A half hour later, she saw one of New Hope’s walls before her as she lay at the base of a large patch of sagebrush. She shook her head. As well as brush and dried grass at the base of the walls, the previous year’s growth of weeds had not been removed almost the whole distance between the wall and the low-lying juniper forest.
It’s good for me, but if we live through this, I’m going to have a talk and demonstration for Horace and his people about sloppiness.
So much had happened this day that it was hard to believe it was still early afternoon. This was a good thing. She still had to find where the Sharks had placed their breaching explosives, make her way into the compound, and convince Horace and Eli the plan that was forming in her head was a good one.
Eli was getting worried.
There had been no indication that Axe Man’s group had arrived intact, but there had also been no indication that his group had been waylaid either. The suspense of not knowing if his plan was responsible for the deaths of Ghost Wind, Kita, and all the dojo warriors was driving him crazy. Part of him wanted to jump the walls with a machete and a rifle and take out as many of the Road Sharks as he could before they managed to kill him.
“You’re gettin’ mighty jumpy there, son,” Horace said, climbing the ladder to the walkway. “You’re starting to worry everyone that we’re in big-ass trouble.”
“We ARE in big-ass trouble! I thought I made that quite plain,” Eli said, glaring toward the low afternoon sun.
Horace’s eyes widened for a moment, and he signaled Eli to walk down the wall away from the others at the gate with them.
“Eli, these people are terrified. They’re farmers, not fighters. I’d appreciate it if’n you could try to put on a good face, even if it’s hopeless. We can’t have them just givin’ up before a shot’s fired.”
“Sorry, Horace,” Eli said, looking down at his boots, “I’m just worried my little plan may have backfired and gotten her killed.”
“Ghost Wind?”
“Her, and Kita, and how many other of Kita’s students went along with them. Most of those people had only ever fought in a dojo, and they were trying to take out people who spent most of their lives doin’ violence to others. It was an ill-conceived plan and if it failed, their deaths are my doing.”
They were silent a moment before Horace spoke again. “You don’t know that anyone is dead. Right now, you’ve taken on the responsibility, God help ya, of tryin’ to get our group outta the shitstorm we find ourselves in. It could very well be that the ambush was a success, or that they didn’t get there in time to set it or that Frankenstein’s monster came and killed everyone involved. Ya don’t know and coming up with wild scenarios and freakin’ out about ‘em will probably only wind up getting the people HERE killed. Pull it together, Eli.”
Eli couldn’t help the slight grin that appeared on his face, “Frankenstein’s monster? Really?”
“Just as possible a scenario as that Miss Ghost Wind was killed by Axle.”
“I suppose so.”
“Damn straight! That gal will probably outlive us both.”
“I need to get out. If I can remember some of my old sneakin’ skills, I can find where on the wall those boys have planted the C-4. Do you have a priest hole kind of escape tunnel out of this place?”
“Kinda sorta. We could have it clear of dirt in about ten minutes.”
****
The day was starting to cool as they grew close to clearing the hidden tunnel under the southeast wall of the compound. Eli had rummaged through his gear on the Terror, and come up with an antique camouflage kit, military surplus from the Beforetime that he had found in a derelict surplus store. He currently sported several shades of green, dark brown, ochre and gray and had changed into an old Marine Corp battle dress uniform that he kept for just such occasions.
“We about there, Horace?” he asked, carefully stowing his pistol in his waistband, under his untucked shirt. “Day’s not getting any younger.”
“We’re there. Time for you to start crawlin’.”
Eli dropped down and started to wiggle carefully face first into the hole when he realized the way was blocked.
“Dammit, Horace, there’s still a big ol’ rock in the way! How the hell am I supposed to—”
“Oh, you are going to pay for that, Eli,” the rock said.
****
“Ghost Wind! I’m glad ta see you alive, sweetie!” Horace crowed as she climbed out of the tunnel Eli had just vacated.
“Glad to see you too, Horace,” she said, looking over at Eli.
“I… uh…” The tall man stammered. “You’re okay!”
“Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing Eli.”
“I was so worried… I thought I had sent you and the others to your deaths. I couldn’t…” Choking up, Eli was unable to finish the sentence.
“We took no losses,” she said, looking at him with concern. “However, Kita’s people were… they… all right, let me be blunt. They were piss poor ambushers. Axyl and twenty of his people got through. We only took down six.”
Eli had gained control of himself as he answered. “I had assumed about forty, so if there’s only half that many, it’s a good thing.”
“Yes, it IS a good thing, because if Kita’s group had been trying to ambush forty kilabykers, I’m pretty sure we would have been slaughtered. Had the twenty turned around and charged us, and Axyl not been such a chickenshit, we might all be dead too. Your plan vastly over-rated Kita’s students ability in actual combat.”
Eli was silent for a moment.
“Don’t worry, Eli, perhaps Kita and I can strengthen their abilities later on. She and her people are about five miles out in the junipers, ready to help if they can, but I have a plan that might make the need to use them moot.”
“Do tell,” Horace said, “we could really use a plan right about now.”
“I noticed last time I was here you have lots of building materials stockpiled, specifically, more of the sheet metal you used to build these walls, right?”
“You never know when you’re going to need to replace or expand the walls, so we snapped up every piece we could find in a twenty mile radius. Whatcha got in mind, miss?”
“Let’s look at them and I’ll tell you, but first, you might want to store these someplace cool.” Ghost Wind opened the canvas haversack she’d been carrying.
Inside were several charges of C-4 explosive and several detonator spikes.
“Nice work!” Eli said, admiring the contents of the canvas bag. “I was about to try to do the same thing. I doubt I’d have done it with the ease that you accomplished it though.”
“Oh my,” Horace said, grinning. “Guess they won’t be comin’ in through the wall after all.”
“Actually, Horace, if my plan works, they will be. It’s just that they won’t be expecting what’s on the other side.”
“Hunh?”
“I want another look at these building materials of yours,” she said, limping towards the sheds. “We need to make sure that as few Road Sharks get out of this as we can. Attrition will make them weak.”
Eli and Horace looked at each other, then at the woman walking off.
“Damn,” Horace whispered, “force o’ nature, that one.”
“Amen, brother.”
Axyl was tired. Tired of waiting to put the plan in place, tired of sitting out here in the pines and tired of smelly assholes questioning every other damn command he gave.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Axe,” Sky Rider said, looking toward the metal walls of New Hope, “if we just went at two a.m. instead of midnight, they’d all be asleep for sure, probably even whatever sentries they might have posted. Midnight, they might just be windin’ down. Two a.m. and they’ll be deep asleep.”
“Goddamn it, Rider! The problem with your idea is that these goons we’re assaulting the place with are never awake at two a.m. and even now, are probably sneaking drags from whatever bottles of hootch they smuggled with them when we rode up here. At midnight we might be able to hit the walls with most of our force still ready to rumble, but by two a.m. I can tell you, half of them will be worthless.”
“Heh. Most of them are worthless, sober or smashed, Axe.”
“Yeah. But hear me, Rider. Neither you nor I are great strategists here. Darwin Shell was… er.. is! This is his plan, and we’re gonna follow it, if we want any fuckin’ chance of pulling this off. Sabé?”
“Yeah, yeah I gotcha.”
“You’re sure no one has been through here, today? I don’t want these farm boys to know what we’re planning ahead of time. Surprise will make this a whole hell’uva lot easier.”
“I had Earl and ol’ Ballsy stationed not fifty yards from the main gate…”
“Oh! Ballsy! There’s a paragon of alertness,” Axyl growled.
“Well, maybe he ain’t the best of our people, but there’s no damn way they could’ve missed anyone. If anyone had gone through there, we’d know and they’d probably have never made it to within sight of the gate, Axe.”
“You better hope so, man. If not, this night is gonna be a lot hairier that we expect it to be.”
****
It was almost half past eleven p.m. and the troops were getting restless. Axyl, Shadow Rider, and a few of the more intelligent Sharks had been carefully trying to get the remainder into a semblance of a strike force and it was proving to be a bit more difficult than planned.
Shell, before his accident, was fond of quoting a Beforetime comedy guy who said, “You can’t fix stupid” and Axyl was inclined to agree. The hardest thing was to get some of the more dense members of the group to simply shut their mouths. Many had nothing resembling impulse control, and only learned to rein in their useless comments when they were given enough pain to let the lesson sink in.
“Fuck it, Axe,” Rider said. “This is the first time we’ve really tried a strategy different than ‘ride in and do mayhem’ and honestly, I’m not sure half these shit-for-brains are gonna be equal to the task!”
“With these farmers, you can be sure some of them will be ready to shoot when we come through, which means we’re probably going to lose some men. I think we should choose pretty carefully who goes in first, once the wall is blown. You know who the assholes are in the Indies, and we both know the Road Sharks that tend to lower the IQ curve.”
“Yeah. What’re ya thinkin’?”
“Let’s stack the strike force so the people we like least are in the front of the pack when we go through. If the whole thing don’t work like Shell thought, at least we’ll have cleaned up the gang’s gene pool a little.” Axyl looked at the Rider, to make sure there were no objections. He needn’t have worried.
“Oh hell, yeah.” The old man grinned, “Some o’ these uppity assholes been making life unpleasant for everyone and not respectin’ their elders. I’ll be happy to herd ‘em to the place in line they’ll be most likely to catch a bullet!”
“Good. And Rider? As the two smartest men out here, I think you and I should come in last, so we can see and discourage any excesses we see. Shell wants these farmers, if not happy, at least not fuming for revenge, so we need to come down hard on any unneeded brutality or rapes. Come down HARD.”
“I ain’t gonna argue about goin’ in last. Less chance of takin’ a bullet. That’s what our cannon fodder is for.”
Axyl smiled his white shiny smile. “I’m so glad we had this talk.”
****
The explosion at midnight was not as big as Axyl had expected. There was the flash and the bang, but he suspected the elderly explosives had lost some of their oomph in the decades passing. Nonetheless, the effect was as desired. The big sheet metal wall, instead of flying into the air in a million pieces simply teetered and fell inward in a cloud of smoke.
“Now! Charge!” Axyl screamed, and the ragged column of men began to move forward into the smoke. He hoped that a few of the defenders that were awake had been on that section of wall, but that was probably wishful thinking.
“We got ‘em moving, Rider, let’s keep ‘em moving!”
The attackers picked up speed, and began pouring through the breach and Axyl knew he couldn’t wait too long to stick his head in. He was at the rear, but his own adrenaline was so jacked up that if someone ran up to him to tell him something right now, he’d probably shoot them.
He would have to do some serious crowd control on his own men, or they’d have an empty compound filled with dead farmers. He was still behind the last of his crew to enter, only so many could go through at once and had just stopped for a moment to listen to what was going on in the smoke, when a horrendous tightly-coordinated series of shots rang out. Screams followed immediately.
“Shit! Rider, we gotta get in there! They’re slaughtering the farmers!” Axyl looked for the older man, and was surprised to see him standing ten paces to his rear. There was something about the biker’s expression that didn’t seem right.
“Axe, I don’t think that shooting was us!” Shadow Rider yelled to him, “Those shots were too controlled to be our guys! I got a bad feeling—”
The Rider never finished the sentence. Another volley of shots rang out and in that instant
Axyl recognized some of the screams as coming from men he knew. A road flare went flying into his group from inside the compound and Axyl saw that large numbers of his forces were lying on the ground in front of a second wall.
A huge body knocked him aside, and to his horror, he realized his troops were in full retreat. He tried to stumble to his feet when another volley went off, and he felt an impact graze the outside of his left shoulder that could have only been a bullet. Fearless Leader Axyl was immediately replaced by Save Yer Ass Axyl and as he glanced toward the compound, he saw the inner wall was actually three walls built like a cattle pen to hold his men. There were a lot of bodies lying in the kill zone.
“Get to the bikes! Back to the base! Every fucker for himself!” Axyl screamed. And the pro-tem leader of the Road Sharks took to his heels.
****
Ghost Wind slipped over the wall after the first set of shots rang out. She hoped Kita’s people had stayed hidden and were ready to pick off stragglers as they went by. There could be no mercy allowed. If they wanted to have a Road Shark free future, they needed to teach these vermin a lesson that any survivors would NEVER forget.