Geronimo couldn’t resist the opening. “If you think Hickok is the best-looking man here,” he chimed in, “then I’d suggest you have your eyes examined by the Healers!”
“Bertha!” Blade snapped with a tone of authority in his voice.
Bertha straightened and faced the giant Warrior, her chief. “Yes, sir,” she said, all seriousness.
“Everybody knows you still have a crush on Hickok,” Blade said, “but now’s not the time to indulge it.” He pointed at the items in her right hand. “Are these what Plato sent you to get?”
Bertha nodded and extended her right arm. “Yes, sir. Here you go.”
Blade took the two pieces of equipment, a square, black box and a futuristic rifle. “Thank you. That’s all for now.”
Bertha wheeled, puckered her lips in Hickok’s direction, smirked, and walked off.
“You were a mite hard on her, weren’t you?” Hickok commented.
“We’re Warriors,” Blade stated testily. “We’re supposed to be disciplined. There’s a time and a place for everything.” He saw the others studying him, silent accusations in their eyes, and he averted his gaze.
Hickok was right. He had been hard on Bertha. And he knew the reason why. The prospect of another threat to the Freedom Federation, to the Family and the Home, agitated him greatly. The past several months had been peaceful. He’d been able to relax, to enjoy life for a change. The last thing he wanted was another damn threat to the Family’s security! The very idea angered him, and he’d foolishly vented his budding frustration on Bertha.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
“These are what the spy was carrying?” Blade needlessly asked to distract the others.
“Yes,” Plato confirmed. “Wolfe was quite upset by them.”
Blade could readily understand Wolfe’s motives. Both the rifle and the mysterious black box were in superb condition. Indeed, both appeared to be relatively new. But where did they come from? Who had the industrial capability, the manufacturing know-how and resources, to produce items of such superior quality? The shiny black box was outfitted with a row of knobs and control buttons positioned along the bottom of the top panel.
Above the knobs was a glass plate covering a meter of some sort. A small, vented grill occupied the upper right corner. “What is this thing?”
Plato shrugged his skinny shoulders. “We don’t know. The Elders have examined it, but we’re unable to ascertain its function.”
“Can I see that, pard?” Hickok inquired, reaching for the rifle.
Blade handed the gun over.
Hickok whistled in admiration as he hefted the firearm. “This is a right dandy piece of hardware,” he said in appreciation. The entire gun, including the 20-inch barrel and the folding stock, was black to minimize any reflection. The barrel was tipped with a short silencer, and an elaborate scope was mounted above the ejection chamber. A 30-shot magazine protruded from under the rifle near the trigger guard. There were four buttons on one side of the gun, close to the stock, and a small, plastic panel above the buttons. On top of the scope was a fifth button, and extending from the front of the scope, at the top, was a four-inch tube or miniature barrel. “I never saw a gun like this,” Hickok said, marveling, “and I know our gun books in the library like the palm of my hand.”
Plato stroked his pointed chin, running his fingers through his beard.
“Can you imagine the threat if an army, outfitted with a rifle like that one, laid siege to the Home?”
“We’ve fought off attackers before,” Hickok boasted.
“Yes,” Plato concurred, “but they were ill-equipped. The rifle you’re holding is of recent vintage. What if the same people responsible for that automatic rifle can also fabricate larger weaponry on an extensive scale? What then?”
Hickok didn’t answer.
“We must find out where these came from,” Blade announced.
“How?” Geronimo asked. “Wolfe killed the spy.”
“We’ll think of something,” Blade said optimistically.
“We must keep this information amongst ourselves,” Plato said.
“There’s no need to instill unnecessary anxiety in the Family.”
“We’ll keep quiet,” Blade promised. “And I’ll have a word with Bertha. Who else knows?”
“Ares,” Plato revealed. “He was on guard duty on the west wall last night when the messenger arrived.”
“Ares ain’t exactly a blabbermouth,” Hickok noted.
Ares was the head of Omega Triad and a superlative Warrior.
“But how will we find out where the spy came from?” Geronimo reiterated.
Blade opened his mouth to respond.
The hot air was abruptly rent by the strident blast of a horn sounding from the west rampart, the horn the Warriors used to signal in times of danger!
Chapter Three
The 15 Family Warriors were armed with their favorite weapons and on the brick walls within three minutes of the alarm. Alpha Triad, consisting of Blade, Hickok, and Geronimo, took its posts on the west wall.
They were joined by Beta Triad: the diminutive Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the Family’s supreme martial artist; the silver-haired Yama, named after the Hindu King of Death; and Teucer, the bowman. Gamma Triad took the north walclass="underline" Spartacus, with his ever-present broadsword; the eighteen-year-old Shane, an aspiring gunfighter like his mentor, Hickok; and Bertha. The east wall was manned by the towering, Mohawk-cropped Ares, the head of Omega Triad, and his two subordinates: Helen, a raven-haired Warrior whose namesake was Helen of Troy; and Sundance, the pistol expert. On the south wall stood Zulu Triad, led by the powerhouse Samson, and including Sherry, Hickok’s wife, and Marcus, the self-styled gladiator. Sherry, her M.A.C.-10 held in the crook of her right arm, surveyed the empty field and forest below the wall, thankful little Ringo was being watched by Jenny, Blade’s wife, and worried about her husband on the west wall.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi had been responsible for blowing the horn. Now he was stationed alongside Blade directly above the closed drawbridge, his five-foot frame clothed in black Oriental-style clothing constructed by the Family Weavers, his dark eyes scanning the forest to the west. His attire matched his lineage. Rikki was one of several Family members with an Oriental lineage.
“So what’s the big deal?” Hickok demanded, standing on Rikki’s right.
“There’s nothin’ out there.”
“Be patient,” Rikki advised.
For 150 yards in every direction, the Family diligently kept the land cleared of trees, brush, boulders, and whatever else might be used for concealment by any enemy assaulting the Home. The flat, exposed field gave the Warriors an excellent line of fire. No one could reach the brick walls without sustaining heavy casualties.
Beyond the fields, dense forest prevailed. A crude road, little more than a flattened 15-foot-wide path, was maintained between the western edge of the field and Highway 59, approximately five miles to the west. A mile south from where the makeshift road met Highway 59 was Halma, dwelling place of the Family’s allies, the Clan.
“You sure you didn’t see a deer and mistake it for a mutate?” Hickok asked, joking with Rikki.
Rikki pointed to the west. “Does that look like a deer to you?”
Hickok took a look. “Nope,” he admitted. “It sure don’t, pard.”
A jeep was visible, cresting the rise of a low hill, heading toward the Home.
“It’s about half a mile away,” Geronimo commented.
The jeep was joined by two military troop transports and yet another jeep.
“It’s a small convoy,” Blade observed.
“The only ones we know with vehicles like those are the folks in the Civilized Zone,” Hickok declared.
Blade nodded. Why would the Civilized Zone be sending a convoy to the Home? Even in military vehicles, the trip was fraught with peril and not to be taken lightly.