Ayesha shrugged. “Don’t you get it yet, stupe? We don’t want that. We don’t want to be told what to do. We want to have lives where we aren’t pieces of shit to be used and abused, and frankly we’d rather get chilled than go through with it. Your way we die a long slow death for sure. But we stick this out and fight, then mebbe we’ve got a chance of getting away. And that chance is worth more than you could ever give.”
“That’s a lot of words to prepare to buy the farm,” he said quietly.
“Which is something you would have done a long time ago if not for the fact that we need you to lead us out, so as not to look suspicious,” Claudette said harshly as she unloaded the Uzi. She tossed the empty blaster to him, and he caught it before it hit him full in the face. “You can take this, but remember that I’ve got a handblaster, and I can draw it real quick if I have to. Understand me?”
He nodded. “There should be two sec men with you. Otherwise Baron Al’ll know something’s wrong straight away. Davey should have been the other one,” he added, with an indication of his head to where the chilled sec man was still slumped.
“How inconsiderate of me to end his miserable fucking life, then,” Ayesha replied sarcastically. “The driver’ll just have to take his place. Will my lovely father spot that? I think not.” She explained, before the sec man had a chance to answer, “Because you all look alike to him. You’re just the scum that do his dirty work. So get your fat ass over here,” she said to the driver, signaling him to climb over the seats and join them in the rear of the wag.
“Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“Oh, a triple stupe, as well, eh?” Ayesha snapped. “You know as well as I do that the two guards wouldn’t both get out of the front of the wag. Everyone else in the convoy will expect one man from the rear, with the women, and one from the front, where he was riding shotgun. You’re replacing the boy from the rear is all. Now fucking move!” she yelled, gesturing with her knife.
The driver clambered over the seat and slid into the rear of the wag, passing near to Claudette, who gave him a warning kick—hard—to dissuade him from any idea he may have of trying to attack her. But he was just a driver, and had figured that this would be the easiest ride in the convoy. He was now pissed off and frightened. If any of the things Ayesha had said about the Hellbenders were true, there was little chance of him getting back to Charity in one piece. But every moment he could stay alive was still of the utmost importance to him, and so he complied with her request.
Ayesha gave him an empty blaster and joined Claudette in appearing to secure herself in the shackles. But she still had the knife in the palm of her hand; Claudette had a handblaster up the sleeve of her shirt, and some of the other women had the liberated blasters concealed about their bodies.
“Do it now,” Ayesha snapped.
The sec man in the front of the wag slid out of his seat, opening the door of the wag and jumping out, running around to the back and opening up the rear of the wag. Gesturing with the empty Uzi, he beckoned for the apparently shackled women to get out of the wag. This they did, with Ayesha in the lead and Claudette somewhere in the middle, looking behind her all the way to keep an eye on the driver who was acting as second sec guard. When they were all clear of the back door, the rear guard closed the door to hide the chilled body within from the eyes of the sec wag behind them.
“Keep it hard,” Ayesha whispered to the other women, aware of the eyes from all the sec wags that were now trained on them. There was an immense pressure on them to appear “normal” as they were seemingly led to their exchange.