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  Correll was in his usual position, flanked by Jenny, the redoubt armorer, and Lonnie, who seemed to have established himself as second in command. On seeing the companions enter, he beckoned to Ryan and J.B. to join him. As the leader of his group, Ryan was an obvious choice, and J.B. was picked because of his ability with weapons. Indeed, while the others had been engaged either in training or in the recce mission, J.B. had forged a good working relationship with the Native American woman who now acknowledged him with a smile. Despite her initial misgivings and hostility, she was now sure that J.B. was invaluable. He had helped her to maintain and repair some of the weapons that had been damaged during training, and had also given her invaluable advice about the best times to use concussion and shrapnel grens in enclosed environments. She had learned from him, and as a result her respect for the man had grown.

  Ryan and J.B. collected their food and joined the table, while the rest of the companions found spaces around the room. Dean, Jak and Doc joined Danny who, as usual, was seating himself a little apart from the rest of the group.

  “Heard about the chem storm?” he said in an undertone as they joined him. When they acknowledged this, he continued, “I figure that Papa Joe would send us out whatever the conditions, way he feels about things. But the good news is that it’s stopped out there. At least we won’t have to fight our way through a shitload of acid rain.”

  “Not good conditions, though,” Jak noted.

  A sentiment that was being echoed on the table where Mildred and Krysty were now breaking their fast. At the request of Rudi, they had joined the table where he sat with Catherine and Cy, among others. Mildred regretted it almost as soon as she had sat down, as he put his arm around her to “settle her in.’’ She didn’t know which was worse, the feel of his unwelcome hand, knowing that she couldn’t deck the mother with a roundhouse punch in front of all his fellow Hellbenders, or the glare she received from Catherine, as the last thing they needed to do at this stage was to make enemies—not before going into a firefight.

  “You ready for some action?” he asked her, with a wicked grin on his face.

  “You’d better be,” Catherine added in a venomous undertone.

  “I’m ready to go out there and fight, if that’s what you’re trying to say,” Mildred replied with a faked ingenuousness, shrugging him off.

  “We’re all ready, aren’t we?” Krysty added, trying to change the subject.

  “I’d like to say I am, but I dunno,” Cy said with a tinge of regret in his voice, gesturing to his still bandaged shoulder. “I can fire a blaster, but not a real heavy-duty one. You did a good job on this, Doctor, but there hasn’t really been enough time for it to heal, y’know?”

  “Just take it easy, and pick your shots,” Mildred said to him, glad to sidle away from Rudi and change the subject and focus of her attention. “Worse thing you could do is get carried away and end up opening up that wound—then you’ll be no good to anyone except the other side.”

  While she handed out these words of advice, at another table Correll was filling Ryan in on events following the one-eyed man’s return to his rest.

  “The chem storm carried on for another three hours, and believe me, my friend, it got to the point where I believed that we would have to postpone the mission. But when it cleared, it cleared with a speed that was breathtaking. It was as though the winds that drove the clouds together had suddenly reversed poles, like magnets. Where they had been driving themselves together, now they could think of nothing but driving themselves apart, and the faster the better. Within minutes, the sky was clear and dark, only the stars lighting the sky.”

  “That’s good,” J.B. mused, “but what about the villes—would they still go?”

  “More importantly,” Ryan added, “have you had any signals from them?”

  Correll shook his head. “Not much chance of that, friend Ryan. The rad interference is still far too strong. Nothing going across that air except ear-blasting static. There’s no way I’m gonna hear from either of my spies this side of next week, if the strength of the interference is anything to go by.”

  “So how can you be sure the convoys will be going ahead?” Ryan queried.

  Correll shrugged. “Can’t be a hundred percent sure, I guess, but I do know one thing—Jourgensen and Hutter both need to meet badly. Badly enough for them to risk taking their convoys across ground that has been hit by a chem storm. If the ground hasn’t dried out, then it’ll be muddy and hard going, and mebbe both of them’ll be late at the rendezvous point. But you can sure as hell bet that they’ll be going. And if they go, then we go.”

  “I reckon that it’ll take them longer, but if you work out the distance and the likelihood of us having the same problems over the territory, it’ll kind of even out so that we don’t have to worry too much about changing our time of departure in order to reach them at the same time as they arrive,” Jenny added.

  “That seems a fair assumption,” J.B. commented. “But how will it change our tactics? What are the conditions like out there?”

  “Just as you’d expect,” Correll replied simply. “The desert is like a swamp right now. The earth has been turned into mud and quicksand, so we’ll have to be careful as we negotiate the old tracks, but it’s drying out rapidly. I figure that we’ll leave some tracks, but mebbe by the time we get to where the rendezvous is taking place we’ll have been out there long enough for the desert to have dried out and not leave any telltale tracks.”

  J.B. nodded. It was more or less as he had thought it would be should the rains cease, and he knew that Ryan felt the same. Their main concern was never going to be the conditions if they were anywhere near good enough to start out.

  After they had eaten, Correll had the room cleared of all the tables, and the Hellbenders arranged their chairs so that they were seated facing the one direction—the part of the hall where Correll had set up his maps and charts. He waited for the group to settle before beginning.

  “Okay, people,” he said, staring at a point somewhere over their heads. “Now I know you all know about the chem storm, and the effect that it’s had on the terrain out there, but I have to tell you that I feel that it doesn’t affect the basic plan. We can still get there in plenty of time to mount our ambush, and then to claim our rightful reward.

  “And that reward is ours. We have all been unjustly exiled from Charity—a few of us from Summerfield—and we have been driven from our homes, family and friends by the idiocy and maliciousness of the barons, particularly that coldheart son of a gaudy piece of scum called Jourgensen. When the time comes, I don’t care how or who metes out his chilling, but I sure as shit hope it’s me.

  “We leave here in approximately ninety minutes, which should give us all that we need to finish loading and checking the wags. Thanks to Jenny and our good friend J.B., we know that the tools will not be found wanting, so it is to ourselves that we have to look. Have we got what it takes, people?”

  He turned and faced the map he had pinned up on the wall, tracing the route with his finger as he spoke.

  “This is the route we’ll be taking. It’s more or less direct, but as we get nearer the rendezvous we’ll be avoiding the more obvious tracks so that we don’t leave any sign of our arrival. This is something that has become more of an imperative since the chem storm, as the land around here may still be churned up and wet enough for us to leave wag trails. The other thing we have to watch for is any signs of quicksand. We don’t have the time or manpower to devote to getting anyone out of trouble like that. There’s gonna be a hell of a lot more of them than there is of us, so we have to conserve our energy and hit them hard and efficiently. When we arrive at the rendezvous point, this is what we do.”

  He pulled the map off the wall and replaced it center stage with a hand-drawn chart that showed his tactical maneuver for the attack.

  “We form a pincer movement at the rear of these two outcrops, and as both convoys converge on the valley where they plan
to meet, we close it down from each end, attacking them from the rear and hitting them hard. Then, before they have a chance to regroup, we come around the sides of the convoys, each group splitting to two, and hit them from each side, so they have no idea where to turn. And while they’re turning, we hit them so bastard hard that there’s nothing of the scum left. We know that both Hutter and Jourgensen are attending the rendezvous because of the importance of the trade, so that means they’ll all be carrying their best sec. We hit them and wipe them out, then the ville of Charity is wide open.

  “It’s a simple plan because simple is best. Make it too complex, and everyone has to remember what the fuck they’re doing in the heat of battle. Make it too complex, and it’s hard to adjust if something happens that we don’t expect. But I’ll tell you one thing—it’s simple enough for us to chill the fuckers and finally gain vengeance.”

  As he finished, a roar swept the room, along with cries of hate against the barons and their villes. This seemed to spur Correll on, as he yelled above the noise, “We’ve been screwed for too long, we’ve waited too long. Lives have been destroyed, people we love have been chilled, lives we wanted to live have been denied us. Now we can take all that back and show them that they had no right to take it away from us. We’re hell-bent on vengeance and we will have it.”

  The room was deafening as the cheers and whoops rose to a crescendo.

  Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances and looked around the room. The only people whose eyes weren’t lit by the fires of fanaticism were those of their fellow travelers…and also Danny, who looked distinctly uneasy with the whole affair. It was Danny whose crestfallen and bemused expression summed up their feelings as Correll spoke again.

  “I hate the fact that the fucking chem storm threatened to ruin the whole plan. I hate it that the fuckers we’ve got in those villes can’t tell us shit because of rad interference stopping transmission. I hate the fact that we’re going into this blind compared to what it should be, but I’ll tell you all something—we have right on our side, and that’s what’s going to see us through and help us defeat those bastards and avenge all those we’ve lost. Now let’s get this show on the road,” he yelled, whipping the enthusiasm and fire of his people into a frenetic state as they began to filter out of the room and down to the wag bays, where they would pick up the last of their traveling supplies and gun the wags into action.

  The companions were among the last to leave the room. Mildred made her way over to Ryan and whispered urgently to him.

  “I don’t have to tell you, do I?” she began. “I’ve seen that so often in the old days. Papa Joe is about as unstable as you can get, like a volcano about to blow. Trouble is, we’re going to be right in the path of it this time.”

  “Yeah, I know that,” Ryan returned in an undertone, “but what can we do? We’ve got to roll with it for now.”

  “Listen, if he carries on like this, I wouldn’t like to bet on our chances of reaching the interception point in one piece with him in the lead, let alone winning a firefight.”

  J.B., who had heard their exchange, interjected. “It’s no use worrying about that, Millie. Ryan’s right, we can’t back out now. We’ve got to run with the pack and then play it by ear. Thing we’ve got is that we can stay cooler than them. They’re all as fired up as Correll is. We’ve got to trust to our reactions being better.”

  Mildred fixed the Armorer with a sardonic stare, her eyebrow raised. “John, don’t you realize that the last thing I’m worried about is our ability? We’re not the ones giving orders, and he’s got superior numbers. What I’m worried about is the few of us having to fight on three fronts instead of two. That could be stretching things a little too thin.”

  “We’ll have to see,” Ryan replied. “We don’t have any other option.”

  With which decision, the one-eyed man led them after the retreating Hellbenders, toward the wag bay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the wag bay, the heat, smell and noise were intense. The Hellbenders were checking the wags, loading up the last supplies of ammo and grens, and settling themselves into the variety of vehicles in order to begin the trek to the ambush point.

  As the companions entered, Jenny approached them.

  “Papa Joe wants you and Krysty to go with him,” she said to Ryan. “J.B., he wants you to go in the second wag with Mildred. I’ll be in that one, too. Dean, you and Jak and Doc are to go in the third wag out. Each of the first three will form a lead point for the different parties when we reach the destination. He values your experience in different environments, and wants to spread you out to be as effective as possible.”

  “Of course he does,” Mildred murmured, although there were other thoughts that occurred to her. Ryan had wanted them to keep together as much as possible, and although it was as well that they weren’t spread across the entire convoy, splitting them into three would make it harder for the group to maintain unity if they had to find a way of pulling out. It also suggested to her that perhaps Correll had a notion that they might be watching their own backs in this manner, and wanted to keep them separated to some degree.

  The one-eyed man felt much the same about this, but knew that dissent in such a situation, surrounded by the Hellbenders, hyped up to fight and believing totally in their leader, wouldn’t work. If anything, the way the Hellbenders were feeling it may just get them chilled before they even left the redoubt. Although they had been accepted by the group, he was as aware as the rest of the companions that they were treading a thin line in a group that was riddled with mass hysteria and insanity.

  “Sure,” he said simply, nodding briefly and turning to his people, a signal to Jenny that her task here was done. As the woman walked away to resume her last-minute chores, Ryan spoke softly.

  “Looks like the three wags we take are all equipped with radio…” He indicated the wag with Correll already seated at the wheel, staring stiffly ahead and almost in a trance, and the two wags immediately behind it. They were of the stock from the redoubt, and were military sec wags, fitted with machine blasters and antitank weaponry. “That’s good, ’cause at least we’ll have a direct link if shit happens. We need to keep triple hard out there, especially when we reach the destination and move into position. I figure it’ll blow, if it’s going to, when they get first sight of the convoys converging. Until then, we keep it down and wait. This is a situation to react rather than act, okay?”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the companions, and they parted, moving off to their allotted wags.

  Ryan and Krysty climbed into the wag that was already occupied by Correll. He was at the wheel, staring straight ahead out of the front windshield, and didn’t acknowledge their presence. On his lap was cradled a metal box, sealed and welded all around. It was about three by three, and had no identifying marks. With no seeming point of entry, Ryan wondered what it was for. Did it contain some kind of weapon that Correll had not told them about? Some kind of mysterious old tech invention that he had found in the redoubt? If this was so, then perhaps Doc would recognize it, as he had seen so much during his time as a captive of the whitecoats of the Totality Concept. But on reflection, Ryan thought it unlikely that it was weapon. The box was too crudely constructed, too amateurishly welded to be something that was legacy of the military-industrial complex that had left the world in such a condition. No, this was something that Correll himself was responsible for, and from the manner in which he was gripping the box, it had some intensely personal meaning for him.

  The one-eyed man turned to Krysty, but she had already seen the box on Correll’s lap. The same things had run through her mind as through Ryan’s, and she knew what he was thinking. It wasn’t a good idea to ask—her hair wrapped itself tight to her when she thought of this, and without him having to even frame the question, she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

  Ryan and Krysty took their places in the wag. There were two other Hellbenders there besides Correll: Travis and C
y, who was manning the blasters and antiwag hardware that sat at the back of the wag. The comps glowed green and yellow in the dark of the vehicle, casting a sinister light on his features as he smiled a greeting. Krysty wasn’t sure that she wasn’t imagining it, but it seemed as though the entire party was set on a suicide mission, and didn’t really need Papa Joe to go over the top. They could manage this quite easily by themselves.

  As the one-eyed man slipped into the seat beside Correll, it seemed to snap the gaunt man out of his reverie, and he turned to face Ryan.

  “Ready?” he asked, his voice no more than a hoarse husk.

  “If the rest of the party are ready to go,” he stated.

  “They will be,” Correll said simply and, without even bothering to check if this was the case, gunned the engine of the wag. It had been ticking over while they boarded, and now the powerful engine roared deafeningly in the enclosed space of the wag bay. The noise grew in intensity as it was joined by the roaring of the other wags in the war party.

  Correll put the vehicle into gear, and it began to move toward the exit ramp that would take them up the necessary levels of the redoubt and out onto the rock plateau.

  As the leading wag approached the sec doors, Correll leaned out, punched the exit code onto a small console and jerked the lever that would open the door. As the door lifted, he took the wag through and out into the chem-raddled morning.

  Ryan winced as the change in light hit his eye. The low-level lighting of the redoubt was replaced by the scorching sun, which hit them with no mercy as they exited the redoubt, the red, rad-bloated orb distorted even more through the haze of chem fumes that rose from the rapidly drying earth. The air stank of sulfur and a sickly sweet undertone that couldn’t be identified as the quality of the air changed. Instead of the cool, cleaned air that was passed through again and again via the air-conditioning and purification system, they were hit by the heat, dust and chem-soaked air that came after a storm.