The Road Sharks (19 page)

She looked around at the young scout woman and her own nervous students, wishing there were some way to not have to take these people into battle.
 

“Does everyone have their sword? Ervin crafted some very good blades for us, and if we can’t shoot these dogs down, there’s a chance that swords will come in to play. I know we have all trained in the dojo, but there is a world of difference when you are striking at a living being, filled with blood. If we set this trap right, we’ll take most of them out with bullets and arrows.”

“Sensei, how many kilabykers are we talking here?” asked the oldest man.
 

“Around forty, Mort.”
 

“And there’s sixteen of us, plus you and young Ghost Wind there. Them odds are a little steep in the wrong direction.”

“Yes, unless our trap is very well laid, and we can cut the odds dramatically at first contact,” Ghost Wind said, looking down at a very fine Beforetime recurved bow. “Some of you will be archers, stationed where the enemy will first come by. After half of them have passed, we will quietly try to take as many of the rear guard as we can without alerting the men in front. The question is, how do we get everyone down to the ambush site in time?”

Kia half smiled. “I think we have that covered.”

The rest of the group smiled with her.

****

Ghost Wind stood for a second, in the well-camouflaged doorway and stared. There were almost forty fusion-powered motorcycles in the old hatchery motor pool, and most looked like they were usable. She looked at Kita.

“Eli said you needed to use a horse-drawn wagon to trade with Horace! What is this?”

Kita let her own smug gaze drift over the assorted hardware, “We’ve been scrounging for fusion powered vehicles almost since the village was founded. Half of our people are experienced riders, but only about a third of these are actually in working condition. We keep hoping we can find an experienced fusion-gen mechanic but no luck so far. But everyone of them we have here, is one less the kilabykers can use against us.”

The students began rolling the machines from the shop. Ghost Wind found herself impressed with the cool efficiency they displayed getting the bikes and gear ready to move out.

“You can ride behind one of the men. I want everyone who can ride to have a fusion cycle and—”
 

“I have my own bike.” Ghost Wind interrupted the older woman, then began to chuckle, leading into a full-throated laugh.

“What?” Kita asked her.

“My teacher, were she still alive, would have had a conniption fit to hear those words come from my mouth. The scouts of the Clan of the Hawk are supposed to steadfastly use only ancient technologies, except for weapons. It is part of being independent from needing anything we can’t make ourselves. For me to say I own one of these twenty-first century monster machines would have driven her right up the wall.” Ghost Wind’s smile faded, and Kita saw the hint of tears before the younger woman turned her face away.

“Your teachers aren’t here, so let’s get going,” Kita said. “Down here, we use every resource we can get our hands on.”

****

It took them less than an hour to reach the spot Eli had suggested was the most likely route of Axyl and his Indie kilabykers. The choke point for the ambush was south of the junction of old SR 97 and Hwy 126, just a short way before what was left of the city of Redmond.
 

An old Ecar station on one side of the road was still standing, charging stations rusting in the February chill. On the opposite side, junipers and sagebrush had taken over empty lots that had stood awaiting development for the last twenty-seven years.

“Listen carefully,” Kita said, looking at her too small assortment of warriors. “These people have joined, even if temporarily, with the Road Shark Gang. That makes them our sworn enemies and they’re on their way to take over the compound and maybe kill the people we trade with. Good people, people who in years to come will probably be our relations, one way or another and we have to make sure that these assholes don’t just pay dearly, but are in no position to cause us trouble again. It is essential that we destroy as many of them as possible before their leaders realize they are under attack.”

“We won’t let you down, Sensei.” A short blond man named Blue spoke up.
 

“You all know the stakes, both for our friends and ourselves. We HAVE to win here.”

Ghost Wind carefully positioned each member of the ambush team, putting the best archers farther back along the road, to take the enemy from behind. The scout then carefully gave each person a
makeover
, consisting of dust, ash charcoal and various foliage pieces. By the time she was done, most of them couldn’t be seen at ten paces unless they moved. She hurried to Kita’s spot at the old E-station and settled next to where the older woman had positioned herself to shoot.

“That’s about the best we’re going to get. If the archers can take out enough of the group before the people in front catch on, we might just have a chance.”

Kita looked at her, skepticism on her face. “This is a Hail Mary strategy.” When the younger woman looked at her blankly, she explained, “We are terribly outnumbered and I don’t have high hopes for a clean victory, if we have a victory at all. The people we’re ambushing are very used to violence, and many of my people are not. I pray that their training carries them through this.”

“If Axyl is leading them, I worry that they’ll just blow through and make a run for New Hope. You and I, Mort and Roger over there on the other side of the road may be the last chance to thin their numbers to where they’re not going to be that much use to the Road Sharks.”

“If they get past us, I’ve got one more little surprise,” Kita said, checking the old AR rifle she carried for the tenth time, “Something Eli picked up for us, once. Hopefully it still works. In the meantime though I want you down the road with the archers.”

“What? You need me here! If it comes to hand to hand, this is where I can be the most help, and you need as many fighters to pick off the remainder…”

“You must be a decent archer, and I want as many of these men dead BEFORE they get to me as possible. There will be nine archers and eight gunners. If most of them are still kicking when they get this far, we’ll have little chance of stopping them.”

Just before sunrise, Eli calmly drove up to the gates of New Hope. He had entertained the idea of trying to use some of his admittedly rusty original infiltration skills to sneak through the Road Sharks line, but thought better of it. He had instead covered the well-known markings of the Terror, rolled in the dirt for a while and then covered his face with a head wrap and goggles. He’d toyed with the idea of trying to emulate the piquant smell associated with his enemies, but decided that was a step too far.

The earliness of the hour worked for him as he approached the compound. A couple of the still sleepy Sharks had stumbled from out of concealment and tried to wave him off.

“Damn fool! You’re gonna let ‘em know!” a craggy dirty biker yelled. Eli just waved and rode past them, leaving the men jumping up and down with frustration.
 

Now the problem was to get the folks of New Hope to not shoot him as he rode up to the gate.
 
Eli whipped out the oversized and only slightly dirty pillow case he carried and frantically waved it as he approached. A figure on the parapet aimed a rifle at him, and another knocked it upward.

“Hold on Ted,” Horace’s voice drifted down, “We ain’t so far gone as we need to shoot a lone man wavin’ a white flag.”

“Horace!” Eli half yelled, his voice strained as he pulled the head wrap down from his face, “It’s me, Eli! Let me in before I catch a bullet in the back!”

Horace looked down at him for a moment, then looked behind the wall, “Open it. Be ready for trouble.”

Eli rode the Terror through the triple sheet metal doorway and it was swinging shut almost before he cleared it. Eli realized he was sweating profusely in the February morning.

“Man, my back is still crawlin’. Thanks for letting me in on short notice, Horace.”

“What’s up with covering everything up so’s we can’t recognize ya, son? It’s pretty lucky I was near the wall when the alarm was raised or Ted here might’a shot you in your front side.”

“What’s up, my old friend, is that you have a hell of a problem outside your walls,” Eli said, climbing the ladder to the parapet. “You have about fifty or so Road Sharks hiding out in the junipers all around the place, waiting for the signal to blow out one of your walls with charges and to come streaming in.”

“Shit, Eli,” the older man said, looking nervously over the outer landscape, “I hope to hell this is some kind of joke. The Sharks would have to throw just about everything they have at us for such a venture, as well as come up with something to blow through three layers of sheet metal.”

“From what Ghost Wind told me, they’ve managed to get their grimy little paws on some C-4 and either have, or are going to plant it at some weak spot in your wall.”

“Ghost Wind? That gal you brung in here? How’d she get so knowledgable as to the plans o’ them vicious sacks of filth?”

Eli’s face went hard and tight. “They captured her. Tortured her. But they weren’t too careful about what their prisoners heard and she escaped.”

Horace’s face was horrified for a moment, then slipped into his own mask of stoic endurance. The Road Sharks were a scourge on the area, and everyone he knew had problems with them or had been hurt or damaged by them in some way. He liked the young woman Eli had brought with him and the thought of her in the hands of those awful vermin made his blood run cold.

“Goddamn it, Eli. You were supposed to get her somewhere safe. How the hell did you let that happen!?”

Eli looked down at the decking underneath them. “She had a tiff with Kita, which was no surprise, and stormed off. She’s damn good at covering her tracks and I lost her. Somehow the Sharks found her and beat her up pretty badly. But there’s one thing you should know, Horace. I think she’s changed the game.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Eli looked Horace straight in the eye, “If what she told me is true, she’s managed to cripple Darwin Shell.”

“What? Cripple the Road Sharks? Then how the hell do I supposedly have a small army of them on my doorstep?”

“Not the Sharks, at least not directly, she’s actually managed to break Darwin Shell’s spine. I don’t think she’d lie about this, and if Shell’s crippled, then most likely, that dandy boy Axe Man is in charge of the group.” Eli waited for that to sink in, then continued, “Axyl may be a charismatic guy to rally his troops, but he’s NOT what I would call a deep thinker.”

***

Earl and Ballsy, the two Road Sharks that had tried to wave Eli off were sitting and eating a breakfast of corn mush and MRE crackers. They were both stung that they had not shot the unknown rider off his bike, but with all the Indie riders who were supposed to be helping them, they both agreed “how were they to know?” They had both also agreed to keep the incident to themselves. If they told anyone they’d be sure to get shit for it in one form or another, and it was just one guy. Big whoop.

However, they were in no way reassured when they heard the sound of a man laughing with delight coming from the stockade they were watching.

Axyl had headed directly up the main highway. Even though the group of psychos, bastards and scungeballs he was leading weren’t officially Road Sharks, they were riding under Shark colors and Sharks didn’t skulk around on the backroads when there was serious shit being done.

The night before at the old museum hadn’t been a walk in the park. Some of these yahoos were such marginal excuses for human beings that even the Sharks didn’t want them around on a regular basis, and that was saying something.
 

This was why he realized he still needed Shell, if he could wean the man off being stoned all the time. Even in a wheelchair, Shell could, using that buttered brass low voice of his, charm even shit-for-brains animals like these. He preferred to let Axyl do most of the talking to the lower life forms but when he needed to, Shell could sell the shit.

Axyl had managed to convince only twenty-six of the forty-five kilabykers who had shown up to join the cause of taking New Hope. The rest had simply walked away or, to add insult to the ol’ injury, flipped him off or mooned him as they left. Not one of the Red Slavers had joined, the useless parasites.

“Yeah,” he growled to himself, “Someday, gonna take the Sharks on a hunting trip for all those fuckers, and they’re gonna die bad.” The very thought improved his sour mood.

But even with just twenty-six, that boosted the forces they had surrounding New Hope to over seventy and that was pretty damn good against a bunch of farmers, a third of whom were women and kids. He just hoped it was enough for an easy victory. This job wasn’t without its risks and if he lost enough Sharks, the balance of power in the area could shift. He looked back at the Indies he was leading. They were allies today, but you never knew about tomorrow.

“Yeah,” he said to himself, “I think you boys are gonna get the most dangerous jobs for sure. Losing you… I could live with that.”

They were approaching an old business park, slowly returning to nature and Axyl was daydreaming that he could have been probably a big man in the Beforetime, the soft time. Well he was going to be a big man anyway and…

What the hell was that noise?

Axyl glanced over his shoulder, and to his horror, saw two of his ‘tail-end Charlies’ lose control of their bikes and crash on the broken weed-filled pavement. His adrenaline spiked even higher when he realized that two more of his crew were down even farther back, probably causing the original noise he had heard when they smashed up.

“Ambush!” he said, standing up on his bike and screaming at the top of his lungs, “Fucking ambush! Gun it! Full throttle!” He rammed his own throttle to the max, making the decades-old bike vibrate as it jumped forward. Not all the men following heard him over the noise of the road, but his wave forward and the speed at which he accelerated told them enough. All jumped to full speed according to their various reaction times and states of repair. Rifle shots broke out all around them and Axyl felt something hit his bike.