In the semiexposed ditches, and on the blacktop, the sec men presented an easy target for the laser blasters of the Illuminated Ones. Coming from the back of their wags, and using the doors as cover, the Illuminated war party was able to pick off the convoy sec with a minimum of effort, the laser blasters slicing through clothing, skin, flesh and bone with a precision that the machine blasters of the convoy sec could not hope to match.
“Fuck it, we’ve got to get in there and sort it out,” Tammy cried as they witnessed the carnage. She began to move, but Ryan stayed her with a hand on her arm.
The woman looked at him, and with the fire of battle on her eyes it seemed, for one moment, as though she may just lash out at him if he tried to stop her. On either side of him, Sandy and Stef—the other warriors who comprised this sec patrol—stiffened, as though ready to chill him and follow their leader.
“Just say the word,” Stef muttered in a deceptively gentle tone, her jet black hair falling into her eyes, her small bosom heaving as she kept her viciousness barely in check. “We’ll take him and follow you down.”
“No.” Tammy shook her head and relaxed. “Ryan’s right.”
But it was difficult for the one-eyed man to even accept his own judgment as they watched what followed.
With the convoy sec now wiped out, there was only the trader and the crew on the two trade wags to be dealt with. The wags offered little protection against the laser blasters, and the Illuminated Ones advanced on the wags with an air of confidence about them.
“Oh, fuck, it’ll be a massacre,” Tammy breathed.
“We can’t interfere. We can’t let the Illuminated Ones know we’re in the area,” Ryan reminded them.
The trader and his crew spilled out of the two wags. They were prepared to go down fighting, as they came out with blasters blazing. But it was obvious to the Gate recon party that the trader and his crew were doomed.
They caught one of the Illuminated Ones with their fire, the bizarrely clad and helmeted figure crumpling onto the blacktop. But there was only time for the one casualty. The laser blasters cut down the crew until there were only two left standing. Advancing quickly, choosing those two who wavered in directing their fire and so presented the least threat, the Illuminated Ones used the butts of their rifles to drive the two men into the ground.
It seemed that the two convoy members were unconscious, but from their startled screams when one of the Illuminated attackers produced a syringe and injected them, they were obviously still conscious.
“What are they doing?” Stef asked, perplexed.
Ryan’s face was grim. “They’re infecting them. The bastards are giving them the disease, and then they’ll set them free in the direction of Crossroads.”
The prophesy of the one-eyed man was proved correct as the two men were bundled into the front sec wagon, and the engine fired up. The Illuminated wag at the fore of the convoy drew back, and the two survivors—distrustful but not prepared to think about it until later—hared away from the scene of the massacre.
As the convoy wag disappeared along the blacktop, the Illuminated Ones collected their fallen member and withdrew from the scene of carnage, leaving the chilled and their wags behind.
“I feel like shit for doing nothing,” Tammy whispered as the Illuminated wags returned from whence they came, almost passing the recon party in their cover.
“I know,” Ryan said simply. “But there was nothing we could do without blowing our chances of getting into the redoubt. I’ll tell you this much, though— those scum fuckers aren’t going to get away with this. No way are they going to spread that disease across the land.”
Chapter Six
It was a dispirited recon party that returned to the Gate camp. Despite the anger that they felt at the Illuminated Ones, and even though all the members of the party knew that Ryan had been right to stay them from intervening, there was still an overriding sense of despair that they hadn’t been able to prevent the massacre and, more importantly, were powerless to do anything about the infection of the two survivors.