LITMIR.BIZ

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She chuckled.

      “Not one MRE?” Jak asked hopefully.

      “Sorry.” Mildred shrugged. “We had the last one yesterday.”

      The teen frowned. “Damn.” Those were his favorite.

      The letters MRE were military speak for Meal Ready to Eat, predark army rations. Each envelope was a complete meal, and the pack included a main course, snack, cigarettes, candy bar, dessert, coffee, sugar, moist towelette, chewing gum and even a small packet of toilet tissue for use afterward. The food was incredible: spaghetti with meatballs, veal Parmesan, beef Stroganoff, chicken and dumplings, eggs and bacon, even pancakes and waffles. The meals were fit for a baron. Best he’d ever had! Well, aside from possum, Jak acknowledged. The MRE packs were worth their weight in ammo, and harder to find than a friendly stickie.

      “Well, it’s my turn to get the wood,” Krysty said, picking up a heavy wrench from a toolbox on the floor and starting for the desk.

      “Rest first,” Ryan ordered brusquely, then softened his tone. “We’re not going anywhere soon, lover.”

      With a nod, the tired woman sat again and placed the wrench aside for later.

      “Well, if we have naught to do until the anger of Thor is appeased,” Doc said lugubriously, pulling a worn deck of cards from a pocket of his frock coat, “would anyone be interested in a nice game of Whist?”

      “Mebbe later, thanks,” Ryan said, going to the workbench.

      Taking a seat, he cleared an area, then drew the SIG-Sauer and dropped the clip as a prelude to thoroughly cleaning the dirty weapon. Joining his friend, J.B. laid down the Uzi and started pulling tools from his munitions bag, along with a small bottle of homogenized gun oil.

      “Whist?” Mildred scowled.

      “Fair enough, then. How about Canasta?” he asked hopefully. “Or mayhap pinochle?”

      Crossing her arms, Krysty looked at the tall man and said nothing.

      Seeing it was hopeless, Doc sighed in resignation. “All right, poker again.”

      “Now talking!” Jak grinned, cracking his knuckles.

      Moving their candles to the sandy floor, the companions sat in a circle and Doc started neatly shuffling the plastic-coated playing cards when the thump sounded again, even louder this time. Then it came three more times in rapid succession. In sudden comprehension, the startled companions realized that the noise was not coming from the sandstorm outside, but from a blank section of the cinder-block wall near the refrigerator.

      Scowling darkly, Ryan began to rise from the workbench when the wall visibly moved, a spiderweb of cracks radiating across the rows of cinder blocks as several of them broke into pieces and fell away, leaving a ragged hole. But instead of the howling storm, there was only cool blackness on the other side.

      Then something large shifted position in the Stygian dark, the reflection of polished metal gleaming in the dim candlelight.

      Chapter Two

      “Get razor, people!” Ryan snarled, pulling the Steyr SSG-70 off his back and working the bolt to chamber a 7.62 mm round for immediate action. “We’re about to have company!”

      Muttering curses, J.B. started to reach for the Uzi, then turned away and swung the S&W M-4000 around. Working the pump, the Armorer kicked out the first cartridge, then quickly thumbed it right back into the receiver to help break apart any clumps of sand that might clog in the mechanism. The scattergun would probably have worked just fine anyway, but better safe than aced, as the Trader always used to say.

      Moving fast, the rest of the companions spread out to not offer an enemy a group target. Setting their candles high and out of the way to not reveal their positions, the companions took cover behind a lathe, drill press and other pieces of heavy equipment just as the cinder blocks violently shook, the cracks spreading wider, and a host of small tools falling off the Peg-Board landed in a ringing clatter.

      “Shit,” Jak drawled, turning the word into two syllables as he thumbed back the hammer on his Colt Python. “Big ’un. What be, mutie?”

      “I most assuredly hope so,” Doc replied, tightening a finger on the trigger of the LeMat, his free hand poised over the weapon to fan the hammer. “Because if not—”

      But the scholar was interrupted by the unexpected sound of working hydraulics. The wall bulged in the middle, the blocks shattering to spray loose debris across the garage. Even before the broken pieces of masonry hit the floor, the companions bitterly cursed and opened fire at the shadowy figure standing in the irregular gap.

      The cylindrical body of the machine was shiny and smooth, the low head only a rounded dome sporting two red crystal lenses that never stopped rotating. The flexing arms were thick ferruled cables, one equipped with a pounding pneumatic airhammer, and the other tipped with a spinning buzzsaw, the razor-sharp disk only a whining blur, the noise oddly reminiscent of a predark dentist drill.

      “Sec hunter droid!” Krysty growled, using both hands to steady her S&W Model 640 revolver.

      In a ragged barrage, the companions cut loose with their blasters, but the soft-lead rounds only ricocheted harmlessly off the armored body of the droid as it continued to enlarge the hole in the wall. Then the shotgun boomed, and one of the red eyes shattered into a million pieces.

      Instantly turning in that direction, the droid extended the buzzsaw arm. Already in motion, J.B. got out of the way just in time, and the spinning blade slammed into the workbench instead, dislodging dozens of tools. Ducking under a lathe, J.B. turned and fired again just as the buzzsaw hit the machine, throwing off a corona of sparks. Stepping in close, Ryan fired point-blank at the robotic limb, the barrel of the longblaster actually touching the rotating blade. As expected, the copper-jacketed round rebounded, but the buzzsaw was momentarily thrown out of alignment, jammed in the yoke and violently shattered, the steel slivers going everywhere.

      With a cry, Mildred dropped the ZKR target pistol and clutched her right arm.

      “Have at thee, Visigoth!” Doc bellowed, fanning the LeMat like a Wild West gunslinger. The .44 miniballs hit the droid like flying sledgehammers, badly denting the domed head. Hydraulic fluid started leaking from one of the depressions in the manner of watery blood.

      Flailing its damaged limb madly, the droid smashed chunks out of the wooden workbench. Dodging out of the way, Ryan fired twice at the machine, then stepped behind a cluster of hanging chains. The limb started that way, paused and then retreated, unwilling to risk getting tangled in the steel lengths.

      Working the bolt on the Steyr, Ryan grunted at the sight. Fireblast, just how smart was this tin can?

      Crawling behind a pile of rotting tires, Mildred fumbled in her med kit for a length of boiled cloth to tie a tourniquet around the wound as a temporary field dressing. The blood was coming fast, but not spurting, which meant there was no damage to a major artery. Plus, it hurt like hell, which was also a good sign. Life-threatening wounds almost always went numb to protect the body from shock. This felt like a nice, clean, flesh wound.

      Moving like a ghost in the darkness, Jak concentrated his Colt Python on the ruined eye of the droid, the .357 Magnum rounds denting the dome. But the machine rotated the weakened section safely out of harm’s way.

      Reloading while on the run, J.B. aimed and fired, always keeping in motion. The 12-gauge didn’t have the range of the Uzi and he had to get closer to do maximum damage. There was a pipe bomb in his munitions bag that should reduce the droid to smoking wreckage. Unfortunately the garage was too small to use explosives. The concussion would also ace the companions. They would have to take this nukesucker down the hard way.

      Going for the remaining eye, Ryan fired his longblaster as fast as he could work the bolt. When the clip was empty, he dropped into a crouch to hastily insert a fresh one. This was a triple-bad place for a prolonged fight, and he cast a furtive glance at the blocked fire exit. They may have nailed

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