The Armorer glumly shook his head. “Not a loose round. Not even empty boxes or plastic wrapping on the floor. However, I found a Webley .44 revolver in the CD’s office. Plus a nice box of ammo.”
Joining him, Ryan scowled at the blaster. “That the one that Silas mentioned?”
“Yep.”
“So what’s wrong with it?”
J.B. lifted the handcannon and angled it into the light. “See? The barrel is blocked solid with iron. Pull that trigger and the back blast will remove your arm from the elbow down.”
“Can you fix it, melt out the iron?”
“No way. I plan on placing it in plain sight near the front door in case anybody came visiting. Mebbe we can get them to shoot themselves.”
Ryan lifted a cardboard ammunition box. “Worth a try. What about the ammo, rigged?”
“You better believe it. There’s no cordite inside those cartridges. They’re packed solid with plas-ex. Like loading your blaster with grens. Used that trick myself once or twice. It works great. But see here.” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a grayish wad of something that resembled clay. “I took them apart, and now we have half a pound of plas-ex. About two grens’ worth.”
“All right,” Dean said, beaming in pleasure. At least it was something.
The Armorer removed his fedora and placed it on the table. “Not really,” he said, straightening the brim. “Don’t have any timing pencils, detonators or any other way to set off the plas.”
“Firecracker,” Jak suggested. “Only made paper and twine.”
“And gunpowder. We got none to spare. Doc’s LeMat is the only blaster that uses black powder, and it’s half of our remaining arsenal.”
“Needs must, as the devil drives,” Doc rumbled, drawing the massive weapon and putting it on the table. He made a gesture to slide it over.
J.B. waved him off. “Thanks, but I’m working on other stuff first. Keep that blaster loaded.”
“I was thinking,” Krysty said, pulling a chair away from the table and sitting down. “Even if we had wags and ammo, how are we going to destroy the Kite? We have nothing that can reach the sat in its orbit.”
“Mebbe we could make it crash,” Dean suggested.
“If we can reach the control systems, that’s a good plan,” Ryan agreed. The man spread a clean towel on the table and began to disassemble the Steyr. It was filthy with ash, and he wanted the rifle in good shape when they found ammo. “Comp systems are easy to smash. Only one Kite, and when the comps are gone, it’s useless.”
“Chilling the sat is easy,” J.B. said to everyone’s surprise. “Piece of cake. The problem is getting to the base undetected.”
“While on my sojourn, I chanced to peer in the periscope,” Doc said, taking a chair and pulling off his boots. The man wiggled his toes with obvious pleasure. “The storm seems to be lessening. When it stops, why not simply walk there?”
Sliding out the bolt and removing a spring, Ryan scowled. “And get chilled. There’s no more trees outside, or bushes to hide behind. We’d be walking over open land in plain sight. Besides, we have less than a dozen live rounds and no usable explosives. They have motorcycles, mebbe another APC.”
“Don’t forget that chopper,” Dean said.
“Yeah, we need a LAW rocket to take out that thing. Otherwise it’d be a death march.”
“Front gate looked like it could stop a tank, so no use trying there,” J.B. said, starting to clean his scat-tergun. “The stone wall has a gap, but the blues will station most of their guards there.”
“Nightcreep,” Jak suggested, stropping a knife on a whetstone. “Steal sec man blasters. Less them, better for us.”
“Too risky. We can’t steal weps from the blues until we go there, and we can’t go till we got some more blasters.”
“Catch-22,” Mildred muttered. Then to their questioning looks she explained, “Predark talk for situations like this. You weren’t allowed to leave the war unless you were insane, and if you wanted to go, then you were sane. Asking to leave meant you then had to stay, no matter what. Catch-22.”
Ryan slid the bolt home and dry fired the longblaster. The rifle clicked nice and solid. Find some ammo, and they were ready. “Our best bet is to try the tunnel downstairs.”