Olly took the stairs, the Weatherby unslung and ready to fire at anything that got in his way. He was quick, but cautious. J.B. allowed himself a brief smile at the way the young man had adapted to battle.
Taking the downstairs room, he could see that all of them were empty. He came to the locked room where the archive of the ville’s history lined the walls. Kicking down the door and throwing himself back against the wall to one side, expecting an attack, he found nothing. Cautiously, he entered the room and stopped dead when he saw the walls covered with photographs of rad victims.
“Explains a lot,” he said out loud, although his mind raced at the thought that his friends had been in the hands of these perverted scum. He was about to leave the room when he heard a shout from Olly.
“J.B., here,” the young man yelled. J.B. left the room and raced to the stairs, taking them two at a time. Olly’s tone had been free of danger and caution; rather, he had been excited about a find.
The Armorer stopped dead as he entered the room. There was a collection of blasters and blades and a med satchel in one corner, and beside them a patched and metal-covered camo jacket and a bearskin coat that he recognized all too well.
“But—” he began.
Olly cut him short, starting to gather the ordnance to stash it on his person. He handed the satchel, coat and jacket to J.B. “I know it ain’t them, but at least we got their weapons. And at least we know where they are.”
J.B. looked out of the window. Down there, without any weapons….
“C’mon, man, let’s get to it,” Olly said, clapping him on the shoulder. His belief was infectious.
Shrugging, J.B. joined Olly.
Below, Esquivel’s tactic was beginning to take effect. There had been Duma casualties in combat, but the sec force was gradually separating from the Nagasaki fighters, driving them back into a tighter and tighter circle.
The only problem was that the companions were in the center. Ryan and Krysty had freed themselves, and while Mildred cut loose Doc and helped Jak, who was still having trouble with his shoulders, the two of them were working at keeping the Nagasaki fighters at bay. They had nothing except their bare hands and a few nails to use, but they were holding on. Mildred and Jak had helped Doc onto his feet, although the old man was raving and had no idea where he was.
Both Ryan and Krysty had guessed the Duma tactics, and knew this left them in the middle of a hail of fire. How the hell could they get out?
J.B. and Olly were thinking much the same thing as they raced from the ranch house, searching for Esquivel. The sec man had assumed control and under his guidance the sec force had the upper hand. He was about to give the order to open rapid fire on the knot of Nagasaki fighters, satisfied with their position, when Buckley’s voice boomed out, staying both Esquivel and J.B., as well as quietening the mob.
“Y’all wouldn’t want to chill those who helped y’all, would you?”
Esquivel stayed the firing, and gestured to J.B. to stay silent. “Explain yourself,” he rapped out.
“You knows like we’s does that y’all found out on our raid ’cause you was told by snakes among us—outlanders.”
“So?”
“So I’s got ’em here and I’s a fair man. Y’all let us go and we’ll hand ’em over. Y’all take ’em and go, leave us in peace. We’s let you go. Honest.” Buckley was now raving, desperately trying to save his own skin if not those of his people.
“Why should I believe you?” Esquivel asked calmly.
“’Cause we’s got everything to lose, y’all got nothing,” Buckley shrugged.
“What makes you think I even want them?” Esquivel returned, ignoring the look he knew J.B. was giving him.
“Mebbe y’all don’t, but I’s got nothing else to offer,” Buckley replied.
There was a moment’s tense silence before Esquivel assented. “Send them out,” he said.
The companions found themselves manhandled by the remains of the Nagasaki fighters, sly punches peppering them as they were shoved through the crowd and, one by one, thrown out in front of the Duma sec force, sprawling dazed and confused over the corpses that littered the blood-soaked earth.
Ryan looked up and caught sight of the Armorer. “J.B.?” he whispered, unable to believe what he saw.
Esquivel raised his arm and as he was about to bring it down, Buckley—knowing that he had been betrayed—yelled, “Y’all said you’d let us go.”
“I lied.” Esquivel shrugged, then lowered his arm.
A hail of blasterfire rained on the Nagasaki crowd as they struggled to flee. They fought against one another, each trying to run in a different direction. But there was nowhere to run.
The echoing noise of the blasterfire, and J.B. running, crouched low, toward him, was the last thing Ryan registered before he blacked out once more.
“Let’s level this pesthole,” Esquivel murmured with a look of extreme distaste as he surveyed the pile of corpses in front of him. “Let’s burn everything so there’s no trace of it ever having been here to blight the land.”
“Noble words for someone who’s just chilled an entire ville,” Olly remarked mildly.
Esquivel turned on him. “Don’t think I enjoyed it and don’t think it was easy, dude. Don’t ever think it’s easy. But think about that poor stupe bastard that Malloy ran into. Think about them—” he gestured toward the companions, now being carried by J.B. and a group of sec men toward one of the wags “—and think about how many other poor fuckers have ended up like that. Or worse.”
Olly shook his head. “Yeah, I guess—”
“We just do what we have to,” Esquivel said dismissively before turning his attention to the men gathered around the corpses.
While the young armorer turned and made his way over to J.B., Esquivel had directed the sec force to hunt down all the tallow candles and oil that they could find, as well as the grens and plas ex that was in the Nagasaki armory. Paltry as it was, it would be enough for the task. Pillaging the armory and the corpses for any blasters that may be of use when stripped and cleaned, Esquivel had the pile of extinct flesh covered in oil and mined with grens.
Then, taking the time to ensure his men did the job properly, Esquivel sent them out along the narrow tracks that ran through the shantytown, pouring oil and tallow on the dirt and the wrecked shacks, distributing fused plas ex along the way and using some of the ville’s own grens to mine areas where there were still shacks standing after the wag invasion.
The sec men worked until the entire area was a maze of oil, plas ex and grens. The ranch house was mined and the fuses set.
“This needs a finishing touch—just to cleanse the earth,” Esquivel muttered. He ran over to the wag where J.B. and Olly were with the companions. Krysty and Jak were semiconscious but unaware of their surroundings. Ryan and Mildred were still out cold. Doc was conscious now, raving. The old man seemed to believe he was back in his youth, about to take a brougham ride with his beloved Emily.
Esquivel could read the concern on J.B.’s face, but still felt it necessary to pull him away. They exchanged a few words and the Armorer handed over two small canisters from his canvas bag.
Esquivel allowed himself a small grin. This would clean up the place more than a little. He bellowed orders for the sec force to withdraw to the ridge overlooking the shallow valley. Returning to their wags, they began to retreat.
They had five minutes to get clear, ample time if they moved on the double. Esquivel joined J.B. and Olly with the companions in the wag that took the dirt track leading in and out of the ville. The sec men who had traveled in it were allotted to other wags. It would mean an extra man per wag and an uncomfortable journey home, but the companions needed some space for their ride to Duma.
For the Duma sec team, it was a job well done. Which was just about to be finished. The wag retreated to the ridge and came to a halt. Esquivel studied his wrist chron, counting off the remaining minutes. When the five minutes elapsed, it would be half-past one. The mission would be initiated and completed in only an hour and a quarter. Hammick would be pleased at the efficiency—if he was still around when they got back. Esquivel knew he had overstepped the mark by taking charge, but there was nothing else that could have been done in the circumstances.
He wondered how Xander would feel about that. Then he looked at J.B. and Olly, tending to the five captives they had rescued, and figured that getting the legendary one-eyed man out of trouble would keep him out of jail.
The second hand ticked around again.
“If they ain’t out now, they never will be,” Esquivel murmured to himself as he dismounted from the wag. He walked to the edge of the ridge. The valley formed a shallow pan and the ville lay in the center. It was too far for him to throw the canisters, so he improvised a slingshot from the sleeve of his shirt, which he ripped off without a thought.
“Hope I still got the eye for it,” he murmured, remembering a childhood spent chilling small mammals for food.
He loaded up the first canister and let it fly. It took a high, looping trajectory into the air, landing on the edge of the ville. It landed with a thump, nothing happening.
“Nukeshit, this was supposed to be easy,” he muttered.
“Would be if you got it right,” the Armorer said laconically, appearing at Esquivel’s elbow. He was holding Olly’s Weatherby. The blaster was a good long-range hunting rifle, and Esquivel understood immediately what J.B. intended. With the briefest of nods he wound up for another throw, launching the canister high into the air, looping out over the ville.
J.B. sighted the Weatherby and fired once. The canister exploded into a ball of liquid fire that spread out over a vast distance, falling to earth and raining flame on the wreckage beneath.
The flames ignited the oil beneath, spreading trails of fire across the ville. The fuses on the plas ex and grens caught and chains of explosions gouged the earth where the ville of Nagasaki once stood. The canister on the edge of the ville exploded as the fires reached it, gouts of liquid fire flying up into the air and coming down to ignite scrub and brush around.
The fires and explosions leveled what was left of the ranch house and the barn, eradicating all trace of the shacks, a pall of thick, dark smoke marking the point where the corpses burned.
“Always knew that napalm would be useful,” J.B. remarked as he and Esquivel stood watching the destruction. They only realized how long they had been standing there when the other wags, moving from their positions around the ridge to form up a convoy for the trip back to Duma, hove into view.
“C’mon, man, let’s get home,” Esquivel said, clapping J.B. on the shoulder before stopping to shake his head. “Man, that’s first time I’ve ever called it that.”
I
T TOOK SEVERAL DAYS
for the companions to be restored to a reasonable state of health. The cuts inflicted by the Nagasaki dwellers had become infected and Doc was still suffering from shock and trauma from the blaster wounds that had been inflicted in the redoubt. Jak’s left shoulder had been badly dislocated and for the first two days they were in Duma it kept popping out again, much to his frustration.
But rest, a warm environment and food and water contributed much to their recovery. The main shock was in seeing J.B. again. They had all resigned themselves to his demise and it took Doc a while to trust his own senses. After his injuries and trauma, he feared that he was hallucinating when he saw his old friend.
For his part, J.B. saw them only briefly over the period. It put him in a difficult position. For most of the time he had been in Duma he had been a man without a past and his life as he knew it had been based around settling into this ville and becoming a part of it. There were a lot of things about Duma that he didn’t like, and despite the manner in which he had been greeted by the baron—because of his past, the one he knew nothing of—he found that he didn’t trust Xander at all. For all its wealth, Duma was a harsh place, where everyone walked a tightrope every day of their lives.
At the same time, the memories that had come flooding back to him when he saw Ryan didn’t, in some ways, seem real. They felt like stories that had been told to him. He felt that he had to accept them as his past, yet he didn’t really believe them. Being in the same room as the five people he had spent so long traveling with seemed bizarre: they were people who risked their lives for each other so many times, yet he didn’t feel he was one of them. But he was…
On the surface, J.B. went about his business in the armory, and fended off Xander’s questions. The baron still trusted Grant, albeit with qualification after the debacle of the ambush, and the healer advised that they be allowed to rest before the baron questioned them. J.B. had his own ideas on why that should be and knew that it may prove dangerous if Xander persuaded them to stay.
Meanwhile, Budd had accepted him and working in the armory was better than before. Olly was keen to learn and Esquivel was no longer his permanent shadow. But all that did was give him no one he could really talk to…except maybe for Ella-Mae.
The mechanic hadn’t forgiven him for laying her out before the raid on Nagasaki, and had been steering clear of him. But he tracked her down and tried to explain the position he now found himself in.
“And you trust me?” she queried, ordering another glass of Icepick’s potent spirit.
“Have to trust someone,” J.B. replied.
“That’ll have to do, I guess. I’m surprised it’s me, though. Why not Es?”
“I haven’t seen much of him since he was taken off my back.” J.B. shrugged.
Ella-Mae smiled. “Nah, he’s too busy right now. Word has it that he’s gonna replace Hammick.”
“He never said anything about it,” J.B. mused.
“He wouldn’t. Es knows when it’s time to keep his mouth shut. Word is that he did a good job cleaning out that shithole inbred ville. But he’s not Grant’s man and Hammick was. Grant and Xander have always been like this,” she elaborated, crossing her fingers for emphasis, “mostly because of Xander’s father trusting him. But now Es has made a reputation and your friend Ryan—who Xander’s been banging on about for quite a while—is in the frame, then life could be hard for Grant. And he still has friends, if you know what I mean.”
She paused, then took J.B.’s hand and made him look directly at her. “Look, you know how I feel, but that’s not the reason I’m gonna say this. I reckon you should get the hell out of here. If it turns out Xander wants the one-eyed man to head up sec, then Es won’t be too bothered, but Grant will. And that could mean some kind of war you’ll end up in. Face it, you don’t like this place and the last thing you want is a stupe battle when there are real ones to face.”
“Anyone would think you want to get rid of me,” J.B. said quietly.
“You know that ain’t it, babe, but mebbe it would be best for everyone.”
J.B. shrugged. “Can’t say it hadn’t occurred to me. But how can we do it without Xander raising hell?”
“Leave that to me. I haven’t lived here all my life and kept living without learning something.”
X
ANDER FINALLY GOT TO SEE
the companions on the fourth day after the attack. He pumped them for all they knew about Trader and all that had happened to Ryan and J.B. since their days in War Wag One. Ryan was puzzled by Xander’s curiosity and it was only after the baron explained why J.B. had been unable to tell him anything that the companions started to see why J.B. had seemed so strange when he had seen them.
Ryan fed the baron the stories he wanted to hear.
“I heard something a while back,” Xander said, “some people have claimed to have seen Trader. He doesn’t operate in the same way anymore—it’s like he’s on some kind of quest, I guess—but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still around.”
Then, before Ryan had a chance to assimilate this information, Xander sprung something else on him.
“I’ve already got J.B. working in the armory and I’ve got a vacancy for a chief of sec. There’s a good man who could do it, but if I had you, Ryan Cawdor, the man who traveled shotgun with the legendary Trader…To have both you and J.B. on the team would make me invincible. In fact, it’s just what I need. Think about it.”
Xander rose to leave. There was something about the way he said it that suggested it was a nonnegotiable request. That could be a big problem—as could be other people in the ville. Ryan didn’t know who the other man in the running might be, but he sure as hell noticed the looks they all got from the limping healer as he left with the baron.
J.B.
WAS WORKING IN THE BLASTER
store at the armory, cleaning out the M-16/M-203 combos that been used in the raid, when Ella-Mae walked in.
“How did you just get past the sec like that—” J.B. began, but stopped when he noticed that Grant was limping behind her. With the shadowy presence of the ex-sec man, anything was possible.
“Grant’s got something to say,” Ella-Mae began, “about what we were talking about the other night.”
“It’s safe to talk,” J.B. told them. “Olly and Budd are going through the ordnance we pulled in from that shit hole a few days back. That’ll keep ’em busy.”
Grant nodded with satisfaction and walked over to J.B. “I won’t screw with you. You know I was never happy with you here and you must have realized I’d be less than happy with the rest of you hanging around.”
“Xander wants Ryan to replace Hammick, right?” When Grant assented, J.B. continued. “That doesn’t suit you. But what about Es? He’ll be the replacement.”
“Not perfect, but at least I know him…and he won’t have the baron’s ear,” Grant explained.
“So you’d like to see us go—” J.B. looked at Ella-Mae “—and you know we want to go, right?”
Grant agreed. “Be ready tonight. Best to move quickly, before whispers spread or people change their minds.”
Without another word, the healer turned and limped away, leaving Ella-Mae alone with the Armorer.
“It’s quick,” he said simply.
“Mebbe it’s better that way.” She shrugged, looking J.B. in the eye. “Be at the healing room at eleven. Duma’s never quiet, but if we move, then we can slip past the sec rota changeover.”