“Get those bastards!” a loud voice roared. “A case of whiskey to every man who brings me a head!”
Less than ten feet from the water’s edge, Ryan spotted a giant of a man flanked by two women manning a .30-caliber Browning Automatic Rifle. The big man handled the machine gun with ease, cradling it on one big arm while one woman kept the belts clear.
“Get them, Brutus!” the other woman encouraged. She gripped a .357 Magnum blaster in both hands, popping off rounds in quick succession at one of the Foundation men dumping mud into a boat’s gas tank.
The Foundation man staggered when he was hit in the back of the head, then pitched into the water. Pirates swarmed out into the river, racing for their boats and water bikes.
Ryan halted at the crest of the rise, thinking he might have a chance to reload. A bullet burned along his side, coring through his jacket, ripping through the flesh just above his hip. Warm blood trickled into his pants, bringing a fiery agony with it.
Some of the bullets cut through the branches over the heads of the big man and the two women, tearing leaves loose. The woman feeding the ammo belts to Brutus’s BAR ducked and looked back. “You stupe fuckers watch where you’re—” She froze when she spotted Ryan.
Seeing the line of pirates charging toward his position, Ryan threw himself forward, at Brutus and his women.
Moving surprisingly fast for a big man, Brutus wheeled around, trying to bring up the BAR. He tore the ammo belt from the woman’s hands.
Desperate, trapped and in a hard place and knowing it, Ryan head-butted the big man in the face. Brutus’s nose broke with a vicious snap, blood dripping from the flattened nostrils.
Brutus roared with rage and pain, going down backward. His finger lay heavy on the trigger, and the unaimed bullets chugged into the air.
Working quickly, Ryan slashed at the big man’s blaster wrist with the panga. Flesh parted in a spray of blood. The heavy blade cleaved the ligaments to the hand, releasing the BAR.
The ammo woman threw herself on Ryan’s back, a knife flashing in her hand. Brutus grabbed at the one-eyed man with his good hand, his face a mask of blood.
Ryan moved as quick as a mutie rattler. He jerked his arm back, smashing his elbow into the knife-wielding woman. She shrilled in agony as her cheekbone crumpled. He followed through with the panga, slashing her across both eyes, releasing the liquid cores onto her pale face.
The other woman brought her pistol up from less than ten feet, both hands wrapped around the butt. The muzzle sight centered between her cold, hard eyes.
Stepping into Brutus, Ryan hefted the SIG-Sauer, slamming its butt into the side of the big man’s face. Flesh peeled back to reveal bone, covered quickly by blood. Ryan raised his arm again and levered his forearm into Brutus’s sweat-soured armpit. Using sheer strength, he spun the pirate around as a shield just as the woman fired.
She screamed in rage when she saw what Ryan had done, but she kept firing until the revolver emptied.
Brutus’s body shivered with the impacts of the bullets. His yells turned to sibilant hissing as the rounds perforated his lungs.
Shoving the dead bulk from him, Ryan sheathed the panga and SIG-Sauer, then scooped up the BAR from the ground. The woman dropped her blaster and grabbed for a .22-caliber target pistol tucked in her belt at the back.
Firing the BAR from the hip, Ryan stitched a handful of the heavy rounds across the woman’s breasts, punching through her heart. He knelt and quickly attached another ammo belt from the plastic box, then turned back to the line of approaching pirates, aware of the ground pocking around him.
He fell forward onto the ground, the BAR levered in front of him. The bipod at the barrel’s end flipped out at his touch, and he squeezed the trigger, keeping it down and chewing through the belt and a half of ammo as he raked the line of pirates from left to right.
Bodies—both dead and wounded—dropped out of the line of pirates, leaving long and frequent gaps. The charge broke before the echo of the BAR’S barrage faded away.