Freed from the attentions lower down his body, Ryan was able to finish what he had started. Tilson’s dead arm went limp in his grasp, and the one-eyed warrior loosened his grip, allowing the useless arm to fall down. His other hand was still locked in a grip with Tilson’s other hand, their fingers enmeshed in a grip neither could relent.
It did, of course, leave Ryan with a free hand. He formed it into a fist and drove it twice into the side of Tilson’s head, the stinging blows making the man’s head ring, and a numbness creep down his face. Stunned, his grip on Ryan’s other hand weakened momentarily, and the one-eyed man used this advantage to twist savagely, breaking Tilson’s wrist. As it snapped and went limp, another iron fist pummeled the workman’s face, and consciousness left him.
This just left Hal, who had been torn between aiding Mikey or Tilson, and as a result had helped neither.
“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered as he found J.B. and Ryan in front of him. It seemed as though he would just submit…but then, with a yell that was part savage and part resignation, he threw himself at both of them.
It was a noble but pointless gesture. Both men hammered him in the face and body with a succession of blows as he rose from the seat, and in mere seconds he was an unconscious, bloody heap slumping back to the bench seat.
That left Mildred, Krysty, Dean and Doc to deal with the remaining men. Doc landed a right hook on the rising Emerson that knocked the man into the path of Mildred, and she and Dean finished the burly worker with a succession of kicks and punches that soon rendered him unconscious. Molloy was next in line. He tried to take Doc from behind with a blow from the butt of his blaster—the workers had realized as soon as Tilson squeezed off a shot that the dangers of using blasters in such a confined space made them impractical except as clubs. Doc moved, taking the blow on the outside edge of his shoulder, and caught the worker with an upward blow to the solar plexus that doubled him. A shove from Doc’s boot in his ass pushed him toward Dean and Mildred, who finished him off.
It was Ed, the quietest of all the workers, who may have been the most dangerous. He singled out Krysty for attack, and as she rose and turned away from Bronson, she found herself encircled by the muscled arms of the workman, which closed around her in the grip of a crushing bear hug. She felt the breath being squeezed from her, and her ribs start to protest and creak as he tightened the grip.
Breathing in, and pulling in her muscles as much as she dared, she wriggled her arms to free them, and brought her hands together on either side of his head with a clap that resounded down his ear canals, making his eardrums rupture with the combination of force and pressure. Ed roared in pain and let loose his grip, doubling over so that it seemed for a ridiculous second as though he were crying on her shoulder. But only until she stepped back, jerked his head up with one hand, and took him out with a knuckle punch between his shocked and staring eyes.
With their opponents now wiped out, the companions paused for breath. Jak stood up from the now unconscious Rysh, breathing heavily but steadily as he calmed himself.
“Well,” Crow said quietly, finally looking around, “that was most impressive. Baron Silas will be interested.”
“Why didn’t you try to stop it?” Ryan asked.
Crow shrugged. “What could I do?” he said before turning back to face front, impassive and silent.
Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances before hauling the unconscious bodies to the front of the wag, joined by the others taking a workman each. Krysty examined Bronson’s wound before Mildred joined her to apply to a dressing. The sec man was thankful, especially when Mildred gave him a painkiller from the small supply she had stored from the redoubt med bay.
“Whoo,” Tex drawled finally, his first words for some time and the first thing he had dared to utter, “looks like you got it all cleaned up just in time. Here comes Salvation…”