James Axler – Bitter Fruit

Conte reached out and swung into the front passenger seat. Turley swarmed out of the shadows and stepped up onto the running board, holding his machine pistol loose but at the ready. His face, like all of the unit’s, was tiger-striped in combat cosmetics, barely allowed the moon’s light caresses.

The other three members of the unit piled into the rear deck.

Gazing toward the impact area, Conte saw the flash-bangs had done their jobs for the most part. Flames still hugged the ground and burned in patches in the branches above. Some of the plants were on fire, or blown free of the ground. Many others were writhing in pain, trying to pull away from their rooted stand.

“Go,” Conte told Aames.

The man gave him a short nod, then directed the jeep at the narrow corridor they’d made through the deadly plants. Branches and the bones of small animals, earlier victims of the carnivorous plants, splintered under the tires like pistol shots.

Conte held on as the vehicle dug into the hillside, all four wheels gripping the earth and propelling it forward. Cold sweat clung to the back of the sergeant’s neck as he raked the forest around them with his peripheral vision. Without warning, one of the plants whipped out of the darkness and smashed against the jeep’s windshield. If the glass hadn’t been there, it would have sunk its barbed talon through his skull.

Then they were through the danger area, cresting the hill and beginning the incline leading down to the Celtic community.

“Being followed,” Whittaker grunted.

“The people from the city?” Conte turned in the seat, glancing back at the armed force that had been encamped beyond the reach of the plants.

“Yeah. We lit up the top of that hillside, and they got it figured they can just pop on through the door we opened.”

Conte glanced at the uneven terrain before the jeep as Aames struggled with the wheel, guiding them toward the area where Cawdor and his group had chopped their way through the root. Some of the Celtic horsemen were already wheeling in their direction, yelling warnings to other sec men.

“Let them come,” the sergeant yelled above the whine of the jeep’s engine. “It’ll pull some of the heat off us, give us a better shot at Cawdor and his followers.”

Getting out would be another problem, but only one that would have to be faced if a mat-trans unit didn’t exist in the underground fortress. For the moment Sergeant Conte had only the last orders he’d been issued by his commanding officer, and that was enough.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Only the strident hiss of lubricated metal speeding along metal saved Ryan Cawdor’s life. That, and the combat reflexes he’d developed from living for years in Deathlands.

As he stepped through the hole he’d chopped in the side of the root, the rough edges of the fibrous skin-hull plucking and tearing at his clothing, he heard the hiss above and in front of him. His eye hadn’t adjusted to the darkness inside the subterranean complex.

Instinct found his target for him as he moved into a protective position beside the hole. Doc was squeezing through the hole behind him.

Ryan lifted the SIG-Sauer, drawing it smoothly. The shape in front of him was a shadow flitting through the air. As his finger curled around the blaster’s trigger, a bright orange flame of gunfire spit from the ovoid shape hanging from the guide rail along the ceiling.

He felt the bullet burn along just beside his face. By that time he’d fired four times himself, and the bullets smashed into the sec drone, reducing the guide rail to a hundred broken pieces.

Sparks leaped from the remains of the drone, and it jumped its tracks, hanging precariously on the lip.

“By the Three Kennedys,” Doc said, “it appears the Celtic Prince has a fully functional defensive system.”

The sec drone still spit and sputtered as surges of electricity pounded through it. Ryan moved forward, listening to the slight sounds of J.B. and Krysty as they eased into the root tunnel behind him. Jak made no sound at all, suddenly appearing at Ryan’s elbow. “We share point.”