“Okay,” Harvey snapped, casting an eye over the assembled party. “Then we carry on.”
ANOTHER FIFTEEN MINUTES of marching brought them close to Samtvogel. With Blake in the lead, they took the same oblique course as before, leading off and away from the sloping side of the valley and toward the obscurity of the steep inclines. The glow of the ville’s lighting cast a wan illumination over the immediate area.
As they stood outside the corpse-covered wire, two of the three women in charge of the armory came forward. They were each carrying one of the drum-fed RPK machine blasters. J.B. could see the mounting tripods, folded, in backpacks. The fat woman who had questioned the Armorer about the blaster to test his knowledge spared a second to wink at him before speaking to Harvey.
“If you want us to set these up on this side and that—” she gestured to the far side of the valley. “—then you need to give us help. We’ll each need someone to help set and mount these bastards, and to first get us over that wire. Awkward with this,” she finished, tapping the heavy blaster.
Harvey agreed and detailed Ant and Dee to assist. The heavy sec men were agreeable, and adjusted their wrist chrons so that they would be able to synchronize the beginning of the attack.
“That’s how long we’ve got now, people,” Harvey noted as the four people went forth to set up their posts. “Time to get our shit together. We know we can whip their asses—we just need to get it right.”
The sec chief divided his forces, detailing parties to fan out and cover all along the bowed ridge of the valley, ending with two parties to take either side of the only road out.
“The plan is simple. We go in when the covering fire has started. That’ll be over our heads, and will cease when we get into Samtvogel itself. We want the nuke, and we want Sunchild. We also want to find Cyclops Jr. dead or alive. We take him back no matter what—agreed?”
The last was directed at Ryan. Harvey was eying him carefully as he spoke the word, searching for the slightest sign of reaction. Ryan remained stony-faced, controlling the emotions that ran through him, knowing that the sec chief was looking for the slightest sign of weakness. Ryan was sure that Dean wasn’t in the valley, but he was still his son, and the thought of him chilled like the children they had recovered previously made him shudder inside.
But not outwardly. Harvey turned away, dissatisfied by the lack of reaction. He continued. “When we’ve secured that objective, we trash the place. Completely. For once and for all we rid ourselves of the mutie scum—no offense, Whitey—and drive them out. If possible, we chill them all. Every last shitter.”
“Are you certain about that?” Alien asked, his voice strong and firm in the night. “We have never, in Raw, acted in such a manner—”
“Baron, you want them to escalate, get more and more trouble? If so, then fine. But you put me in charge of sec, and I say we ice the fuckers once and for all.”
The baron demurred. “Very well.”
Ryan felt J.B.’s hand on his arm and his breath in his ear.
“What’s the idea, Ryan? The longer we stay around, the more of us stand to buy the farm…or is that the idea?”
“Mebbe. And mebbe not just Alien. Triple red, J.B. That coldheart may just decide to chill us at the same time.”
The one-eyed warrior felt, rather than saw, the assent from the Armorer as he melted into the crowd to spread the word to Mildred, Jak and Doc. Krysty had been close enough to hear.
“Okay, let’s get to it,” Harvey commanded.
The flame-haired woman lightly kissed Ryan on the cheek. It was a cover for her to whisper, “Be careful. Dean’s not here, and we’ve got to get back to find him.”
THE RPKS WERE set up on each side, the drum-mounted ammo in place. On their respective side, Ant and Dee both secured the tripods, and left the two Armorers seated, with the blasters at the requisite angle. The two dreadlocked sec men then both moved away as one after the final check, readying their shotguns and checking their wrist chrons.