Bloodfire

“A day, mebbe less,” Ryan agreed.

Bending, Dean lifted the spent brass from a .50-cal and inspected the bottom before sniffing the dirty inside.

“Homemade,” he stated. “Not preDark loads.”

Just then a tremendous explosion came from the west, but the drifting smoke and distance combined with the rolling sand dunes to hide the source of the detonation.

“Could be anything,” Mildred said, glancing about nervously. Her arms ached from the hurried climb, and the woman felt vulnerable just standing there in plain sight.

A few seconds later another explosion came from within the city, the cornice of a skyscraper exploding into pieces, the entire roof breaking apart to slide off and plummet into the streets below.

Studying the fiery metropolis, J.B. slung the Uzi and dug out his longeyes to recce the cityscape.

“The angle of the blast is wrong for that to have come from this side,” he said slowly, as the thick clouds thinned for a moment, moving to the force of the northern wind. “It came from across the city, say, about twenty degrees to the…”

The Armorer’s voice faded away, then came back strong. “Dark night, there’s a land tank over there! No, wait, there are two of ’em! Big as anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Alone?” Ryan demanded pointedly.

“Some smaller wags, too. Couldn’t get a good look.”

“Is the war wag an APC?” Krysty asked, squinting to try to see past the conflagration.

“Converted trucks,” J.B. said, lowering the longeyes and compacting it before tucking it away into his bulging munitions bag. “Machine gun blisters, rocket pods on the roof and what sure as shit looks like a radar dish.”

“Just sitting there, or is it turning?” Ryan asked scowling.

“Turning steadily.”

“That means it’s probably working,” Ryan muttered, a hard smile coming to his face. “That’s gotta be the Trader. He and Abe escaped after all and reached a stockpile.”

“Indeed, logic dictates it to be so,” Doc rumbled. Estimating the direction the rocket traveled across the preDark city, Ryan leveled the Steyr SSG-70 and swept the opposite desert cliff with the scope. He had only seen Baron Gaza once with the sun at his back hiding his features. But if there was anybody shouting orders while the others ran to obey, that would be him and Ryan would see if the 7.62 mm long cartridges of the sniper rifle could do what the missile couldn’t.

For just a brief moment, Ryan saw an APC about a half mile away sitting on the edge of the cliff, and then it was gone behind the black smoke once more. The urge came to try anyway as he had before to chase off the Core, but the range finder on the scope told the brutal truth that it was too distant for an accurate shot.

“No good,” Ryan muttered, lowering the long-blaster.

“Too bad about the Holland & Holland,” Dean said, shifting the pack on his back to a more comfortable position. “You would have had the range with that.”

“But not the accuracy needed,” Mildred stated. “A sniper weapon is a hell of a lot different from a standard longblaster, or an assault rifle.”

“Like a knife is to a scalpel, right?”

“Exactly.”

Pulling out a plastic mirror from a pocket, Ryan debated trying to flash the Trader a message, but even if the man saw the reflected light, would he recognize the old codes or strike back instantly with a missile? Fireblast, he didn’t even know if it was his Trader, or merely somebody new using the rep to do business. If that was the case, then a flashing light might be mistaken for blasterfire and bring down a shitstorm of lead their way. Best to stay low for the moment.

“Let’s get moving,” Ryan ordered brusquely. “We can go into the desert, use the dunes as cover. Last place we want to be is between any war wags during a rocket fight without some steel covering our ass.”

Shuffling his boots in the sand, Dean frowned. “We just gonna leave?”

“We should take to the high ground,” Doc suggested. “Reconnoiter the situation from the top of a dune.”

“That’s triple stupe,” J.B. said bluntly. “Up high we’d be seen and catch a lot of lead. No, we stay low and leave. That’s the smart thing. They are in wags and we’re on foot. So let them fight it out, and we’ll come back when the smoke clears and see who was the winner.”