Perception Fault (8 page)

The opening to the canyon was covered in shadow, and Ryan felt a brief chill wash over him as they shot through it and into the hot, bright sunlight beyond. When he did, however, his jaw dropped, and the thought that his plan might not have been the smartest crossed his mind.

The entire hillside was covered with green shirts—more than a hundred, coming down the hill in loose units. Scattered among them were several mil wags, apparently serving as rally points, since each one had a large group clustered around it.

Ryan’s packed Hummer burst out of the rocky valley like a rabid wolf among sheep, sowing panic and confusion from the moment it appeared.

J.B. started the carnage with a touch on the trigger of the .50-caliber blaster that sent a short burst into the nearest vehicle, the bullets carving through the warm bodies of the sec men and into the armor-plated hood and windshield, reducing the driver and passengers to blood-soaked meat. One of the bullets had to have hit something incendiary or explosive, because there was a dull
whump
and the wag suddenly erupted in a large fireball, tossing the rest of the nearby green shirts through the air, many of them also on fire.

The explosion made every head on the hill look their way. Cranking the wheel hard left, Ryan gunned the
engine, trying to reach the top of the hill as fast as possible. The crack of multiple small-arms fire roared in his ears as Krysty, Mildred, Jak, Doc and Rachel unloaded on the nearby soldiers, caught flat-footed with no cover except the featureless, unforgiving ground.

The roaring mil wag, bristling with weapons, rampaged through the herd—a herd armed with blasters, but a herd nonetheless. Although a few managed to draw or aim their weapons, they were either cut down by bullets or mowed down by the vehicle itself, Ryan plowing through them in his relentless quest to reach the top.

J.B.’s machine gun stuttered out its relentless death song, hammering another mil wag trying to make a run at them, this one unfortunately topless, especially for the men inside. They didn’t make it within fifty yards before the heavy slugs turned the driver and passengers inside to bloody corpses. The Armorer put another short burst into the front grille, the burst of steam jetting from under the hood confirming another one down.

By now other vehicle-mounted blasters were coming into play, with streams of bullets kicking up dirt and grass near the fleeing wag. Ryan jogged the wheel left, trying to zigzag up the slope, but almost put them into the side of the rocky escarpment for his trouble.

“Almost out. Mebbe fifty shells left!” J.B. shouted from above.

“Keep hitting them—we’re almost there!” Ryan was hunched over the wheel, trying to will the shrilling engine to carry the wag the last dozen or so yards to the top. Bullets spanged off the armor, small pings of blasterfire interspersed with heavier
ponks
of automatic rifle round ricocheting off the armor plate.

“Shit!” Jak pulled himself back inside from the turret, clutching his bleeding arm. “Bouncer got me!”

“Doc, cover fire!” Ryan could see the top of the hill now, but the engine was making unhealthy grinding noises. Doc’s LeMat boomed, and he heard screams from outside, followed by a more ominous lack of noise—the .50-caliber blaster on top wasn’t firing anymore.

“I’m out!” J.B. shouted.

“We’re over!” Ryan exclaimed.

Unfortunately, although they had crested the hill, they were far from being out of danger. The other side leading down to a refinery was not choked quite as much with fighters or wags, but there was enough to make them pause, all of them charging up the hillside. In the distance, on the other side of the mob, was a ville wreathed in smoke and fire, behind what looked like a long wall made of some kind of crushed ruins of cars blocking the streets, forming a ten-foot-high barrier. How his group could reach it alive, Ryan barely had an idea.

“Hold your fire!” he hissed at his group just as the nearest green shirt reached the window.

“What the hell’s going on over there?”

“Ambush by people from the hills. We got wounded we’re bringing back.” Ryan nodded at Jak, who picked up on the cue, and moaned loudly, clutching his arm.

The soldier drew back at Jak’s appearance. “Never seen him before.”

“New conscript—just got him in our unit last week. Look, they need reinforcements quick. Get over there and help them. We gotta fly!” Ryan released the brake and stepped on the gas, letting gravity help get the overloaded wag moving.

“Make a hole! Wounded coming through!” the green shirt shouted after them. Men and wags moved out of the way as the vehicle began to descend the hill.

“Pretty clever, Ryan,” Mildred acknowledged while reloading her Czech target pistol and snapping the cylinder shut.

“Yeah, well, we aren’t even close to out of the woods yet.” Ryan heard shouts and shots from the top of the hill and grimaced. “There goes our cover. Hang on!”

He tromped on the gas, and the 4x4 leaped forward, sending slower green shirts tumbling in his wake as the steel fenders clipped their legs and waists. The confusion worked in their favor again as the men either froze, wondering why one of their own seemed to be attacking them, or looking to their commanding officer as to what to do about the marauding vehicle.

Ryan and his crew were able to make it halfway down the hill before any kind of organized action occurred around them. But when it came, it was heavy. Everyone was forced to duck for cover as it seemed every blaster on the hill opened up on them. Ryan felt the jolt as both tires on the right side were flattened, but he kept going, knowing the standard wheels on a mil wag could travel up to thirty miles, even when punctured. The vehicle listed to the right for a few seconds, then the tires on the left side were shot out, as well, and it leveled off.

They roared down to the bottom of the hill, and Ryan hung a hard right, aiming for the barricade.

Rachel leaned forward, so close Ryan felt her breath on his neck. “Hey, Ryan, how you gonna get inside? You’re driving an enemy wag and dressed in enemy clothes.”

“That’s where you come in. Since you’re the baron’s
daughter, I figure once they get a look at your pretty head, they’ll welcome us with open arms.”

“If they don’t blow you to pieces before you get within a hundred yards of that wall.”

Right then the engine hitched, knocked loudly and stopped working with a jerk that made the whole wag shake as it coasted to a stop—still at least a hundred yards from the wall.

“Fireblast! Everyone out. Head to the abandoned buildings over there.”

Rachel grabbed his arm. “No, we run for the wall, full-out. With me in the lead, they’ll give covering fire. We go into the old refinery, we’re all dead!” When he turned to ask her why, she said, “Stickies live there. When you get to the wall, look for the pink metal. That’s the ground entrance.”

“Okay, everyone out, move, move, move!” Ryan spilled out of the driver’s seat, grabbing his Steyr. He hurried to the wag’s back fender, tearing off the green shirt and throwing it away, his Sig Sauer a reassuring weight in his hand. “Krysty, Mildred, Rachel, get out and head for the wall. J.B., you all right up there?”

“Don’t freak.” When Ryan spared a glance at his old friend, he nearly sat down in surprise. The left side of the Armorer’s face was a mask of blood, covering his forehead, eye, cheek, nose and jaw. J.B. jumped from the turret just as a burst from the nearest green shirts thunked into the back of the Hummer. “Shrapnel sliced my forehead. Looks worse than it is. Here.” He thrust the M-4000 into Ryan’s free hand. “Can’t see shit.” He took his precious glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. Better. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

Ryan shoved his blaster into his belt and checked the load on the shotgun. “You and everyone else haul ass to
that wall. I’ll hold them off for a minute, then be right behind you.”

“See you there.” J.B. readied his mini-Uzi and moved toward the front of the wag. Ryan holstered his Sig Sauer and snugged the butt of the shotgun into his armpit. An enemy wag roared up and skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust, inadvertently providing cover for Ryan and his people from the other green shirts. The turret swung over, with what looked like an M-60 light machine gun on top, the gunner about to lay into the companions’ wag. It hadn’t quite gotten aligned when Ryan poked the M-4000’s muzzle out and unleashed a firestorm of hell.

The blaster bucked hard in his grasp, and Ryan realized when half the magazine was gone that this one was loaded with double-00 buckshot. The scything cloud of pellets enveloped the wag, taking out the gunner in the turret, shredding both tires and starring the thick windshield. After the bellow of the M-4000 had died away, he still heard loud booms coming from the other side of his wag, and saw large stars appear in the already-shattered windshield. Ryan ducked his head under the vehicle to see a familiar set of combat boots near the front wheel.

“Jak!” Ryan retreated back to the hood to find the albino youth aiming his .357 through the window of the open passenger door, squeezing off shots with one hand, despite the recoil jacking his hand back every time. “What part of ‘haul ass to that wall’ didn’t you fucking understand?”

The albino teen fired one last shot and ducked down to reload. “Bullets left. ‘Sides, run faster than you.”

“Well, I hope you run really bastard fast this time, ’cause I think we got everyone who’s left out there on
our tail now.” Ryan peeked up above the top edge of the door, and immediately ducked as a hail of gunfire nearly clipped his hair.

Jak smirked. “Bet you not do that again.”

Ryan raised his Sig Sauer and fired several shots in the direction of their enemy, and was rewarded with what sounded like a shout of pain. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and put a hole in the gas tank so we can make a distraction to get the hell out of here? Leave that hand blaster with me. It’ll give them something to think about, at least.”

Jak flipped the large weapon around and offered it to Ryan butt-first. “Five left. Don’t scratch the finish.”

“Only if I lay the barrel alongside your triple-stupe head. Get down there.” A blaster in each hand, Ryan kept watch as Jak hit the ground and slithered under the wag. Sounds of metal on metal could be heard, followed by the youth swearing loudly. Ryan snapped off the occasional shot, wondering where the nuking hell the backup fire was from that stupe wall. Finally, Jak’s feet appeared from under the front of the wag, but he didn’t come out yet. After a few more seconds, and with a strangled curse, Jak rolled out from under the vehicle, spluttering and wiping gas from his face.

“’Kay, leaking now. Bastard tank, can’t get through first.”

The roar of a light machine gun almost drowned out Jak’s last words, but Ryan smiled with relief. The stream of bullets was coming from behind them, not in front. “Cavalry’s arrived. Okay, I light this, and after you take off that green shirt so you don’t get shot, we scoot. When you get there, look for a pink car or piece of metal. The door’s supposed to be there.”

“Be inside wall ’fore you reach, old man.”

Ryan gave Jak’s blaster back to him. “That’s a bet. Ready…set…” Ryan leaned down and triggered his Sig, the flash from the muzzle igniting the pool of gas under the wag. “Go!”

The two broke from cover as the pool of fuel went up with a whoosh, licking at the underside of the armored mil wag. The lone blaster on the wall was joined by others, but Ryan didn’t spare a second to look up, as he was too busy making sure he didn’t twist an ankle on the rough ground leading to the wall.

The fighting here had been intense, with green-clad bodies lying everywhere, many with blasters near their hands. The wall itself was on fire in several places, with the attacking force using some kind of jellied gas that stuck to the metal barricade. Ryan juked and ducked in a zigzag pattern. Although the closer soldiers might be keeping their heads down, there was no reason someone higher on the hill wouldn’t hesitate to take him out if they could get a shot.

It was the longest run he could remember, expecting with every step to feel the punch of a bullet explode his heart and rib cage, but Ryan made it to the wall in one piece. Jak was already hunting around for the key piece that would get them inside. “Here it is!” Slapping his hand on a bright pink piece of metal about three feet by three feet square. He pushed, then pulled on it with all his strength. “Fucker’s stuck!”

Ryan lent his muscles to the attempt, but didn’t have any more success than Jak. He looked at the forbidding wall looming above them, studded with razor-sharp shafts of metal and jagged pieces of old cars that has been turned into spikes, many stained a dark red. “Looks like we’ll have to climb.”

The firing from above had died down, and Ryan
heard voices off in the smoky distance. “They’re going to make a run at us. Persistent bastards.” He raised his blaster, ready to shoot the first one that came out of the smoke and dust.

Something landed on his right shoulder, making Ryan twist away in surprise. He glanced back to see a rope hanging down from the wall. Jak looked back at him. “Go up, now!” he whispered urgently. The teen needed no encouragement, but when he tried to climb, his wounded arm buckled, and he fell back.

“Sorry, Ryan. Can’t hold weight.”

“Shit, Jak, get me killed out here and I’m coming back after you. That’s a promise.” Ryan quickly fashioned a rope sling and looped it under Jak’s shoulders, then yanked on the rope twice. “Watch yourself on that metal.”

Jak was lifted into the air, heading toward the top of the wall and disappearing over it. Ryan kept his back to the towering barrier, ears straining to hear where the rush would come from.

With a dull
whump,
the wag exploded, showering the area around with glass and metal fragments. The green shirts chose that exact moment to attack, charging Ryan with their longblasters at the ready, but not firing as they came at him.

The one-eyed man waited until he got a clear sight of them bursting out of the smoke, then he went to work, sighting on each man and squeezing off a shot. They went down with each bullet fired, skidding into ungainly heaps or spinning and crumpling where they dropped. Only two remained, but they still kept coming when the rope again dropped on Ryan. Wrapping it securely around his free arm, he yanked twice and was hoisted into the air, his blaster out and aimed at the
remaining green shirts, who didn’t even try to shoot him, but retreated back into the swirling smoke left over from the fight.