Peering through the weeds, he saw the cannies haul somebody from the pit, but the shadows hid the face. Then the men began to laugh and ran their hands over the straggling captive, and Ryan knew it was a woman. Whether it was Ann or not, he still couldn’t tell. He’d have to find out before they could start shooting.
A disturbance in the water made Ryan turn with a knife in hand. But it was just the others arriving in his wake. As silent as ghosts, Jak, J.B. and Doc eased through the muck. Each man carried his blaster just above the water level, then Doc gave a gasp as he sank out of sight, sending out ripples and waves that shook the reeds. The scholar was completely submerged, except for the hand holding his blaster aloft, a scant inch above the surface of the pond. A moment later, he emerged from the reeking pond, snorting green water from his nose and mouth, and wiping his face clean as best he could with a dripping hand.
“Okay?” Ryan asked, raising the SIG-Sauer higher to protect it from the waves.
“My weapon is still dry,” Doc whispered, spitting the filth from his mouth.
If there had been time, Ryan would have made some catapults from the more sturdy stands of bamboo and propelled flaming arrows to set the whole ville on fire. But he had to settle for something more wasteful. Each of the M-16 rifles they were saving for trade had three full clips of ammo. Ryan took one clip from each to throw into the campfire. When the ball ammo cooked off, that would give them the edge needed to get Ann. Unfortunately, the ammo clips didn’t skim well, and the companions would have to be close to get them into the fire. Very close.
Doc also had the military blasters with him, wrapped in several layers of plastic to keep them dry. That was their key out of the crater in case everything went to hell. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to be used. Ryan would prefer to buy the use of a ship, rather than just steal one.
Just then a fat woman in mismatched clothing waddled to the pond and threw in a bucket of wastewater. Ryan tracked her approached and departure with the bulbous end of the SIG-Sauer, two pounds of pressure on the six-pound trigger. A breath on his part and the big cannie would be blown away. Squatting, she lifted her skirts and sent a yellow stream into the scum. The men flinched, realizing that this was the latrine for the ville. No wonder it was so far away from the rest of the camp. By sheer effort of will, they didn’t move or speak. When finally finished, the woman stood, smoothed out her patched skirt and waddled away.
As the obese woman went around a tent and ducked out of sight, she started to scream in an unknown language. Across the ville, the cannies dropped whatever they were doing and dived for weapons, coming up with spears, knives and more than a few flintlock handcannons.
Moving through the reeds, Ryan fired a fast three times directly into the animal-skin tent, and the fat cannie stumbled into view, blood covering her back. Wailing in agony, she fell to the ground, trying to staunch the loss of blood with her pudgy fingers. There was no hope of success.
Stepping onto dry land, J.B. burped the Uzi at the nearest group of armed cannies, sending them to hell, but he refrained from spraying the entire ville. The unknown female, possibly Ann, was somewhere loose among the deviant flesh-eaters, and he could easily ace her going for the big chill. He had to do this the hard way.
A beautiful woman carrying a spear charged at the companions, then jumped forward, throwing away her weapon. She hit the ground hard just as the boom of the Steyr rolled down from above. A sharp crack followed, and a man loading a flintlock spun like a top, a hole in his face where a nose used to exist. Krysty and Mildred were on the job.
Darting from the reeds to behind a stack of firewood, Ryan chose his targets and aced everybody who wasn’t screaming in panic. The more disorganized the bastards were, the better. Just then a pounding hail of miniballs hit the cord of wood, slamming it apart and almost trapping Ryan under the falling logs. A roll of thunder shattered the night as Doc triggered the LeMat, the deafening report illuminating the battle scene in brutal clarity, and three cannies flipped sideways.
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