“Hated to use all of my plas in one shot,” J.B. said, removing his hat to wipe off the sweatband with a handkerchief. Then he set the fedora back in place. “But once the wag was broke, that aced the plan of trading it for a ship at Cascade.”
“Hope it got them all,” Dean said grimly, rubbing his sore ribs. Nothing was broken, but he had a lot of painful bruises.
“I think we can count on some of the sec men surviving,” Ryan said, “and that soon these hills will be crawling with troops.”
“Can stop reporting back,” Jak said, dragging a thumb dramatically across his throat.
“Ace that. We want them to report to the local baron,” Ryan explained. “He’ll send out troops to hunt for us, and we’ll sneak into the ville tonight and steal a boat.”
“Dangerous,” Krysty said, taking out her canteen and drinking deeply. “But it should work. Surprise will be on our side.”
“No other options,” Ryan said grimly. They were strangers in enemy territory, with every hand turned against them. Back in the Deathlands, rapidfires offered a man some degree of protection; here they were a death warrant.
“Needs drive where the devil must,” Doc rumbled cryptically. “We didn’t start this conflict, but by God we shall finish it!”
“I just want to leave,” Ryan said, checking the clip in his handblaster. “Not interested in starting a war. Too many of them, and we’re low on ammo. I have twelve rounds for the SIG-Sauer. Two mags of five for the Steyr.”
“Four,” Jak said, patting the blaster on his hip. “And lost knife stickie fell out window.”
“Three rounds,” Krysty said. “And one is a black-powder reload that might not work.”
“Two,” Mildred said.
“Nine,” Dean announced proudly. “Full clip.”
“Uzi is out,” J.B. stated. “Six rounds for the scattergun.”
Fireblast! They wasted a ton of precious ammo in the fight with the stickies. At least they still had most of their food and water. “How much farther to the ville?”
Pulling out a sextant, J.B. shot the sun and did some quick calculations. Then he carefully unfolded a map. Found in a redoubt, it was old and faded, the plastic coating worn thin in spots, but the priceless antique was still readable.
“Dark night, I have no idea where we are,” he complained, looking upward to scowl at the sun partially hidden by storm clouds. “According to my map, we’re half a mile in the ocean.”
“Nuke quakes must have moved the island,” Krysty said.
“So we’re lost,” Mildred stated with a frown.
“Pretty much,” he said, tucking the sextant inside his shirt. “We know the ville is somewhere close, and to the south. That’s it.”
Pulling out his compass, J.B. checked the direction. “And south should be that way,” he pointed. “Toward those big trees with the flower— Hey!”
Everybody waited expectantly while J.B. stared at his compass. “There it is again,” he muttered.
“What?” Dean asked, craning his neck to see.
He showed the boy. “Every couple of seconds, the compass needle flicks to the west. Something electrical that way,” J.B. stated, looking at the dense greenery to their right. “Something big and still in operation.”
“A pulsating magnetic field,” Mildred said thoughtfully. “If Cascade had an airport before, it could be the ILM beacons for the landing field.”
“Not south, west,” Jak said, leaning against a tree and massaging his armpit where the crutch had been rubbing.
Listening to the sounds of the forest, Ryan slowly said, “It’s got to be close. The atmosphere is so fucked up with rads that mag fields can’t reach very far. A mile or so, at the most.”
“Beacon is a sort of radio?” Dean asked.
Still studying the compass, J.B. nodded. “Yes.”
“Very close, then,” Krysty agreed, her hair fanning outward. “And the landing field should be far away from the buildings. The ville may not even know it’s there.”
“Could be a good place to rest,” Mildred added.
Jak shot her an angry look, then relented and shrugged. He was a crip at the moment. Only a stupe would deny it.
“Sounds good. Dean, think you can climb one of these,” Ryan asked, thumping the trunk of a mutated oak, “and get us a recce?”