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  “No!”

  “Then we use the satchel charge!”

  “Too late!”

  Glancing upward, Ryan cursed as he saw the fiery outline of the heatseekers from War Wag One arc over the city and plummet straight down toward the empty pool of fire. Then a pair peeled off to separate and strike different buildings still blazing, a furniture warehouse and a chemical factory. But the rest dived toward their target and impacted on the vacant street, throwing chunks of pavement in every direction, the staggering blast toppling dozens of additional ruins.

  “We were too slow!” Ryan snarled. “Okay, we use the backup plan!”

  Killing their radios, Ryan and J.B. rode to new locations and parked in the penumbra of jagged structures that hopefully would hide them from the sensors of the Ranger. Stepping off the bikes, the men unlimbered their LAW rockets, pulled the pins and extended the tubes to swing the launchers toward the tallest remaining skyscraper.

  In a whooshing roar, the rockets launched and climbed on hot contrails to slam deep into the structure, the double explosions blowing out the Plexiglas windows on the middle floors.

  Even as the shiny plastic fell, there was a brilliant strobe of light from the cliff as the L-gun of War Wag One stabbed out a short shimmering beam of destruction that hit the building and cut it in two, finishing the job the rockets merely started. As the slab of floors fell away, the war wag now had a direct line-of-sight view of the Ranger.

  Even as the tank swung its main gun toward the enemy on the high ground, the homemade laser stabbed out with a sustained beam of shimmering energy that lanced straight through the machine like a burning sword. As the chassis glowed red-hot, the coil gun hummed one last time as the Ranger flashed rads from the violated DU armor, flooding the vicinity to lethal levels. Everything flammable in the tank vaporized into superheated steam, and there was a brief human scream as the reserve ammo for the machine guns ignited, heaving the ruptured vehicle into the air, a halo of shrapnel brutally peppering everything in sight. Tumbling in the air, the tank crashed back down as a flaming meteor, secondary explosions cooking nuke batteries and adding to the general annihilation.

  Then impossibly, incredibly, the electric motors roared with life and the Ranger tried to rally once more until lightning crackled from the engine compartment and the fusion reactor scrammed, shutting off all power. Crackling in flames, the demolished war wag sat there for a few calculated seconds, just long enough to draw an enemy closer, and then the selfdestruct charges welded inside its sturdy frame detonated. The four hundred pounds of thermite flaring incandescent, creating a nimbus of searing blinding light.

  As the hellish inferno slowly dimmed and vision returned, there was nothing remaining of the preDark tank but a steaming crater in the ground and a very great deal of molten steel scattered about sizzling on the damp ground.

  “Hello?” the hand comm crackled. “Anybody there?”

  Ryan pressed the switch. “I’m okay, Pete. How about you, J.B.?”

  “Alive and kicking,” the Armorer replied.

  Looking to the cliff, Ryan frowned when he couldn’t find the war wag. “How is Trader?” he asked urgently. “Did they take a hit?”

  “She…she’s aced,” Fat Pete said woodenly. “Everybody else got out in time, in case the attack failed, but she stayed to aim the laser.”

  “The Trader is chilled,” Ryan said softly, raising a gloved hand to shield his face from the raging inferno of the dying tank. PreDark lampposts on the distant corners were starting to soften and bend over from the heat like melting icicles, the sidewalks shattering into rubble, bricks crumbling into the ash they were forged from again.

  “No way she could have escaped?” J.B. prompted hopefully.

  “None,” Fat Pete said in a tight voice. “Duncan saw it happen from War Wag Two, which I guess is now One, and I’m the new Trader.” There was a pause filled with only the sound of his controlled breathing.

  “Which means you fucking outlanders aren’t welcome here anymore,” Trader snarled in barely controlled rage.

  Epilogue

  As morning came, words were few and the mood was solemn as the people picked through the steaming wreckage of the destroyed war wag to find anything they could salvage. It would be a very long drive to the closest depot and their next cache of supplies. The decision had already been made in the morning light to accept a deal from an Ohio trader who needed help reclaiming a huge war wag from the side of a mountain. How it got there, nobody could say, but it was packed with weapons and in prime condition. With their share, they could be back in business again, and there would be some trading along the way. Some chilling, too, most likely, but then that was life.

  “That everything?” Jak asked, strapping the water can to the side of the motorcycle. The air was clean this morning, the stink of the acid long gone with the sun, leaving the desert feeling clean and renewed.

  “Everything I can think of taking,” Ryan answered, checking the hoses on the big Harley. The hog needed a good cleaning, but aside from that it was fit for travel. Whoever the recent owners were, they had taken excellent care of the bikes.

  “Nice of the Trader to let us have these,” Dean said, wiping off the seat with a damp rag. The saddlebags were full of food and water, and even a few of the pipe bombs. They would be able to reach the redoubt on the Grandee without any real problems.

  “Nothing courteous about it—the bikes let us leave faster,” J.B. explained, checking his Uzi machine pistol. “I guess he loved her a lot. Mebbe too much. Damn fool should have said something while she was still around.”

  “‘Love oft ties the tongue as steel can bind a hand,”’ Doc rumbled.

  Spread before the companions, the Texas desert was flattened into a mosaic pattern of raindrops hits, the landscape even more barren and desolate than before.

  “Looks like the surface of the moon,” Mildred muttered, hefting her med kit. She had shared what she could of the recent acquisitions from the city with Matilda, who was now the healer for the convoy. It left them both short on supplies, but each came away with a few items they didn’t have before. A fair exchange.

  “How know moon?” Jak asked, topping off the oil in his machine.

  “Saw it on TV.”

  “Vid?”

  “Live broadcast.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re all here and still breathing,” J.B. said with a warm smile. “I guess that doomie was wrong, eh?”

  Krysty gave him a grin, but didn’t comment in return. The message in blood had only said what would happen, not when. She still felt the hand of death among them and knew it would strike soon. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.

  Several techs and sec men for the convoy were inspecting a tire on the small cargo van, Fat Pete among them, so Ryan took the chance to walk over to the giant who now called himself Trader. The name was being passed around a lot these days, but the two so far had been worthy of the title.

  “We’ll be leaving now,” Ryan said. “Heading south to the Grandee.” The one-eyed wanted to say more, but knew it wouldn’t be accepted well.

  “Good,” the giant replied gruffly.

  With a shrug, Ryan turned, but the man stopped him.

  “Hellfire, look, there’s no blood lost between us, outlander, so if we cross paths again some day, there won’t be a bounty on your head. Might even be welcome, if enough time has passed.”

  Ryan said nothing, merely nodding, knowing this speech wasn’t for him, but for the man giving it, a way to say things he couldn’t say in private. Nothing special about it: wounds needed to bleed before they could heal was all.

  Exhaling deeply, the Trader went on, “But right now I can’t stand the fragging sight of you. Go while you can, and I do mean now.”

  “Guess I’d feel about the same if you got aced,” Ryan said as Krysty climbed onto the rear of the bike.

  Holding open the door to the war wag, Jake offered a hand to Jessica, and the woman smiled as he cl
imbed inside. The hatch closed with a bang, followed by metallic thuds as the bolts were thrown, sealing it tight.

  “At least some folks learn from the mistakes of others,” Mildred said. “I wish them good luck.”

  “Amen,” Doc rumbled. “Farewell and adieu.”

  Black smoke streamed up from the big diesels, then turned gray and the armored transport started moving away. Watching the two battered wags roll for the horizon, Ryan wished Pete luck.

  “Pity you can’t ace folks twice,” J.B. muttered, revving the engine slightly to clear the carburetor. “If anybody deserved a hard death, it was Gaza. He went far too quickly for my taste.”

  “But you can do as many times as you wish, my friend,” Doc Tanner said, tucking his ebony stick into a saddlebag where he could easily reach it in case of trouble. “I remember in detail the deaths of Cort Strasser and Silas every night before I sleep. Very soothing, indeed.”

  “Not healthy to always dwell in the past,” Krysty said softly.

  “Ah, but dear lady, it is always the past,” Doc answered, climbing onto the bike. “There is no other time than the eternal memory of now.”

  Starting his battered motorcycle, Ryan led the others southward toward the closest known redoubt.

  STUMBLING ALONG through the desert, Anders tripped on something and went flying, face to the ground. Slowly standing, he saw that it was a leather bag of some kind. Checking the contents, the sec man was delighted to find it full of water, clear, clean water. A godsend!

  Drinking deeply from the tip of the bag, he felt giddy with excitement with the find. Then he became drunkenly silly, and he clumsily missed his own mouth, the tainted water stinging as it washed into his eyes.

  Cursing in pain, Anders dropped the bag and slumped to the ground, moaning in pain, then soon wailing in madness as the jinkaja poison flooded his body.

  Lost in his world of madness, the man never saw the Core members rise up from the damp sands to reclaim the bag and leave again, abandoning the invader to the brutal mercies of the desert.

  CLIMBING DOWN the hill, Larry found the two-leg making bubbling sounds as it feebly waved its arms and legs. Coming closer, the little mutie took a rock conveniently nearby and bashed the big thing in the side of the head. The two-leg dropped still, only its lips and fingertips moving to show it was still alive.

  Now with gleeful intent, Larry took the precious glass dagger from his bag and began cutting away the clothing of the norm until the flesh was laid bare to the sun. Then he quickly sliced the tendons in the legs and arms so the food couldn’t escape and settled in for a good meal, all the while singing the praise of his departed mate and child as he filled his belly with the hot, red flesh.

  The screaming lasted for a very long time, and when he was done, Larry slipped away into the growing night, at last satisfied that the anguished spirits of his mate and child had finally been set to rest. But then, the desert always found a way to balance the scales of revenge, and death.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-7328-6

  BLOODFIRE

  Copyright © 2003 by Worldwide Library.

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