“Bad feeling, lover,” she yelled over the melee.
Ryan agreed. “Too easy.”
But they had little choice except to follow the flow of the war party. There had been a couple of casualties among the leading throng. Ryan caught sight of J.B. and Jak, trying to calm down foot soldiers who were excited by the sudden release of tension, but they were swept along with the tide.
More of the Illuminated Ones went down—over half the original force had been chilled, and the others pulled back farther along the corridor until they passed through a sec door that led into a vast chamber beyond.
As the war party swept in, Ryan and Krysty toward the rear, still trying to pull them back, the remaining Illuminated Ones melted into the walls, leaving the warriors firing at thin air.
The heavy sec door closed with a clang behind the last of the war party. The room was in virtual darkness, and the lights were gradually raised to reveal a large hangarlike chamber.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Gloria yelled, realizing what had happened.
Ryan’s face was set grim. As he had feared, they had been led—willingly, as it transpired—into the very place they had wished to avoid.
Two large mat-trans units stood in the chamber. Set high in one wall was an observation port. The armaglass windows were dark and opaque.
They had played right into the hands of the enemy.
Chapter Fourteen
Ryan felt the fires of frustration and rage boil up within him to the point where he felt that he would explode if he didn’t vent them in some manner, however futile that might prove to be.
Gazing up at the armaglass ob port that gave an unseen observer a full panorama of the war party below, Ryan felt that the opaque wall of armaglass was almost mocking them. He could imagine some of the Illuminated Ones—perhaps even the commander of the redoubt, or their overall leader—standing, poring over the people gathered below, examining them as though they were nothing more than insects. Not as human beings who were fighting for their survival, but rather as specimens who could be used in some experiment.
Ryan knew it was a futile gesture even before he began, but it was something that he felt he had to do. Both to vent his anger, and also in some way to galvanize an army that had been deflated with the realization of how they had fallen so easily into a trap.
Taking the Steyr from his back, the one-eyed warrior strode through the throng that clustered miserably in the chamber and took aim at the ob port. He fired a round and watched as the bullet clattered harmlessly against the armaglass, not even pitting or scarring the surface.
It may have been, in that sense, futile, but it did serve to change the mood of the army. Whereas, scant moments before, they had been reflective of the tone set by Gloria in her exclamation when she realized how her enthusiasm had trapped them, they now felt lifted by the defiance of the one-eyed man.
Ryan’s blast was the first of many.
“C’mon Doc, my old beauty, let’s show the bastards we’re not chilled yet,” Cat said, grinning as she raised her laser blaster and firing at the ob port. Her charge hit the armaglass, and although it made a faint scorch mark but little else, it was the cue for more of the warriors to fire.
As the laser blasters, rifles and handblasters went off around them, the companions sought out one another among the throng of the warriors.
“Is there really any point in joining them?” Mildred asked rhetorically as they gathered.
J.B. shook his head. “Not a hope of breaking through, even by sheer weight of numbers.”
“Yeah, but at least it’s got everyone on the up again,” Ryan commented. “That was really the only reason.”
Krysty eyed the throng. “It’s certainly worked, lover. They’re fired up, all right, but what the hell can we do to get out of here?”
“More question of what they do get rid us,” Jak commented with a twinkle in his ruby-red eye.
Dean was puzzled. “What do you mean?”