“Nobody moves, nobody gets chilled,” the other man said, doing the same to his blaster.
“Sorry, Baron, but we need you to barter for our lives,” the first man explained, aiming the weapon at the woman. “You die, or we do. No choice there.”
“There’s always a choice,” Krysty said, then the woman dived for the deck.
As she got out of the way, the rest of the companions cut loose with their blasters. The sec men were torn apart by the fusillade of rounds, their flintlocks discharging wildly into the sky as they fell.
“Let’s go,” Ryan urged, grabbing his backpack from the deck.
Hopping over the side of the craft, they splashed into the water and waded to the shore, using the trawler as cover. Sprinting along the dead tree, the companions made it into the bushes just as the fishing boat broke in two, a cannonball punching straight through its old hull and disappearing into the beach.
“Glad we didn’t shoot at anybody while aboard,” Mildred said, clutching the med kit.
“It was those damn blackpowder blasters.” J.B. scowled. “The two of them going off must have resembled a cannon firing.”
“So how are we going to do this?” Krysty asked, spreading the leaves of a flowering bush to see the ville. “We sure as hell can’t run across the front— we’ll be mowed down by both sides.”
“That fire is coming mighty close,” Doc rumbled, studying the growing conflagration on the mountainside.
“Will it burn down the ville?” Dean asked.
Jak snorted. “Wall too thick.”
“We go around the back,” Ryan said, switching the SIG-Sauer from his right hand to the left. Just the short run from the boat had opened the shallow knife wound, and he nearly dropped the blaster in the slick blood. “Around the ville, there are fields cleared for planting crops. We’ll move a lot faster on flat ground and should be able to outdistance the flames. At least nobody is going to be shooting at us in that direction.”
“Let’s get going,” Krysty said, and the companions raced deeper into the thick growth.
Moving parallel to the beach, they used knives to cut and hack a path through the dense foliage. Monkeys screamed at the intrusion, and something large thumped out of their way, never to be seen. Masked by the vines and banyan trees, the companions could hear the thunder of the cannons mixed with the whoosh of Firebirds streaking by overhead, and the occasional crash of a direct hit. As the plants thinned, the ville came into sight and they could now hear the civilians screaming and blasters firing nonstop. Rioting had to have seized the ville, old scores being settled permanently while there was no baron to level justice.
“Stupes,” Jak panted, wiping the sweat from his face with a sleeve. “Doing pirates’ work for them.”
For the usually taciturn Cajun, it was quite a speech, and nobody disagreed with the statement. The greatest danger to man had always been humankind.
Following along the base of the brick wall, they went behind the ville and started to run across the smooth fields. In passing, Ryan noted there were only a few cannons sticking out of the wall on this side, and nobody was walking the palisades. All eyes were on the big fight in the harbor.
Sinking up to their knees in a muddy irrigation ditch, the companions half expected to hear the whip-crack report of a flintlock firing, but they reached the other side and took refuge behind a bamboo toolshed in the middle of the open expanse without incidence.
They paused to catch their breath, and canteens were passed around.
“Thought jungles were wet,” Dean said, scowling at the dark smoke rising on the horizon. “So what’s burning?”
“Moist on top. Underneath it’s all dead leaves,” Krysty replied. “And once it gets hot enough, everything will burn, even the green wood and moss.”
“We must be wary of a stampede,” Doc rumbled. “The fire will chase out all the animals. It could be very bad indeed.”
“For the locals,” J.B. said roughly, patting the Uzi. “Not us.”
Walking over, Mildred took Ryan by the hand and poured water on the cut to clean it for inspection. His cheek twitched, but the man said nothing.