“We can move it now,” J.B. said. “I’m not going to arm it or punch in the time to detonation until after we’ve jumped and we’ve arrived wherever the hell we’re going.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ryan said. “Better pick up more ammo and some grens for the trip back down to the lowest level. We still got a lot of hostiles between us and the gateway.”
The trouble was, they didn’t know where all the hostiles had gotten to.
Even though Ryan and the others had done a sweep of the lowest level of the complex right after securing the mat-Irans chamber, they hadn’t found a single mu-tie. They had vanished into the ventilation system like cockroaches under a baseboard. Ryan and J.B. had found a couple of duct grates torn off and some fresh blood drops inside.
The escaped muties could be anywhere in the redoubt by now.
Ryan and J.B. walked in front of the nuke-
onwheels. Doc and Mildred took turns pushing it and bringing up the rear. They saw a lot of stickies on the way to the elevator None of them live, however.
“You sure know how to make a mess, Ryan,*’ J.B. commented as he booted the body of a stickie out of the way so the cart could roll past
“That was one of Doc’s,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, how do you know?”
“Did it have a head?”
“Not that I could tell.”
“I rest my case. His Le Mat takes no prisoners.**
“Hey, Doc,” J.B. said, “we got to get you a neater blaster.”
“My boy, neatness only counts in penmanship,” the old man countered. “I assure you I am quite content with the antique blaster I have. It is a perfect match for my damnable fatting eyesight and the palsied trembling of my shooting hand. A room broom.**
J.B. checked the roof of the car before they entered it He remained on top of the elevator as they rode it (town to the bottom level, to make sure that no hostiles leaped on top as it crept down the shaft
When the doors opened, the companions fanned out from the entrance, searching the broad room tor targets.
“Where is everybody?” J.B. asked.
The room looked deserted, but it didn’t/^/ deserted.
Mildred scratched the back of her neck.
Ryan caught her gesture, and they shared a look. “Yeah, I know.” he said. “I feel it, too. I think we’re going to catch it from both sides in about a minute.”
J.B. started to pull stun and frag grens out of his pants pockets. He stacked them up on the gurney on either side of the nuke. “Help yourselves, when the need arises,” he said.
They started moving away from the elevators, blasters at the ready. A head popped up way back in the rows of desks to the right. Autofire clattered and flashed. Bullets whined harmlessly overhead, then the figure dropped back down out of sight
“Gone but not forgotten,” J.B. said, plinking off the grip safety of a fragger. He expertly underhanded the gren between the desks where the head had disappeared.
The travelers ducked as an earsplitting explosion sent the desks flying apart and made it rain ceiling tiles. A slurry of gore splashed over the banks of overhead lights.
“Got him,” J.B. said.
The grenade explosion acted like a call to arms for all the blaster-toting muties in the level. They jumped up on both sides of Ryan and company and fired at will.
None of them could shoot with any degree of accuracy.
In the blaze of full-auto blasterfire, a couple of them did manage to hit one another, but that was an accident made possible by the sheer number of rounds they expended.
Ryan and the others returned fire as slugs pinged off
the legs of the nuke’s gurney. They mowed down the muties before they could duck behind the desks.
Doc had just discharged his monster barrel when the tile ceiling in front of mem collapsed. For a split second the companions thought there was a connection between the two events. Then they realized (here wasn’t
If they’d been wondering what had happened to the rest of the stickies, they wondered no longer. Bunches of the naked mutants dropped through the ceiling on all sides of them. There wasn’t time to think, only to react And since they had fought together as a team for some time, they knew exactly how to do that They backed up against the cart, each taking a corner, and cut loose with everything they had.