Ryan lifted an AK-47 and ran his hands along the wooden grip. “We have the element of surprise with that tunnel into the quarry,” he said, working the bolt and listening to the smooth sound of well-oiled parts. “And we can steal more clips from the blues as we ace them.”
“Truth, indeed, my dear friend,” Doc intoned. “Yet we need much more plastique to destroy the Kite.”
“A hell of a lot more than we have at present,” J.B. said. “That’s for damn sure.”
“No time make more plas,” Jak stated calmly, testing the draw on one of his many leaf-bladed throwing knives. “So we jump.”
“I just got a belly of food,” Ryan said, crossing his arms. “Sure like to keep that for a while before puking my guts out after a bad jump.”
Krysty took a seat at the table. “How long should we wait?” she asked, glancing at the physician.
“Hour should do,” Mildred answered hesitantly, unwrapping a stick of chewing gum. “Two would be better, though.”
“Then we make a jump in two hours,” Ryan stated, already disassembling a Kalashnikov for one more thorough cleaning.
AS THE LAV-25 drove through the collection of ramshackle huts, the locals watched the armored wag fearfully.
Standing in the turret, Campbell kept his hand on the 25 mm cannon in case of trouble. The wag also came with a 7.62 mm electric machine gun, but Baron Sheffield had removed the blaster to cover the hole in the wall at the Shiloh ville. Reluctantly, the sergeant agreed. Their longblasters and the grens should be enough firepower for any amount of opposition encountered. Especially with a pesthole like this.
The ville was no more than a small creek feeding a muddy puddle, surrounded by huts made from refuse and roofed with mud. There wasn’t even a fence of cut logs to keep out the muties, and anybody could make one of those. The locals were either triple-stupe and lazy, or else had a shit load more blasters than they were displaying. Only a handful of badly repaired bolt-action longblasters were visible, and none of the men carried extra rounds in their belts. Those were probably just showpieces used to frighten cold-hearts. The sec man had encountered that trick before many times. A big man with a bushy beard had a handcannon tucked into his belt, and there were a lot of cartridges in the loops. But if there was any powder between the lead and the shell there was no way of knowing until the hammer fell.
Everybody else was carrying axes and shovels, including the women. Campbell snorted in disgust. Farmer weapons. Useless against the LAV, and they knew it. This was all a bluff.
Then he jerked back as he realized metal struts stuck out from the roof of the main hut, and that the walls sloped gently downwardit was the dish, flipped over facedown. Now he could spot the smashed remnants of the support girders used among the others huts, and the crumpling ruins of the blockhouse that had once contained the controls and electric motors to angle the dish at the sats in space. Gone, it was all gone, used by stinking farmers to make huts! A blind rage filled the sec man, although he kept his face calm. The dirt-eating mutie lovers were going to pay for that.
“Stop right there, outies,” the bearded man ordered, holding up a hand. “Make a move and we’ll cut you down.”
“Now, we don’t want any trouble here, whitehair,” Campbell said with a smile.
“Trouble is what you’ll get!” the man shot back, resting a hand on his blaster. “We got you covered good and tight. What you doing in Settee ville?”
Seti ville, the damn fools. “Just here to fuck your women,” Campbell said, drawing his Colt and shooting the man in the throat.
Instantly, the rest of the blues cut loose with their Kalashnikovs through the blasterports. The farmers threw the axes and died. The people with rifles cast them aside and pulled crossbows into action. Snarling in rage, Campbell flicked on the cannon, and the people disintegrated under the barrage of shells, their bodies blown to pieces.