“That may be,” Ryan said, bringing matters back to a practical level. “What we’ve got to worry about now is what sort of a reception we’re heading back to. Stay triple red, friends.”
As if in answer, the sounds of a pitched battle began to reach their ears.
Chapter Seventeen
It had taken Harvey only a few moments to melt into the crowd. Despite the doubts voiced, the sec chief had his followers, as did the baron’s wife. There were those who had often wondered if the ville would prosper more under a firmer hand. Alien was, in their view, too nice to be a baron. He lacked the ruthless and sadistic streak that kept people in line. People like themselves. And so they had harbored, some openly and some in secret, the view that the steely sec chief and Jenna would make a better team. There was something about Jenna. No one but Harvey knew the extent of her experiments and her evil, but she had an aura that some could sense, and this made them respect and fear her.
And fear was what they wanted. What drove them and led them.
So it was that there were hands to cover them as they both tried to hide themselves in the uproar that followed the exit of Alien, Ryan, the sec men and the companions. Was this just a trick to buy them time, to chill the baron and take control? Or was it true that Jenna and Harvey had contrived to keep such experiments secret?
After the raid on Samtvogel, and coming on top of what had seemed like the sudden and shocking end of years of relatively peaceful consolidation, the confusion among the inhabitants of Raw was immense. In the main hall, people argued and started to get heated, pushing and hitting out. Tempers flared and the temperature was raised.
“Boss, this way, and quick!”
Harvey, grabbing behind him for Jenna’s hand and trying to keep her close, heard the voice loud and urgent to his left. Looking up and across, he could see Bodie pushing through the packed mass of humanity, using the butt of his snub-nosed blaster as a club to hammer down on the necks and skulls of those who would block his path. Considering the frayed atmosphere and the confusion, Harvey was more than glad that only his sec force carried, by habit as much as enforcement, blasters on a day-to-day basis. At least no one was going to take a shot at him.
“Let’s get the fuck out,” he yelled at Bodie. “Regroup, get the boys together.”
“They ain’t all gonna come with you, boss,” Bodie replied.
“Don’t matter. That stupe Alien is out of here right now, with Cyclops and his goons. That gives us time to rally those good ol’ boys who’ll stay the course.”
“Okay, boss.” Bodie grinned, savage and humorless. “Follow me.”
The fat sec man chopped them a path out into the ville. Most of the people inside were too busy fighting one another to try to get out, and those that did found themselves hemmed in by the sec men at the sole entrance. The two men carried longblasters, which they held across their bodies, using the whip-thin barrels as weapons, not wasting ammo as they hit anyone trying to get out.
Anyone, that was, except Bodie, Harvey and Jenna.
“Stay here while I round up our forces,” Harvey ordered crisply. “Any sec who go against you, they ain’t with us, so chill the fuckers.”
The sec men exchanged vaguely puzzled glances.
“Our own?” one of them queried.
Harvey fixed him with a glare. “Son, if they ain’t with us, then they’re the enemy. Understood?”
Not waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and rapidly sped toward the armory. The first step would be to secure all weapons for his force alone.
ANT AND DEE STOOD in the center of the fray, possibly the only two people calm in the center of the storm.
The dreadlocked twins still carried their battered shotguns, cleaner than at any time in the past but showing the scars of use and misuse. Ant raised his, looking at it with a shadow of regret crossing his face.