That wasn’t the usual cowardly and noisy behavior of stickies. There was one thing that this group had in common with others, though—they attacked in a large group, taking no chances on being outnumbered.
“Fireblast! So many of the fuckers!” Ryan yelled, loosing off a shot that ripped through the stickie that was nearest, tearing a chunk of flesh away from its rib cage and splintering bone, the flight path of the bullet pushing a fragment of bone into the creature’s heart and stopping it. The stickie’s expression changed from one of blood lust to a kind of dull surprise, before the light went out in its dark eyes, and it dropped to the ground.
That was one less, but they were still outnumbered about six to one.
J.B. rattled off a series of shots that chilled three of the stickies and grazed the flesh of several more. But instead of driving them away, as it would have done with stickies they had encountered elsewhere, it only served to make the creatures more crazed. They attacked with a greater fervor, and J.B. found himself flung to the ground by two of the wounded stickies, who had launched themselves through the air. The Uzi was knocked from the Armorer’s hands by the impact, the strap still twisted around his wrist. Unfortunately for J.B. that only hampered him even further, as one of the stickies landed on top of the blaster, his body weight pulling the strap taut and causing the blood flow to stop, deadening the Armorer’s hand and leaving him with only one arm to defend himself.
Ryan, meanwhile, had turned the Steyr in his hands, now wielding it as a club to try to clear space for himself by taking out as many stickies as possible with one swing. He counted on the fact that the stickies were so crazed in their attack to help him that they rushed blindly into the heavy stock of the rifle, their own momentum increasing the force with which it hit them at head level. There was the sickening sound of cracking bone and the squelch of soft flesh as two of the stickies died, their skulls crushed, brains pulped. At the extreme end of his swing, Ryan looked back to the forest. If they could get some space and move back, would they be able to take cover and establish a position of strength back there? The darkness hid the root system, and there was every chance that they would be tripped by the raised knots, and so make themselves even more vulnerable than they were now. He couldn’t credit stickies with having planned that aspect of the ambush, but if nothing else it proved that lady luck had a mutie face that day.
While Ryan and J.B. were trying to deal with the stickies that had headed for them, the others were dealing with their attackers with varying degrees of difficulty.
Inevitably Jak was faring the best. Despite his initial shock at the silence with which the stickies had waited, allied to his sense of foreboding, his instincts and life of fighting kicked in with a vengeance. His white hair whipping around his head like pale flames, he turned and spun among the group of stickies who had approached him. They were being held at bay by the swift kicking of his heavy combat boots, and the razor-sharp whirl of the leaf-bladed knife that he held in each hand, wrists supple and twisting to angle the blades with each thrust at any exposed white and sickly flesh that came within range.
Many of the stickies attacking him were nursing wounds and trying with pitiful little wails to staunch the blood that flowed through their papery skin. But despite the fact that he was seemingly on top of the situation, he was only too well aware that he was doing no more than containing the situation. They couldn’t get to him yet, but inevitably he would tire sooner or later, and with the large number of stickies surrounding him, he couldn’t as yet see a way to change defense to attack.
While Jak puzzled on that with a portion of his mind that wasn’t occupied with defense, Krysty was on the other side of Ryan, her hair clinging close to her head and her mouth set in a grim line as she dealt with the forces attacking her.