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  It was Mildred’s turn to snort. “No one brings Ryan Cawdor to heel.”

  Sylvano’s voice dropped again. He was tiring of the conversation. “Then he will see reason, or he will see his friends exterminated, if he has not been slaughtered already by Raul and his clan. Now, enough of this. I wish an answer from you.” Mildred struggled for something to say. She stepped back as Sylvano drew his sword. “And I warn you, Doctor, whatever you choose, I do not wish to hear the words fuck you cross your lips again.”

  Mildred gulped.

  Sylvano took a step forward and Mildred found nothing but the edge of the cliff beneath her heels. Sylvano’s voice thundered. “The moment they cross the buoys, I fire! If you wish your friends to live any longer, you must choose! No matter what transpires, you will serve the ville! You must choose whether you do it willingly, or you whether you must be hobbled and broken to it! But you must choose!”

  Hot tears stung Mildred’s eyes. “I…”

  “Choose!” Sylvano roared.

  “I…”

  Sylvano lowered his sword and shook his head sadly. “I am not a cruel man, Dr. Wyeth. I will not make you watch.” He nodded to the lookout. “Rafa, bind her and put her in the cab of one of the trucks where it is warm. Put a man to watch her.”

  Sylvano raised his voice. “Filho! Alexandre! Ready your crews! Prepare to run out the guns! All else, to arms!”

  “No!” Mildred sank to her knees.

  Sylvano cocked his head. “No?”

  Mildred wept. “No.”

  “If your friend surrenders, he will live. Those with him will not face reprisal. You have my word. Regardless, you will not be harmed, and your life among us will be made as pleasant as possible.” Sylvano put a hand on her shoulder. Mildred no longer had the wherewithal to shake it off. “I do admire you, Dr. Wyeth.”

  Mildred felt like nothing but a coward and a traitor, but she saw only a single option. Keep Jak out of the cannons. Keep him alive a little while longer. Mildred wiped her eyes and took the rope Sylvano handed her. They lowered her down to the sand. Mildred picked up her driftwood club for no other reason than it made her feel a little better. No warning came down from the cliff. She turned and the rope was gone and there was no sign of the ambush above. She scuffed her feet through Raul’s love note as she walked slowly to the surf line and waited.

  It wasn’t long before Jak’s boat appeared out of the gray. Mildred raised her club and waved it. The Sister Islanders all waved happily. Mildred’s stomach clenched as Jak piloted the boat past the buoy marker but no salvo of cannon fire tore the dawn. Mildred half wished a dozen rifles would blast into her back and end her misery.

  Mildred just about jumped out of her boots as the cannons cut loose up above. Three detonations rippled one after the other. Mildred whirled and screamed up the cliff. “Bastards!” Mildred screamed over the cannonade. “You bastards!” Jak rose from the tiller with his blaster aimed at the cliff. Mildred was surprised to see the young man not blasted into matchsticks. She was shocked that no geysers erupted out of the waves where the cannon rounds hit. Up on the cliff men shouted and screamed. Mildred gaped as one of the cannons rolled smoking and burning over the cliff’s edge and plunged sizzling to the sand.

  The fourth cannon didn’t fire at all.

  A sudden silence fell upon the beach. Mildred and Jak looked at each other in confusion across the surf. Ryan’s voice echoed dimly along the cliffs. “Mildred! Run!”

  Mildred flung away her wood and broke into a dead sprint. Jak slewed the whaler around hard to parallel her course. His stainless-steel blaster gleamed as he kept it pointed at the cliff line. Mildred ran like she had wings. She wanted to shout out, but she saved her breath. She needed to gain distance.

  No one brought Ryan Cawdor to heel.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryan glared through his Steyr’s optic. It wasn’t good. Two dozen men, four cannons, and all squatting over the rendezvous point. Sylvano and two other sec men had auto-blasters. The rest were carrying single-shooters, but they all had bayonets fixed of all rad-blasted things and every mutie in this pesthole was suicidally in love with sharp points. They all had sawed-off doubles and swords, as well. Cafu, Leto and Luis were three hundred yards back up the road with the wag and the baron’s daughter.

  Doc whispered as he lay next to Ryan in the gorse. “We are outnumbered.”

  Ryan nodded. “When aren’t we?”

  “Indeed, but they also have artillery. If they have grapeshot then they can rake us at this range once we begin firing.”

  Ryan continued to scan the enemy position. He reckoned it about two hundred and fifty meters. “What’s grapeshot?”

  “You see the cannons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Imagine them laden with several hundred buckshot rather than a single iron ball.”

  Ryan gazed at the black iron cannon. “That could be a problem.”

  “What do you believe would remedy it?”

  Jak and J.B. geared up and in a bad mood would be a good start, but Ryan wasn’t going to hold his breath. Last time he’d shot Sylvano the man had been wearing armor. Ryan figured he was wearing it now. He let out a long breath. Two hundred and fifty yards with a stiff ocean breeze. A head shot would be problematic. Ryan had exactly three black-tipped, armor-piercing rounds. Sylvano was a big man. There was a good chance Ryan could put three rounds into his chest or back and drop him. “I could drop Sylvano. These guys don’t have a clue yet that you’re free and we’re out and about with Cafu and the boys, much less have the lady. I drop Sylvano and hightail it. Mebbe they chase me in force. You and the boys work your way down. Take out whoever they leave behind. Warn off Jak and have him meet us farther down the coast. I’ll double back when I can.”

  “I am not the best of wag drivers, Ryan.”

  “All you got to do is keep it on the road and head north. You link up with Jak. I’ll catch up.”

  Doc’s breath hissed inward. “Ryan!”

  Ryan snapped up his rifle and watched Sylvano and two men haul Mildred up over the cliff with a rope. “Fireblast.”

  They watched as she was given food and drink. Sylvano was questioning her closely. Mildred looked like she’d had a rough night. Ryan could hear the big man’s roar. “Choose!”

  Ryan’s blood ran cold as Mildred fell to her knees. They yanked her up and lowered her back down the cliff.

  Doc choked with emotion. “They are using our dear Mildred as bait!”

  Ryan raised his blaster for the long shot on Sylvano.

  “The dawn rises!” Doc cried. “Jak will be here in heartbeats!”

  “Doc…” Ryan took aim.

  “The people of this ville are using black powder!” Doc’s brow beetled in furious thought. “If only we could sneak down and set one or two kegs alight! That might be diversion enough to allow us to affect a rescue and—”

  Ryan’s chewed-up face arranged a smile. “Doc?”

  “Oh, I am sorry.” Doc flushed in sheepish embarrassment. “I will endeavor to keep my prattle to a minimum.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  Doc blinked. “You know? A few people, and they were in the minority mind you, used to be of that opinion a few hundred years ago.”

  Ryan took out his remaining five red-tipped U.S. Military tracer rounds. He ejected his mag and racked the bolt to take out the bullet in the chamber. He put a tracer in the breech and let the bolt fly home. He shucked out seven rounds from the mag and back-loaded the three armor-piercing and topped off with the four remaining tracers. Five rounds to make something to go boom. Three rounds for Sylvano’s rad-blasted ass if the deal went sour.

  “Doc, you work you way back up around the hill. Have Cafu and the boys push the wag up to just around the bend. Then you bring me Zorime.”

  “And then?”

  Despite the fact they had commandeered a trunk-load of blasters Ryan knew he was the only one who could hit something from this distance. “Yo
u wait. Move, Doc. We don’t have much time.”

  “I understand, my friend.” Doc kneed and elbowed backward until his bony frame disappeared in the shrubbery. Ryan waited. If Sylvano got impatient, he’d punch him burning and screaming over the cliff edge. Minutes crawled like hours. Doc returned. The old man had a problem with laying his hands on women, which was probably why Cafu had come along and was prompting Zorime along by a handful of hair. The lady took a single look at the situation and scoffed. “You will be annihilated. Let me go to my brother and—”

  “You behave, and I let your brother live.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Watch and see.” Ryan put the post of his optic on a powder keg.

  The Steyr cracked. By night the tracer would have been a laval red line through the air. In the gray dawn it was a dull orange streak. Splinters flew as it impacted the powder keg. Sec men snapped around and reached for their blasters. Then the keg, the pallet of shot and the man standing next to it disappeared in orange fire and pulsing clouds of gray smoke.

  Zorime screamed and clawed at Ryan. Cafu heaved her back by the hair. Ryan stayed on station and swung on to the next cannon position. He took several heartbeats to steady his aim and squeezed. The tracer lasered across the three hundred yards and impacted the next keg. A man and his arm flew into the air separated by blood and smoke. Ryan tracked his aim to the third position and fired. The powder keg was right next to the cannon. As it exploded, the cannon jumped its chalks on a column of smoke and rolled off the cliff.

  Sylvano and his men had flung themselves flat. Ryan put his post on the fourth keg but held his fire. Choking gray smoke rolled across the cliff and bits of wood and human continued to rain earthward. Ryan filled his lungs and shouted across battleground. “Mildred! Run!”

  Ville sec men snatched up their stacked longblasters. Ryan still held his fire. “Lady, your brother is right next to the fourth cannon. If you don’t stand up, I shoot.”

  Tears spilled out of Zorime’s eyes. She shot Ryan a look of pure hatred over her glasses, but rose.

  “Doc, take her hat.”

  “Ryan, surely—”

  “Doc, do it!”

  Doc rose and plucked away the lady’s hat. Her dark hair flew in the ocean breeze. She whimpered even in the feeble ultraviolet radiation of the overcast dawn and covered her face. Doc swiftly put her hat back on. The quick reveal was enough. Sylvano’s voice was ragged with emotion as he shouted in both Portuguese and again in English for Ryan’s benefit. “Hold fire! I Command you! Hold fire!”

  Ryan never took his sights off the powder keg. “Doc? I need you to draw steel, walk down there, and tell me Mildred’s and Jak’s disposition. Can you do that?”

  Doc pulled himself up and drew his rapier from his cane. “I can.”

  “Tell Cafu to put his blaster to the lady’s head.”

  Doc made a blaster out of his hand, pressed it to his head and spoke a few words in Latin. Cafu put his short double against the base of Zorime’s skull. Doc walked down the hill with sword and blaster drawn. Well over half the sec men had rifles and bayonets to hand but none fired and none rose. Doc threaded his way through the sec men as the ocean breeze dissipated the black powder smoke. He leaned over the cliff and his sword glittered as he pinwheeled it around his wrist. He waved. “They make their way north! They saw me!”

  “C’mon back!”

  Doc made his way up the hill. When he was safely back, Ryan stood. “Sylvano Barat! You hear me?”

  Sylvano stood with his sword and short blaster filling his huge hands. He made no effort to move away from the powder keg. “I do!”

  “Me and my friends! All my friends! We enter the mat-trans and we go! That’s the only way your sister lives! You got me!”

  “You touch her! You touch a hair on her head! I will crucify you, Ryan! I will crucify your friends! I will light a bonfire on the beach and leave you nailed in spread-eagled invitation to my uncle!”

  Ryan didn’t doubt it. “Fair enough!” he shouted. “So let’s make this work!” Ryan kept his sight on the keg.

  “Doc,” he whispered, “back to wag.” Doc and the islanders retreated with Zorime.

  “Listen to me, Ryan!” Sylvano shouted. “You had—”

  “You and your men had best get away from that keg, Sylvano! I’m counting to three!”

  Sylvano and his men scattered from the fourth gun emplacement as if it were pumping rads. Ryan squeezed his trigger and blew it sky high. He trained his sight on their wags and blew out the tires facing him. Ryan rose and broke into a lope. The islanders and Zorime were packed in the wag. Doc folded himself in beside Zorime as Ryan slid behind the wheel and gunned the engine. “Put the lady’s head out the window!”

  Doc reluctantly shoved Zorime’s head out the passenger window. Cafu put his blaster to it without being told. Ryan shoved the wag into gear and roared down onto the coast road. He whipped the wag around the bend and drove straight at the milling sec men. Some leveled their blasters. Sylvano shouted and waved his sword for them to lower their weapons. Ryan blasted past through the smoke and confusion and shot down the road paralleling the sea. Luis and Leto wahoo’ed triumphantly. Ryan eyed his gas gauge. He was down to little more than an eighth. He continued a mile down the road and pulled off on an ancient scenic spot. Steep, heavily eroded steps long missing their railing led down the beach. They piled out of the wag and, looking south, they could see Jak moving up the coast. Ryan looked through his scope and saw Jak had picked up Mildred.

  “Doc?”

  “Yes, Ryan?”

  Ryan held out Mildred’s blaster. “Take the boys, take Zorime and get on the boat with Jak. You pick up Krysty and J.B. and head to Sister Isle.”

  Doc’s brow furrowed with concern. “Ryan, once J.B. and Krysty are through, should not we all leave together? Whilst we can?”

  “Ago and Vava helped us out across the channel. Cafu, Leto and Luis and others helped us here, and Baron Barat is going to rain on them like a chem storm for it. If we leave, we don’t leave things square.”

  “As always, my friend, you are right.”

  “Way I figure it, mebbe the mat-trans sends us all off, or mebbe it does us two by two again. If so, then four of us on the escarpment are easy pickings.”

  Doc nodded. “We must win the Ryan Cawdor revolution for Sister Isle.”

  “Only way we leave it square, and the only way to be sure.”

  “Then by all means! Let us thrash them!”

  Ryan made an amused noise. “You’re awfully full of piss and rads this morning, Doc.”

  Doc opened his coat to reveal a pewter flask. “I am awfully full of the Blood of the Lotus this morning. I purloined the supply from my room.”

  Ryan gave the flask a hard look. “Word is that local jolt is habit forming, Doc.”

  “If it gets me through the revolution, then I will consider its duties fulfilled, and once we jump I suspect my opportunities to exposure myself to it will be severely curtailed.”

  “Good enough. I want you to take all the swords and blasters from the wag and get them down onto the beach. Hook up with Jak and Mildred, pick up J.B. and Krysty. Get to Sister Isle. Get our boys here talking to them about what’s really happening, then get them ready for a fight.”

  Doc gave Ryan a searching look. “You are staying, then?”

  “Someone’s got to keep the fight going here.”

  Doc gave him a wary look. “Krysty will not be pleased.”

  “It’s gotta be done.”

  Doc’s hands fluttered like birds as he tried to impart this information to the three Sister Islanders. Zorime made an impatient noise and began speaking in Portuguese. Ryan almost slapped her mouth shut but Cafu suddenly stepped forward and began speaking impassionedly to him. Zorime rolled her eyes behind her dark glasses. “Cafu says he is old and he does not know anyone on the Sister Isle anymore. He says this is his island. His people are here, and you will need him. He wants to stay wit
h you.”

  Doc chewed his lip. “I believe that was the gist of it.”

  Ryan loomed over Zorime. “You’re translating for me because?”

  “My brother loves me. However, neither my father nor my uncle will endanger the island to save me. The quicker you go about your business, the quicker one or both will kill you.”

  “Fair enough. Doc, get the lady on the boat. Cafu and I’ll do what we can here then steal a boat and link up.”

  “Very well. Godspeed, Ryan.” Doc, Luis and Leto armed themselves down with blasters and cutlery and escorted Zorime down the steps to the beach. Ryan raised his blaster to Jak as they loaded onto the boat. Ryan could tell by Jak’s posture the young man didn’t like it, but the albino teen had been a guerrilla fighter almost from the cradle and he knew it had to be done. He raised his Magnum blaster in salute and headed the boat back into the channel.

  Ryan turned to Cafu. “You want to have some fun?”

  The grizzled old man nodded uncomprehendingly. Ryan went back to the wag and put it in Neutral. He got out and put his back to the bumper and began pushing. Cafu dropped his club happily and leaned his brawn into the act of vandalism. The black wag crunched across the gravel of the vista point and they both jumped away as it nosed over the cliff. It fell thirty feet and hit a boulder with a tremendous crash. Cafu stopped short of jumping up and down and clapping his hands.

  Ryan had to admit pushing a wag off a cliff had its own unique appeal. “You like that?”

  Cafu nodded vigorously.

  “That was good fun?”

  Cafu kept nodding. “Fun?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ryan clapped him on the shoulder and pointed inland. “Let’s go have real some fun.”

  Cafu scooped up his club and followed Ryan into the trees.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Metal screamed as the overhead ducts failed. The six-foot section fell through the overhead lighting in a shower of sparks and wiring with dead stickies and smoke trailing out of either end. J.B. whipped his scattergun around. He and Krysty had needed only a few more minutes and they would have been gone. They weren’t going to get it. A fresh stickie fell through the roof and flopped onto the piled bodies of its brothers and sisters. The stickie’s rubbery musculature hunched and popped as it relocated its limbs. J.B.’s blast smeared its skull across the corpse-littered floor. Another stickie was flailing its legs up in the wiring, the front half of its body still jammed in the torn duct. J.B. unrepentantly filled its rear contact point full of lead. The legs went limp and the Armorer leaped aside as the section fell. Arms flailed out of the other end, and J.B. pumped buckshot into the eight-foot section.