roused shortly after noon, and while the rest of the tribe went about its business, Tammy and Jon joined their queen outside her tent in discovering what had happened to the companions after they had made the mat-trans jump. But first, Dean congratulated Jon on becoming the new Armorer of the Gate tribe. After Margia was chilled— albeit by her own stupidity—during the battle in the redoubt, it had been important for someone to take over the running and maintenance of the armory. As Jon had been Margia's assistant, it seemed an obvious choice for Gloria to make, even though a male had never before been awarded such status in the tribe. The young man was almost bashful as he was congratulated, and invited J.B. to check the armory later and give him any advice he had to offer.

 

 Getting to business, Ryan outlined to Gloria what happened to the companions since they had been parted by the mat-trans jump. He put forward the theory that the old comps had a fail-safe mechanism that changed the destinations of jumps, and told of how they had left the redoubt and traveled to Crossroads. He neglected to mention Jak's dream, and a glance at the albino confirmed that Jak, too, had been reticent to mention this to Gloria. Perhaps it was as well. At this stage it could be counterproductive.

 

 He did, however, talk at great length of the disease they had encountered in Crossroads, and how they felt it related to the Illuminated Ones and their sightings. Mildred and Doc told of the incidences of smallpox before it had been eradicated long before the nukecaust. They wanted to drive home just how devastating it could be, in case it was hard for the Gate to imagine.

 

 They shouldn't have worried. Gloria could quite plainly see the importance of such a disease spreading across the land.

 

 "None of us have been in the ville long enough to see such a thing," she began when Ryan had finished, "but it seems to me that the baron is some kind of a stupidworks fool who'd rather hide his head than face facts. If they're hiding it away, then it'll be the chilling of them. That's their choice, but not when it affects the rest of the people across the land.

 

 "I knew our paths would cross again," she continued, "as it's in our fate. As to your notion that the old tech would send us to different places from the Illuminated Ones, then it's either a wrongheaded notion, or that tech really is fucked by time…because we ended up following them right into the belly of their beast."

 

 The Gate queen paused before continuing. "I know that you'd warned us about traveling through the chambers, and how it could make you feel, but I don't think any of us were really prepared for that feeling of being torn up into tiny pieces and then flung through the air before being shoved back together by someone with a heaviness of hand. None of us was really ready to fight, and the fact that we had to get it together and face whatever was outside the chamber only made things harder.

 

 "But I guess that they were feeling the same way— or else they didn't expect us to follow them—as no one came to attack us when we were at our most vulnerable… for which I give thanks to the goddess.

 

 "We were soon ready, and we came out into a room like the one we had left. It was deserted except for a few of the Illuminated soldiers, and we were able to chill them real easy, as they were taken totally by surprise. I guess they were able to raise an alarm, 'cause a whole load of others were ready to meet us when we hit the corridors. Trouble was, they knew exactly where they were, and we didn't—shit, we had no way of knowing if that redoubt was the same design as the one we had left behind. And we were wondering where the hell you were! 'Cause we knew you'd jumped into the other chamber, and the second chamber where we'd landed was empty when we got the hell out, we kinda figured that you'd gotten chilled along the way, and that made us all madder than ever, I guess…

 

 "There were more of them than us, and they had those laser blasters, as well as normal ones, but fuck it. We were mad and ready to chill any fucker that got in our way, and you know that they might have the hardware but they ain't no good at firefighting, so we were able to drive them back and make some kind of dent on their numbers. We lost a couple, but a lot less than you'd expect when we were supposed to be the ones up against it.

 

 "We were making progress, but suddenly it changed. They pulled right back, and we were chasing them rather than fighting them. I guess it was a tactic to make us chase and run where the hell they wanted us. Not the first time they tried that, but this time we were so blood fired that we were blinded, and let them push us exactly where they wanted. They sealed off some corridors so that we were going exactly where they wanted. Then it happened.

 

 "Ahead of us, the corridor was sealed with a sec door, and as we went through, before we had a chance to double back they brought the door down on our tail. We were trapped in a section of corridor, and as we started to try and break out, they started soaking us with water, for Gaia's sake! Yet it wasn't like the trick they tried on us before, to soak us into submission. This was different. It wasn't water like ice, and it was too fine to really get in the way, so we were able to keep hammering at the door with battering rams, and trying to lever the door or blow the mechanism. We were too hemmed in to try any plas-ex or heavy duty blasters on the door, which was the fucker of it."

 

 While Gloria had been talking, J.B. had noticed a sudden expression of surprise and then rapt concentration come over Mildred's face when the queen had mentioned the fine mist that had been rained upon them; and he had also noticed Mildred glance at Doc, and the almost imperceptible nod that the old man had given in acknowledgment. Meanwhile, Gloria was finishing her story. "It seemed like we were there for hours, and then suddenly the sec door lifted and there was the outside world. We got the fuck out, away from the rain, as we were all soaked through and it was starting to finally have an effect. Oh, sweet goddess, it was good to see the outside world. There was no way they were going to let us back in, so we left to make camp and wait. Since then, we've done some trading, some hunting… but not the one thing we want to hunt—those Illuminated scum fuckers. Our people have heard stories of them coming out, too, but we haven't caught any of them yet…yet," she added venomously.

 

 "So you know where they are?" Ryan asked.

 

 Gloria looked at him as though the one-eyed man were a stupe child.

 

 "Of course we know, stupidworks," she said slowly, as though spelling it out. "Why d'you think we're here? It's because it's near to their redoubt. And I'll tell you as much as this, too—we're going to get back in there and chill those fuckers once and for all. For us—for the Gate—it's part of our destiny. We've come this far, and we're near the ultimate goal. There's no way they're gonna stop us. But now it seems that's there's even more of a reason. If we don't stop this disease, then there won't be any land worth our inheriting when our destiny is fulfilled. No riches have meaning without people to use them."

 

 "Glad you feel that way," Ryan commented.

 

 "Speaking of that," Mildred said carefully, "have you had any problems with the way you're all feeling?"

 

 Gloria eyed her suspiciously. "In what way d'you mean that?" she asked sharply.

 

 Mildred kept her gaze level with that of the Gate queen. "The mat-trans jumps can have a bad effect on the body. It isn't supposed to go through the stresses it does with each jump. Jak always suffers very badly, and most of your people have the same type of body build."

 

 Gloria considered this. "Some of the guys have got little blisters, and feel like they've got some kind of bug. You know, like a winter sickness or bad food. But that's it, really. None of the women felt anything."

 

 Mildred forced a smile. "That's good. We all need to be a hundred percent for this."

 

 "Too right, honey," Gloria replied, "and you need to rest a little more after that landslide. We should take a few days—recon the redoubt with both us and yourselves. That way we can really work out a strategy."

 

 "That sounds good. We should get that together as soon as possible. But first we should rest," Ryan said.

 

 Gloria agreed, and the companions were shown to a part of the camp that had been prepared for them. Ryan was relieved when Jon and Tammy left them alone, as he needed to question Mildred urgently, and did not wish them to overhear.

 

 But it was J.B. who spoke first, as Tammy and Jon moved out of earshot.

 

 "What is it, Millie? I saw you and Doc look at each other," he said in an undertone.

 

 Mildred shook her head, plaits gently shaking around her. "I can't be sure. It was when Gloria mentioned the Gate being trapped and then being soaked by such a gentle rain. It sounded to me like some use of a saturation technique—"

 

 "No, back up a little," Ryan interjected. "Run that one by me again."

 

 "It seems to me likely that the Illuminated Ones used the virus in a solution of water to soak it into the Gate, and try to spread it that way. There were too many of them to inject or infect individually, as they seemed to do with the baron's daughter. This way they hit the whole tribe in one go."

 

 "Except that it doesn't seem to have affected them," Krysty added. "But why, if that was what the Illuminated Ones intended, hasn't it worked?"

 

 "Perhaps they have some kind of immunity," Doc posited. "After all, I can remember when I was young that there were always cases of a disease spreading over a whole community, and yet some remained untouched."

 

 Mildred assented. "It's possible that the Gate has some kind of immunity built into their genetic code, and it's stronger in the women than the men. It sounds like some of the men have developed mild initial symptoms but no more."

 

 Ryan nodded slowly. "So you're saying that mebbe they have it, but it just doesn't affect them?" And when Mildred nodded, he added thoughtfully, "But it's still in them, so they can still give it to others, right?"

 

 "Yeah." Mildred sighed softly. "Which makes the Gate more deadly and dangerous."

 

 "And makes it more imperative that we get into the redoubt and find the cure," Ryan stated.

 

 Mildred agreed, adding, "That's if they actually bothered to cook one up. They seem so crazy they might just have forgotten to do that…"

 

 IT TOOK the companions no time at all to renew their ties with the Gate. Having rested, they renewed old friendships and fell into training with the warriors. J.B. inspected the armory, and was impressed with the work Jon had been doing. Jak sharpened his knife work with the Gate warriors, and Ryan talked tactics with Gloria. Krysty and Dean worked on their marksmanship while Mildred did some body work on rebuilding the muscles bruised in the landslide. Which just left Doc, who wandered around brooding about the past. The sudden reappearance of a disease, the like of which he had thought eradicated by the nukecaust, made him think about the life from which he had been dragged kicking and screaming by the horrors of Operation Chronos and the time trawl that had taken him from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, and then beyond to his present state.

 

 While the others were occupied, Doc grew more morose, and so was glad when the chance came to go out on a recon patrol with some of the Gate women. It would be the first chance any of the companions had to view the redoubt where the Illuminated Ones had their base, and Doc was determined to bring back a full report for the others.

 

 Apart from himself, there were three others in the patrol: a brown-skinned, haughty warrior named Dette, a blonde named Nita who was taller than her compatriots and stood out because of that and her mane of flowing blonde hair, and Cat, who was perpetually nervous and whose hair had been hacked back close to her head, which would have made her look like a boy if not for the obvious assets of womanhood she possessed.

 

 The patrol was to set out in the late afternoon, as the sun began to move down in the sky. That made Doc anxious.

 

 "Will we be able to reach our destination before the dusk makes it too hard to define the area?" he asked as the sec patrol left the camp, the camouflage screens moving back into place behind them.

 

 "Say what?" Nita asked with a frown.

 

 "He means will it be too dark before we get there," Cat explained, adding to Doc, "She's not the brightest of the bunch, you know what I'm saying here?"

 

 "Ah," Doc said simply, not wishing to offend anyone at this stage.

 

 "You saying I'm stupe?" Nita asked in a peeved tone.

 

 "I don't really have to say it, do I?" Cat replied.

 

 Dette turned on them, her large brown eyes flashing anger. "Will you two shut it? Why the fuck I get sent out with a pair of stupes like you I'll never know. Keep the noise down and let's just get moving, okay?"

 

 The brown-skinned warrior turned away without waiting for an answer. Doc cast an eye over all three of the Gate warriors, and wondered why he seemed to have been landed with the three women who seemed to be the most disagreeable of the tribe.

 

 Despite his doubts, the rest of the trip to the redoubt area was uneventful. After their initial spat, the three women worked together well, each one taking a turn to scout ahead for the rest of the party, reporting back so that they could move safely. In deference to Doc's comparative lack of agility, they traveled on the ground across the woodland, rather than using the treetops in the way the sec party had when the companions had been discovered. It made progress a little slower, as the territory had to be secured more assuredly, but there was still full daylight when they emerged at the edge of the woodland.

 

 "Here's where it gets tricky, my old bud," Cat said to Doc as they hit open land. "There's not a lot of cover, and we're only a mile or so from the entrance to the redoubt. So it's got to be triple red from here."

 

 Doc nodded slowly. "I appreciate that—and I do also appreciate that my comparative age and the fact that I am not one of your good selves does make things a trifle more complex than would be usual."

 

 Cat grinned. "You do like your own voice, don't you?"

 

 Doc shrugged and returned the smile.

 

 "Come on, then," she said, punching him playfully on the arm. "Let's get moving."

 

 The territory was sparsely covered, and if the Illuminated Ones had sec vids surveying the area, then the chances were that they would be spotted—especially with Doc in tow. However, Dette, always going on ahead, chose a route that maximized the potential of the cover, and they made it to the edge of the land without any apparent detection. From the brow on which they stood, the earth fell away into a small valley, much like the one that the companions had found themselves in when leaving their own redoubt some weeks before.

 

 "Down there, hidden into the side of the earth, that's where the entrance is," Nita explained.

 

 "I figure he could have worked that out himself," Cat prodded.

 

 The blonde looked at Cat with a fiery anger, and Doc feared that they were about to start a fight at the most inopportune time. However, a whispered imprecation from Dette halted them.

 

 "Shut it—movement."

 

 The four explorers stayed silent and watched as the sound of a sec door rising came from beneath them, followed by the low rumble of a wag, which then came into view.

 

 "Usual?" Doc whispered.

 

 " 'Bout every fourth time they're recced," Cat replied with a shake of her head.

 

 Doc kept his eyes fixed on the wag. It didn't go far—about five hundred yards before coming to a halt. The doors opened, and three Illuminated Ones left the interior. While one kept watch with a laser blaster, the other two proceeded to take samples of the air and the soil, marking the containers before getting back into the wag, the watcher taking point.

 

 The wag rolled off into the distance. The land was flat, and the light still good. The wag traveled in a straight line for about two miles, and was still visible when it halted again and the same procedure was repeated. Still the Gate patrol stayed silent and still, observing. The wag started up again and disappeared into the distance.

 

 Doc looked toward the women. Dette met his eye and shook her head. Doc assented his comprehension and settled down to wait.

 

 The dusk was falling as the wag returned to the redoubt. The Gate warriors waited until the doors had ground shut and into silence before moving.

 

 "That's the action for today," Cat said softly.

 

 "They probably won't break cover again for a few days."

 

 "But what the fuck are they doing?" Dette said, almost to herself.

 

 "Taking samples," Doc replied in a flat tone. "They wish to see how far their pernicious poison has spread. May we leave? They make me feel a little ill…"

 

 DOC'S REPORT on the activities of the Illuminated Ones gave both Ryan and Gloria pause for thought.

 

 "Those triple-sick bastards," the Gate queen spit. "We should go and blast the fuckers into infinity."

 

 "Yeah, I agree," Ryan said a little more calmly. "But we're so close, it would be a waste to blow it. Not after we've waited so long."

 

 "But sweetie, you were the one who was pressing me to fight," Gloria said, a little confused by what appeared to be a sudden change of mind.

 

 "And I still am," the one-eyed man assured her. "Thing is, that redoubt will be a bastard to get into, and just the act of busting in will give them time to get their defense ready. We need to hit them when they're on their way back from one of these missions. Hit them as they enter and the way is free. That way we can stream in and take them out before they have a chance to hit back."

 

 "I can see the sense in that," the queen replied. "But how the fuck do we get our forces in the right place at the right time without being spotted?"

 

 Ryan smiled. "That's why I want us to wait. We establish their routine, then fit in behind it and hit them when they're at their most vulnerable." Gloria returned the smile, her crooked grin lighting up her face, her vulpine teeth making her look like a predator about to spring.

 

 "Now, that, I like the sound of…"

 

 IT HAD BEEN A ROUTINE sec patrol. Ryan was accompanying Tammy and two other Gate warriors on a mission that took them close to the blacktop that ran in from the south toward Crossroads. It was the first time that the one-eyed man had been near the blacktop since leaving the ville, and he idly wondered what Baron Robertson thought of their disappearance. Then he remembered the speed with which the epidemic was spreading, and his face hardened.

 

 Soon…

 

 His train of thought was disturbed by the distant rumble of wags.

 

 "Convoy," he whispered.

 

 "Yeah," Tammy replied, gazing into the distance at the dust raised on the road by the wags. '"Bout four, I'd guess, two trade wags and a couple of sec, mebbe."

 

 Ryan nodded. "That'd be about right. Let's secure cover and watch them pass. Poor bastards must be on their way into Crossroads."

 

 The Gate party retreated from the blacktop and was hidden by scrub and stunted elms as the convoy drew level with their position.

 

 But as they became aware of another sound, coming from behind them: the drone of two wag engines, setting up an unholy harmony as they sped across the scrub toward the blacktop.

 

 "Illuminated wags," Tammy breathed. "What the fuck do they want?"

 

 "Mebbe… No, I don't know," Ryan said quietly. "They don't usually want to be seen."

 

 As he spoke, the Illuminated wags parted from the course they had followed, diverging so that one was headed for each end of the trade convoy.

 

 "They want to stop it," Tammy murmured. "Why would they want to, unless—?"

 

 "Unless they want to try and infect the men on the convoy," Ryan finished.

 

 As they watched, the two Illuminated wags adopted a pincer movement, moving around to cut off the blacktop to the front and rear of the convoy, the wag at the front assuming a position across the blacktop while the wag to the rear followed up to tighten the gap between the two. The trade convoy slowed to a halt, unable to drive off the road because the wags containing the trade materials were too big and clumsy to cope with the rough terrain and the ditches along the edge of the blacktop.

 

 The convoy came to rest. There was little ground between the sec wags at the front and rear of the convoy and the Illuminated wags that stood silent and menacing before and aft of them.

 

 "Shit, the tension is chilling," murmured Sandy, the dark haired woman who was squatting beside Tammy in the undergrowth.

 

 "Part of the plan," Ryan commented. "If it's chilling you, think how the sec on the convoy must feel." He could remember his own days riding shotgun for Trader, and yet it was this memory that enabled him to keep his cool. He could remember Trader telling him about ambushes such as this. The older man had said, "They say, 'Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.' I say, 'Don't shoot until you can shoot the whites out of their eyes."

 

 It was a maxim worth pondering. The convoy sec had nothing to aim at except an armored wag. They had no choice but to sit and wait.

 

 Not true. They had a choice. They could either sit tight, or they could do totally the wrong thing. Unfortunately for them, they chose to do the wrong thing.

 

 From the front and rear of the convoy, the sec men tumbled out of their wags, some rolling across the blacktop to the ditches at the sides, where they would provide covering fire for their comrades who followed, attempting to mount an attack on the Illuminated wags.

 

 "Fireblast!" Ryan swore. "The stupe bastards are walking right into it."

 

 In the semiexposed ditches, and on the blacktop, the sec men presented an easy target for the laser blasters of the Illuminated Ones. Coming from the back of their wags, and using the doors as cover, the Illuminated war party was able to pick off the convoy sec with a minimum of effort, the laser blasters slicing through clothing, skin, flesh and bone with a precision that the machine blasters of the convoy sec could not hope to match.

 

 "Fuck it, we've got to get in there and sort it out," Tammy cried as they witnessed the carnage. She began to move, but Ryan stayed her with a hand on her arm.

 

 The woman looked at him, and with the fire of battle on her eyes it seemed, for one moment, as though she may just lash out at him if he tried to stop her. On either side of him, Sandy and Stef—the other warriors who comprised this sec patrol—stiffened, as though ready to chill him and follow their leader.

 

 "Just say the word," Stef muttered in a deceptively gentle tone, her jet black hair falling into her eyes, her small bosom heaving as she kept her viciousness barely in check. "We'll take him and follow you down."

 

 "No." Tammy shook her head and relaxed. "Ryan's right."

 

 But it was difficult for the one-eyed man to even accept his own judgment as they watched what followed.

 

 With the convoy sec now wiped out, there was only the trader and the crew on the two trade wags to be dealt with. The wags offered little protection against the laser blasters, and the Illuminated Ones advanced on the wags with an air of confidence about them.

 

 "Oh, fuck, it'll be a massacre," Tammy breathed.

 

 "We can't interfere. We can't let the Illuminated Ones know we're in the area," Ryan reminded them.

 

 The trader and his crew spilled out of the two wags. They were prepared to go down fighting, as they came out with blasters blazing. But it was obvious to the Gate recon party that the trader and his crew were doomed.

 

 They caught one of the Illuminated Ones with their fire, the bizarrely clad and helmeted figure crumpling onto the blacktop. But there was only time for the one casualty. The laser blasters cut down the crew until there were only two left standing. Advancing quickly, choosing those two who wavered in directing their fire and so presented the least threat, the Illuminated Ones used the butts of their rifles to drive the two men into the ground.

 

 It seemed that the two convoy members were unconscious, but from their startled screams when one of the Illuminated attackers produced a syringe and injected them, they were obviously still conscious.

 

 "What are they doing?" Stef asked, perplexed.

 

 Ryan's face was grim. "They're infecting them. The bastards are giving them the disease, and then they'll set them free in the direction of Crossroads."

 

 The prophesy of the one-eyed man was proved correct as the two men were bundled into the front sec wagon, and the engine fired up. The Illuminated wag at the fore of the convoy drew back, and the two survivors—distrustful but not prepared to think about it until later—hared away from the scene of the massacre.

 

 As the convoy wag disappeared along the blacktop, the Illuminated Ones collected their fallen member and withdrew from the scene of carnage, leaving the chilled and their wags behind.

 

 "I feel like shit for doing nothing," Tammy whispered as the Illuminated wags returned from whence they came, almost passing the recon party in their cover.

 

 "I know," Ryan said simply. "But there was nothing we could do without blowing our chances of getting into the redoubt. I'll tell you this much, though— those scum fuckers aren't going to get away with this. No way are they going to spread that disease across the land."

 

  

 

 Chapter Six

 

  

 

 It was a dispirited recon party that returned to the Gate camp. Despite the anger that they felt at the Illuminated Ones, and even though all the members of the party knew that Ryan had been right to stay them from intervening, there was still an overriding sense of despair that they hadn't been able to prevent the massacre and, more importantly, were powerless to do anything about the infection of the two survivors.

 

 The outrunners of the party led the way while Ryan and Tammy proceeded at their rear. Thus, by the time that the one-eyed man and the Gate warrior had reached the camp, Gloria had already heard the bare bones of a report, and so was waiting for them to explain themselves.

 

 When they entered the camp, they were both aware of the change in atmosphere, and Tammy muttered to Ryan, "I reckon you were right, thinking about it, but Glo's gonna be steamin' at this, and you'll have to talk fast to calm her down."

 

 Ryan didn't speak, but acknowledged this with a brief nod. He could see the Gate queen coming toward them across the camp, and her flaming red hair seemed to be matched only by her temper.

 

 "What the fuck is going on, eh?" she said without preamble as she approached.

 

 "You've had a report, then?" Tammy spoke quietly, trying to communicate an air of calm to her queen.

 

 It wasn't working.

 

 "Too right, I've had a fucking report, lady, and I want to know why you let those triple-bastard scum spread the disease further. We could have that, missy—"

 

 "So you've been talking to Mildred," Ryan interjected as calmly as possible.

 

 Gloria assented. "That I have, sweetie, and it's a good thing I did, right? Because otherwise I wouldn't have known. You weren't going to tell me, were you, Ryan?"

 

 "But if you've been talking to Mildred, then you'll know that she thinks—"

 

 "I know what she thinks, but she could have told me that, as well. Mebbe we have got some kind of immunity, and mebbe that makes us just right for taking these bastards on." Her tone changed slightly, becoming less agitated as she continued. "Mebbe that's what our destiny is all about, and that's how we attain our goal. Did you not think of that, Ryan Cawdor?"

 

 "Yeah, I did," Ryan said firmly. He could see Gloria had the faraway look of a queen in her eyes, focusing on the destiny and legend of her tribe. He wanted to bring her back to the present, and reality. Adjusting his tone so that it was softer, he continued. "Gloria, if I had let Mildred tell you that she thought you'd been infected and proved immune, then you would have taken it as this omen, and wanted to take on the redoubt that very night. We can't do that. We have to find a way to get past their defense to make sure we hit them quick and hard, getting all the advantage we can out of surprise. They hold all the cards in there. Look at how they were able to force you out without even having the guts for a fight. Who's to say that they wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't have some kind of plan?"

 

 "Who's to say that they won't do that anyway?" Gloria replied. "Even if we get in, how do we insure that—?"

 

 "We can't," Ryan cut in brusquely. "I know that just like you. But we have to load the odds on our side as much as possible."

 

 "He's right," Tammy chipped in. "It's like weighted dice, right? And only we know about it. They don't—that means that we can hit them hard and where it really hurts. Y'know, I fucking hated leaving those poor bastards to die out there, but Ryan was right. Mebbe those scum fuckers don't know we're here, mebbe they do. They mebbe think we've moved on. But I tell you what, Glo—they sure as shit don't know that Ryan and his people are here. And that's where we've got a handful of aces when it comes to a firefight."

 

 The flame-haired Gate queen pursed her lips. She wasn't used to Tammy speaking to her in such a manner, and the very fact that her second in command was prepared to sound off in such a fashion made her stop and think.

 

 "Look, mebbe you're right," she said grudgingly, "but if what these bastards want is to wipe out the whole population and then come up and take over whatever the fuck is left, then we've got to stamp them out as soon as possible. Otherwise it'll be too late."

 

 "It'll be too late if we can't get our hands on an antidote that we can spread around in the same way."

 

 Ryan pointed out. "Mildred seems to have told you everything else, so surely she's made that point."

 

 Gloria was silent for a moment, before saying, "Mebbe you're right. I just hate the fact that you had to let them do that today."

 

 "So did I," Ryan said flatly, trying to keep his own boiling emotions out of his voice. "But it had to be that way. For the long haul."

 

 THE VERY SAME AFTERNOON gave the one-eyed man, Tammy and the rest of the recon party a chance to vent their feelings and exorcise their self loathing for the events of the morning. Knowing that, even though they were still on recon status, an eventual confrontation with the Illuminated Ones was only a day or two away, Gloria had told her people that they would concentrate on sharpening up their hand-to-hand combat skills, as not only could these prove useful but they would also tighten reflexes for firefighting.

 

 While the usual sec parties patrolled around the camp, everyone else within split into groups. Jak and Doc found themselves up against a group that included Cat and Nita, while Dette found herself with Dean and Mildred. J.B. and Ryan were grouped with Tammy and Gloria, which Ryan felt was the queen giving herself a chance to even a score and work out her temper, while Krysty found herself in a group that included Jon.

 

 The red-haired beauty was first into practice, against Jon, and found herself momentarily distracted as she realized that he was the only male Gate member to be taking part in such training.

 

 It was a slip that she regretted when he took advantage of her distraction to get her in a headlock and then flip her so that she was over his knee in a back-breaker.

 

 Realizing that such distraction had cost her face— and that it proved she was rusty and needed to get her reflexes back to their usual highly tuned level—she dug into the soft ground with the heels of her silver-tipped Western boots and flexed her fingers, reaching for a handhold in the earth behind her head. Her back was now beginning to protest at the strain the hold had put her under, but she replied to this by tautening and tensing her frame so that her spine formed an arc that spread the tension throughout her body and used it as a springboard for her own move.

 

 With a cry that was partly exertion and partly exultation, she tightened her calf and thigh muscles and flipped herself over, the sheer force and sudden explosive violence of the move loosening Jon's grip and throwing him backward. The young man sprawled back on the earth, and Krysty came out of her back flip to throw herself forward, pinning him to the earth.

 

 She was breathing hard, and he could feel her breath on his face. In turn, she could see into his eyes at the fear and wonderment at the strength of the move.

 

 "That wasn't bad," Krysty said, letting him go slowly. "But I reckon you've got a lot to learn."

 

 "Too right," Jon agreed. "Men don't usually get a chance at combat, so I'm way behind…but mebbe you could teach me?"

 

 Krysty smiled at him. "You're not so bad. We can work something out."

 

 In the other groups, Ryan and J.B. were finding Tammy and Gloria tough going. It was no surprise to them that out of their group, the Gate queen and her number two had chosen to take on the one-eyed man and the Armorer, as they represented the resentment that both felt about their lack of action during the morning.

 

 J.B. took on Tammy, and it was like wrestling with a greased stickie. Every time he felt that he had a hold on her, she wriggled out of his grasp, leaving him clutching at air. Her own attacks were on the counter, when he was just marginally off balance, and they were swift, jabbing blows that battered his ribs and kidneys. If he wasn't careful, she would cause him some damage before they even had a chance to go into battle against the real enemy. So he had to end it here. As she moved in on the counter for one more jab, the Armorer allowed himself to receive the blow, moving with it to absorb the pressure, ignoring the pain. Instead, it allowed her to overjab, her arm moving across his body and letting him grab at wrist and elbow. He took hold firmly, his fingers biting so hard into her sinewy flesh that the blood ceased to flow. Her elbow came down on his knee, and he pulled the blow at the last moment, so that instead of snapping the joint, it merely paralyzed it. With this out of action, it was easier to go for the knee on the same side, her balance disturbed by the useless arm. Kicking and catching her behind the knee, J.B. brought her to the ground, and took her free arm in an armlock.

 

 "And I'm not letting you go until you calm down," he muttered in her ear.

 

 Which was something that the one-eyed man needed to say to Gloria, as the queen came at him with a speed and ferocity that had him permanently on the backfoot. She was smaller, but compensated for that with her incredible speed, and he found himself parrying blows from her forearms and feet that left him no time to attack himself. She had a point to prove to herself, and aggression to work out, and Ryan was her punching bag.

 

 Stepping back all the time, Ryan found himself moving out of the circle of combat and knew that he had to fight back quickly.

 

 A half chance came when Gloria attempted a flying kick at his head. For the fraction of a second that she was airborne, he had time to do more than just parry. The one-eyed man stepped around the blow and used her momentum against her when he brought his arm up underneath her leg, flipping it up and causing her to turn in flight, so that her landing was awkward. It was hard for her to keep her balance, and in that extra moment of time, Ryan landed a kick to her chest that threw her backward and followed this by landing on top of her and pinning all her limbs beneath his, using his weight advantage to keep her on the ground.

 

 There was hatred and fire blazing in her eyes as she struggled.

 

 "Fireblast! For fuck's sake, Gloria, it's me!" he implored.

 

 The blood lust faded in her eyes as she realized where she was and whom she was fighting.

 

 "Shit, I'm sorry Ryan," she husked softly. "I just—"

 

 "I know," he said simply. "I want them, too."

 

 But the hand-to-hand didn't prove so good for some of the others. Although Dean felt fine after his bout— indeed, the young Cawdor had used his combat to sharpen himself—Doc, Jak and Mildred weren't so happy.

 

 "I know that I am older, and therefore somewhat more prone to aches and pains than the rest of you, but I must confess that even without the bounds of such, I feel like a three-week chilled stickie," Doc said as he settled himself on the ground.

 

 "Don't feel so good myself," Mildred said. "I took a hell of a beating out there. I just couldn't get it together. What's wrong with you, Doc?"

 

 The old man winced. "I have a terrible burning in my kidneys, as though I were to micturate acid. And along my chest bone is tender, although I cannot recall taking any punishment in that area."

 

 "Doesn't sound so good, Doc," Mildred commented. "I don't like the sound of that at all." She looked from under her plaits at Doc, who gave her the briefest of nods.

 

 "I know. I was thinking much the same thing," Doc said, keeping his tone level. "And your symptoms are…?"

 

 "I feel like I've got flu coming on very rapidly. In fact, a little too rapidly for my liking. I ache all over, feel hot, and my reactions are foggy, to say the least."

 

 "You know what this may mean?" Doc asked, although he knew it was a rhetorical request.

 

 Mildred nodded grimly. It was then that she noticed Jak, who was hugging himself. "Jak?" she asked, having to repeat herself in a louder voice when the albino failed to respond first time. When he looked up, she asked, "What's the matter? You feeling okay?"

 

 Jak shook his head, and the very act made him grimace. "Feel like shit. Don't know how got through that. Mebbe you should take look," he said, moving toward her.

 

 Jak stripped off his jacket and shirt, revealing his highly muscled and slender white torso.

 

 "Oh, shit…" Mildred whispered as she looked at him. Contusions and weals topped with small blisters were starting to sprout on his body. The chron was ticking faster.

 

 THE KNOWLEDGE THAT his people had started to contract the disease meant that Ryan felt more impatient than before for something to happen—but was also more determined to get his timing exactly right. It wasn't just the life of his friends that was at stake, or his, for if they had begun to contract the disease, it was surely only a matter of time before the rest of his party, and indeed himself, also fell prey to the disease. More than that, it was the future that they, or anyone else across the land, might have that was finely in the balance. When he had reported the beginnings of the pox among the companions to Gloria, she, too, had been keen to spring into action.

 

 "Ryan, honey, we can't just leave it. Not when you're in danger…not when Jak's in danger."

 

 The albino had accompanied Ryan, for the reason that the one-eyed man had foreseen that the Gate queen would have trouble separating her own feelings from a general view of the situation. As she spoke, he stepped forward and took her hand. Her fiery, flashing eyes met with his red yet cold orbs.

 

 "You, me…we not important," Jak said to her in a soft, gentle tone that Ryan had never heard him use before. "Bigger things think about. Need get this right, not rush and fall."

 

 The queen paused for a moment before answering.

 

 "You're right. I thought I'd lost you once before, so I guess I can grit my teeth and get past this one."

 

 But once again, fate was to step into the breach quicker than any of them could have hoped. For the very next morning, the regular recon patrol brought news to the queen as she breakfasted with Tammy and the companions.

 

 "Two wags from the redoubt have left," Dette said breathlessly and without preamble as she approached them. "Headed toward Crossroads and not stopping like before."

 

 "Any convoys leaving or entering?" the queen asked.

 

 Dette shook her head. "Nothing planning to leave that we know of, and nothing seen in the other direction."

 

 "Looks like they may be going to hit the ville like they did that convoy," Tammy said, cold fury etched in her face and her tone.

 

 "Could be," Ryan agreed, "but we need to be triple sure. Anyone following?"

 

 Dette nodded. "Cat and Nita. They may be triple stupe, but even they can't fuck this one up. As soon as they reach their destination, one of them will come."

 

 "What if it's not Crossroads?" Krysty asked.

 

 "Then I told them to follow for an hour and report back on the wag's direction. Leave it to them and they'd follow the fuckers forever and forget where they were going. If they turn off and head past the ville, an hour puts them well out of our range anyway, and they'd probably come back the same way."

 

 Gloria grinned crookedly. "I'm gonna have to watch you, lady. You're too damn full of the smarts. In the meantime, we'd better get our shit together, 'cause it looks like we're going out to play today."

 

 Ryan nodded. "You need any help?"

 

 "If you can spare J.B., then I reckon Jon'd appreciate some help," Dean chipped in. "He's been working on those laser blasters, and he showed me the other day what he's been doing. He took one to pieces and studied it to see how they worked, so they could be used and maintained. But I figure he'd like you to give it a quick once over."

 

 J.B. agreed. "Glad to. The boy's a natural, though, so I'll soon be back." With which the Armorer immediately departed, galvanized to his task.

 

 While Gloria and Tammy raised their warriors, Ryan turned to his companions.

 

 "So how are we doing, people?" he asked. "J.B. and me are okay, and so are Dean and Krysty—" he looked to them to check, and they affirmed this "—but it's you three I'm concerned about. How are you gonna be in a firefight?"

 

 "Slow," Mildred said wryly. "But you think any of us are going to miss this?"

 

 "No," Ryan said slowly, "but I want to know how we're going to handle this. If—"

 

 But he was cut short by the arrival of Cat at the camp. She ran straight to Gloria and gasped out her message before the queen turned and approached the companions.

 

 "It's settled. The scum fuckers are attacking Crossroads. We can't just let that happen. Those are good people—and shit fighters."

 

 Ryan shook his head. "They were good to us, too. But more than that, if there are two wags, then this may just be the break we've been looking for."

 

 "How?" the queen asked.

 

 Ryan smiled mirthlessly. He spoke in a murmur, but with a chilling passion: "Just wait and see."

 

 GLORIA RALLIED the Gate warriors, who formed up for the journey to Crossroads, the companions joining them. Tammy recruited scouting parties to travel ahead and scout the ville to plot the movements of the Illuminated wags.

 

 Although the companions had taken several days to find the Gate, the camp was situated so that the tribe was able to make the journey in only a few hours. They were able to use routes and homing instincts that gave them an unerring sense of direction where other groups would falter.

 

 To make the journey even quicker, the Gate used their horses and wags, the men working hard to dismantle the camp and have it ready to move while Jon worked out of the armory wag, making sure that the women were ready for the firefight ahead. He handed out laser blasters among the conventional blasters and ammo.

 

 J.B. joined him as Tammy received her weapon. She was favoring a Smith & Wesson Airlite .38 Special, and noticed the Armorer look at her askance.

 

 "I know, I know," she said, "The last time you saw me with one of these, I nearly chilled Jak with a stray shot. But that was when Margia had tampered with the stock to make it kick sideward. It's a good blaster, really."

 

 "And there's no chance of me trying to chill Jak," Jon added.

 

 J.B. allowed himself a small smile and nodded. "How are you handing out the laser blasters?"

 

 "Some of the women have been using them for a little while, getting used to the way they feel and fire. It's kinda weird at first, but after you've used them for a while…the only problem I've had is working out how long the charges last, 'cause one hasn't run out yet to give me some kind of indication."

 

 "Problem is, even if it did, you wouldn't know how long it had been in use before it was taken by your people," J.B. pointed out.

 

 Jon agreed, adding. "I've made sure all those with the laser blasters have others weapons, as well, just to make sure. Anyway, you can't use those damn things safely in a confined space."

 

 "Too true." The Armorer nodded. "Need a hand?"

 

 Jon grinned. "Yeah, sooner we get these handed out, sooner we can go, and no blasters are leaving this wag unless they're checked."

 

 "Good man," J.B. said, joining Jon at his task.

 

 By now, Tammy and her scout parties had departed on horseback, leaving the packhorse to be loaded and reined, and the now-equipped Gate warriors to mount the wags ready to depart.

 

 "I hope Nita doesn't get spotted or get herself chilled before Tammy gets there," Gloria said to Jak.

 

 "Why should she?" the albino asked as he checked his blaster.

 

 The queen looked up from her own blaster, the lightweight Vortak Precision Pistol, and fixed the albino with a stare.

 

 "You are kidding, man," she said. "You've seen her—big, blond, all arms and legs and shit clumsy. I swear someone must have left her outside the camp one night, 'cause she don't fit with the rest of us."

 

 Jak laughed, a rare thing. Gloria felt her spirits rise at seeing her lover laugh, as she was acutely conscious that under his camou jacket, more weals and blisters were starting to rise.

 

 Which made speed of the essence.

 

 Ryan was waiting for Gloria on the lead wag as the queen finished her final round of the wags, sparing a few words for each of the groups of warriors, and indicated to her that they should leave. She assented as she mounted the wag, and the convoy took off for the ville of Crossroads.

 

 Traveling in wags spread across the convoy, each of the companions marveled at the manner in which the men driving the wags were able to pilot them through the narrowest of channels in the woodlands, and scout around the hill where the landslide had taken place. A journey that had taken them days on foot was shaved to a few hours by the extra speed of the horse-drawn wags and the innate sense of direction of the tribe's men.

 

 Mildred was on a wag about halfway down the procession, as far as she could tell. Doc was with her, while Dean and Jak were traveling ahead. J.B. was on the armory wag with Jon. Krysty wasn't traveling with the wags. She had joined Tammy in the advanced recon party that had gone ahead on horseback.

 

 "Tell me, Doctor," Doc began suddenly, breaking into Mildred's reverie, "do you honestly think that we have a chance?"

 

 "Of stopping the Illuminated Ones or saving ourselves?" Mildred countered.

 

 Doc shrugged. "Either, or, neither, nor…"

 

 "I don't know," Mildred said after some thought. "I reckon we can whip their asses, frankly, but I really couldn't call it over whether we survive."

 

 Doc nodded, almost to himself. "I would have said the same. I just hope that, at the very least, we can be in at the kill…as it were."

 

 In an attempt to make this deadline, the recon party had now reached the edge of the ville, where Nita came to meet them.

 

 "What's happening?" Tammy asked without preamble.

 

 The tall blonde looked at the small warrior and shrugged. "A lot of nothing, by the looks of it."

 

 "You fuck-wit, don't talk in riddles, just say it," Dette screamed at the blonde from another horse.

 

 "Look, get off my back—" Nita began before Tammy cut in.

 

 "Shut it, both of you. Save that shit for if we ever get time." The Gate number two raised an eyebrow toward Krysty that spoke volumes, before continuing, "Now tell me what's happening in the ville, and keep it brief."

 

 Nita nodded slowly, taking a second to compose herself before beginning. "Okay, well, the sec posts have either been deserted or wiped out this end, as the wags just swept in. I dunno about the other three roads. But the wags are in the center of the ville, down the main drag. They're just sitting there at the moment, picking off the enemy and soaking up the Crossroads fire."

 

 "What about the ville sec and the inhabitants?" Krysty asked.

 

 "Far as I could tell from where I was, they've just all grouped together along each side of the drag and are trying to blast the wags without realizing that they can't hurt them."

 

 Tammy thought about this for a moment, looked up at the position of the sun, then turned to the others.

 

 "Okay," she began, "by the time that the main party gets here we'll have a couple of hours of sun left before nightfall. They shouldn't be that long, but I want a full report ready for Gloria. We need to know the full situation for all the sec posts around the ville, so we'll split into four and take each point of the compass. Report back here soon as can." She then divided the recon party into pairs to take each sec post position on the four blacktops before adding, "Nita, saddle up with Dette…and you put up with it and keep your mouth shut, lady."

 

 She turned to Krysty. "That should keep those two quiet. Now let's do it."

 

 The recon party split and headed at a gallop for the sec posts that were situated at the edge of the ville on each of the four blacktop roads. Leading by example, Tammy headed for the farthest, whipping her horse into a gallop, closely followed by Krysty. At the point where they had met Nita on the road, they were about half a mile from the sec post on that particular blacktop road, and so traveled around the ville at a half mile radius to the sec posts at each point in and out. It gave them a degree of safety lest anyone be manning those posts, but made the journey longer. It also made it hard to tell what was happening in the ville, the distant sounds of blasterfire that drifted across the empty arable pasture being drowned out by the sound of the horses' hooves.

 

 Krysty felt her hair blow free, billowing out behind her as the horse galloped toward the sec post. The very fact that her hair was so free flowing at this point suggested to her that they would find no one present at the post, and nothing to suggest any danger about to befall them.

 

 "It's over there," she shouted toward Tammy, pointing across the empty fields toward a clump of vegetation where the signs of a sec post were clearly visible. The fact that the camouflage was so poorly disguised at this stage suggested that it was deserted. Nonetheless, both women slowed their horses and drew their blasters, ready for any eventuality as they approached.

 

 But the post was deserted. There were no chilled sec men, nor was there any sign of a firefight. But the deserted post did look as though it had been vacated in a hurry, and a single tire track, suggestive of a motorbike, led away toward the ville.

 

 "Looks like someone came for them in a hurry," Tammy commented.

 

 Krysty agreed. "I figure they wanted all hands— and all blasters—back on that main drag as soon as possible. Let's hope they've done that on all the posts."

 

 "Yeah," Tammy agreed, "it makes it a lot easier for us if they're all in the one place—provided we can actually get something done before they run out of ammo, or get themselves all chilled."

 

 Krysty assented. "I'll second that. Let's get back there and find out."

 

 With which they turned their horses and headed back toward the point where they had agreed to rendezvous. When they came in sight, they could see that the other recon pairs had returned from their nearer targets, and were waiting for Tammy and Krysty to reach them. Looking toward the distant hill, Krysty could see the Gate convoy approaching.

 

 "Listen up," Tammy said as she drew near to the others, pulling up her horse. "Our sec post was empty, and it looks like they were pulled back rather than getting into a firefight and retreating. No chilled, either. Reports?"

 

 The other pairs relayed that they had found a similar situation on all the posts bar the one that lay on the road immediately before them. There, three of the four sec that regularly manned the posts were chilled, with no sign of the fourth, who may have managed to retreat and warn the ville of the approaching danger.

 

 "Okay, so we're clear on all points, and all our action is concentrated down that main drag," Tammy said in summary. "Guess Gloria and Ryan will have a few ideas about that."

 

 Krysty, without pondering the matter or speaking up, was sure that Ryan already had a germ of a plan in his mind. And she suspected that she knew what it might be.

 

 The first of the convoy wags rolled up, with Ryan and Gloria dismounting before the horses had even come to a halt. The Gate queen demanded a report of Tammy, who gave it concisely. Gloria then turned to Ryan.

 

 "That's how it stands, then. Two sides of Crossroads, with the scum fuckers in the middle, waiting for them to run out of ammo. Any ideas on how to stop the wags?"

 

 "Yeah," the one-eyed man replied with a grin on his face. "We play this right, and we can help out Robertson and his shit useless sec, as well as getting ourselves a way to get into the redoubt."

 

 Gloria raised an eyebrow. "This had better be good, Ryan."

 

 "It is," he replied, "but we really need to get our shit together and quick. Gather everyone around."

 

 And when the warriors had dismounted and were gathered, Ryan outlined his plan.

 

 Gloria laughed. "If we don't get ourselves chilled first, it might just work."

 

 "It'll have to," Ryan answered, '"cause if it doesn't, we're gonna run right out of time."

 

 THE GATE CONVOY SPLIT into two sections, with the mounted recon party riding beside them. They were well briefed on what they needed to do to get into position, and from there they would be able to communicate on some manner. But first they had to attain that position. Heading off in opposing directions, the split convoy headed out to the blacktop roads that ran at right angles to the one on which they had stood. To travel out and then loop in past the empty sec posts, they would approach the ville from either side of the main drag, and arrive at the rear of the bars and gaudies that lined the street and from which the Crossroads dwellers were mounting their defense.

 

 They knew for a fact that the Illuminated wags had approached alone, and that there were no scouts to let them know of reinforcements approaching. So their only danger lay in an overzealous defense from any Crossroads sec that may be guarding the backs of the bars and gaudy houses.

 

 The wag with Ryan and Gloria headed one way, accompanied by the wag that included Mildred and Doc. Dean, Jak and J.B.—still on the armory wag with Jon—headed for the other side of the main drag, with their sec outriders including Tammy and Krysty.

 

 There was little chance for any immediate communication as the wags and horses ate up the distance between their original arc of travel and the outskirts of the ville. As they entered the ville itself, it was like a ghost town. The plowed fields and the residential dwellings were deserted, and it was only as they approached the main drag that the sounds of activity began to assert themselves.

 

 As they passed the hospital, Mildred thought of Hector, and wondered how he had been coping, and if he had succumbed to the disease himself. Come to that, was he even there now, or was he with the others trying to protect their ville.

 

 "Couldn't cover a fart with a tin can," J.B. commented to Jon, unconsciously echoing Mildred's thoughts as the armory wag approached the rear entrances to the main drag.

 

 On the opposite side, Ryan felt the same. "They've left the rear totally exposed. If we'd wanted, we could have come and mopped them up before they even knew it."

 

 "Shit, they really do need our help," Gloria commented.

 

 At the last, a token defense was offered. A few desultory shots rang from the rear of some of the bars as those inside realized that they were being approached from the rear. But the blasterfire was so spare and inaccurate that the convoys were able to take cover with ease, and incur no casualties.

 

 "Stop firing, you stupe bastards," Ryan yelled from cover. "We've come to help you, dammit!"

 

 "Ryan? That you?" Yardie waddled from the rear of one of the buildings and came over to where the one-eyed warrior and Gloria were sheltering. His expression as he saw the Gate queen would have been worth a laugh under different circumstances. "Where the fuck did you all come from?" he asked in a small voice.

 

 "No time to explain," Ryan replied briefly.

 

 "There's more of us on the other side. Listen, we have some weapons that may disable those bastards, but we'll need your help to make it work."

 

 ON THE FAR SIDE, J.B. was outlining the same plan to Robertson, the baron leading his people by example.

 

 "But I don't understand why you want to try and take one of the wags," the baron said, confused. "Shit, with those blasters like theirs, surely you can just whomp shit out of them."

 

 J.B. shook his head. "Not that easy. For one, we can only fire at the unprotected parts of the wags. The lasers'll just whizz off the rest of the wag like any normal shell. You think they wouldn't protect their own wags against weapons like theirs? And for two, we need to take one of the wags so we can carry out the next part of Ryan's plan."

 

 "That's what I don't get," the baron began, but the Armorer cut him short.

 

 "Doesn't matter right now. If we don't get this bit right, then there won't be the next bit. Are you with us?"

 

 Robertson nodded. "Like we have a choice?"

 

 YARDIE HADN'T even bothered to argue with Ryan's plan, and the Gate warriors and companions were in the middle of spreading themselves along the bars and gaudies, using the back entrances to slip in and explain the plan of action to the defenders while adopting offensive positions.

 

 "Think the others are in position?" Gloria asked Ryan as they watched the Illuminated wags sit malevolently in the street outside.

 

 "Should be," Ryan answered. "Let's find out."

 

 The one-eyed warrior slipped out the back way to the bar, and ran to the end of the drag. There, beyond where the wags sat, was an alleyway. He arrived and looked at the alleyway opposite.

 

 It was empty.

 

 "Shit," he muttered, and settled to wait. Within a few minutes, J.B. arrived in the empty alleyway. He signaled to Ryan that everything was set. The one-eyed man pointed to his wrist chron and held up five fingers.

 

 The Armorer nodded, then disappeared. Ryan watched him go, then ran back toward his own post, poking his head into each back door and yelling the countdown to those within, knowing that J.B. would be doing the same. All the while, he noticed that the constant stream of blasterfire from both sides of the main drag was answered only by intermittent laser fire that took chunks out of walls, but wasn't directed to chill.

 

 Mebbe they want to run us dry and then take us out to use for the disease, he thought. He shuddered, all the more determined to beat the Illuminated Ones.

 

 He reached the last of the bars and gaudies. The task accomplished, he returned to his post next to the Gate queen.

 

 "Okay?" she asked.

 

 "All set." He checked his wrist chron. "We go in three and a half minutes…"

 

  

 

 Chapter Seven

 

  

 

 "Now," Ryan Cawdor said under his breath as his wrist chron clocked up the fifth minute. Along the main drag, the firing from the bars and gaudies ceased, a sudden silence reigning along the road.

 

 He counted under his breath, giving his wrist chron the barest of glances as he watched the two Illuminated wags sit in the middle of the street, dark and oppressive in their silence. By his reckoning, the longer the ceasefire continued, the more jumpy the fighters inside the wags would be getting—and the more likely to make mistakes. From past experience, he knew that the Illuminated Ones weren't fighters, and could imagine that the silence was playing heavily on their nerves inside the wags. They would have no idea what was gong on.

 

 He kept counting…

 

 As soon as firing had ceased, the Gate warriors with laser blasters had relinquished some to the companions. Of the remainder, some had detached themselves from the bars and gaudies and headed out the back way, moving swiftly on each side of the drag toward its northern end. As they did this, the companions also moved out—Mildred and Doc moving slower because of their symptoms, Jak's speed as yet unimpaired— and headed toward the alleyways at the southern end of the drag. Ryan was the exception; he planned to stay until the last, launch the attack and then retreat to join his people.

 

 Those Gate warriors who still had laser blasters positioned themselves so that they could get a clear shot at the wags from the windows and doors of the gaudies, the barrels of the laser blasters—with their distinctive rounded snouts housing the laser jewel— being held back until time was up.

 

 At each end of the main drag, looking across the roadway from the facing alleys, the groups of Gate warriors and companions faced each other, gesturing their recognition and checking their counting off of the time until the first offensive.

 

 Ryan kept counting through clenched teeth, his attention fixed on the two wags in front of him. He didn't look across at Gloria, but knew that the Gate queen would be likewise absorbed in her task.

 

 The count was over. Ryan reached the limit he had set, gave his wrist chron the briefest of checks and nodded almost imperceptibly to himself. There had been more than enough time for the two offensive groups to reach each end of the main drag, and more than enough time for the Illuminated Ones cocooned inside the wags to lose whatever nerve they may have.

 

 Ryan raised his Steyr and took aim at the underside of one of the wags. The laser blaster he had been given was still on his shoulder. Time enough for that when he had raced to the end of the drag. The Steyr was to be the signal shot.

 

 He gently pressured his index finger, depressing the trigger until the rifle kicked back and unloaded the first shell of the attack. In the silence of the late afternoon, with the tension that hung heavy in the air, the shot seemed to echo around the room, around the drag, around the ville. There was a whine as it ricocheted off the metal protectors that covered the tires of the Illuminated wag, but this was lost in the melee of sound that suddenly engulfed the bar in which he stood. Not just that bar. From every bar and gaudy along the drag came a volley of conventional blaster shots and the hum and heat of laser blasterfire.

 

 Ryan drew back from the window and headed toward the rear of the bar, running to join his companions for what he hoped to be the next stage of the offensive. Gloria turned briefly to him as he moved.

 

 "Give them hell," she yelled over the noise of firefighting within the enclosure of the bar.

 

 Ryan didn't shout back, but gave her an "okay" gesture and left.

 

 As the one-eyed warrior hit the street and alley that ran along the rear of the drag, it suddenly seemed to quieten from a deafening volley to a dull roar, the blasterfire partly dulled by the pounding of his own adrenaline in his ears as he ran toward the alleyway that marked the end of the drag, shouldering his Steyr and swinging the laser blaster to hand in one fluid motion as he moved.

 

 The plan was simple. The only parts of the Illuminated wags that weren't entirely protected were the chassis and axles on the underside. Direct fire at them, and there was a chance of disabling the vehicle, as well as forcing the inexperienced Illuminated fighters into moving. And that was exactly what Ryan wanted: to separate the two vehicles. Not only would it make them easier to deal with if they had no backup, but it also increased the chances of capturing one.

 

 And the one-eyed warrior wanted to take one of those wags very badly indeed. If he could capture one, then he figured that they would have a better chance of gaining access to the redoubt by using a principle that he would have called the Trojan horse—if not for the fact that the legend had been one of many lost forever in the nukecaust. Nonetheless, the principle behind it was one that had never been lost.

 

 Ryan arrived at the alleyway and turned to find Mildred and Doc waiting for him. Looking across the divide formed by the road, he could see J.B., Jak, Dean and Krysty ready in position. The Armorer signaled that all was set on his side, and Ryan acknowledged. Then he turned to Mildred and Doc.

 

 "How you doing?" he asked, having to raise his voice to be heard over the blasterfire along the main drag.

 

 "Not so bad," Mildred replied. "Feeling a little weak, but not so weak that I can't lift and fire this," she added, tapping the barrel of the laser blaster she was holding.

 

 Ryan turned to Doc. The older man was looking pale, his skin ashen. And although he was holding a laser blaster, he was only using one hand, barrel pointed down; he was leaning heavily on the silver lion's-head cane that housed his swordstick, with a rapier blade of finest Toledo steel. Usually, the cane was a camouflage for the blade. But at this moment, it seemed as though Doc had a greater need for it as support.

 

 Doc managed a weak and yet still wry grin. "I have felt better, dear boy. My kidneys feel on fire and my chest appears to have a ton weight heavily upon it…but my hand is still steady, and my eye—if not keen—is still in focus."

 

 Ryan acknowledged the older man. "Just do what you can, Doc. And you, Mildred. If the wag gets driven back here, then there's a good chance of nailing it. It may already be damaged."

 

 "One would hope so," Doc agreed, turning toward the drag, "but we must never forget that there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded beast."

 

 Looking at Doc, Ryan felt that the older man's words could as easily be applied to himself as to the wag that would be heading their way, but held his peace.

 

 Like the Gate warriors at the far end of the drag, the companions assumed combat positions, laser blasters readied for attack, ears straining for an indication of movement from the wags in among the roar of combat that engulfed the main drag.

 

 RYAN'S INITIAL SHOT had presaged a volley of blasterfire, and the first of several volleys of laser fire at the two Illuminated wags. In every bar and gaudy the Crossroads dwellers and the Gate warriors had directed their fire toward the undersides of the wags. The upper body of each vehicle was made of an alloy the likes of which hadn't been seen in the Deathlands since before the nukecaust, and although the tires of each wag were of the same pervious rubber material as any other tire, they were protected by a metal shell made of this alloy that exposed very little of the tire itself. There was only a thin band of the tire that was visible, at the very base of the wheel where it would touch the road surface. However, the underneath of the vehicles, although Ryan could only assume that they were made of the same alloy, had vulnerabilities. If any shells or laser fire could damage the chassis or axle systems, or by a ricochet take out one or more of the tires, then the wags would be disabled.

 

 And whatever else, Ryan had been pretty sure that the Illuminated Ones within the wags wouldn't relish the idea of being trapped in the outside world with no means of transport for getting back to the redoubt. Soaking up pressure from fire directed at the impervious body, they could sit there quite happily all day until the ammo was exhausted, and then do as they wished with no opposition. But direct fire at their weaker spots, and plant the seed of panic in their mind, and then it may be possible to push them into the action that you wanted.

 

 Taking Ryan's position at the window as the man departed, Gloria directed the attack on the wags as much as possible on the noise and confusion. Blaster and laser fire rained down on the wags and the road around, kicking up clouds of dust and chippings from the old tarmac patches.

 

 "Hey, give me the grens and the launcher!" the Gate queen yelled. On the far side, her shot was echoed by Tammy, whose task it was to act as opposite number to her queen.

 

 The engines of the two wags had fired up, and could be heard over the blasterfire. Before leaving the camp, Jon and J.B. had primed the old gren launchers that the tribe had in their armory, the legacy of a trade that had taken place during their time in the wood. It was an irony that they had made the deal in the very ville where they were about to test their new toys, but the irony was lost when there was no time to consider such things.

 

 On each side of the road, Tammy and Gloria loaded the gren launchers and primed the grens. Shouldering the heavy weapons, each warrior directed the nose of the launcher downward, and toward a spot in the center of the road and between the front of one wag and the rear of the preceding wag.

 

 Counting to ten and steeling herself for a recoil of whose strength she had no real idea, Gloria fired. On the opposite side of the road, Tammy also let loose with a gren.

 

 The explosion as both grens hit the road and detonated simultaneously was deafening, and drowned out all other sounds. An immense cloud of dirt, tarmac and dust was thrown up as the grens gouged a great trench from the road.

 

 "Motherfucker!" Gloria yelled as the air began to clear and she could see the damage that had been wrought by the grens. It was a cry that mixed surprise and exhilaration as she viewed the sight before her. Where there had once been a road, there was now a large crater that still smoked. It looked several feet deep—certainly too deep for even the four-wheel-drive wags to cope with—and extended across about half the width of the road. The wags had pulled back a few yards as the explosion had hit, and had halted again, unsure of what to do. They were covered in dirt, and some lumps of tarmac had made small dents on the bodywork, but they were otherwise undamaged.

 

 Both Gloria and Tammy reached the same conclusion after surveying the damage they had wrought. It was obvious that the wags wanted to stay close, as they had only withdrawn rather than fleeing, and there was still enough room across the road for either one of the wags to skirt the crater and join its twin.

 

 On each side of the road, the two women loaded up the gren launchers and took aim once more. Both directed their fire at an acuter angle than before, so that it would take out the road directly in front of them, in effect making an impassable trench that ran the width of the road. The only problem in this being the danger that they faced from flying debris as the grens hit. Before each fired, they yelled at the other inhabitants of the room to hit the floor, and then let fly with the grens.

 

 A moment of intense silence followed the detonation as the grens hit close to the windows, the blast followed by a cone of silence that accentuated the rushing of their own blood in their ears. Then the heat and force of the detonation hit, throwing both Tammy and Gloria backward to hit the floor of their respective bars with a force that would have knocked out lesser people. But the Gate women had an innate wiry strength that enabled both to scramble to their feet and view their handiwork.

 

 Ignoring the aches and bruises that had been caused by the impact, both were satisfied with their work. There was now a trench where there had once been a road, and it was impossible for the wags to cross to each other. They were effectively separated, and on their own. And there was only one direction for them to go: each would have to head for the end of the drag, where the ambush awaited them.

 

 Gloria caught Tammy's eye across the divide. She gestured her pleasure at what had happened, and Tammy acknowledged this before each woman picked up her blaster and continued to harry the wags, joining their comrades in firing at the undersides of the wags.

 

 On each side of the trench, the wags tentatively drew back a couple more yards before halting, as though the drivers of the wags were weighing their options. There was no way that either party could cross the divide, and so they exercised their only option. One wag began to accelerate toward the north end of the main drag, while the other slewed into a turn so that it wouldn't have to tackle exiting the main drag in reverse.

 

 This was unfortunate for the inhabitants of the wag, as the very act of turning gave the Gate tribe and the Crossroads dwellers another angle from which to fire at the underside of the wag. An opportunity that they seized with both hands. While the wag that was heading north was able to escape toward the end of the road with minimal damage to the underside of its chassis, the increased angle of fire offered by the wag heading south yielded a positive result. A blast of laser fire caught at insulation on the cable for the wag's electrical system. The laser cut through the insulation with ease and severed the cable. The wag coughed and spluttered as the engine cut out before the emergency backup system for the onboard comps refired the ignition motor. But that wasn't all. At the same time, a stray shell ricocheting off the alloy of one wheel guard flew diagonally across the underside of the wag and penetrated one of the wag tires, causing it to veer dangerously across the road before the driver was able to right his course and pilot the vehicle straight down the drag.

 

 AT THE SOUTHERN END of the road, Ryan and J.B. were keeping watch on the activity, ready to cue their companions when the wag was near enough to commence shooting.

 

 "Got you," Ryan muttered between clenched teeth as he saw the wag stutter then veer on its course.

 

 "Wounded heading this way," he called to Doc and Mildred. "We can take this one."

 

 Both Doc and Mildred took heart from this and drew on inner reserves of strength, the like of which had kept them alive before in situations where they should have succumbed. For, like Jak, this time they truly were fighting for their lives as at no other. If they could capture the wag and use it as a means of getting into the redoubt, then they stood a chance of conquering the disease. If not…

 

 They shouldered the laser blasters, ready to swing out and face the oncoming vehicle at Ryan's word.

 

 ON THE FAR SIDE of the road, J.B. turned back to Dean, Jak and Krysty, who were waiting for his word.

 

 "One coming—damaged and slowed up, too. This is our best shot."

 

 "I hear you," Dean said, while Krysty nodded and Jak said nothing. He didn't have to. The look on his face said it all, the scarred white visage set grim. He felt the same way as Mildred and Doc. There were no second chances.

 

 Ryan and J.B. stood watching. The wag seemed to take an eternity to approach. For both men, this was a familiar combat situation, and the familiar feelings flooded through them. The icy coolness that marked a survivor from one who would be chilled; the rush of adrenaline pumping through the veins; the exhilaration as every nerve screamed for action; the way that time seemed to slow so that every second took an hour, enabling their combat trained minds to analyze the situation and plan a response—a mixture of cool intelligence and gut instinct that was born of cold, hard experience.

 

 For both—as, in lesser degrees, for their companions—this was a way of life, and something that had molded them into what they were, as well as defining every situation with which they had to deal.

 

 It was why they had won more times than they had lost, and why they were still alive when others were long since worm fodder.

 

 And it was something the Illuminated Ones heading toward them couldn't possibly, by the very nature of their existence, possess.

 

 The black, faceless visage of the wag became larger and larger, filling the field of vision of both men. As it progressed, desultory laser blasts came from portholes at the side, directed at the bars and gaudies lining the drag—random fire that hoped to score some kind of hit and give them a moment's relief from the ceaseless and intense fire.

 

 The sounds of the battle retreated as both Ryan and J.B. dug deep within themselves.

 

 The wag was now almost upon them. It had no front window to speak of, just a narrow grille with tinted armaglass behind it, making the vehicle oppressively opaque. There must be a camera on the front somewhere, Ryan mused, to enable the driver to get a better view. If only he could see where, he could knock it out and effectively disable the wag.

 

 No matter. It was time.

 

 "Now!" he yelled to Mildred and Doc at the same moment as J.B. echoed with an imprecation to Krysty, Jak and Dean.

 

 The one-eyed warrior and the Armorer ran from cover, dropping to the sidewalk as they came out into the open, firing as they fell. The laser blasts hit the front of the wag full on, and although it was unlikely that they did any physical damage, the shock that they gave the wag driver was invaluable, as he slewed the vehicle sideways, braking suddenly in a reflex move and throwing the wag into a spin. As the other companions came out from the alleyways and took up firing positions, they could see the portholes on the side turned to them, offering the smallest of gaps in which to fire at such close range.

 

 Would they be able to effect any damage by doing this? It was a debatable point, but there was the slimmest of chances. Moreover, it was almost certain that by firing at the open parts of the wag they could prevent the Illuminated Ones inside the wag from returning fire by making the ob slits unsafe for use.

 

 Dean, Krysty and Mildred went for this option. Both Dean and Krysty were good target shots, and Mildred—despite the onset of the disease, had never lost the skills that had made her a Olympic sharpshooter in her now almost forgotten predark life.

 

 Laser fire rained in on the side of the wag. With fifty percent of their options for returning fire already reduced by the fact that the wag was showing a side elevation, the Illuminated Ones now found themselves limited by their own weapons turned back on them.

 

 This left Jak and Doc to join Ryan and J.B. in concentrating on disabling the vehicle. From their ground level elevation, the two men were sending long strings of laser fire that picked at the metal covering on the underside of the wag. Smoke issuing from beneath the chassis indicated that some damage had already been done. They had no way of knowing that the maintenance cover had been sheered, and the electrical system had been blown, but it was certain from their vantage point that some damage had occurred.

 

 And where there was some, then there was the potential for much more.

 

 "One tire blown," Jak yelled into J.B.'s ear as he dropped near him. "Blow one more, they fucked."

 

 "Go for it," the Armorer yelled in reply, unwilling and unable to divert attention from his task.

 

 "Need better position," Jak said in a quieter voice, as though to himself, before starting to crawl along the sidewalk, circling around the Armorer as he continued firing. The prolonged bursts of fire on the ob slits had restricted the return of fire from the Illuminated warriors within, but even so it was a danger for Jak to advance even closer to the wag. The companions were all within a radius of a few yards, and it would only take one snapped off blast to chill one of them.

 

 But this had to be done: knock out another one or more of the tires, and the four wheel wag would find it hard to progress. It would be effectively stopped for good, and this was the objective. Those inside would have no option but to disembark and fight on a more equal footing. And the only way to knock out one or more of the tires, getting past the metal alloy guards on the wheel arches, was to get closer, and get a wider angle of fire.

 

 On the far side of the road, Doc could see Jak attempt this move, and understood his intent. He could also see that his fellows were engaged in a defined pattern of fire, with no one to cover Jak as he moved.

 

 Ignoring the pain that shot through his chest and back as he moved, the older man also began to move forward, firing at the wag.

 

 "Doc! What the hell do you think—?" Mildred began, before Doc cut her short.

 

 "No," he snapped, "do not question, just fire. Jak needs cover, distraction…" Doc dropped to a crouch, the movement and strain of his muscles ironically countering the pain in his chest and back for a moment, and giving him a renewed strength. He moved forward, firing at the underside of the wag, and obliquely at the front. He was determined that any attention given to Jak should at the very least be split, giving the albino a better chance.

 

 It worked. The desultory fire from the interior of the wag started to strafe the sidewalk where Doc advanced, causing him to take cover in a doorway. His fire, and the fact that Jak had been able to keep low and move with much more speed, had enabled the albino to slip past the Illuminated defenses seemingly without them noticing.

 

 Jak had now moved around to an angle where he was able to sight the two front wheels of the wag with ease. One was already blown; the other followed swiftly with one burst of laser fire, the rubber burning and melting as the air exploded from within.

 

 Two wheels would make it almost impossible. But if it was a four-wheel-drive vehicle, then Jak also needed to take out a back wheel. He moved in closer, so that he was almost underneath the vehicle. In a sense, this made him both more at risk, and also safer at the same time. Although he was closer to the Illuminated Ones than any of his companions, he was also at such an angle that it might actually prove impossible for them to get a clear shot at him.

 

 None of this mattered to Jak. The only thing he could focus on was disabling the wag and drawing the Illuminated Ones out into the open. He positioned himself and fired a short, controlled blast at one of the back wheels. He was so close that he could feel the blast of air as the tire melted and the air forced its way from the wrecked tubing. The stench of melted rubber filled his lungs, choking him.

 

 It didn't matter; three tires were blown. Now they would have to come out into the open. Jak crawled backward triple fast, for the first time noticing that he hadn't been fired upon. A glance toward Doc, holed up in a doorway and drawing fire, told him why. Time to return the favor. Jak rose to his feet and started to fire on the wag as he retreated, drawing the sparse Illuminated fire in order for Doc to come out of the doorway and also back his way to safety.

 

 The wag fell silent. Although the companions kept firing, there was no return fire. Ryan ceased and held up a hand to indicate the others should follow suit: but there was little need for him to do this, as his fellows had also noticed the sudden cessation and had stopped.

 

 Now it was a waiting game. The companions retreated to the cover of the alleyway. The Illuminated wag was out of commission, and those inside had two options—they could stay there indefinitely, or they could come out and fight, in an attempt to reach the other wag and so gain safety and a return to the redoubt.

 

 The wag engine had been cut, and it sat, dark, malevolent and silent.

 

 What next?

 

 IF THE COMPANIONS had been able to halt and disable their wag, the Gate party who had effected an ambush at the other end of the road hadn't been so fortunate. The wag that had headed in their direction hadn't been damaged, and so had been able to maintain and build speed and momentum as it tried to escape the grens and the continuing fire.

 

 Tammy had been delegated by Gloria to lead the attack party, and she watched as the wag approached. Her tactics were simple, and almost suicidal. As the wag approached, she yelled bloodcurdlingly loud and leaped into the path of the wag, followed by her warriors from either side of the road.

 

 With the wag coming head on, there was little chance of any initial fire in their direction, and so they were able to fire off volley after volley of laser blasts, peppering the front of the wag. They knew that they would be unlikely to penetrate the alloy covering, but the intent was to try to shatter the armaglass with the lasers, or at least make it so hard for the driver of the wag to see what he was doing that he would veer off the main drag and crash into one of the buildings, enabling them to mount an assault.

 

 To an extent, their tactic was successful. The wag veered, the driver blinded by the laser fire hitting the armaglass shield and ducking at the wheel instinctively, throwing the vehicle off track. It slewed sideways, and some of the Gate warriors dropped, firing at the underside and trying to disable the wheels.

 

 The return fire from the side of the wag was instant and claimed two Gate warriors, the laser burning raw weals in their flesh, the smell rising with their screams as they fell.

 

 "Cover, cover," Tammy yelled, imploring her team to protect themselves while still trying to attack. While her warriors sought cover, Tammy stayed upright in the center of the road, directing her fire in an arc along the ob slits on the side of the wag. She ignored the returned fire that cut trails in the earth and tarmac around her, her face grim as she continued to fire, ignoring the rising bile and fear in her guts as she waited for those under her command to get clear.

 

 Fear could be a good thing in battle, if it hit a person right. Sometimes fear inspired heroic acts. Tammy knew that if no one covered the Gate women as they made for cover, then all would stand a good chance of getting chilled. But if she stood and fired, then most would make it, and it would be harder for them to pick her off.

 

 Even so, she was relieved when the warrior in cover began to fire, covering her so that she could reach safety.

 

 The engine of the wag whined as the driver crashed gears, trying to right his vehicle and, panicking, making the whole process more complicated. The vehicle moved backward and forward, trying to hurriedly right its course while still being fired upon from cover. Laser blasts tried to knock out the tire and hit the underneath of the wag while still peppering the sides to prevent return fire from inside.

 

 "We're not doing it," Tammy cried in despair. "We haven't damaged the bastard at all!"

 

 Seemingly impervious to the blasterfire, the wag finally managed to right its course and drove through the hail of fire set up by the Gate attackers. It broke past them and picked up speed as it hit the blacktop that led away from the main drag. The Gate warriors kept firing until Tammy gestured them to cease.

 

 "No good," she said, seemingly to herself. "Fuck it, I hope Ryan's doing better…"

 

 THE AIR WAS ALMOST crackling with tension. The firefight taking place at the far end of the drag only accentuated the silence as the companions waited in cover for the Illuminated Ones to make their move. They had to, as they were presented with little option except to come out and fight.

 

 There was only one variable, as far as Ryan could see. The wag was fairly spacious, and there was no way of telling how many sec may be inside. They would be on equal terms as far as weapons, and Ryan was pretty sure that his people were better fighters by far. But would they be outnumbered?

 

 They could only wait and see.

 

 The back of the Illuminated wag opened, and the soldiers within emerged. Two came first, running sideways to take cover in the doorways and lay down a covering fire with their laser blasters. They were followed by three groups of two: eight fighters in all.

 

 The companions returned the fire and cut down two of the Illuminated Ones before they had even reached cover, the laser fire cutting across their bodies and making their one-piece suits smoke as the material smoldered in the heat. The lack of sound—their screams muffled and contained within their helmets— made their chilling an uncanny sight, as they seemed merely to crumple to the dirt.

 

 The remaining six found themselves clumped together in two doorways, with little cover for all of them, and no way of safely firing at the companions.

 

 They were so hopelessly inept that for one moment Ryan hoped that they would surrender. Chilling them would be like chilling defenseless children, and if they lived then at least he stood a chance of learning something from them about the redoubt.

 

 But any such hope was fleeting. They may be tactically inept and have no experience of combat, but their courage couldn't, at the moment of truth, be doubted. Two of the soldiers fell flat, laying down a covering fire while the others charged forward, headed for the alleys where the companions were firing from cover. They kept firing as they ran, the laser beams raking the head of the alley. Their hope was that they could stop the companions from firing by making it too hard to take aim, and perhaps hit some of them by chance. It was an insane, suicidal tactic, and they were picked off with ease. The combat was over in a matter of seconds, and the Illuminated Ones lay scattered across the road, their chilled corpses zigzagged by lines of burned flesh and charred cloth where the laser blasts had claimed them.

 

 The companions emerged from cover and surveyed the charnel house before them.

 

 "They did not have a chance, really, did they?" Doc asked, a tinge of sadness in his voice.

 

 "Shouldn't feel sorry for them," Mildred said sharply. "Look how ill you are, Doc—they're part of the problem."

 

 "Ah, but is it really that simple?" the old man mused. "Consider, dear Doctor—they have spent several generations underground being fed a doctrine that leads them to act as they do. Granted, that is not our concern. But can we not spare the briefest of thoughts? After all, if we had been born where they were, would we be any different?"

 

 "Probably not," Ryan replied before Mildred could answer. "But the harsh truth is that it's not our problem."

 

 Any further reflection was stopped by the arrival of Gloria, with Tammy close behind.

 

 "The other wag escaped," Gloria said without preamble.

 

 "We tried, but couldn't do any damage to stop it," Tammy added.

 

 Ryan nodded. "It's okay. This one was already damaged enough to slow it when it got this far…gave us a better chance. And we only need one, if we act quickly."

 

 Without further explanation, Ryan strode past the Gate warriors and the chilled Illuminated Ones, and climbed into the back of the wag. J.B. followed him, and found the one-eyed man examining the comps and control panel of the wag.

 

 "What do you reckon, J.B.?" Ryan asked without turning.

 

 "Three tires out—that should be easy to fix if we raid some ville wags for spares," the Armorer commented. "Some damage underneath by the look of the smoke—mebbe electrics, as the main chassis system seemed to be working okay. Give that a check. If it was the electrics, then mebbe the comps don't work."

 

 "Let's see," Ryan said, flicking a switch. The console lit up. "They've got an emergency system, at least. Radio's shot to shit, though," he added, attempting to get some life out of it.

 

 "That's good. No way of telling who's in the wag, then."

 

 Ryan agreed. "Otherwise, it looks like an ordinary wag. As long as there's a stick shift, a wheel and some pedals, we can ignore the rest of the comp shit." He stood back, thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. "Yeah, it'll do."

 

 The Armorer took off his spectacles and polished them. "Let's get to it, then. Quicker we move, less suspicious they'll be at the redoubt."

 

 "Right," Ryan agreed. "You explain to the others and to Gloria. I need to talk to Robertson. We'll need his help, and it's about time he was put in the picture, considering what those coldhearts have done to his ville."

 

 J.B. didn't bother to answer. With a brief nod he was already about his task before Ryan's last word had died away.

 

  

 

 Chapter Eight

 

  

 

 "Ryan, you wanna tell us what the fuck that was all about, and how come you got some of those fancy blasters that those coldheart bastards had? And another thing, what the fuck is going on here with all these naked women running about beating the shit out of everyone and what the fuck does this have to do with the fact that my ville is getting shot to shit by that ugly bastard disease that Hector can't stop and—"

 

 "Whoa, slow down, there!" The one-eyed man held up his hands in an imprecation of surrender as the baron continued to talk loudly and at a rapid pace. The normally laid back Robertson was highly agitated and animated, which, Ryan had to admit to himself, was hardly surprising after the events of the past few hours. But now it was Ryan's task to try to calm him down so they could talk rationally about what was going on.

 

 "You don't tell the baron to slow down when you've just shot the fuck out of the main drag," Yardie raged. The fat man waddled across the room, his face flushed and angry, eyes bulging, until he was right in Ryan's face and the one-eyed warrior could smell the man's bad body odor and spirit soaked breath.

 

 "And you don't do that to me," Ryan answered with an icy calm and a voice so low that it was barely audible. "If you want to talk about this in a reasonable manner, then we will. I came here to put you in the picture, after all. But if you want to play it hard, then I'll break your fucking neck before talking to the baron. Do you understand me, Yardie?"

 

 The fat man wilted visibly before Ryan, his eyes registering the cold look on the man's scarred face.

 

 "Yeah, well, I suppose you should have a chance to explain what's been going down," the fat sec man mumbled, backing off.

 

 "Good," Ryan said. "Now, if you'll let me explain without butting in, then I can tell you the whole story, and what we need from you in the way of help."

 

 Robertson nodded. "Okay, you always seemed kinda straight, so I guess the least I can do is hold my tongue till you've finished."

 

 Ryan began to tell the baron and the fat sec man about the Illuminated Ones, and how his people and the Gate had ended up in the vicinity of Crossroads. He was, as ever, careful to avoid mentioning the redoubts and the mat-trans. He did, however, sketch in as much background detail as possible about the Illuminated Ones and their plans to take over the land. Much of this was still guesswork, but he presented it as fact in order to gain the ear of the baron.

 

 Not that it seemed necessary. Robertson's daughter—the first to contract the disease after being taken by the Illuminated Ones—was dead, and her corpse, along with all the others that had amassed since the disease had taken hold, had been burned on the advice of Hector, who had obviously taken in all that Mildred had told him about such diseases. The baron was still carrying the pain from this, and it had cut him deeper than he was willing to admit. Whatever it took to end this horror, he was willing to take his part.

 

 "So, you tellin' me that you can get into their strong hold and wipe these motherfuckers out?"

 

 "Got to."

 

 Robertson sat back, shaking his head, for a moment lost in his own thoughts. Finally, he spoke. "You reckon this plan of yours will actually work?"

 

 Ryan shrugged. "It's our only chance. If we act quickly, then they may well figure that the damaged wag took a little longer to limp home. Me and J.B. had a look at the comps and electrics on the wag, and the radio system is shot, so they won't expect a radio response if they call us up when we get near. I figure they'll have sec cameras around the entrance to the redoubt, and they'll see the wag come up alone, and want to let us in. The Gate and anyone else who wants a firefight against these bastards—" he directed a glare at the now less belligerent and still silent Yardie "—will come up at a distance, using cover. The Gate know that land by now, and they'll keep everyone out of sight."

 

 "And you'll just get out of the wag, say hi and open the doors to everyone?" Despite his lack of hostility, there was still a skeptical note to the baron's voice.

 

 Ryan smiled. "Yeah, weird as it sounds. Listen, you've got to remember that we've fought these coldheart bastards before, and we know what they're like. They've spent too long underground, and although they had better blasters and a lot of working old tech, they couldn't hold their own in a firefight. You must have seen how the ones in the wag acted when they got out to fight us."

 

 Yardie broke his silence, his voice sounding uncertain, although the words were, "Yeah, I figure he's right, baron. I saw them, just like a bunch of kids learning the basics of fighting. Come to that, I figure that a bunch of kids would have more suss than that."

 

 Baron Robertson nodded slowly, biting his lip. "So they'd be so stupe as to just let you in?"

 

 "Yeah, I figure so. And we'll be wearing the uniforms, so they won't be expecting us to suddenly turn on them when we get out of the wag. By the time they've gathered themselves, then we'll be at their throats and have the main sec doors open."

 

 "How you gonna manage that?" Yardie asked, but this time there was no sneer of disbelief in the sec man's voice, rather a genuine interest.

 

 "Seen it in their last place," Ryan lied, unwilling to divulge further information. "They always scratch the code for the door above the keypad. Mebbe it's so they don't forget if they panic. It was all over the last place they were at. I can't see that this would be any different."

 

 The baron sighed heavily. "This is all too weird. Weird fuckers who come out of the ground and try to chill everyone with some old disease so that they can take over and rule a land where everyone else has taken the last train west… I mean, shit—a disease that goes back beyond the nukecaust?"

 

 "It may be hard to believe, Baron, but it's as near to the truth as any of us can make out," Ryan said evenly. "I don't understand why they're doing it any more than you do. But it doesn't matter—the only thing that actually matters is that they are doing it. Just ask Hector if you don't believe me or Mildred. We've got a chance to stop them. And if we don't take that chance, then…" Ryan shrugged, leaving the baron to make his own conclusion.

 

 "Hell, Baron, I'd rather die in a firefight than from that disease," Yardie whispered, almost visibly quailing at the thought.

 

 Robertson seemed lost in thought for the moment, then suddenly shook his head. "No, you're right. We always try to keep out of trouble, here. You never know who might pay you jack, right? But this is more than that. Yeah, you've got our help, Ryan. Just tell me what you need."

 

 Ryan grinned. "Time, but there ain't shit you can do about that. Otherwise…"

 

 "KEEP IT STEADY. The last thing we want is for more chilling before we even start," J.B. muttered through clenched teeth as the Illuminated wag was jacked up a little higher to enable himself and Dean to gain a greater access to the underneath of the chassis.

 

 "No real damage," Dean commented. "These wags are real good pieces of work." He tapped the metal casings with a wrench. "If we could find out what this metal's actually made of—"

 

 "I know, I know," the Armorer said sharply, cutting him off, "but right now I just want to get this done before it falls on us."

 

 Dean followed J.B.'s gaze, and understood his feelings. The jacks that were holding both ends of the wag off the ground were old and rusty. Whether it was real or not, J.B. felt that he could almost see them buckling under the strain. Jak and two of the Crossroads dwellers had already changed the tires that the albino teen had shot out, unbolting the wheels from behind the alloy wheel guards and replacing the exploded rubber with worn but still serviceable tires plundered from wags around the ville. The four wheel drive vehicle had a large wheel radius and girth, and it had been a struggle to find wheels that would match. Eventually, a pair of old tractor wags had been located in one of the field barns, left to rot when their engines had given out and replacement parts couldn't be found. Both had rear wheel drive, and on both the tires for those rear wheels had been still in good order. They had been rapidly plundered and placed on the Illuminated wag.

 

 With tires in place, it was J.B. and Dean's responsibility to check that no damage had been done to the systems, and to this end Mildred was in the wag, operating the drive and braking systems, the engine whining and roaring as the wheels rotated, turning on their axles as she turned the wag left and right and put it into reverse.

 

 It would seem that the alliance of Crossroads, companions and Gate were in luck. All the essential drive systems of the wag were in working order. The wiring that had fired and fused was involved with the comp systems alone. The wag had cut out because the onboard comps appeared to act as a pilot, with a course plotting program—to judge from the maps Mildred had found—that would assist the driver. However, there was a fail safe device on the dash that enabled the driver to switch over to manual, which was perhaps how the wag had fired up again during battle.

 

 What it meant, more importantly, was that the wag could be fully operational as transport without using the comps. The sec devices on the wag wouldn't be of any use, but as there were notably few other wags in the Deathlands that had anything even approaching such a sophisticated system, this was hardly something that would bother the attack party. The important thing was that the wag worked, and could be used as the decoy to gain access to the redoubt.

 

 Especially as the braking and drive systems were in full working order. J.B. and Dean had now ascertained this, and were quickly checking the casings beneath for any other damage, as a safety check lest the vehicle suddenly give out on the way to the redoubt.

 

 "Everything's A-OK here," Dean yelled over the engine noise.

 

 "Yeah, same here," J.B. gritted, sweat spangling his brow. "Let's get out from under here."

 

 Even though he spoke almost too softly to be heard over the roar of the engine, Dean was able to ascertain his meaning, and was as swift as the Armorer in scrambling out from underneath the wag.

 

 "Kill the engine, Millie," J.B. yelled, wondering if it would be possible for Mildred to hear him over the wag noise.

 

 Obviously, it was possible for her to hear him. Mildred turned off the wag's ignition, and the vehicle shuddered on its jack supports so violently that the wag shifted, the weight redistribution proving too much for the rusty jacks to support. With a creak, and the sharp snap of breaking metal, the jacks gave way under the wag—first two at diagonal corners, then the other two rapidly following as they found themselves unable to adjust to the sudden sharp increase in weight that they were forced to bear. With a crash that made the wag vibrate violently and raised clouds of dirt and tarmac riddled dust, the vehicle crashed to the road.

 

 "Hot pipe, that could have been us under there," Dean breathed.

 

 "Good thing it wasn't," J.B. returned, "but Millie's still inside."

 

 Without waiting for an answer from the younger Cawdor, the Armorer rushed toward the wag. He reached it as the side exit door opened, and a visibly shaken Mildred climbed out.

 

 "You okay?" J.B. asked anxiously, grabbing her as she stumbled and nearly fell.

 

 "Yeah, I think so, John," she replied slowly. "I think I might have picked up a little whiplash, as I wasn't ready for that, but otherwise…I feel like I ache all over."

 

 "It wasn't that bad a crash," Dean said, approaching her.

 

 Mildred looked at him and laughed. "Could have put that a little better, but you're right. Normally I could have ridden that without blinking. But I'm getting weaker all the time. Jak and Doc must be, as well. It's this damn disease. The sooner we get after the redoubt the better."

 

 Ryan and Yardie had heard the crash as they left the baron's house, and came running.

 

 "Fireblast! You okay, Mildred?" Ryan asked.

 

 "Sure. What did Robertson have to say?" she returned, not wanting to dwell on her own problems and keen to make progress with the objective.

 

 Ryan filled them in as Yardie arrived, puffing and blowing hard. The sec man agreed with Ryan that his people would help in whatever way they could, although he was quick to point out that the Gate and the companions were far better equipped for the task. It may have seemed like cowardice on first hearing, but there was little doubt that the sec chief was correct. The Crossroads dwellers had spent too long living a relatively danger free life to really have any grasp of serious combat.

 

 "So, what now?" Dean asked when his father had finished.

 

 "Round up the others. I've got to find Gloria and Tammy. We need to get the plan into place so we all know what we're doing." He looked up at the sky. Twilight was fast turning into night. "The dark will help us, if we can move in the next hour or two, then we can reach the redoubt and get in before sunrise, which'll give us better cover. But we'll have to move it."

 

 "Leave it to me," Dean said. "If J.B. and Mildred stay here, I'll find Jak, Doc and Krysty. I figure I know where they may be, anyway."

 

 "Okay," Ryan said grimly. "Let's go to it. There's no time to lose."

 

 While the one-eyed man headed off to the area where the Gate appeared to be gathered, Dean headed toward the hospital. Along the way, he detoured toward the barn where the two wheel drive tractors had been found. The barn was on the edge of town, and was silent and dark as he approached. But he had a notion that he would find Jak still there, as the albino hadn't returned with the salvaged tires.

 

 Dean approached openly, using what little light there was so that Jak would be able to see him and not mistake him for an attacker. At all times, the albino was always on the defensive.

 

 "Jak, you there?" he called softly as he reached the open doors of the barn. There was no answer, and as he peered into the darkness, it was impossible to make out any shapes within. "Jak?" he repeated a little louder.

 

 A white wraith, like a shadow in negative, rose from the recesses at the back of the barn.

 

 "Dean? What want?" Jak's voice was small, like one roused from sleep. At the same time, he sounded weary.

 

 "We're meeting to plan the attack. Got to round up Doc and Krysty, too, but I figured I'd find you here."

 

 "Why?" Jak was still at the back of the barn, moving slowly as he dressed.

 

 Dean shrugged. "Figured you'd need some rest, and mebbe you'd find the quietest place."

 

 "Figure right," Jak replied, moving forward, now fully dressed. "Tired easily. Pox eating me. Clothes hurt on skin, needed to let it breathe. Mebbe try relax totally. Need quiet for that."

 

 "Damn—sorry I had to disturb you," Dean said, the concern in his voice showing as Jak came out into the twilight. His white hair and pale skin seemed—if it were possible—to be more ashen than usual.

 

 "Okay." Jak shrugged. "Need rest but know no time left. We need move. What now?"

 

 "Now we get Krysty and Doc, and I'm pretty sure I know where they are."

 

 "Then let's go," Jak replied, setting his suddenly frail frame to move onward. "Where?"

 

 "I figure the med building. Mebbe they'll get an idea of how bad the disease is spreading."

 

 Without bothering to answer, Jak nodded and joined Dean as they moved back in toward the center of the ville.

 

 The closer they got to the center, the louder the hum of activity and the more bodies could be seen swarming around, looking busy. But there was one oasis of complete calm and silence—almost, it seemed, deliberately and completely ignored. It was toward this oasis that they headed, for it was here that the med building was located.

 

 "Really funny how everyone's avoiding this part of the ville," Dean commented with some sarcasm as they approached.

 

 "Not really," Jak replied, ignoring the wit as he thought of his own reasons for wanting to block out the idea of the pox.

 

 Dean said nothing more. They covered the last few yards in silence, and Dean carefully opened the door, making as little noise as possible.

 

 As he and Jak entered, he was taken aback at how the building had changed since the last time he had set foot in it. Before, Hector had managed, with the help of his workers, to keep the small block clean and fresh smelling, even though it was beginning to become overcrowded.