James Axler – Rat King

the lenses of his glasses and hit him in the eyes, drying and scratching them.

“Can’t go back now,” he yelled into the one-eyed warrior’s ear. “Have to fan out

and take whatever cover there is.”

Ryan nodded his agreement, although without any degree of enthusiasm. J.B. was

right, but Ryan knew that the Armorer was suggesting this course of action for

the same reason that he would adopt it: there was no option.

He gestured with the Steyr, and the group moved out with the ease and practice

that came with long survival in the chilling fields of the Deathlands. Ryan went

first, squinting against the dust storm to identify any kind of cover. He saw it

in the form of a small hummock of earth with a sparse covering of grass. He

headed for it, waiting for an attack from any source.

The swirling dust made everything disorienting. Ryan rolled behind the hummock,

taking cover and sighting over the spare blades of grass with the Steyr.

There was nothing.

Looking back toward the entrance of the redoubt, he could see that it had either

sunk into the earth, or the earth had risen around it, so that they were in a

small enclave that rose at a fairly steep gradient. He had guessed as much from

the pull on his calf muscles as he ran.

Despite the opaque air, filled with dust and grit, it was possible to see that a

bright sun burned down on the enclave despite the cooling effect of the wind. It

illuminated the dust in rays of light and enabled Ryan to get a better view of

the rock face that lay above the redoubt entrance.

While he had been scanning the area, Mildred and Jak had moved out to seek

cover. He lost sight of them in the shadows and frowned. It wasn’t good practice

not to know where his friends were stationed.

The storm was so noisy that he couldn’t call to them if necessary. Krysty and

Doc moved out, then Dean and finally J.B., bringing up the rear. They should all

be undercover, in a rough V shape, radiating from the entrance to the redoubt.

From there, they’d move together at the head of the enclave and group together.

Which would be a whole lot easier if not for the dust storm.

Ryan scanned the rocks above the redoubt. It all seemed calm and empty, but his

eye pierced the opacity of the storm with a burning suspicion. If this was

regular weather for this stretch of land, then it wouldn’t surprise him if the

local baron and his sec men were out patrolling their land.

His sharp vision saw the glint of a blaster barrel as it caught a glimpse of

sunlight that filtered through the dust. A fraction of a second later came the

sharp crack of Mildred’s ZKR.

Obviously Mildred had the same suspicions.

Chips of rock joined the grit and dust in the swirling air, and the barrel

disappeared.

The staccato rattle of a Heckler & Koch MP-5 K cut through the howl of the

storm, the short burst kicking up chunks of dry earth and pebbles from around

the sparse cover Mildred had been able to find.

The spray of bullets fanned in such a way that Ryan was instantly aware that

they had come from the opposite direction to that in which Mildred had fired her

blaster. So they were covered from above by a group of sec men in a formation

similar to their own.

Tactically it was almost a stalemate. The problem was, they were underneath the

other group, closed in.

“Dad! They’re moving down!”

Dean’s yell cut through the storm, and Ryan was aware of his son as a blur

across the floor of the enclave, tracked by sprays of H&K and Uzi fire that

crisscrossed. It was only because of his speed in changing direction that Dean

was able to attain cover about twenty yards from where his father was

positioned.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ryan yelled at the boy. “Never break cover.”

“There wasn’t any, and they were moving behind me,” Dean snapped back. “And

they’re sec men from the redoubt!”