James Axler – Starfall

The women and children spotted Ryan and the others first. They were poorly outfitted, dressed in patched home­spun that had faded from hard wear and too many wash­ings. Their faces carried scars, physical and emotional. Boning and scaling knives filled their hands, but they backed away. Mothers sent small children scampering to hide in the debris or in the nearby weeds.

Ryan didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Even if the people didn’t know what he was there for, they knew he was there to take something that wasn’t his.

The sailboat had a tall mast that advertised plenty of room for sailcloth. With the wind blowing strongly and in the right direction, Ryan hoped it would be enough to push them quickly against the sluggish current of the greenish river.

Ryan brought up the Steyr, shoving the business end to­ward the bearded man mending a net on the rickety dock beside the sailboat. “Move away from the boat.”

The bearded man was squat and powerfully built, prob­ably not up to Ryan’s shoulder, but almost half again as broad. He wore a faded gray sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked off, perspiration stains beading across his upper chest, and striped overalls that had been cut off at midthigh. His hair was dark brown but glinted red where the sun had washed the color out, the same as his beard. He wore a baseball cap that bore a picture of a leaping green fish.

“This is my boat, mister.” The man motioned to the two teenage boys helping him with the net.

“Not now, it isn’t,” Ryan said. “Now it might be the only chance at escape my friends and I have got.”

“My boat’s the only way I got of making a living for my family. Take that from me, might as well shoot me right here.”

“It’ll be done,” Ryan said. “I plan on dying last if I got a choice. And you stopping me now’s the same as pulling a blaster on me.”

The sailor stood slowly, a long gutting knife in his hand that looked like a short sword. Scars on his face and arms showed that he was no stranger to fighting or bladework.

The wag engines sounded closer, and Ryan knew they were running out of time. His finger tightened on the Steyr’s trigger. He knew he’d kill the man if he had to. The boys spread out around their father, taking up defen­sive positions. Ryan had yet to see a blaster on any of them, but he didn’t doubt he’d have to kill the boys if he killed their father. It didn’t sit well with him.

But that boat was the companions only way out of the trouble they were in. There was no choice about passing it up.

Chapter Fourteen

The sailor squinted past Ryan, gazing in the distance. His thumb nestled confidently on the broad-bladed gutting knife. It was turned edge up in his hand, the sawteeth glint­ing in the afternoon sunlight. “Slaggers?” he asked. “You got trouble with them?”

“They mean to put us on the last train headed West,” Ryan said.

“Chill any of them?”

“Many as we could. You’re wasting my time,” Ryan growled.

“Got no love for the Slaggers,” the sailor said with a mean grin, “but I love this boat, and I need this boat. I lose it, I lose myself, and there ain’t no fucking around about that. You know how to handle it?”

“Sailed before.” Even as he answered, Ryan remem­bered the storm-tossed seas in Georgia when he and J.B. had piloted a cabin cruiser along the Lantic coastline. He was more at home in an armored wag with plenty of fuel and ammo. It would have been his first choice.

“But you don’t know this river,” the sailor went on. “She’s a tricky bitch, especially now. Stuff piled up on the bottom where you least expect it, and during the dry season like this, you don’t know where those places are, you’ll rip the bottom right out of her and not get away anyhow. Let me captain her for you, and you’ll improve your chances on getting away. And I’ll improve my chances on keeping my boat in one piece.”