Tainted Cascade by James Axler Read Free Book Online

stand of cacti. Dark night, he thought, I’m going to get everybody aced unless I get this nuking thing under control!
    A flurry of gunshots rang out from the second wag, and Krysty flinched as a miniball scored a hot lineacross her thigh. Jak was thrown backward into the loose pile of hay, his arm gushing blood.
    Trying the key once more, Doc was delighted when the spit proved sufficient lubrication and the lock clicked open easily. But the hatch was incredibly heavy, and try as he might, Doc couldn’t get it to budge an inch.
    Shaking the reins for more speed, J.B. could see a couple of longblasters tucked into a gun boot along the side of the buckboard. But trapped inside the cage, those were completely unreachable at the moment, so he simply concentrated on trying to control the horses. Dodging the cacti was easy, as the horses knew better than to run through it. But there was a forest coming up fast, and J.B. would soon have to turn left or right. That would slow the wag, making them an excellent target for the furious slavers. It all depended on whether the slavers wanted to try to recapture them alive or wanted to chill the companions to recover the stolen wag. Either option wasn’t very good. Nearly naked and trapped in a cage was not the way to survive a fight. Especially if you only had a single working blaster.
    Rising again, Mildred placed the flintlock on Krysty’s strong arm, the other woman’s animated hair coiling away from the expected pain of the muzzle-blast. Aiming through the roiling dust clouds, Mildred lost sight of her target for a moment, but as the horses charged back into view she instantly fired. The lead horse of the third wag screamed as the soft lead plowed into its neck, crimson squirting out in a high arch. The other horses in the team reared in fear at the terrible smell, almost tearing loose from the wooden yoke beween them. The buckboard wag shook hard from their reaction, and the gunner went off the side to land in the stand of cacti, his high-pitched wails of agony cutting through the rattling wags, clattering wheels, pounding hooves and blasterfire.
    Suspiciously fingering the jamb of the hatch, Doc gave a humorless smile when he found a second bolt. Clever bastards! Tearing it aside, Doc then easily swung the hatch open and it hit the bars with a hard crash. Now holding on for dear life, Doc braced himself against the pain in his chest as Ryan moved out from under his feet and started climbing the old man like a ladder.
    Finished reloading, Mildred began to aim when the wag jounced through a weedy gully and the entire supply of black powder and wadding went flying away, briefly forming a dark cloud in the air before vanishing behind the escaping prisoner.
    â€œLast shot,” Mildred said in forced calm, commanding herself to be cool in spite of the situation. It was like performing emergency surgery on a friend.
    Reaching the top of the cage, Ryan helped Doc over the jamb, and together they started to crawl along the cage.
    â€œEasy does it,” Krysty said in a soothing voice. “There’s no rush. We have loads of time.”
    Thankful for the calming lie, Mildred still had trouble aiming against the constant jerks of the wags, then a white hand grabbed the bottom of the flintlock in an iron grip.
    â€œNuke ’em,” Jak muttered, panting heavily.
    With a grimace, Mildred wordlessly stroked thetrigger, and the driver of the second wag threw back his head with most of his throat gone. Clutching his neck with both hands, the reins dropped and the gunner tried to make a save, when a slave poked a skinny leg through the wooden bars and kicked the man hard in the ass. Pitching forward, he landed on the yoke, struggling to hold on, but his fingers slipped and he went under the hooves of the horses and then the wheels of the wag. What was left behind in the dust could only barely be recognized as human anymore.
    â€œPower to the people!”