The slaves who couldn’t work, who were too rad sick or who had been injured from glass falls lay curled up in the dimples. Some of them were undoubtedly already dead. Nearby, healthier slaves roasted their fresh-caught midmorning snacks over the propane burners. Bruised purple from so much kicking and bouncing, the stickie heads lay scattered around the camp.
Ryan and J.B. stayed together as they crossed the open ground, making a beeline for the ore trucks.
The other troopers didn’t seem to notice them.
Ryan saw Doc and Dean working their way along the other side of the sledges lined up for unloading. They were spreading the word to the waiting slaves: throw glass, not axes.
The trooper beside the first cart in line waved his gauntlet at Ryan. He pointed at his battlesuit collar, indicating the throat mike. Ryan and J.B. kept on walking toward him.
The guard repeated the gesture.
Whatever Doc was going to do, he for nuke’s sake had to do it soon, Ryan thought.
The first chunk of glass arced over from the rear of the line of sledges. With a puff of twinkling dust, it hit the trooper in the helmet. The hunk of nukeglass was big enough and it was thrown hard enough to knock him sideways a step. The missile left a whitish mark on the black armor.
Ryan and J.B. fell into a trot.
The trooper before them recovered, only to be caught in a rain of glass chunks. Many of the chunks missed their target and shattered on the ground, but the others, the ones that were thrown true, pounded the shoulders and chest of his battlesuit and slammed into his helmet.
“Stop!” he commanded the slaves, his amplifier at top volume.
There was an edge of panic in his voice.
That he was clearly in trouble only encouraged his attackers. Realizing that they could actually hurt their oppressors this way, the slaves grabbed pieces of glass from their sledges and began pelting every trooper within range. They barraged the pair at the head of the sledge line and the guard by the water tank. The trooper standing beside the ore truck retreated with his weapon raised to the front bumper as the slaves stopped throwing hunks of glass into the wag’s bed and started throwing them at him.
As Ryan and J.B. came up on the side of the ore truck, they saw the trooper by the bumper take a triple hit in the helmet, which sent him toppling over backward.
From behind them came the amplified cry, “Fire!”
The air was split by a dozen whistling shrieks.
By then, Ryan was already scrambling over the top of the ore track’s cargo box. He got a glimpse of battlesuited troopers massing on the edge of the compound, unleashing a cat’s cradle of green, crisscrossing beams. The guards fired a warning volley over the slaves’ heads.
A moment after Ryan dropped below the rim of the box, J.B. clunked down beside him. The walls of enclosure were ten feet high on the outside. Nuke rabble filled ninety percent of the interior volume. Ryan and J.B. were riding high, so they had to flatten out and keep their heads down.
When the firing and the shouting stopped, it only took a few more minutes for the slaves to fill the wag. They tossed hunks of ore over the sides and down upon the stowaways. Ryan and J.B. lay there and took it.
The wag driver didn’t look into the cargo box to see how full it was. He didn’t have to. From the ground, the trooper could see the heaping mound of glass above the edge.
When he had a full load, the driver got in, started the engine and turned the ore track around. The wag’s seven-foot-diameter wheels bumped over the dimples in the glass as if they were nothing. As soon as the wag was away from the camp, Ryan and J.B. climbed out from under the blocks of glass and took off their helmets.
The air tasted sweet and the wind cooled them off. The sway and pitch of the track on the road caused the box’s razor-sharp contents to shift, forcing them to scramble to more secure ground near the cab.