In the fraction of a second of life she had left to her, Donna was acutely aware of great pain and a rapidly spreading numbness. Her vision dimmed on the sight of Harvey and the baron’s wife about to argue.
She figured that even if she was chilled, arguing like that they wouldn’t be far behind her.
The merest flicker of a smile formed her death mask.
Meanwhile, Jenna shot a venomous glance at her erstwhile lover and partner. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
Harvey held his temper. “In the first place, I didn’t want you chilled. And in the second, if you let that fucker loose even on controlled bursts in here, you’re likely to hit some grens and blow us to hell.”
Her temper cooling rapidly as she fought to stay on top of the situation, Jenna was able to see Harvey’s point.
“Okay, Harvey. So what’s your great tactical plan?” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“We’ve got control of the armory. We get the hardware to this who are with us and keep the rest down, chill ’em if necessary. Then we find Cyclops and Alien and blow them to fuck.”
Jenna smiled a slow, evil smile. “That’s good, but we need the real whiphand, sweet.”
Harvey gave her a puzzled frown. “What’s that?”
“You’ll see.” She called to Bodie. “In here, boy. When we’ve gone, you get these to our folk, you hear?” she continued as he entered the armory from his sentry post outside. He had ignored the blasterfire, trusting the sec chief to keep things under control.
“Yes, ma’am,” the fat sec man replied. “We’ll soon have things under control for you.”
Harvey was still puzzled. “What’s the idea? Where are we going?”
Jenna’s evil smile took on an icy edge. “Sweetie, if you want total control of them, you have the total weapon. We need fear to still the opposition, keep them down and under us. Every strong society needs its menials. They stay menial by fear. So why don’t you show me where Alien stored that little ol’ bomb he got from Sunchild?”
“COMING THIS WAY. Back!” Jak whispered as they came to a crossroads in the tunnels. Ryan had sent the albino on slightly ahead of himself, changing his usual practice to lead the way. It seemed to the one-eyed warrior that Jak’s ability to detect direction would be better employed leading until they had some idea of the situation in the center of the ville. In such a maze of passages and tunnels, Jak’s ability to pinpoint sounds was a vital weapon.
They had heard the pitched battle commence, and the occasional blasterfire told them that the armory hadn’t yet been raided to a full extent. As they were all armed, apart from the baron, this gave them an edge. Ryan handed the baron his SIG-Sauer as a defensive weapon, feeling that Alien would cope better with the handblaster than with the Steyr.
They had advanced this far without a pause, and with hardly a word between them. J.B. kept point as was usual, Downey close to him. Blake was beside Ryan, following hard on Jak’s lead. Strung out between them in the narrow tunnel were Krysty, Dean, Alien, Mildred and toward the rear Doc.
At Jak’s command, they flattened against the tunnel wall, closing ranks so that they were ready to flank across the narrow space should an enemy round the corner.
But it was no enemy. Voices, indistinct, became clearer as they neared: the breathless voices of the twins.
“Shit, bro, I hope we find them soon.”
“Ain’t nowhere else to fuckin’ go, dude. They’ve got to be around here somewhere.”
“Sure as shit hope so, ’cause I think my lungs are gonna fuckin’ burst!”
The twins laughed despite themselves, coughing hard but still keeping the pace.
Ryan and Blake exchanged glances as the footsteps neared. The wizened sec man nodded, agreeing without the question even being voiced.
“Hey, boys,” he called, “who you lookin’ for?”
The footsteps pulled up short. Ant called, “Shit, Blake, man, where the fuck you been? We’ve been all over here looking for ya. You got Ryan and his crew with you?”