Bloodfire

Sliding on the gloves, the slim redhead nodded, and collapsed the tube on the LAW rocket, making the sights retract. Expertly, she hung it across her back and grabbed an AK-47 from the ville armory. It was her preferred blaster and most of the ammo was hand loaded by her, or the other wives. She considered homemade ammo much more dependable than the preDark stuff, no matter how well it was preserved inside sealed plastic boxes.

Stepping to the turret, Gaza grabbed his first wife by the scruff of the neck and pulled her close for a hard kiss.

“Don’t you fucking die on me,” he muttered softly. “Worse happens, set the ammo bins of the wag to blow and slide down the cable to join us below. This is far from being over.”

Brushing some loose hair from his face, Allison nodded at her husband, then turned to do the same to her sister standing by the aft doors. The women shared a moment of understanding, wishing the other goodbye. In spite of what their beloved husband said, the chances of this working were virtually zero, but they would stand by him to the end.

Pushing past them both, Gaza threw open the rear door and stepped outside. The air was murky with smoke and the drifting dust from the missile hits. Hurrying among the sprawled forms of dead sec men and their bikes, Gaza reached the winch and checked the nuke batteries on the electric motor. He was relieved to find the machinery working perfectly. At least that much was going his way.

Kathleen joined him at the winch. Stuffing his hands into the stiff gloves, Gaza freed the cable and together they dragged it to the edge of the cliff and started to snake it down. When it reached the bottom, the baron locked the winch tight and Kathleen started over the edge of the cliff to grab the cable. She started to slide down, using her boots to brake the speed. The gloves grew uncomfortably hot in only a matter of yards, but the woman kept going and gratefully released the hot woven steel upon reaching the ground.

Gaza was already sliding down the cable and landed only a few seconds later. Sliding was a dangerous way to use the cable, but the fastest way to reach the city and time was against them right now. Every moment counted.

Anchoring the cable in case Allison had to follow, the man and woman readied their blasters and charged into the morass of rubble and wreckage that ringed the burning city, firing sporadically at anything that moved.

WITH THE SIG-Sauer leading the way, Ryan crawled out of the steep ravine and reached the top of the cliff. Pausing for a moment to recce the area, he studied the tattered bodies of the Core littering the sandy ground.

Large caliber rounds had chewed them apart, along with small explosions, mebbe that 25 mm cannon he had heard about. But this was no recent fight. The ripe smell of the corpses made it clear that the Core had been chilled a while ago. Hours, mebbe a full day. Odd thing, no buzzards were feasting on the meat, not even the scorpions or the red ants. Mebbe even the fragging insects knew how dangerous that jinkaja dreck was that saturated their flesh.

Standing slowly, Ryan listened for a minute to the wind blow and the crackling of the fire. If this was the only way into the sinkhole, then it made sense for the Core to be waiting for them to come out here. Black hair whipping about his face, Ryan swept the killing field with the muzzle of the deadly blaster, ready for betrayal from the deaders, or the soil underneath. The airborne salt particles made it difficult to see. But the area was clear. Could be Gaza got them all.

Finally satisfied, Ryan whistled sharply twice through his teeth and stepped out for the others to ascend. Helping one another up the last few yards, the rest of the companions gratefully reached the floor of the desert and looked over the battlefield.

“Tire tracks,” Jak said, pointing at what appeared to be merely churned sand. “APC was here.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *