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  Dredda stomped the nearest trooper's kneecap, and despite the overlapping plates of his battlesuit, the knee crunched and bent inward in a way it was never intended to bend. The trooper fell, screaming to the dirt, and Dredda fell upon him, launching a snap-kick to the middle of his visor. Again, the helmet cracked like an eggshell thumped by the back of a spoon. Gore spewed over the inside of the visor, but not before Dredda got a good look at the dead man's face. One eye stared up; the other stared toward the flattened ruin of his nose.

  Mero caught hold of the last trooper and, as they tussled, face-to-face, knocked him down with a leg sweep. Before he could roll away from her, she jumped in the air and came down on her right knee, which landed in the middle of his chest. The battlesuit torso plates buckled with a crunch, and her knee drove deep into his chest cavity, taking with it the splintered remains of his sternum and rib cage. The trooper struggled for a moment more, then became still.

  Dredda reached out a hand and helped Mero up. The compound had one-third as many standing figures as it had a few seconds before. All but one of them were sisters.

  Dr. Huth, also in a battlesuit, hurriedly crossed the open space as Dredda and the others moved back into the trans-reality field. He pushed a tall, silver cylinder on wheels before him. Of all the males, Dr. Huth was the only one of any use to them; the only one worth the fuel to bring along.

  Huth wheeled the tank through the shimmering curtain and set it down beside Dredda, who stood at the head of the line of sisters.

  As the field built in power, a whirlwind whipped the dirt inside the marker stakes and the air was choked with a nauseating petrochemical stench. The lips of reality appeared, a seam in space and time that gaped around them like a giant, hungry mouth. Dredda took a last look around. They were leaving so much behind, so much wrecked gear, so much potential. But there were still ten sisters and they had the keys to a million other worlds.

  A fraction of a second before the thunder crack that announced their departure, through the swirling eddies of space-time, Dredda saw Ryan Cawdor emerge from the big dome. He wore a battlesuit without a helmet, and next to him was his red-haired lover. Her last image of this reality was his fierce and confident smile.

  Shadow Man had won.

  Deathlands had won.

  But Dredda was taking part of both with her. The silver cylinder by her side held Ryan's potent seed. Let the futures tremble.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ryan, Krysty and J.B. climbed up from the Slake City encampment, up the long grade to the end of the road's first rise. Though they had defeated the enemy, driven them from their world, this was a journey of dread. Not only because they were once again forced to venture into the nukeglass sea, but because they didn't know which, if any, of their loved ones they would find alive at their journey's end. They might walk all the way to Ground Zero just to dig a mass grave.

  When they reached the top of the rise, the dread vanished. It disappeared when they saw a row of figures climbing toward them, out of the nuke's crater.

  Recognizing his father, Dean broke away from the file and ran up the hill. Tossing down his laser rifle, the boy threw his arms around Ryan and hugged him hard.

  "It's okay, son," Ryan said, mussing the boy's hair. "Everything's okay now."

  When the rest of the former slaves came close enough for Ryan to do a head count, his expression of joy faded. As Mildred, Jak and Doc joined them, he said, "This is all that's left?"

  "All that survived the trip from Ground Zero," Mildred said. She looked exhausted. "There's just the eight of us. We got hit hard, but we returned the favor. None of the troopers they sent out are ever coming back."

  "We heard big bang," Jak said.

  "That was the she-hes saying bye-bye," J.B. told him. "They cranked up their trans-reality gear and disappeared into thin air. They left a lot of dead troopers behind, though."

  "Will they be back?" Dean said.

  "Let's hope not," Krysty replied.

  Doc looked down the slope. "It appears the she-hes have abandoned their domes, as well. Perhaps in their haste they left some food behind? I am ravenous."

  "There's food down there," J.B. said, "but I guarantee you won't want to eat most of it. Strangest rad-blasted mixtures you ever saw. The stuff needs to be buried in a deep hole."

  The companions and the four former slaves started down the slope to the encampment. They were about halfway there, when Jak said, "Somebody coming."

  He pointed at a dust cloud whirling its way across the plain, over the rough track in the direction of the Slake City compound. The companions watched it approach in silence for a moment. As the vehicle drew closer, through the haze of swirling dust it raised, they could make out the gaudy neon colors of the magic bus.

  "I'll bet the bastard's got himself another load of doped-up slaves for Ground Zero," Krysty said.

  "I guess this means we're not quite done here, yet," Ryan said.

  "That bastard's in for a big surprise when he pulls up and finds the she-hes long gone and us in their place," J.B. added.

  "I foresee a most delightful and well-deserved welcoming party," Doc said. "If you will excuse my rudeness, dear friends, I must hurry ahead to the camp. I need to locate my swordstick. I intend to put it to excellent use momentarily."