were Cajuns or the baron's sec guards. A firefight out in the open would have only one ending. But if they waited in the motel, they could cause untold havoc among any attackers, perhaps stand a better chance.
Overlaying the rumbling of the swampwags was the noise of gunfire. It sounded like thin material ripping as the high velocity bullets exploded in short bursts. J.B. looked at Ryan.
'If they got 'em cold, they're chilled by now. If not, they'll make it out of there. Best we can do is wait and see.'
'That's how I see it, too.'
Doc Tanner pounded the stone wall. 'Those young girls! Stouthearted Finnegan! By the three Kennedys, gentlemen! Can we stand here and allow them to be slaughtered?'
'Yeah, Doc, we can,' replied J.B.
'Yeah, Doc, we can,' repeated Ryan. 'We go after
'But they may have died.'
'We all do, Doc,' said J.B. quietly.
Gunfire crackled for about two and a half minutes. Then came the unmistakable sharp cracks of a couple of stun grens, then more gunfire for around a half minute.
Then just the swampwags throaty roar and the shouting of a confusion of orders.
'Best find a place where we can blast 'em if'n they come this way,' suggested Ryan.
'You think they might have been... killed, Ryan? Or taken?'
'Yeah. Mebbe they'll take what they got and pull out. Mebbe not. All we can do is listen and wait. If they aren't here in an hour, then I guess it means they're not coming. Not yet, anyway.'
Ryan chose the kennels. Partly outside, they were connected to the motel and also gave them access to some low scrub that concealed a dry river bed stretching southwest. The three of them went there, waiting and listening, their blasters cocked and ready.
There was no further shooting, and the shouting faded. Soon the buggies could be heard drifting away, seemingly toward the main part of the swamps.
Within half an hour, the natural sounds of insects and the wind in the live oaks had resumed. The clouds that had threatened rain earlier in the morning had broken up, leaving only a veil of high thin mist that filtered the sun into an orange blur.
'Ryan? Let's go see what happened.'
'Wait, Doc. Keep quiet and wait. Don't move or speak till I say so.'
Time crawled by. Ryan tried to keep his mind off Krysty Wroth. Her face, voice, body. The only woman who'd ever meant more than a fleeting fuck to him. Common sense told him that along with Lori and Finn, she had probably been chilled. The sec men of the baron, with their superior firepower, had sent them all to buy the farm.
Unless...
'Unless he wanted prisoners,' he muttered to himself, hardly aware he'd spoken at all.
It was a hope. Best he'd got.
It was seven minutes past noon, by his wrist-chron. At twelve he and the others had decided to go and find out what had gone down on the edges of West Lowellton. And to bury their dead.
If Krysty, Lori and Finn had been taken, it wasn't going to do them any good to rush in like a blinded steer charging into the shambles.
It was still seven minutes off noon, by his wrist-chron, when he caught the whisper of stealthy movement somewhere behind them, inside the motel.
He shrank back into the narrow stone kennel, fingering the trigger of the Heckler & Koch. The noise sounded like the plastic end of a blind-pull, tapping on glass in the wind. But the wind had fallen, and the air was still.
The tapping came again. Three, spaced out, then two, closer together. Then more tapping, repeating the same pattern.
'It's Finn,' Ryan whispered, warning Doc and the Armorer. 'Cover me, J.B., while I make a run for the door. Then Doc, then you.'
In thirty seconds they were all safe inside the motel, the security door locked behind them, the steel bolt thrown across it.
'Finn!' called Ryan. 'Finnegan, we're here.'
They heard footsteps, dragging a little, moving slowly toward them along the corridor, from the direction of the games room and the main entrance.
'That you, Finn?' There was a note of tension in Ryan's voice. 'Speak up.'
'It's me.' The words sounded as if they'd been uttered by someone who had witnessed an unspeakable horror. At Ryan's side, Doc shuddered convulsively. 'Yeah, it's me. Only me.'
Finnegan was one of the toughest of all of the Trader's longtime blasters. He'd been in more firefights than he'd spent night in beds. He drained most of a quart of Jim Beam, spitting on the floor, wiping the back of a bloodstained hand across his mouth.
'Now?' asked Ryan.
'Sure. Heard 'em coming. Krysty heard 'em first. But there was a lot of the fuckers. Ten or more of those fat-tired mothers. Looked like someone seen us. Told the baron. Sent out the sec men. We holed up in a square of houses. Pretty little places, I guess. If you like fucking pretty. Lot of bones round there. We'd got us some tins and packets of freeze-dries. Real nice. Shrimps and sauce and all.'
He took another swig from the bottle. Doc looked as though he was going to interrupt him, then changed his mind and reached out for the bottle to take a pull on it himself. He passed it on to Ryan, who shook his head, and J.B. took a single mouthful, rinsed it around and spat it out.
'I took the front, Krysty on the flank. Put little Lori safe as I could round the back.' He glanced at Doc. 'Best as I fucking could.'
'How many men? What blasters they carry?'
Finn sighed, looking at J.B. through narrowed eyes. It was obvious he was ragged, near exhaustion. 'Some of the swampwags were bigger. I guess mebbe fifty or more of the fuckers. Most got old M-16s. Carbines. Some got Browning pistols. Nothing big. Two of the buggies had gren launchers. They were good. Smart fucker in a white suit giving the orders. Had a couple of shots at him. Made him duck. Got mud an' shit all over him.'
'Go on,' said Ryan.
'Not much to tell. Too many of 'em. Figure I chilled seven or eight. Not great at street firefighting. Kept moving. They made a rush, got between me and the girls. No way I could get back. No way.'
'No way, Jose,' muttered Doc mysteriously.
'Dead or taken?' That was the big question. Would there be burying and revenge, or rescue?
'I figure taken. You hear a couple of stun grens go off?'
'Yeah,' said Ryan.
'That was it. I went in the front and out the side of a house, doubled back to kill whatever moved. Fucking weird. Put out a triple burst from the old H&K here.' He patted the silenced gray submachine gun on his lap. 'All hit him in the throat. Fucking head fell right off. Never seen that before. Clean as a big axe. Rolled round my fucking feet and fucking near tripped me over. That was when I heard the stuns. Ran up into the loft of an old frame house. Looked down. They were loading the girls into one of the wags. I had a go, but it wasn't no good. Near got caught. I tried.'
'Sure. Never thought any different, Finn. You couldn't save 'em, then no man could.'
Finn nodded, taking another long, bubbling draw at the bottle, draining it dry, then let it drop from his hand with a dull clunk.
The room was silent. Ryan wondered when the sec men might be back, guessing that they'd be reporting
