The Armorer knew that there was little time to waste. The sound of wags roaring out of the enclosed channels and into the desert at either end of the outcrop would be enough to make the two trade convoys aware of an attack, and every second lost in turning and heading back into the arena to take up battle would be a second that the two sets of sec could prepare a defense. Every second counted, and no time could be wasted on turning the wags.
So J.B. leaned heavily on the wheel and executed exactly the same kind of torturous metal-bending turn that Correll was executing at that same moment. His wag complained heavily, the wheels seeming slow in their ability to respond to his efforts at the wheel.
“Turn us over now and I’ll never forgive you, John,” Mildred murmured to herself as the wag tilted alarmingly, throwing them across the interior.
“Trust me,” the Armorer replied, almost to himself, as the wag righted itself and was facing the right direction— heading straight back into the arena. Through the lighter desert rain, he could see that the wags in front of him were still facing the wrong way to meet an attack, and the sec men still out of position, facing toward him but with the air of those frozen in sudden surprise.
“I always do, John,” Mildred added, checking her Czech manufactured ZKR target pistol. A handblaster wouldn’t be useful in the first attack, as they would be using the machine blasters mounted in the side of the wag to attack, but at some point, she had the feeling, it may just descend to hand-to-hand combat, in which case she wanted to be ready.
At least, far more in readiness than either of the convoys they would be attacking.
“SHIT! GRAB THE GIRLS and let’s get under cover,” Baron Tad Hutter yelled at his sec men as the storm started to blow up. He jumped down from the wag and ran toward the seemingly shackled girls until he was halted by a voice that sounded loud and strong above the howl of the wind.
“Just hold your ass still right there unless you want to have it blown off!”
Unwilling as he was to appear to heed such terms in his position as baron, Hutter’s instinct for self preservation made him pull up sharply. He looked up to see Baron Al Jourgensen standing at the door of his own wag, a Sharps rifle in his hands, raised and trained on Hutter.
“Don’t be a stupe,” Hutter snapped. “Look at the storm. We need to get this done with as soon as possible!”
“Then tell your sec men to hurry up with the unloading,” Jourgensen snapped back.
“Be reasonable.”
“Be reasonable nothing—you fulfill your side of the bargain, and we’ll fulfill ours as soon as you’ve got everything unloaded.”
“But—”
The catch on the Sharps clicked, audible to Hutter even above the howl of the storm.
“Don’t argue, Tad. You’re not in any position to start handing out orders, okay?”
Hutter held his hands aloft. “Okay, Al, you’ve got all the cards right now, but we’ll see.” He turned slowly so that he faced his men. “You heard the man, start—”
He was cut short in bemusement by the sight that met him. It would appear to him that his men had, in fact, given up the unloading altogether, as they seemed to be facing completely in the opposite direction to the central exchange point.
It was then, as he looked at them, that he became aware of an undertone to the storm that had been bothering him for a few minutes without him being able to put a name to what it was. There was a growling sound that had nothing to do with the rush of wind and debris through the arena formed by the outcrop. It was the sound of wag engines being pushed to the limit. And as he looked past his immobile and stunned sec force, he could see three wags turning tightly and coming toward his men, headed directly for the entrance to the outcrop. Furious, he turned back to scream at Jourgensen.