The sec men looted the armoire as Overton grabbed a squat Thompson with a huge cheese-wheel ammo clip. He pulled the bolt, and the predark blaster was ready for war. Despite its size, the Thompson fired .22 rounds, but the oversize clip held 600 rounds, which was enough to blow them a path to freedom.
Yanking open the canvas bag, Overton lifted into view a monstrous blaster, the likes of which none of the others had ever seen before. The weapon sported a pistol grip attached to a breech-loading mechanism and a fat barrel only a foot long. Feeding sideways into the blaster was a flat wheel from which jutted a circular series of fat soup-can-size compartments.
“Corporal, take this,” Overton said, handing him the bizarre weapon.
“What the hell is that?” asked an awed trooper.
“Something special from the boss, an MM-1,” Overton replied, snapping off the safety for him. “And it’s our key out of here. It launches twelve 38 mm grens. Right now, it’s loaded with a mix of high-explosive, shotgun rounds and white phosphorus. If the wind is with us, we can set fire to half the ville and be long gone before they figure out what happened.”
The sec man practiced with the balance of the strange blaster. “What then, my lord?”
“We regroup at the cave and come back here. No tricks this time, no clever plans. We’re just going to take over and chill anybody who dares to try and stop us.”
“About fucking time,” a private grunted.
As he agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment, Overton allowed the lapse in discipline. But he made a mental note to punish the man later for insubordination.
Returning the same way they came, the sec men were halfway across the dining room when they heard a steady chatter of gunshots. Oddly, nobody was killed or even wounded on the floor, nor was any furniture damaged from missed rounds or ricochets. The machine gun chattered once more, and the old chains supporting the enormous crystal chandeliers snapped, dropping the entire row onto the sec men, crushing most of them to death instantly.
“Ambush!” Overton cried, spraying the balcony with a long stuttering burst from the bulky Thompson. Wood chips flew off the banister along the entire front of the room, as he turned and hosed the walls randomly, hoping for a lucky strike. When satisfied, Overton raced out of the dining room and down the front corridor.
At the front door, he stuck out the Thompson and sprayed bullets around in a circle. Cries of pain announced multiple hits, and he charged out of the fortress still shooting indiscriminately. As he reached the street, a glance at the tiny indicator on top of the weapon showed it was only down a hundred rounds.
Firing sporadically at anything that moved, Overton reached the barn and chilled a trio of civilians hiding there among the bales of hay. The horses were whinnying in fear in their stalls, but saddles hung in front of each gate. Fumbling with a saddle, blaster tight in his grip, Overton chose a big stallion that looked as if it had lots of stamina. Throwing on the saddle blanket and leather saddle, then cinching the girth tight, he dropped the stirrups and climbed on the horse.
Guiding it toward the doorway, Overton cut loose at a group of men entering the barn. The chattering Thompson decimated the civilians, who jerked and flinched as if stung by a million hornets. Blood splattered everywhere. Then his horse reared at the noisy weapon, and Overton was forced to stop firing to use both hands to control the beast.
The terrified horse didn’t want to walk through the morass of fresh bodies, so the big man drew his knife and pricked the animal in the rump, swearing over the fact he had no spurs.
Nickering, the stallion walked forward, occasionally stepping on a hand or a leg when it couldn’t be avoided. A few of the people screamed in pain, but that only hurried the animal along and soon Overton reached the street.
Turning in the saddle for a moment, the would-be baron sprayed the other horses in the barn with the Thompson, waving the flaming barrel as if conducting an orchestra. Dust and splinters erupted off the stalls from misses, but one by one the trapped animals dropped, his own mount trembling fearfully now at the awful smell of horse blood.