“Fuck this,” somebody growled, and a wiry man darted from the corner, heading for the riddled sheet of plywood trying to escape.
Slamming in a fresh clip, Dean snapped off two shots, catching the mercie in the boot. Yowling with pain, the man went down and started crawling for the door until Krysty finished him off with a round to the head.
Bottles burst on the wall behind him as Jak emptied his Colt into the table, making lots of holes in the soft pine, but no screams sounded. The mercies had gotten wise and were avoiding the weak spot in their defense. Then a man dived under a nearby picnic table and kicked it over. Safe behind the solid redwood planks, he dragged the heavy furniture toward the damaged table.
“They’re fortifying their position,” J.B. snapped, reloading the Uzi with a spare clip from the ammo pouch on his belt.
“We have grens,” Krysty suggested, thumbing fresh rounds into the cylinder of her open wheelgun. She eased the loaded cylinder shut and clicked back the hammer looking for new targets.
Longblaster to his cheek, Ryan fired a fast five times at the moving table and didn’t get penetration. That was the very reason he choose to fight insidethe hundred-year-old redwood was a hell of a shield. “Can’t use explosives,” he said, working the bolt and inserting another clip. “The concussion would kill us, too.”
“Not necessarily,” Mildred stated, lowering her piece.
Peeking out from around the side of the battered table, Doc fired once more with extreme care. His titanic LeMat held nine shots, but then took minutes to recharge, and he was down to three remaining loads.
“A bait-and-switch?” Doc asked, waving the barrel to disperse the volumes of acrid smoke pouring from the hot maw of the blaster.
“Sure.”
“Do it,” Ryan ordered, passing Doc the loaded rifle and drawing the SIG-Sauer P-226 from his belt.
Bolstering her weapon, Mildred took the grenade from her pocket, unwrapped the tape holding the arming lever in place, then stood and threw the unprimed military charge. The sphere bounced off the side of the fireplace across the room and neatly rolled behind the enemy table.
“Gren!” a man screamed, backing away from the explosive.
The silenced 9 mm pistol coughing softly, Ryan shot him in the chest as the rest of the mercies raced away from what they thought was certain death. J.B. got two more with the chattering Uzi, Dean wounded another in the shoulder, and Doc blew away the gun-filled hand of the fourth.
Suddenly, a limp man dived clumsily for the window, and everybody concentrated on stopping him. At the same moment, Phillipe made a dash for the exit from the other end of the long table, hosing lead from the MAC-10 and wildly firing somebody else’s revolver.
The bastard had thrown a corpse as a diversion! Ryan trained his blaster on the fleeing man, when a blur moved across the room and the handle of a knife sprouted from the throat of the mercie chief. Clawing at the hideous wound, crimson pouring down his shut, Phillipe stumbled against the wall and the companions shot him enough times to make sure he stayed down. The body jerking like a mad puppet under the concentrated barrage of flying lead.
As the assault slowed, Phillipe fell face forward onto the dirty floor, driving the blade out the back of his neck. Blasters clenched in a death grasp, the dying leader of the mercies twitched once and went still.
Walking out from behind the bar, Jak crossed the room, kicking spent shells musically out of his way. Flipping the dead man over, Jak retrieved his knife.
“Any more?” Ryan asked, slamming a fresh clip into his blaster.
“One hiding in the corner,” J.B. said, straightening his glasses. “See the blood trail?”
Sitting at a table, Doc took this opportunity to start cleaning the chambers of his weapon prior to recharging. Burned gunpowder rained to the floor like black snow as he purged the holes with a brass brush.
“Come out, you,” Ryan called, walking closer. “We want to talk.”
“F-fuck y-you,” a frightened voice stammered, and some bullets spilled into view from behind the bullet-ridden table as the trapped man fumbled trying to reload his weapon.