Deathlands could survive without any kind of shooting skills. Blasters were
second nature to the postskydark generations.
Nonetheless, the dwellers of this pesthole that didn’t even have a name—”what do
we want names for, friend? We know where we are,” Abner told them— had few
blasters, and they were in poor condition. Most of them relied on explosive
power rather than accuracy, and it was dispiriting for a crack shot like Mildred
to have to train such an inept group of fighters.
So she was glad when J.B. hobbled into the fray to offer his services. The
Armorer still couldn’t get around at great speed, but the ankle was healing as
he was resting it. Ironically the time of his fever and semicoma had been
beneficial to his damaged ankle, allowing the initial sprain time to mend. The
reticent Armorer had once again muttered an oath and little more when Dean had
shown him the tumbledown shack that passed for an armory. His response to taking
a look inside had been to moan gently and to shake his head sadly.
There wasn’t much J.B. could do to assist them. Most of the time he was under
orders to do little except sit all day. However, having cursed the way in which
the ville dwellers looked after their blasters, J.B. decided that the best thing
for him to do would be to try to lick the armory—such as it was—into shape.
A small group of women and children gathered around J.B. as he sat on an
upturned box, stripping the blasters and polishing them, greasing them as best
as he could and putting them back together. Along the way he found that some of
the blasters were entirely homemade, while others were comprised of separate
parts that had been forced and welded together to make a complete blaster. Why
these hadn’t exploded in the faces of those who fired them was a complete
mystery to him.
J.B. cleaned the weapons and explained to his audience why it was important to
keep the blasters clean and oiled. He tried to explain to them the concept of
different calibrations on weapons, the differences in ammo and their respective
firepower. His eyes shone behind his glasses, and he didn’t notice that some of
the women and children looked at him blankly, not understanding him.
It didn’t matter. He told them all that he could, hoping that enough would
penetrate to keep the blasters in good working order for the final
confrontation.
While he did that, Jak and Dean took turns to coach people in unarmed combat;
Krysty and Mildred tried to improve the shooting of the ville dwellers. As all
this was going on, Ryan was far from idle.
The one-eyed warrior had been thinking and planning. He could see that his
forces, even swollen by the ranks of the ville dwellers, would be no match for
Murphy’s men once they were inside the redoubt. Outside they had matched the
well-equipped sec men by virtue of their being adapted to the conditions. Inside
they could hit big trouble.
Ryan spent most of his time with Abner, learning all that the old man knew of
the redoubt forces, all that he knew of the surrounding terrain. They called in
Mac, who had been in more expeditionary raids on the territory than any other
sec man in the ville. Ryan picked their brains, put forward his plans, making
sure that Abner and Mac thought that they had come up with half the ideas
themselves.
Finally the baron called together his people in the rough ground they called the
center of the ville. He outlined the plan he and Mac had come up with to help
the outlanders. Krysty, knowing Ryan, smiled to herself as Abner claimed Ryan’s
best strategies as his own. It didn’t matter, as long as they got the result
they wanted.
Ryan listened to Abner and looked at the ville dwellers. They were muties,
inbred, and not used to hard, hand-to-hand fighting. He felt a twinge of
conscience, briefly. Did they realize what they were getting into?
It would be difficult, hard and bloody. That much Ryan knew. But it was
necessary, for their long-term survival as much as that of Ryan and his people.