The screaming muties didn’t stop their flight, moving on a direct course to overrun the companions’ position.
“Move back!” Ryan roared, bringing the Steyr to his shoulder. He fired in quick succession, a rolling thunder of five shots that mowed down five muties, bullets driving deep through their chests and faces.
Corpses dropped in front of the charging crowd, but the other muties gave them little attention, trampling over them. The line broke only for a moment, the momentum unstoppable. Recognizing a threat they could deal with, the muties raised clubs and axs, bared blades and spears and continued to run.
J.B.’s Uzi snarled into angry life. The rounds cut a swath in the ranks of the muties. He ducked behind a boulder to change clips. “Ryan, we aren’t going to be able to hold them back.”
The one-eyed man silently agreed. The muties were a stampede of frightened flesh. Whatever had drawn them there, they’d been betrayed.
Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Ryan watched as Krysty guided Doc farther back into the broken landscape, Bernsen at their heels. Jak was covering their backs, the .357 Magnum pistol in his fist banging out death.
Hoyle was cut down in midstride less than fifteen yards away. A hard-thrown spear took him in the back, sliding into his heart, then burst through his chest. The Heimdall Foundation guide halted his run, crumpling to his knees. He grabbed the spearhead protruding from his chest in disbelief, then toppled forward.
His rifle reloaded, Ryan exchanged looks with J.B. “Time to go.”
“Ready,” the Armorer replied as he pulled the shotgun around. “Follow my lead?”
“Do it,” Ryan said. He was no more than ten feet behind J.B. when they broke into a run. The muties were almost within clawing distance, and a spear sailed over Ryan’s shoulder, dropping point first into the inclined terrain ahead of him.
Krysty was over the top of the next ridge, coming around with her .38 in both hands as she took advantage of the cover offered. She opened her mouth, screaming a warning.
Ryan couldn’t read the words, but he knew the intent. He cut hard left, his hearing only now starting to return from the concussive force of the space station’s impact. A grinding groan echoed around him.
“Fireblast!” Ryan cursed as he saw the rectangular shape of the wag crest the ridgeline to the left of Krysty’s position. He had no doubt to whom it belonged. “J.B.!”
“I see it!” the Armorer shouted back.
Heavy machine guns mounted on the wag started blasting away. Tracer rounds flared purple against the velvet night. Fifty-caliber death drummed into the muties, spinning them, dumping them from their feet, knocking them onto their backs. Then the withering fire whipped on, turning toward Ryan and J.B., smacking into the earth only inches behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ryan went to ground behind an outcrop as the wag switched on its lights. He brought up the Steyr and put rounds through the driver’s side of the windshield. One of them cratered the hood over the engine, ripping through the metal with a shriek and scattering sparks across the hood.
The driver turned away. If he was hurt, it wasn’t enough to interfere with his driving. The wide bumper caught muties mercilessly, the tires rolling over them where they dropped.
Other wags joined the first, the wheels digging into the ground, throwing out huge rooster tails behind them. Their lights blazed over the sudden battleground.
One of the armored vehicles suddenly zipped out of the formation. As the headlights came around, Ryan spotted Mildred trying to outrun the wag. The driver must have recognized her, because he stayed with her without running her down.
“Millie!” J.B. shouted. He switched back to the Uzi and rattled a trio of short bursts across the front of the vehicle, the slugs hammering the metal but failing to penetrate. The autofire also failed to break off the wag’s pursuit of Mildred.
For a moment Ryan lost sight of the action as more wags cut off the woman’s escape route. He picked his targets, sighting carefully, then taking up the trigger slack. He put bullets through the heads of two men who swung free of the blocking wags and attempted to seize Mildred. The woman stood her ground fearlessly, willing to sell her life as dearly as possible. Every time her pistol cracked, a sec man or a mutie went down.
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