“Take a shit load of plas-ex, as well,” Dean replied.
“Exactly, so we need to be beyond triple red for these coldhearts until we see exactly what they’re doing,” Ryan ordered.
The horses were now approaching the tanks from their contrasting angles, and in the pale light of the moon reflecting on the old and battered metal, Ryan could see some movement at ground level, down in the shadows. It looked like a couple of men.
“Got two on my side,” he snapped into the radio. “Check yours.”
Hearing this, Dean narrowed his eyes and concentrated hard on the approaching shadows. There was no movement.
“Nothing,” he returned shortly.
“Okay. You take the route around the back, try and find the wag. Mebbe they’ve left one on guard. Then work your way around to me. I’ll take these fireblasted mercies.”
Dean didn’t even bother to reply. His father knew that he would follow this order without question. The younger Cawdor directed his mount toward the rear of the tanks, while Ryan homed straight in on the side where the two moving shadows were visible.
The one-eyed man could see them pause in their task, and he knew that they had spotted him. Hell, he was hard to miss, charging in on a horse from out of the desert. He pulled the Steyr SSG-70 from where it rested across his back, and readied the trusty rifle for action.
As he closed in on them, Ryan was acutely aware that the desert and dry ground behind him offered no shelter or cover, and that his silhouette had to be plainly visible from where the saboteurs stood; whereas they were little more than blobs of a different darkness, moving against the shelter of the storage tanks.
The first shot whistled past his ear, and a second kicked up some dust just in front of his charging mount. Obviously, the two men were using different blasters, one of which had a lesser range. Nonetheless, he was now coming into that range, and it would be better for him to adopt whatever evasive maneuvering he could. Which, he was too well aware, wasn’t enough. Gripping the horse between his thighs, he raised the Steyr with both hands, resting the stock into his shoulder and sighting as best as he could. The weaving animal beneath him was making it hard to aim, as the target area moved both from side to side and up and down with the pounding of the frightened animal’s hooves on the hard ground.
Shots were whistling around him with an alarming regularity now, and although the one-eyed warrior didn’t flinch, he found himself hoping that a lucky strike wouldn’t take him out before he had a chance to retaliate.
His finger tightened on the trigger, squeezing gently and with seemingly no hurry as he sighted— as best as possible—on his enemy.
DEAN HAD BROUGHT his mount to the back of the storage tanks. He could hear the shots from the other side, ringing out in the still air. From the sound of them, he knew that none of the blasters in action were his father’s, and he figured that just maybe he could raise a little distraction.
He pulled his mount to a halt as he reached the tanks. The animal bucked and lifted its forelegs, Dean using the momentum of the movement to slide down its back and off, using the flanks of the animal as cover as he drew his Browning Hi-Power and checked that a round was chambered and the blaster was ready for use.
There was no response from the wag, which he could see sitting by the rear of one storage tank. Dean left his horse, which had calmed as suddenly as it had bucked, and was now wandering off, ignoring the noise from the other side of the tank, and made his way into the shadows.
Inching his way around, he blocked out the sounds of blasterfire from the other side of the tanks, and focused his attention on the wag and surrounding area. Although he stayed on triple red, every sense alert for the slightest sound or movement, he was soon aware that the wag was standing alone.