LITMIR.BIZ

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and looked over.

      The burrow-bugs were retreating, taking the bodies of their fallen with them. In a few minutes, except for many rapidly drying black stains on the ground and the holes left from their assault, there was no sign of the mob of carnivorous insects.

      “Madre de Dios!” Ricky said as he sat down and mopped his forehead. “I never dreamed something like that could exist.”

      “Determined bastards,” Jak said as he examined a shallow cut on the back of his hand, the only injury he’d sustained during the fight.

      “Everyone all right?” Ryan asked as he walked into the shade cast by the rock wall on their right.

      Krysty and J.B. nodded, although J.B. had a troubled look on his face.

      Meanwhile, Mildred was examining Doc’s swollen ankle, with the older man stoically trying not to reveal how much her probing fingers were hurting him. “All that swashbuckling didn’t do his ankle any good,” she said. “Although I have to admit you looked damn impressive up there, Doc.”

      “I only hope I acquitted myself honorably.”

      “Absolutely, Doc. You sent a bunch of those bugs straight to hell,” Ryan said. “Mildred, what’s the word on him walking out of here?”

      “If I bind his ankle tight, and we cram it back into his boot, he can probably limp along for a while, but it’ll be at half speed at best.” She reached for his boot, then hissed in pain and put her free hand to her chest. “Almost forgot one of those eight-legged bastards tagged me, as well.”

      “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Krysty asked. “Here, let me take a look.”

      “Sure, just hang on.” Rummaging in her pockets, Mildred came up with a small tube of antibiotic ointment.

      “Jak, catch,” she said as she tossed it to him. “Rub a bit on each cut. The last thing we need out here is infection.”

      While the two women examined Mildred’s wound, and Jak and Ricky treated themselves, J.B. walked over to Ryan. Despite the half dozen instances of near death they’d all encountered in the past hour, he was as calm as ever, but Ryan saw through the placid demeanor of his oldest friend and realized something was seriously wrong.

      “How many loaded mags for the Steyr do you have left?” J.B. asked.

      “Fireblast, J.B.! I thought I’d take a minute to enjoy still being alive, mebbe wipe the black shit off my face before I did inventory—”

      “Hey, I’m as happy as a scavvie in a honey hole that we made it through that, but it doesn’t mean our problems are over.” The Armorer stepped closer. “How many mags?”

      Ryan walked over to where he’d stashed his empties along with the bandolier and blinked at what he found. “One full and one with four bullets left. Damn, blew through more shells than I thought,” he said at J.B.’s slow nod. “My SIG has two full mags. What about you?”

      “I ran out of 9 mm for the Uzi while getting up here, and there’s mebbe a handful of shells left for the shotgun. I haven’t checked with the boys yet, but I bet Jak’s got one reload for his Colt, and Ricky might have a dozen, mebbe eighteen rounds left. And you know neither Doc nor the women carry a lot of bullets in the first place.”

      Ryan had already pulled his spare blaster magazine and handed it to J.B., who began pushing bullets out with his thumb and loading one of his empty magazines. “We’re low on ammo, is that it?”

      The Armorer nodded. “In a nutshell, yeah. I mean, I’m not blaming anyone—we all did what we had to do to get out of there, but now we’ve got to figure out what comes next, and that involves getting off this rock, and I bet it’s going to be some hard running and fighting to get out of here in one piece.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the killing ground below. “Those bugs don’t seem to be the type to forgive and forget. And with Doc lamed and all of us low on both firepower and supplies, it’s going to be a rough, hard trip out of here.”

      “You thinking those things might come back?” Ryan asked.

      “Probably should ask Krysty about that. She seemed to have a pretty good line on them,” J.B. replied. “Bottom line is we can’t stay here, but we’re not sure where we’re going, either, except out of this damn valley, I figure.”

      “Ace on the line,” Ryan replied. “Well, we best figure out what we should do sooner rather than later. Come on.”

      He led J.B. back to the rest of the group and took a minute to explain the situation as the Armorer saw it. “Now, we all kicked some serious ass today. However, there could be another hundred, five hundred or thousand of those bastard bugs down in their hive or lair or whatever. So we should figure on getting out of here while they’re still recovering from their ass-whippin’. The more ground we put between them and us, the better.”

      Nods and murmurs of agreement met his announcement. “A capital idea, my dear Ryan, but where are you suggesting that we go?” Doc asked. “Surely not back to the redoubt.”

      The redoubt that had brought them here had been cracked open and looted long ago, and their arrival had destroyed its mat-trans unit, as well. Since then, they’d been traveling the dusty plains, with this valley their only encounter with living creatures in the past three days.

      Ryan shook his head. “That’s a dead end. The important thing is for us to get out of this valley and see where we are, then we can figure out where to go. But that’ll mean moving as fast as we can, and with ammo low, we’re going to have to be careful how we take care of problems like those bugs, which J.B. and I imagine are going to come after us.”

      As Ryan spoke, he looked around at the others, seeing exhaustion and pain on everyone’s face, even Jak’s and J.B.’s. Although part of him wanted to set out right then and there, he knew pushing everyone now would only result in more mistakes later on.

      “I figure we should rest for a few hours, then head out at dusk,” he continued. “If we travel through the night, we should be free of this place by sunrise. Anyone got any questions or anything else to add?”

      Jak spit to the side. “Wonder if bug parts okay eat.”

      “Only one way to find out,” J.B. said.

      “But how are you going to cook them?” Ricky asked. “I mean, you’re not going to eat it raw, are you?”

      Jak shrugged as he walked over to the limbless torso of a bug that had died on the ledge. “Eat worse before.” He cracked the thorax, sliced off a piece of the translucent, jellied inside and touched his tongue to it, then spit it out. “Tastes like putrid mutie shit!”

      “And you would know that how, Jak?” Mildred asked with a smile.

      The weak joke took the edge off the grim mood, and Doc was the first to snort laughter at Mildred’s question. Soon everyone was chuckling at the albino, who flipped all of them off with both hands and a narrow grin.

      “All right, let’s get some rest,” Ryan said. “I’ll stand guard for the first hour, then Krysty, then J.B., then Jak. If anyone sees anything, hears anything—bugs, whatever—get everyone up. We move out in four hours.”

       Chapter Six

      Ryan brought his panga down, pulping another of the everlasting horde of burrow-bug’s heads with the heavy blade. He whirled, searching for another enemy to kill, but saw none. He was alone, surrounded by hacked and broken insect bodies.

      He took a moment to suck cool night air into his starving lungs while checking himself for injury. Blood streamed from several small cuts on his hands, arms and chest, oozing through his torn and ragged T-shirt. Every muscle ached; other than perhaps an hour’s rest all told, he’d been running and fighting almost nonstop for the past eight.

      He glanced up at the stars

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