Ryan was first across, checking the corridor on the left. He got no further than the junction before blasterfire exploded out of nowhere. His momentum was carrying him forward into the firing range and it took all his strength to reverse his center of balance and pull back, large-caliber rounds pitting the walls of the corridor.
Mildred returned fire with a few shots squeezed from her ZKR.
“Incoming,” Jak yelled, snapping off a couple of shells from his .357 Magnum Colt Python as rifle fire started to pepper them from behind.
“How the fuck—” Ryan began, before realizing he was wasting breath. How had they managed to get behind the companions when they had checked all the rooms along the way? The only way would have been if they used the air-con shafts, which meant that whoever they were up against had a working knowledge of the redoubt.
Those firing on them from behind were keeping well in cover and return fire was pointless. They couldn’t turn left or right, in case they walked into a hail of fire. Their only chance was to head straight across and reach the end of the corridor, where it doglegged to the right. It was about fifty yards and they’d have to do it in shifts.
Jak kept the rear covered, while Ryan and Doc took the first run. On a count of three they flung themselves across the junction, Ryan firing to his left with the Sig Sauer while Doc was ready to pepper any fire from the right with the shot chamber on his LeMat. There was none, but to take that corridor, which ran for over a hundred yards exposed, would have left them open to fire from the rear.
When Ryan and Doc were over, Mildred and Krysty followed, with Jak between them, moving backward rapidly.
Once across, Ryan headed rapidly for the dogleg while the others covered the rear from follow-up attacks. The one-eyed man skidded to a halt as the corridor turned and recced around the corner, using the Steyr to draw any fire before risking a glance.
It was clear. He beckoned to the others and they followed.
They ran down the dogleg to the next level of the redoubt, only to find that their way was blocked by a closed sec door.
“Fuck it, they must know the codes to get that down,” Ryan breathed. “This door was up when we left.”
“Who the hell are these people?” Mildred asked, not really expecting an answer.
“People who know what they’re doing, my good woman,” Doc murmured. “You do realize that, with a minimum of firing and without showing themselves at all, they’ve forced us into a corner. And too damned easily.”
“You’re right, Doc. We’ve been triple stupe and let them run the play,” Ryan agreed. “Minds too busy elsewhere to get it together.”
“No time for recriminations, lover,” Krysty told him. “We’ve got to get ourselves out of this before we have the luxury to do that.”
“Yeah, but how? We don’t know how many of them there are or where they’re coming from. We’ve got our backs to a wall that could lift at any moment and we can’t lift it unless we want to expose ourselves.”
Ryan thought fast. There were two rooms on this leg of the corridor, both open and empty. To put themselves in one would give them cover on three sides, but would also imprison them.
Right now, cover was important. Even though he had a suspicion that this was what the enemy—whoever it was—had been directing him to, he still indicated that they should enter one of the rooms.
Jak kept watch while they built a barricade. His instincts were sharp, and were needed more than ever.
“I don’t get it,” Krysty said as they worked, the imminent danger echoed in the way her hair clung to her head and shoulders. “Why didn’t they take us out when they had the chance? Why are they driving us into this?”
“Perhaps, my dear, they wish to take us alive,” Doc mused. “This would be the best way. Force us here and then sit it out until we cannot go on.”
“But why wouldn’t they figure we’d come out blasting? Don’t they think we’d risk buying the farm?”
Doc allowed himself a sad smile. “We might, but that doesn’t increase their risk, does it? If we get chilled, we get chilled. This is, however, their best way of taking us alive with a minimum risk to themselves.”
“They’re here,” Jak said simply, pulling back into cover.
The companions took cover, blasters ready. Shapes flitted past the doorway to take positions on the far side and the companions fired. The roar of blasterfire and the stench of cordite was broken only by the screams of those they hit. From around the door, fire rained in on them. The barricade began to crumble.
“Have to take them head on,” Ryan yelled. “Otherwise we’ll be chilled meat anyway.”
They reloaded, ignoring the hail of fire around them as it ripped at their makeshift barricade and pit the walls with gaping holes of gouged-out concrete. They readied themselves for the attack. It was an almost suicidal charge, but they didn’t have the stomach to sit it out and wait to buy the farm.
“Ready?” Ryan asked. He was answered by gestures of assent.
One way or the other, it looked as though they were ready to join J.B., wherever the hell he may be.
Chapter Four
Nothing made much sense to J.B. as he lay in a pool of water, a stream gently trickling around him. Nothing except the pain he felt, as though every muscle in his body had been torn, every bone fractured, every ligament wrenched. Even the pumping of his blood sent liquid pain coursing through his veins. If he could see through the agony enough to think with any kind of rationality, he would be surprised that the levels of pain hadn’t made him black out. But everything was too painful, the world too red and full of pulsing lights for that: he had no idea where he was and only a few vague memories of how he’d gotten there.
His head—that had been the thing that hurt most to begin with. He had been in a tunnel and he vaguely recalled something to do with dogs attacking him. Then the walls have caved in on him and he remembered the crushing pain of being under their weight. And then…
And then it went really crazy. It seemed like the whole pile of rocks around him had just been picked up and flicked over, like some force had turned the world upside down. He could remember the strangest sensation, in the blackness, of feeling an immense wave of motion wash over him, pushing him forward and then sideways as he hit a solid barrier that drove the breath from his body. He was tossed around like a branch in a dust storm, hitting the sides of the tunnel that was crumbling around him as he felt himself fall. He’d hit his head again and had the idea that he was blacking out and coming to, blacking out and coming to. How many times he had no idea. All he knew was that he had kept falling down until finally he hit water.
It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t moving fast, but he still hit it so hard that it felt like falling against another wall of rock. But this one gave under him and he found himself struggling not to breath, not to drag water down into his lungs as his descent slowed until he hit the floor of the river. Some part of his brain that was working despite himself wondered about the river. He’d figured there had to be a water table at some point, but not that it would be so deep. Stupe, how the brain does this when he should be thinking about staying alive.
The wave that had propelled him this far reached the water and the sluggish stream began to move faster, taking him with it. He had no idea which direction he was going in, only that he had to try to keep his head up and breathe in only when he could suck air into his lungs. Which would have been hard at the best of times, but he kept nodding in and out of consciousness from the blows to his skull.
The water seemed to fill the tunnel as it churned harder and faster, the force of it slamming against his body almost as hard as the rocks he’d been pelted with a short while before. There was less air, fewer