“Yes, sir. Of course. My mistake.”
Tugging open the canvas sack, Nathan withdrew the ungainly object from within. It was the MM-1 multi-round gren launcher from the fortress. Angling the wide barrel of the weapon upward slightly, Nathan took a stance and fired. The blaster gave a soft thump, and the 38 mm gren smacked directly into the loose dirt, blowing away a huge gout of soil, but more immediately tumbled down the slope to fill the hole.
“Sure hope that doesn’t set them off,” Krysty said.
Doc snorted. “If it does, what difference does it make?”
“Good point.”
Again and again, the baron triggered the gren launcher, slowly digging a hole in the crumbling dirt until the wooden top of a buried crate was exposed.
“That’s it,” Ryan said, dropping his heavy coat and readying his weapons. “Get those bastards busy while I take care of business.”
“Got you covered,” J.B. announced, and he fired another flare into the woods to the right of the boulder. The Casanova troops cried out, running away from the bright light, and retreated into safety behind the large rock. The Armorer fired again to the right of the boulder as Ryan took off at a run.
Then Nathan triggered the grenade launcher, but this time aiming for the boulder. The 38 mm rounds fell short, but when they struck the ground the blasts threw clouds of dirt into the air. Each time he fired, the weapon bucked in his two-handed grip, then the exposed wheel under the barrel rotated one notch, feeding a fresh gren into the huge maw of the ungainly weapon.
Krysty dropped her own backpack and withdrew the Thompson .22 Overton had dropped outside the ville. It had poor killing power, but should keep the Casanova troops ducked out of sight until she ran out of ammo, which would be quite a while.
“Hit them!” Krysty shouted, the Tommy gun chattering.
The rest of the companions joined her. Dean grabbed an AK-47 from a dead brown shirt and fired the weapon on full-auto. He only had a vague idea what his father was doing but had learned long ago to always trust the man. If his father thought this was their best bet, Dean agreed. End of discussion.
“Horseshit,” Jak muttered, reloading his blaster quickly.
Holding the LeMat between his legs, Doc was purging the chambers of the antique wheelgun of spent powder before packing it with fresh powder and ball.
“Most assuredly, my young friend,” the old man whispered, his hands moving in the ballet of military ritual. “We cannot trust Overton any more than we can the Casanova troops.”
“Less,” Clem said, rummaging in his pockets for loose cartridges.
Dodging the corpses and blast craters, Ryan zigzagged his way across the battlefield heading for the hole in the ground. Explosions filled the clearing, and he felt something sting him between the shoulder blades, but he kept going. Diving into the pit, he hit the dirt rolling and came up in a combat crouch. A Casanova sec man peeking out of a bush gasped at his unexpected appearance and swung a crossbow in Ryan’s direction. But the one-eyed warrior already had his SIG-Sauer out and blew the man away with a shot to the temple. Half his head gone, the man flopped backward as if exceedingly tired and had decided to lie down for a nap.
Holstering his piece, Ryan started shoveling handfuls of dirt out of the hole, trying to clear away the wooden planks buried underneath. Suddenly, Overton landed sprawling alongside him. The self-proclaimed baron flipped over with his Desert Eagle handcannon out and ready, only to find Ryan pointing his 9 mm pistol at him.
For a short eternity, they stayed frozen in that position, their blasters motionless while the world outside the hole raged in combat.
“Didn’t want me to use the second set of fuses leading into the cave, eh?” Ryan asked. Overton could only stare at the man in wonder. “Use it or lose it,” Ryan stated in a voice of solid ice. “We got no time for this. Seconds count.”
Relaxing his stance, Overton tucked away the blaster. “Fuses are over here.”
Together, the enemies cleared away the loose dirt, then used their combat knives to pry up the boards. Below was a small wooden room, a packing crate buried in the dirt. Several plastic pipes stuck out of the slats, four heading toward the boulder, four more going toward the nearby cave. What appeared to be duty strings dangled from the open ends of the pipes.