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The memory of the gaunt man's unsmiling visage as he explained his personal
and therefore group mission still haunted Tulk. He had no doubt that Correll
was insane, and yet he could understand that. He had no idea of Correll's own
personal history, but he knew from his own experience that to have to
internalize
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_65_-_Hellbenders the intense emotions that a baron
abusing privilege could bring was to skirt close to insanity. Some stayed the
right line as he believed he had because they had to keep living with the
enemy. Others, like Correll, didn't, and so were allowed free reign to their
feelings, and perhaps the descent into madness.
After a briefing, Tulk had returned with the personal knowledge that Correll
was as insane as Hutter, just in a different way. But this was, in a sense,
irrelevant.
Correll's madness allowed Tulk to unleash his own, and gain his revenge.
And that was priceless.
The knowledge that it was nearly time filled him to bursting, but mindful of
the still puzzled baron beside him he allowed himself only the expression of
putting his foot down on the gas, and coaxing more speed from the wag's
protesting engine.
"AYESHA, THIS ISN'T going to make things any better for us. We'll just get
beaten before they screw us, and it'll hurt," whined the big blonde from her
seat in the back of the wag.
"Shut up, bitch," snapped the girl with the Uzi. She didn't turn to glare at
Anita, but the big blonde could feel the hostility coming off her, and
immediately shut up, even trying to stifle her sobs.
"Thanks for that," Ayesha murmured as she spared a glance for the sniveling
blonde. "Any more of that shit, and I probably would have slit her throat, as
well."
"Anytime, babe," her ally replied. "But I hope you've got some sort of plan,
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'cause I've just seized the moment, and I don't know what the hell to do
next."
"First thing is to get their blasters," Ayesha said decisively, moving down
the middle of the wag. She addressed the sec men in the front directly. "I
want you to hand your blasters over the back, holding them by the business end
with your fingertips only. I don't want you getting any ideas, or else my
friend here may just blow your mother fucking head off. Okay, boys?"
The sec men complied without a word, the one who had twisted in his seat
dropping his H&K over the back, while the driver unholstered his Walther PPK
handblaster and dropped it over the back, straining to keep the vehicle on
track as he leaned behind him.
Ayesha moved in front of her ally and pulled the blasters back, crouching low
but keeping her head up and her sights firmly on the sec man who was still
facing her. The knife, still dripping, she kept in her left hand, the blade
angled up ready to strike if attacked.
Gathering the blasters, she pulled back and stuck the Walther in the waistband
of her jeans. The H&K she held on to, looking around at the women on the
benches. Most of them still looked like Anita downtrodden and resigned to
their fate, fearing it would now be worse because of her actions. But a couple
of the women had brightened considerably, and although they had nowhere near
the courage of the girl holding the Uzi rock steady, they could be useful.
"You," she said, indicating a slim woman with sharp features and short,
cropped hair who had begun to take an interest in events. "What's your name?"
"Adrienne," the woman replied in a tone that was nervous, but had an
underlying
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useful.
"Consider yourself recruited to our little women's liberation army," Ayesha
said, tossing the H&K to her. "Know how to use that?"
"It's a blaster like them all. Just give me a second or two to work out its
little peculiarities," Adrienne replied in an offhand manner.
The sec man facing them spit down onto the floor of the wag. "Don't think you
bitches are gonna get away with this."
Without a word, the girl with the Uzi took half a pace forward and swung the
barrel of the blaster up in an arc, catching him in the mouth and nose, which
gushed crimson. Before he had a chance to react or even register the agony he
felt, she had stepped back out of range and resumed her position, with the
blaster trained on the pair of sec men in the front of the wag.
"Don't you think at all, asshole. That way you may not get chilled yet," she
muttered with savage venom.
"Nice work," Ayesha murmured approvingly. "Listen, just who are you, girl?"
"Name's Claudette. I used to work in the kitchens for the sec, and I know what
fuckpigs they are," she said shortly, adding, "and you still ain't said if
you've got a plan."
"I've got a plan, Claudette, don't you worry about that," Ayesha said. "By the
way, I'm "
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"Hell, you think I don't know who you are?" Claudette snapped. "You're the
prize package. I've heard this scum talking about what they'd do to you before
Tad Hutter had the chance, and then about what he'd do to you. Gotta say,
girl, that was a smooth move you pulled. But you'd better have a good plan,
'cause I
can't see how we'll get out of this alive. And if I was you, knowing what I
know, I'd chill myself now and save the humiliation and pain if we don't get
out and
Hutter gets his hands on you."
"No worries about that," Ayesha replied simply. "We just need to stay on
course to the rendezvous and wait."
Claudette didn't look around, preferring to keep her eyes firmly fixed on the
sec men, but Ayesha could feel almost see her look of disbelief.
"Girl, tell me that you're shitting me," she said quietly.
"I'm telling you straight, sister," Ayesha reassured her. "There's going to be
an ambush on the two convoys by a group that has as much reason to hate my
father and the scum Hutter as much as we have. And they're armed and ready for
a firefight. We're safe as long as we keep these assholes quiet."
"How the fuck ?"
"It doesn't matter now," Ayesha interrupted. "The only thing that matters is
that we keep this wag rolling, and no one gets any notion that anything is
wrong until we reach the meeting point. And then it'll be too late."
"It's risky," Claudette commented.
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"So's anything," Ayesha returned. "What else can we do? If we break ranks and
try to get this wag to run for it, they outnumber us in wags and firepower.
All we can do is sit tight and wait."
"Okay, if that's the way it's got to be, then that's the way it will be."
Claudette shrugged. "I just hope we can carry it off, babe."
Chapter Sixteen
It stood impassive and still under the burning heat of the rad-blasted sun,
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the sky a haze that shimmered above its topmost reaches. Formed of two
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