Strontium Swamp

Chapter Four

“This way. Keep the noise low and keep triple red,” Ryan said in an urgent whisper, straining to hear the noise that had alerted Jak. A questioning glance brought an answer from the albino hunter.

“’Bout five minutes away, moving fast. There,” Jak added, indicating a direction away to the left.

Ryan nodded and continued to move to the right. He hoped that there was only one party coming out to investigate the blasterfire.

“Ryan, I recce then report,” Jak continued. “Go that way, I scout ahead.”

The one-eyed man was wary. He would prefer to keep his people together, and Jak moving about could draw friendly fire unless they held back. And if they did, it might be on a foe rather than a friend. But the albino youth had the ability to move almost silently, and there were other problems. They couldn’t go back, as this would drive them back into the desert. They had to forge ahead and somehow skirt around the village and the pursuing war parties. The only way it seemed that they could do this was if they had prior knowledge of their opponents whereabouts.

Jak was the obvious choice.

All that went through Ryan’s head in a flash before he nodded at Jak. “Yeah, do it,” he said simply.

The albino hunter grinned briefly, then melted into the undergrowth, only the slightest rustling of foliage marking his passing.

Ryan turned his attention to his chosen direction. “Keep those blasters ready, and stick close,” he ordered as he took the panga in hand and began to clear a path through the woods. Behind him, each of the companions kept an impassive silence, faces set, and lost in their own thoughts as they followed him.

JAK MOVED SILENTLY through the woods, circumventing the source of the noise. He didn’t want to cross the path of the group that was beating its way toward the scene of combat, and he figured that the best way to observe them would be to move around and in behind, where they would least expect anyone.

The albino youth paused and listened intently. He could pick out at least half a dozen sets of footfalls, perhaps more. It was hard to tell in the crashing of the undergrowth. He tried to pick out how many voices were exchanging whispered and urgent messages. The words were indistinguishable among the other sounds, but he could hear at least four different voices, no more. So at least two weren’t talking. He reckoned there were probably six in the chasing pack. Not too bad as odds went.

The war party crashing through the jungle was causing a major disturbance among the wildlife. Birds and animals were making noise, alarmed by the intruders and still agitated in the aftermath of Doc’s LeMat discharging among them. The treetops were rustling and moving as birds, squirrels and other small mammals hopped from limb to limb, tree to tree, moving in a blind panic.

It could be just the cover he needed. Jak scrutinized the canopy of tree cover with a practiced eye. The limbs on each tree were strong, and they seemed to hang close together. It would be easy to leap those that were a little apart; the others he could just crawl across. Jak’s vulpine grin spread across his scarred visage—the hunter in pursuit of the hunters.

Jak scaled the nearest tree, moving smoothly up the gnarled trunk, which gave him a multiplicity of easy foot and handholds. Once up into the lower limbs, he edged out, carefully testing the weight. He was able to move with ease along them, and he was soon scudding across the canopy of leaf cover, using the sounds of the disturbed bird and animal life to mask his progress.

In a matter of a few minutes, he was just to the rear of the hunting party. Circling them widely enough to escape detection, but close enough to get the members in sight quickly, he settled onto a limb as they stumbled across the scene of combat.

Still, as though he were now a part of the tree rather than an alien presence on the limb, Jak sat and watched while the hunting party were stopped in its tracks at the sight of the carnage. There were six of them, as he had guessed, two women and four men. Two of the men were weatherbeaten and looked old, although they still moved easily and without the stiffness he would expect from age. The other two were younger, one of them nursing a large gut, but otherwise looking strong. The women were both young, with long, muscular limbs. One of them had large breasts that bounced as she moved, made more obvious by the belt of ammo that was slung in a diagonal across her chest. She carried a remade AK-47, which failed to account for the belt, as it was fed by a magazine. The other woman, however, was carrying what looked to Jak like a Sharps, which would necessitate the belt. But why wasn’t she carrying it?

No matter, except that perhaps it told of this party being unused to combat. Certainly, Jak would have put the village down as a fishing community, with little need for much blaster use when they were this isolated. They were also unused to seeing the results of battle. This much was obvious from the way the young man with the pendulous belly turned away and hurled the contents of his stomach onto the grass. The woman with the Sharps went over to comfort him while the others just looked, dumbfounded.

“Shit, must be an army,” the other woman whispered.

“Or just good,” one of the old men commented. “Too fucking good, I figure.”

“Good or not, we owe them for this,” the other young man snarled. “They thought they were only chasing game. They weren’t expecting this.”

The two older men exchanged glances. The one who had spoken previously said quietly, “They should have been expecting anything. So should we.”

The other man moved in the direction that the companions had forged their path. He studied the undergrowth. “Moved this way,” he said thoughtfully. “Figure that they’re moving out to the west and trying to get around the side of the village, which means that they’ll move right into the regular scouts.”

The younger man grinned. There was something in it that spoke of the smell of vengeance in his nostrils. “Serve them right. Take them alive and make them suffer… Hey, Leroy, you hear that?” he asked suddenly. “Up there somewhere…”

“Only the birds, Tyne, only the birds,” the old man replied, following the younger man’s gaze. “What we want is over that away.”

Indeed he was correct. Jak had already vacated his vantage point and was speeding through the upper reaches of the trees, on his way to meet up with the companions. He had only heard the one group moving through the woods, but if the regular sec patrol they spoke of would cross paths over to the west, then there was no way that he would have been able to detect them. And there was little chance that the others would to know they were there until it was too late.

At the back of his mind, it struck him that the hunting party, and those they had chilled, had been dressed like people from a ville that was poor. The clothes were threadbare and well worn. They’d need something hardier as a predominantly fishing ville. And why the hell were they hunting game when they were supposed to get most of their food from the seas? It was starting to look as though the companions had walked straight into someone else’s crisis. But right now, that was unimportant. It could wait until they were in the clear, past all possible attack.

Behind him, he could hear the hunting party start to follow the trail left by the companions. He would be able to outrun them easily and reach Ryan and his people before the hunters, but would he be able to reach them before they crossed paths with the sec patrol?

A FEW MILES AWAY to the west, Ryan and the rest of the companions were moving through the woodlands at a rapid pace. The idea was to put as much ground between them and the scene of combat in as quick a time as possible. The farther they were from the scene, the harder it would be for the pursuing party to catch them, for there was no doubt in Ryan’s mind that the trail would be easy enough to follow. It was virtually impossible for five people to cut their way through the undergrowth without leaving a trace of their passing. So speed was their best weapon.

They couldn’t know that the faster they went, the longer it took Jak to reach them, the more they were hacking their way into a trap.

They continued, regardless. They couldn’t hear the distant approach of another party, the noise of their own progress obscuring the distance.

JAK HAD NEVER MOVED SO FAST, and with so little caution. There was no point. He had left the hunting party far behind, and knew that the only other sec party in the woodlands was to the west.

His red eyes were unblinking, every nerve ending screaming, the blood pumping at a bursting rate as he pushed his muscles, springing from branch to branch, sometimes landing on the toes of his combat boots and trusting his arms to carry the bulk of his weight on an overhead limb. Once or twice his feet had slipped on guano or moss that had gathered on a limb, and his arms felt as though they would be wrenched from his shoulders as his feet flailed into empty air, slipping off their perch, the momentum increasing his weight at these moments.

But his luck held, and he carried on his way, making time and ground as fast as was humanly possible.

The trouble was, he needed to be more than human.

“I WOULD HATE TO BREAK SILENCE at such a moment, my dear Ryan, but I feel I must,” Doc blurted suddenly, his previously purposeful stride faltering as he stumbled, turning his head to the rear. He was second from last in the line, with J.B. bringing up guard position.

“Doc, this is no time—” Ryan began, but J.B. cut him short.

“Doc’s not bullshitting,” he snapped. “Wait—listen…”

Ryan, Mildred and Krysty stopped.

“Fireblast! Who the hell is that?” Ryan hissed.

“Doesn’t matter. Whoever they are, they’re nearly on us,” J.B. snapped, bringing his Uzi up to level.

Ryan couldn’t believe they’d been so slack as to miss the oncoming sound of another hunting party. It couldn’t be the one they were avoiding, as these had to be some distance behind. It had to be another who had guessed their path and cut them off, for these sounds were coming from in front of them.

There was a rustling in the trees behind them. The one-eyed warrior looked up, but could see nothing: the noise continued past them. He looked at his people. They seemed as bemused by this as he was himself.

Before any of them had the chance to say a word, the rustling continued and Jak appeared before them, springing down from the trees.

“Different party. Five. Handblasters and blowpipes,” he said without preamble. “Only minute, mebbe two, and coming right for us.”

Ryan swore and gestured to his people to adopt defensive positions in whatever cover they could find.

Using shrubs and clumps of trees to locate themselves in areas less likely to be hacked through, they settled in quickly. Jak was the only one to use the treetops, as he was the only companion swift enough to make it in the time they had.

Or at least, that was how it should have been. But as they waited, tension extending each second into hours, it became apparent that something was wrong. There was little sound from the woods beyond, and the five-man hunting party failed to appear.

Up in the branches, Jak scanned the area around. He cursed to himself, slowing his breathing and focusing on every slight sound or movement. The sec party had been able to locate the companions from the noise they had been making, and had opted to split up to encircle their enemy. They knew the area and were hiding themselves well. Even Jak was having trouble locating them.

So what chance did the others stand, mired on the ground?

MILDRED WAS HUDDLED close to the bole of a tree, her Czech ZKR pistol raised, barrel skyward, ready to aim in any direction, at the slightest sound. She was scanning the surrounding area intently, but could see nothing. There was no movement, no sound, no indication of anything that could pose a threat.

That was when she heard it—a rattle and a hollow sound, like someone had kicked a stone against a tree. She pulled the ZKR down so that it was leveled, then turned toward the source of the noise.

As she turned, she felt a pricking in the side of her neck, like an insect bite. She slapped at it and felt the protruding dart.

Dammit—she knew immediately that the noise had been a decoy and she had fallen for it, leaving herself open to a shot from the side. She opened her mouth to call a warning, but it felt as though her chest was tight and her vocal cords had seized up. She felt her balance fail, and as she fell forward, the world spun briefly before blacking out.

JAK HEARD MILDRED FALL, whirled and saw her hit the ground. He also caught the flicker of movement as the sec man came out of hiding, moving over to check Mildred’s condition.

The albino youth took this as a chance to move in on the sec man, swinging across the limbs that were intertwined above the ground, noiselessly slipping lower so that he was able to launch himself downward from behind, hoping to take the man out without giving him a chance to use the blowpipe.

He should have known. Even as he fell, he realized that the sec man had been leaning over Mildred for far too long just to check on her. He’d known Jak was up in the trees somewhere, and was waiting for him to make the first move. The sec man began a half turn as the albino plummeted earthward, moving his body to meet the full impact.

Jak was holding a knife and hoped to get the blade into position for a chilling blow as he landed. He got in one thrust, but the sec man managed to parry it with an arm, taking a slice out of his bicep, but preventing the knife from being anything other than a painful irritation. At the same time, he raised his other arm, opening his clenched fist to slap Jak on the side of the head with his open palm.

The albino reeled back. It shouldn’t have been a blow to cause that, being light compared to the punishment Jak had taken in the past. And yet there was something about it. Realizing—but too late—Jak raised his hand to the side of his head, using his fingers to probe where the aftershock of the slap was still tingling.

He could feel the small dart. It was almost flat to his temple, the point of it having only just punctured the skin. He cursed and pulled it out, throwing it to one side. Maybe he had caught it in time, maybe it hadn’t released any of its toxin into his bloodstream as it hadn’t been driven in. Even as he reeled back, he knew he was hoping where there was no hope. The sec man stood in front of him, legs apart, in a stance that was wary and ready to spring: but he didn’t see Jak as posing a problem now.

Blinking, feeling himself grow numb and his vision clouding and becoming distant, Jak knew that he was done for. If this was a lethal toxin, then he was a chilled piece of meat. If not, then he could only hope that he would have a chance to fight back when he came around.

That was the last thought running through his head before the dark curtain fell.

J.B. WAS SWEATING. The Armorer’s patience had already been stretched far too thin by Doc, let alone a wait for an enemy that refused to show. Every sound, every movement of wildlife put him on a hair trigger, just one ounce of pressure away from ripping it to shred with a burst from the Uzi.

When it came, though, it was as if all that pressure slipped away and he locked into a calmer, cooler frame of mind.

It was to his right, behind a clump of flowering shrub, the large purple blooms of which gave a good expanse with which to hide. Too good. There was no way he could tell if there was anyone there. To spray ‘n’ pray would be a spectacularly futile act, as it would do little except betray his position and invite attack.

There was only one thing he could do if he wanted to avoid being trapped in this position. He had to take the initiative. Using all the skills he had picked up during decades of simply staying alive, J.B. moved out from his position, keeping low and using whatever cover he could, moving toward the shrub. He paused at every new piece of cover, ready to fire if there was any indication that he had been spotted. All he could hear each time was the sound of his own shallow breathing, all he could feel was each drop of sweat running down his brow, down his back.

He made the distance between last cover and the shrub, going into a roll to come up to the rear of the purple blooms, Uzi raised to see off any opposition.

The space behind the shrub, which he felt sure harbored the enemy, and from which it would have been impossible to move without betraying position, was empty. J.B. frowned, for a moment nonplussed. It was only when he heard the faintest movement behind him that he realized he had been fooled by someone who knew the woods much better than he ever could. He had only half turned when he felt the prick of the dart in the back of his neck. Before he had completed a 180, the world spun on its axis and started to darken.

KRYSTY KNEW THERE WAS danger here. Her doomie sense was telling her, so strong that it was making her feel sick to the pit of her stomach. But that was good. She remembered Mother Sonja explaining to her that this gift was to preserve life, to give due warning of when the darkness of death was to descend.

It was just a pity that it wouldn’t tell her from where it was choosing to make an appearance.

She shifted uncomfortably. She felt that she was in good cover, but there was something about the nagging insistence of her mutie sense that told her she was wrong, and if she didn’t get the hell out then it would be too late.

She grasped her .38 Smith & Wesson in both hands, eyes never ceasing to scan the surrounding area. It was too quiet, as though the chattering wildlife they had previously disturbed knew that there was more trouble and had evacuated the area.

Every fiber of her body was screaming for her to move. She could see nothing, hear nothing around her to suggest she was in danger, but she could ignore it no longer. She identified another patch of cover she could move to. It wouldn’t be too hard to remain hidden while she moved.

As she edged out, she realized why her senses had been screaming at her. One of the enemy party rose up out of tree and shrub cover, directly in front of her, waiting patiently for her to show herself, knowing she was there. Krysty leveled her blaster and squeezed off a round.

It went high and wide, her aim ruined by the dart that caught her in the forehead, the impact making her jerk at the last. She steadied her hand for a second round, but couldn’t stop the world from spinning.

“FUCK IT,” Mildred cursed, the words escaping her lips before she had a chance to stop them. Then she cursed herself for making noise and giving away her position. Her heart was racing, thumping so heavily against her rib cage that she thought it was going to break through. There was no way that she would usually be so stupid as to jump like a frightened rabbit at one blaster shot in the silence, but the lack of rest and continuous physical and mental stress since landing from the jump had left her strung out in a way she couldn’t remember.