Chapter Seventeen
Ryan brought up his Steyr and snapped off a shot. If it hit near the party of heavily armed men who had just rounded a bluff a hundred yards up the valley’s far side, he didn’t see. Much as he hated to waste ammo, the other side had the edge on them right now. If he made even one of them hurry a shot, that was one thin sliver of survival his burning a round had bought them.
Fireblast, bad luck that I was looking the wrong way when they spotted us first, he thought. But that was as far as that went. Regret was useless.
Especially now, when only action, fast and hard, could save their hides.
“Up the other valley!” he shouted to his companions. “Fast!”
“What about you?” Krysty asked.
“I’ll hold them!” He got a flash sight picture through the sights and fired.
The coldheart went down, but Ryan wasn’t fooled. The man was spooked, not scared. He got the sense he had pulled a fraction to his left, probably stinging the enemy with a burst of black lava chips from the rocks beside him.
“Go!” he shouted again.
He sensed the others in rapid motion. He knew they didn’t like leaving him to face at least a dozen well-heeled enemies all on his lonesome.
But they did what he said, and it wasn’t as if he planned to sacrifice himself covering their escape.
Ryan ducked behind the outcrop the mutant monkeys had been sitting on as a flurry of bullets kicked up more dust from the trail. One of the dead monkeys rolled over as slugs slammed into it.
More bullets cracked off the hard granite and screamed as they tumbled away across the valley. Ryan found a sort of natural step that allow him to pop up, prop an elbow on jutting stone and brace for a quick shot. He snapped down the built-in folding bipod and went for it.
This time he used the long eye-relief scope, mounted well forward, among other things, to keep it from stamping a bloody circle around an unwary shooter’s eye. It wasn’t high-power, but was more than enough.
Especially now. He lined up the pointed bottom post on the chest of a man standing bolt upright firing an M-16 from the shoulder. Then he lowered his aim point to midgut. He didn’t owe this bastard an easy out, and he wanted the dude’s buddies to think deep, unhappy thoughts about what they were doing.
He squeezed off the shot. The lightweight polymer stock kicked him in the shoulder. The short muzzle rose sharply.
Before the longblaster settled back on its bipod he’d chambered a new round. Even as the weapon bucked up he’d had his eye out of the glass, looking for his next target. There were at least twenty coldhearts in sight now, most firing their blasters with no idea of what they were shooting at. Shots crackled down the valley to his left so hard and fast it sounded like a big bonfire built of green wood.
He didn’t bother glancing at his first target. He’d aimed so close to center of mass it’d take a serious miss not to hit flesh somewhere. The coldheart’s screams told him he’d planted the bullet in the man’s belly, where he wanted it.
He shot another enemy. As the Scout recoiled, Ryan saw the man jump and drop his rifle; he guessed he’d winged an arm.
The one-eyed man ducked. Taking two shots in a row from the same position was crowding it. These bastards had ammo to burn and were doing just that.
The rough rule of thumb Trader had taught him, long ago and far away, was that past 150 yards, even a lot of people shooting at you full-auto would hit you only by your own bad luck. Unless they were shooting an MG on some kind of mount, in which case you were already in dreck to your neck.
Unfortunately, inside about 100 yards, where these coldhearts were blasting from, the odds of one of them getting lucky went way up. Especially once they all got dialed into the general vicinity of where their target was.
Not all of them had autoblasters. Even if they were the Army of National Unity—and if they weren’t, El Guapo and his people had lots worse things to worry about than Ryan and his band of unwilling armed tourists—it was unlikely they could scrape together enough to arm everybody with automatic weapons. He could hear the louder, flatter barks of bigger-bore blasters as he scouted quickly for another sniping position. Single shots meant bolt-action blasters or even lever actions.
Most of the coldhearts with nonautomatic weapons didn’t aim any better than the ones rocking and rolling balls-out. Even if they could, it took more presence of mind than most random sec men had to mark their shots carefully when the hot sizzle of the chase was firing up their blood. Even when no one was shooting back.
But Ryan wasn’t about to take it for granted they didn’t have at least one good marksman. Or one with the self-control to line up his piece on the spot where Ryan had been shooting from, and wait to pick him off when he stuck his head up for another shot, like a Deathlands dirt farmer popping a prairie dog out of his bean field.
He didn’t see an appealing platform for a fast and steady shot, short of the mostly flat top of the outcrop. He scrambled up the slope beside it, then flung himself belly-first against the sun-hot stone. It cut into his skin through his shirt as he brought the bipod down on the top. He could smell rank monkey shit and felt sliminess between him and the rock.
Even as he’d sprung into position, he’d kept his eye on the enemy, trusting his flash impression of his destination and his superb body control to bring him safely where he needed to be. They did, with a little scrabbling of his right boot when the first foothold rolled out of place from beneath. It was the sort of thing he could correct without looking, by feel, and did.
He was already lining up a shot on a coldheart with an armband who was furiously waving his men forward and shouting. That made him an ideal target.
Because the coldheart had his head stretched around on his neck, and the motion of his arm was rhythmic, his head was a more stable target than people’s heads usually were. Ryan lined up the post on his right temple and squeezed off.
This time he watched the dark spray puff out the far side of the man’s head as the weapon reared up. The coldheart dropped like an empty sack.
A couple of men raced forward along the trail leading down the valley’s far side. Some ran down into the valley itself, which was neither steep nor deep, with only a little splash of stream running through it. Those could eventually be trouble, but not for a while. The hill he’d seen Krysty and the others go up was taller and steeper than most around here.
Ryan dropped back almost to the trail, set up on the first rock he’d used as a brace, shot the lead of the two men running toward him. The guy sprawled face-first, his longblaster flying from his hands to bounce down toward the stream. He snapped a second shot at the guy’s partner, but missed. The second man had flung himself into the brush on the far side.
Even without the one leader type Ryan had chilled, somebody was starting to coordinate fire toward Ryan’s rock clump. It was still more enthusiastic than accurate. He could hear ricochets zinging in all directions as well as shots continuing to crack past in open air, missing the outcrop completely.
His companions were likely safe by now. They knew how to find cover. With the added advantage of a guide who knew the country, they should have either found a spot where the pursuers would have a hard time finding them, or holed up somewhere they could defend.
Still, Ryan was reluctant to quit his sniping and follow. This seemed to be a young army. He still hadn’t seen more than twenty guys. But he’d chilled a couple at least, and wounded several more. That was high casualties for even the stoniest of coldhearts to absorb. It would normally make them go to ground and wait for him to go away, if not just turn tail and run.
Maybe this Handsome guy had a stern sense of discipline. But even if it involved getting boiled slow in a pot, deferred punishment seldom trumped having bullets crack close by your ears. Especially while your buddy moaned and howled and clutched at a belly full of guts turned to bloody pulp.
They had to break, and soon. It was just a matter of keeping up the pressure, bouncing between spots and taking quick shots until they just plain had enough. Which Ryan continued to do as he held the internal debate with himself.
Oh, and not get shot. There was that. If nothing else, the hypothetical supersharpshooter didn’t seem to have made the trip today. They were all pretty crap shots.
I just don’t want this many of them on the trail of Krysty and the others, he thought, as he popped up over the top of the outcrop and snapped off a quick blast. This time he saw blood fly from the leg of a kneeling shooter, who squalled, grabbed himself and fell.
Ryan slid all the way to the bottom again. He crouched behind the rock, catching his breath. And suddenly there were bullets cracking all around him.
He sucked into a tight crouch as sharp shards of lava rock stung his face and hands. Ricochets screamed. He felt something tug the left shoulder of his shirt.
The firestorm paused. Ryan looked up to see a couple of shooters silhouetted atop the far side of the valley. Another man stood a few feet away. He and one of the others were aiming longblasters in Ryan’s direction. The third man, up on the ridge, was half-turned, frantically signaling someone behind him with his right hand.
Now Ryan knew why the coldheart squad was so hard-core in the face of casualties: there were more of the bastards.
He swung the Scout to his shoulder, acquired his target, then fired at the man slightly down the slope as the muzzle of the coldheart’s longblaster sprouted yellow fire.
He felt a sting on his left cheek as the shot cracked by. The coldheart dropped as his left shin was plucked right out from under him. He tumbled down the ridge, losing his bolt-action longblaster as he did so.
Ryan threw himself into a desperate rear somersault away from the outcrop that had sheltered him from the first wave of enemies. He was deep in trouble, and he didn’t need anyone to tell him. Even as the two still on their feet on the far slope blasted rock splinters from the space he’d just occupied, he could hear the triumphant cries of the first wave as they surged forward.
He’d gone and gotten himself flanked. It was about as tight a crack as a person would fit in. The odds were long against him getting himself out.
If he tried bolting to cover, or straight up the hill, he was asking for a bullet in the back, which would leave his companions at the mercy of their foes. He wouldn’t do that.
All he could do now was to sell his ass dearly and discourage pursuit.
He fired again before he came out of his roll, the blaster bucking in his hands like a live thing. Once again he hoped to throw off the coldhearts’ aim long enough for him to take down at least one more.
The shot flew wide, as expected. As he came up to a kneeling position and raised the longblaster to his shoulder, he saw something that hit him like a round in the gut.
There were more men silhouetted against the far ridge. They weren’t shooting at him yet, but soon would be.
And even if they all missed, it was only a matter of minutes before the first group closed in to blast him like a rabid dog.
Suddenly the head of a man trying to sight in on Ryan with an M-16 jerked back. He fell on his back flopping, grabbing the attention of his cohorts.
Ryan shot the remaining member of the first trio through the chest.
One of the men on the far ridgeline toppled backward out of sight. The remaining newcomers looked at one another and rabbited back down the far valley wall.
“Ryan!”
The shout came from the slope above him. The voice was momentarily unfamiliar.
“To your west! They’re crossing the side valley!”
He recognized the voice now: Ricky Morales. He suddenly realized why he hadn’t heard the shots that took out the two coldhearts.
He flung himself back to his first perch near the base of the outcrop where the two mutant monkey bodies still lay in pathetic huddles. Four of the original enemy unit were indeed scrambling down the far bank of the side cut and crossing the dry streambed at the bottom.
Ryan shot the nearest man in the face. He was only twenty yards or so away, so his head burst like an overripe cantaloupe hit with a sledgehammer.
As he toppled, the man right behind him triggered an AK blast from the hip. Even as Ryan brought his longblaster back online that man was cut down by another shot from Ricky Morales.
Another man sliding down the bank fired to reverse course, but took Ricky’s next blast in the hip. He went down screaming.
The survivors sprinted back toward the rest of their patrol, who themselves were pulling back out of sight the way they came.
“This way!”
Ryan looked up the slope to see Ricky grinning at him from a bush.
“¡Andale, señor!”
the kid called.
Without a second thought, Ryan raced up the slope toward him.
They started moving fast through the brush up the hill. The kid made more crunching and rustling noise than Jak would have, or even than Ryan did. But Ryan didn’t think it’d make much difference. No enemy was near enough to hear them. At least, not one in shape to do much about it.
The scrub wasn’t cover, but it was pretty fair concealment. The only way an enemy would be likely to hit them was to blanket the area with fire.
But the group that had run into them headfirst had shown no taste for any more of Ryan and his companions. It was always possible they would rally and come right back, if they fetched up against some kind of leader with the balls and presence to kick their asses back into action. But odds were this was an independent patrol. And even if somebody did get them turned around in short order, it was triple-sure they wouldn’t be pursuing his friends any too eagerly.
“Where’re the others?” he asked Ricky.
“Safe,” Ricky said. “Up about half a kilometer, hidden. I, uh, came back on my own.”
“Thanks,” Ryan said. “One thing, though.”
“What?” The kid sounded scared at being judged by his new comrades’ formidable leader.
“That last little demo impressed me a shitload more than shooting some mutant monkeys.”