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JAKE, THE HUGE, bearlike sec man, roared loudly and had a blood lust in his
eyes. Like the berserkers of Viking legend, he had almost tranced himself into
a state where he had no feelings or emotions, no sense of morality or justice,
nor even any sense of his own being beyond being a killing machine.
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Which was exactly what Harvey wanted from him. The sec chief had seen Jake in
this state before, and had spent no little part of the journey persuading the
sec man that he should adopt this persona for the raid. The bearlike, grizzled
fighter had taken little persuading, and had spent the few minutes at the top
of the valley, waiting for the signal of covering fire, to put himself into
that state where he saw only fresh meat for the chilling.
And now he was in full cry, a deep-throated roar escaping him, barely
registering the sweeping knives and rough-hewed blades of the muties as they
attempted to stop him. He had discarded his Heckler & Koch blaster in favor of
two long samurai-type swords, the strangely shaped blades arcing through the
air before him in a complex pattern, sweeping and crossing in a way that
prevented the mutie Sunchildren from getting too close. There were a few
random stabs that penetrated his defenses, and the jagged edges of blades had
cut and marked him, streams of blood ribboning down his chest and back. He
seemed not to register them, except that it spurred him to greater savagery.
The flashing blades cut through soft mutie flesh, hacked at jagged bone, with
barely a pause.
"DARK NIGHT! Could have sent that big bastard in on his own," J.B. muttered.
"Be fair. You don't want him to have all the fun, do you?" Downey replied,
snapping off another round from the Sharps, scoring cleanly through the
forehead of a passing mutie. The mutie staggered on for a few steps, not
seeming to realize she was dead, before crumpling into a heap.
"Fun?" the Armorer grunted, rattling off another short blast from the Uzi into
a
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_56_-_Sunchild group of muties emerging from one of
the ranch houses. He and Downey had both gravitated toward covering the ranch
houses, the two of them assuming that any blasters the Sunchildren had would
best be stopped as soon as they came out of what passed for an armory, rather
than let loose as a random factor into the firefight except that it was much
more of a night chill than a firefight. J.B. had descended the eastern slope
of the valley almost on his butt, sliding down through a cloud of dust and
feeling the rough earth tearing at his fatigues. It didn't matter if he ripped
some skin on the way down. If he was going to use the
M-4000 to maximum effect, then it was necessary to arrive as quickly as
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possible.
Hitting bottom at a run, the Armorer had headed for his self-appointed task:
the ranch house armory. There was still confusion as he sprinted through a
crowd of mutie Sunchildren, using the Tekna knife to carve a path. The blade
was razor sharp, the muties keen to avoid it. He was relying on the element of
surprise and the fact that others were following to cover his back on the
outer fringes.
But now he was coming into the main area of light, lamps and fires making the
central arena of Samtvogel seem almost in daylight. There was a clutch of
muties around the ranch house, blocking his way.
Without breaking stride, J.B. sheathed the knife, and brought up the M-4000,
which he had been cradling in his left arm, so that he grasped it with both
hands.
He stopped for a moment, planting both feet firmly to take the recoil, and
fired the charge of barbed metal flechettes into the packed group of
Sunchildren, who were too bewildered by this sudden apparition to move.
The white-hot metal, shot at enormous velocity and spreading over a wide area
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_56_-_Sunchild as it left the confines of the barrel,
bought death and pain to the group, which disintegrated suddenly into a mass
of writhing, bloodstained flesh. Some of the muties at the front of the group
took the full brunt, their faces and torsos ripped to shreds by the load.
Their already chilled remains were flung backward into the group, the force
pushing other muties down and saving their lives at least temporarily. They [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]