matter.
But J.B. was going to need to spend some quality time head-down in the guts of the broken M-60 to get it churning and burning again. That meant he couldn’t constantly be swatting off the muties. That meant he needed the blaster crew to clear his back while he worked the magic that he knew in his bones he could do.
Problem defined. Problem solved. He just waded into the muties, jabbing with the muzzle and bashing with the butt, as if the longblaster was a truncheon. The semiautomatic SKS wasn’t really a close relative of its better-known successor, the famous AK-47 assault rifle. But it was designed and built to the same philosophy: to be maintainable and operable by conscript troops who were shit-scared, half-trained and less literate, and to fire every time the trigger was pulled with a round chambered, in the absolute worst conditions available anywhere on planet Earth.
Which, not altogether incidentally, meant that unlike most blasters you could just bash the hell out of people, or muties, all day without it malfunctioning on you.
The muties were fast little bastards, but then, so was J.B. They weren’t strong, either in muscle or frame. For his size, J.B. was.
And he was on a mission, which meant he was a machine.
A killing machine. Even though a few more muties dropped down from above, and he had to dodge the odd rock or spear hurled down at him, he waded through them at scarcely less speed than if he’d been running unimpeded on flat ground.
He reached the gap between segments, then leaped. A mutie barred his way with upraised spear and bared fangs. He knocked the spear aside with his blaster butt and put a shoulder into the mutie as he landed. Fangs tore his shirt and the skin beneath, but the mutie went down caterwauling on its back with its spear haft broken in two.
J.B. pointed the longblaster and fired a shot, aiming to the side to minimize danger to the gunners just ahead. The bullet drilled through the creature’s belly and bounced off the armor-plated roof, ricocheting to punch a couple of bloody yellow ribs out of its sternum, tear off its lower jaw and go whining away. J.B. vaulted the body and kept going.
He found a woman, squatting in the blaster pit alone, hefting two handblasters. She had pushed her goggles up onto her brush of short brown hair. The lack of road grit around her hazel eyes gave her a photonegative raccoon-mask appearance that accented their near-panicky wideness.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, as J.B., with a buttstroke from behind, stove in the skull of a mutie that had hopped up on the rearward armor shield.
Since that wasn’t essential information, he didn’t bother to answer. “What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping into the emplacement beside her.
The M-60’s feed-tray cover was open. It and the weapon’s receiver were mint-shiny black, meaning Ace DeGuello or his armorers had re-blued it relatively recently. J.B. had to admit the Trader’s weapons master was triple-ace at his job,
Which didn’t mean J.B. wasn’t going to replace the man.
But that concern was as distant from his mind as the back side of the moon right now. His mind narrowed to laser focus on the machine gun’s open receiver.
“Bastard’s jammed up jelly-tight,” the gunner said. “Tore the head right off a spent casing. We’re fucked.”
A shadow fell across the receiver. The sun was an hour or so past the zenith.
The gunner stuck the short-barreled revolver in her left hand—a Colt Trooper .38, J.B. reckoned—into the mutie’s midsection and blasted it as it raised a steel tomahawk over its head.
“Where’s your partner?” J.B. asked, reminded of the question’s relevance.
“Chilled. Poor bastard panicked and ran when the blaster jammed and the muties started droppin’ down. He didn’t make it fifteen feet before they swarmed him. All biting like piranhas and shit. Never stood a chance.”
“Got a mitt?” he asked.
She blinked at him a moment. Had
But J.B. was going to need to spend some quality time head-down in the guts of the broken M-60 to get it churning and burning again. That meant he couldn’t constantly be swatting off the muties. That meant he needed the blaster crew to clear his back while he worked the magic that he knew in his bones he could do.
Problem defined. Problem solved. He just waded into the muties, jabbing with the muzzle and bashing with the butt, as if the longblaster was a truncheon. The semiautomatic SKS wasn’t really a close relative of its better-known successor, the famous AK-47 assault rifle. But it was designed and built to the same philosophy: to be maintainable and operable by conscript troops who were shit-scared, half-trained and less literate, and to fire every time the trigger was pulled with a round chambered, in the absolute worst conditions available anywhere on planet Earth.
Which, not altogether incidentally, meant that unlike most blasters you could just bash the hell out of people, or muties, all day without it malfunctioning on you.
The muties were fast little bastards, but then, so was J.B. They weren’t strong, either in muscle or frame. For his size, J.B. was.
And he was on a mission, which meant he was a machine.
A killing machine. Even though a few more muties dropped down from above, and he had to dodge the odd rock or spear hurled down at him, he waded through them at scarcely less speed than if he’d been running unimpeded on flat ground.
He reached the gap between segments, then leaped. A mutie barred his way with upraised spear and bared fangs. He knocked the spear aside with his blaster butt and put a shoulder into the mutie as he landed. Fangs tore his shirt and the skin beneath, but the mutie went down caterwauling on its back with its spear haft broken in two.
J.B. pointed the longblaster and fired a shot, aiming to the side to minimize danger to the gunners just ahead. The bullet drilled through the creature’s belly and bounced off the armor-plated roof, ricocheting to punch a couple of bloody yellow ribs out of its sternum, tear off its lower jaw and go whining away. J.B. vaulted the body and kept going.
He found a woman, squatting in the blaster pit alone, hefting two handblasters. She had pushed her goggles up onto her brush of short brown hair. The lack of road grit around her hazel eyes gave her a photonegative raccoon-mask appearance that accented their near-panicky wideness.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, as J.B., with a buttstroke from behind, stove in the skull of a mutie that had hopped up on the rearward armor shield.
Since that wasn’t essential information, he didn’t bother to answer. “What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping into the emplacement beside her.
The M-60’s feed-tray cover was open. It and the weapon’s receiver were mint-shiny black, meaning Ace DeGuello or his armorers had re-blued it relatively recently. J.B. had to admit the Trader’s weapons master was triple-ace at his job,
Which didn’t mean J.B. wasn’t going to replace the man.
But that concern was as distant from his mind as the back side of the moon right now. His mind narrowed to laser focus on the machine gun’s open receiver.
“Bastard’s jammed up jelly-tight,” the gunner said. “Tore the head right off a spent casing. We’re fucked.”
A shadow fell across the receiver. The sun was an hour or so past the zenith.
The gunner stuck the short-barreled revolver in her left hand—a Colt Trooper .38, J.B. reckoned—into the mutie’s midsection and blasted it as it raised a steel tomahawk over its head.
“Where’s your partner?” J.B. asked, reminded of the question’s relevance.
“Chilled. Poor bastard panicked and ran when the blaster jammed and the muties started droppin’ down. He didn’t make it fifteen feet before they swarmed him. All biting like piranhas and shit. Never stood a chance.”
“Got a mitt?” he asked.
She blinked at him a moment. Had
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