Sheffield turned away to look over the assemblage of sec men. “Even sooner would be better,” he said bluntly, then found the man he wanted. “You there, Lieutenant Harris!”
Busy congratulating the Beta team blues, the sec man stopped shaking their hands and hurried to the baron. “Yes, my lord?” he asked, saluting and clicking his boot heels.
“How are the preparations for our departure?”
“We can leave anytime, sir.”
“Excellent. Any word from Collette yet?”
The officer hesitated, then plowed on. “I sent a recce team to check, what with her and Dickson being gone for so long.” He swallowed. “They found only bones, dead muties and burned wreckage. Wild dogs got them.”
“Four bodies, two hummers?” the baron pressed, a sudden feeling of dread welling from within.
“Impossible to say, my lord. The mutants had been feasting, and the wreckage of the explosion was thrown all over the area. The ammo must have cooked off from the fire.”
“Mebbe,” Sheffield muttered. Unless the slave had found the entry code and that bitch Collette was now inside the redoubt. It was a chance he had been forced to take, and it might have bitten him in the ass. Shit-fire! He never should have trusted the traitorous bitch.
“Get a squad to the boilers and start stoking the fire,” the baron decided aloud. “I want maximum steam as soon as possible. Hopefully before nightfall.”
“Yes, my lord!”
“And triple the wall guards,” Sheffield added almost as an afterthought. “Just in case.”
“More muties?” the sec man asked, worried.
“If we’re lucky,” Sheffield growled, heading for the control room in the blockhouse at the base of the dish.
THEIR MEAL OVER, the baron of Green Cove ville and his men had adjourned to the war room to plot the attack on Front Royal. Racks of longblasters lined three of the walls, along with spears, swords, longbows and quivers of arrows, while hand-drawn maps of the area adorned the fourth wall. The baron and his troops studied the plastic sheet carefully. Meanwhile, Baron Henderson was sketching on a tabletop with a piece of charcoal.
“The drawbridge is here, not there, as your maps say,” he stated, drawing neat square figures on the smooth wood. “There is a hill back here perfect for launching an attack, but it’s a trap. They have some sort of secret chamber in the trees, possibly a tunnel, and can release those monster dogs at will.”
“How do you know all this?” DuQuene demanded gruffly, pinning some predark medals to his shirt. One of the many treasures found in the ruins where his grandfather had built the ville was a military supply store. All of the ammo and blasters were gone, but many other useful items remained uniforms, medals, lots of swords and countless books on warfare. DuQuene had never learned to read, but he wore the medals and they made him feel brave and confident, as he had earned the right to wear the decorations through simple birth. Aside from the fancy ribbons and medals, the baron was wearing a helmet from some predark war. Made of heavy steel, it was round with a very wide brim and a chin strap to keep it in place. DuQuene had many others helmets from different wars. Some were more lightweight, others formfitting and sleek, but this antique was made of heavy steel with several deep dents, showing it was protection against large-caliber rounds. The sec men got the fancy helmets for battle, but the steel was reserved solely for the use of the baron.
“I know,” Henderson replied coldly, “because Cawdor obliterated my troops with those blasted dogs.”
“So we need a strategy to remove them first off,” a sec man said.
“You have the answer right here,” Henderson replied gesturing at the assortment of weapons. “Pike to hold the dogs off while archers feather them with poisoned arrows. Once the dogs are gone, the battle will be easy.”
“Perhaps,” DuQuene demurred, hands clasped behind his back. “But their front gate is formidable. It would take a lot of explosives to blow through, and why wouldn’t they use their sky machine on invaders outside the walls?”
Putting the charcoal aside, Henderson knew he had no answer to that simple question and so lied outrageously. “It’s too close,” he said smoothly. “They try and melt us, they’d only destroy themselves.”
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