James Axler – Rat King

without cover. He risked a backward glimpse, catching the astonished faces of

J.B., Jak and Dean. It seemed so incredible that for a second they were all

frozen to inaction by the idiocy of Wallace’s tactics.

Given time to reflect, Ryan would have realized that Wallace considered the

outsiders, and the friends, as no better than dirt. He was so obsessed with his

own superiority in the position of Gen that he couldn’t believe anyone could out

think him. And he was slack from lack of actual combat.

But there was no time to reflect. There was only time for action. It was Mildred

who broke the spell. While the others gaped, she raised her ZKR in a two-handed

competition stance, feeling sheltered by the arch, and took aim.

The crack of the ZKR was high and clear, breaking across the low rumble of the

opening door. It was followed by the high-pitched scream of a sec man hitting

the concrete floor, his kneecap shattered into a bloody mess of shards by the

high-velocity bullet.

It broke the spell. Falling to his belly, the Steyr raised slightly on his

shoulder, Ryan fired. Simultaneously J.B. had moved forward to get a better

sweep of fire with his M-4000, the barbed steel flechettes loaded into his

blaster spreading out in a deadly hail that ripped at the knees, thighs and

groins of the sec men on the other side of the door. The flechettes spelled

death rather than pain as they gouged at high velocity into faces and throats,

ripping out flesh and artery.

The door was now three-quarters of the way up, the bodies of the sec men still

standing now fully exposed. In the confusion and mayhem, some of them still had

their blasters down. They died in a hail of slugs and shells from the homemade

blasters of the ville dwellers.

The shooting was erratic, and some of the raiding party forgot the tactics they

had been taught, lost in the blood lust and the heady excitement of a victory

that seemed within their grasp. They stepped into the open and were mowed down

by the surviving sec men, Uzi and H&K fire sweeping across the space between the

arches and the wags. Four of the raiding party caught the last train west, and

in his wag Murphy wondered what the hell was going on. He and his own men were

trapped.

Mildred continued to pick off sec men with clean, precise shots, as were Krysty

and Dean. Jak was distracted by the need to try to rein in some of the raiding

party before they were all wiped out, lessening the chance of recovering Doc and

reaching the mat-trans.

“BACK… BACK NOW!” The distorted voice of Wallace, using a bullhorn to issue

commands crackled and barked over the noise of blasterfire. In confusion the

remaining sec force started to pull back, covering themselves.

“Perfect,” Murphy whispered to himself. “Go, go now. Let’s get out of the

immediate area and get organized. I couldn’t have expected more,” he said to

Bailey, the driver.

“Sir, those are our men,” Bailey replied in a quiet, shaken voice.

“Mebbe, but if we don’t move, there won’t be any left, will there?”

Bailey didn’t answer. He slung the vehicle into first gear and touched the

accelerator. The wag moved beyond the open sec door, skidding on the concrete

floor, which was slick with the blood of their dead fellows. The second wag

automatically followed.

It left the raiding party on its own, suddenly cut off without a visible enemy

and the echo of the firefight still ringing in its ears.

“HAVE WE GOT THEM on the run, or is there something going on here that we don’t

know about?” Mac asked Ryan, looking puzzled. “There’s no way that this is the

end, right?”

Ryan nodded. “Reckon there’s something going on between Murphy and Wallace. If

we’re lucky, then it might help us get what we want.”

“And if we’re not?”

“Then we might buy the farm,” Ryan replied grimly.

They turned back to where J.B. and Jak were trying to subdue the triumphant

outsiders. Abner was one of the most vocal. Ryan cast a quizzical glance at Mac,