Dark Reckoning by James Axler

“Buy us another ten,” Ryan ordered gruffly. “Then get out. We’ll meet you at redoubt.”

“Do my best,” the Armorer said offering his hand.

Ryan took it and the men shook, saying goodbye in the only way they could. Neither expected to see the other alive again.

“Want some company, John?” Mildred offered, stepping closer.

Smiling, J.B. touched her cheek. “Only slow me down, Millie. Cover your ass, and I’ll concentrate on mine.”

She nodded, and he took off into the night.

“Gaia be with you,” Krysty muttered in prayer.

“Come on,” Ryan stated, heading toward the Quonset hut. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Staying low to the ground, Ryan followed the tracks the teenager had made in the hard ground. The light was poor, but he had been carrying a lot of explosives and that made the difference. They were halfway to the hut, near the slave quarters, when Ryan stopped cold and knelt on the soil.

“Three men, no, four killed,” he said, studying the tracks. “Mebbe ten more. Jak lost his blaster, was wounded, tried to run and they got him from behind.”

“Still alive, then?” Krysty asked.

Ryan stood. “He’s alive. They dragged him away, limping, then lifted him off the ground.”

“Probably fainted. How the hell did they beat Jak in a knife fight?”

“Mebbe they hit his bad shoulder,” Mildred suggested, the crossbow steady in her grip as she watched the shadows for any suspicious movements. “It was hurting more than he would admit.”

“Time,” Doc demanded, Kalashnikov at quarter-arms, his swordstick stuck through his belt in lieu of a scabbard.

“Fifteen minutes,” Mildred replied.

“Where now?” Krysty asked. “The tracks go in a dozen directions from here. Which one has Jak?”

Ryan couldn’t tell and chose one at random. The boots were in the best condition, so those were most likely the officers who would be interrogating the youth.

“This way,” he said and took off at an easy lope. Time was against them now, and every second counted.

WHEN J.B. ARRIVED at the power plant, the noise of the pistons inside was steadily growing in volume. Worried, he glanced through the filthy windows and saw that several of the safeties had blown and steam was filling the building from floor to rafters. The grime on the office windows washed away under the boiling assault. The temperature inside was lethal. Without anybody at the controls, the boilers were running away, building to an explosion of their own, even without his charges.

As he watched, another valve burst, shooting through the steam on a white jet and smashing through the office window.

Backing away, the Armorer paused and started to go for the trip wire of the gren at the back door, then stayed his hand, turned and walked away. Even if he could cut the booby traps fast enough, there was no way through that cloud of steam. It would ace him in under a heartbeat. The plas would be okay. The charges were out of the way of the direct venting, but the only doors were smack in the path. The plant had to have been designed that way so that the doors could be blown from the exterior and the power plant would cool down naturally without any loss of life. Now it only meant the place was death for anybody trying to sneak inside.

The bombs would explode in twelve more minutes, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

JAK LAY LIMPLY on the rough-hewn wooden boards, one eye swollen shut, but his teeth were still in place. That had seemed to enrage the blues, and they converged again to concentrate a lot of their kicks on his mouth.

“That’s enough,” a sergeant ordered, and the gang of men stepped away from the bloody form on the floor. “You going to talk now, mutie?”

Although both lips were swollen and cut, Jak managed a smile, the taste of blood filling his mouth. One blue snarled and stabbed Jak in the thigh with a fork from the dining table. The teenager shuddered, but didn’t speak.

“Strip him, then chain him to the wall,” the sergeant ordered brusquely.

Jak was stripped, then hauled across the room and chained spread-eagled to the brick wall. Cold suddenly washed over the teenager, and he found himself rudely awake, his dripping hair blocking most of his vision.