Worlds Apart by Joe Haldeman Page B

and put on his boots. If he had to run, how could he get by an electric fence? Steel shutters rattled down over the windows.
    “Ever fight before?” she asked.
    “Couple of times. And I used to be a cop in New York City.”
    “You sound nervous.”
    “Out of practice. Does this happen often?”
    “Every month or so. But it’s usually dark, shouldn’t be no problem.”
    He set both pistols on top of the sandbags and tried to get into a comfortable position, sighting down the scattergun. “You really aren’t afraid to die.”
    “No… I’d rather wait for the death, but if Charlie wants me early, that’s His will.”
    Tad got into place behind the bunker next to them. He had a heavy rifle with a fat starlight scope. He switched on the scope and looked around. “Nothing yet,” he said conversationally. “Everybody in place?” Somebody to the far left said “one,” and the count went all around the house, ending with eight. “Healer, don’t use that scattergun on the one with our Uzi, or anyone with an automatic weapon. We can’t afford to damage them.” The scattergun fired bursts of tiny metal splinters, propelled by compressednitrogen blasts. It was a good close-range weapon but it did make an awful mess of anything it hit.
    “We’ll go for Plan Two. Jommy, go turn off the fence and don’t turn it on until you hear me or Mom shout. Everybody else get down behind the bunkers and don’t fire till I tell you.” To Jeff he explained, “I’ll pick off one or two with the starlight scope, and then we’ll just letthem waste ammunition for a while.” He peered through the scope, aiming the rifle in a slow arc from east to west and back again. “If they come at all. They might just take the Uzi and go.”
    “Don’t even think that,” Marsha said. She sat relaxed against the sandbags, her skin still glistening from sex.
    “It would be a good prize.”
    “They’ll try,” she said confidently. “There’s plenty of them.”
    “Sounded like,” Tad said. “Damn, I wish Larry hadn’t opened up on them.”
    “Plan One always works,” Marsha said. “The road sentry lets ’em go by and warns us. Then he follows ’em up and hides in a bunker over to the west there, at the tree line. When the shooting starts we’ve got ’em in a crossfire.”
    “Most of ’em get it from the Uzi,” Tad said. “
Damn
that Larry.”
    There was a sound like a rock hitting the ground, not far away, and then a bright flash and simultaneous blast. Bright particles spewed all around them. Tad had ducked behind the sandbags; now he popped back up and squeezed off five or six rounds, muffled taps behind a silencer.
    “Got one.” He crouched down again, and they waited. No return fire; no sound at all.
    “Healer,” Tad said, “give them a couple of bursts. See if we can get them started.” Jeff cautiously peeked around the sandbags. He heard a faint command, and suddenly thirty or forty people rose up out of the weeds and began moving toward them, silently and quickly. He fired two quick blasts in their general direction and rolled back. “Here they come,” he said. Still no return fire.
    “They’ve got ladders,” Marsha said, peering over the top. “This is gonna be target practice.”
    “Hold your fire until they have the ladders in place,” Tad said.
    The Uzi howled at them in a long burst, raking all ofthe bunkers in front of the house. The sandbags above Jeff and Marsha tore open, spraying dirt. Tad said “Aw, shit,” rather calmly, and fell down, holding his face.
    Jeff dashed over to him and saw that a flechette had ripped open the man’s cheek. A ragged flap of torn flesh dangled over his beard, exposing back teeth shiny with blood in the moonlight.
    “Here.” Jeff held the flap in place and guided Tad’s left hand up to it. “Hold it tight until this is over. Then I’ll stitch it up.” He wasn’t really sure he could.
    “Okay,” Tad said through clenched teeth. “Switch weapons.