Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2), Kevin Ikenberry [reading the story of the txt] 📗

Andrechyk, in the primary area of the site. His arms were held wide with his palms up as if to ask where everybody had gone. Below their feet came a sudden tremor, and a cloud of dust poured from where the wide main tunnel to the city opened into the cache site.

Oh, shit.

The enemy didn’t care about the cache site. Whether they’d fully collapsed or just blocked the tunnel with explosives didn’t matter. Stewart’s attack would no longer have the effect Major Moorefield was counting on. The enemy would not defend the cache site; instead, they would focus their efforts on the main attack and potentially deflect it with their collected strength.

Stewart bit his lip. There was another way in, of course: the staircase. But whether or not it went where they needed it to, and what a team might encounter along the way, were complete unknowns. On the other hand, with the tunnel presumably blocked, there were only two ways to help the main assault: go overland mounted on whinnies or go through the tunnels. And either of those ways might prove impossible; he couldn’t afford to gamble all his assets on just one. Even if that meant splitting his forces.

Stewart whirled in the saddle. “Morton! Get your men down that staircase! Find a way through, if you can.”

Morton immediately yelled at his men. “Dismount! Get down into that opening and find me a way to the main tunnel or the city. On the double!”

Stewart was already moving east along the canyon rim. “California, this is Fastlane. Relay to Desperado Six, we’ve secured the cache site without a fight. We’re moving to support the attack from the east. I have troops headed down a staircase into the tunnels.”

“Roger, Fastlane,” Fahey replied. “The attack has slowed near the wall. You might want to hurry.”

“I was afraid of that.” Stewart re-attached the handset to his vest and whistled again at Alpha Section. He gestured east and gave the “follow me” hand signal. The riderless whinnies formed up around him and darted toward the escarpment to look for a way down.

Olympia bounded forward and took off after them, descending the canyon wall nose first. Stewart leaned as far back in the saddle as he could and grabbed the whinnie’s reins. “Whoa! Whoa, Olympia! Whoa!”

Neither the whinnie nor her riderless companions listened; they raced down the wall as one.

“Fastlane, California. Desperado Six says to hold the site, and they’ll fight their way to you.”

It’s a little too late for that.

Besides, Stewart couldn’t reply; Olympia suddenly leapt from the canyon wall to the top of the security fencing over thirty feet below.

* * *

Specialist Vernard Morton and his section reached the bottom of the staircase without resistance. They emerged into the dwellings at the eastern end of the inner row. Despite the chaos in the city outside, the part beneath the overhang was relatively peaceful. There was another descending passageway which became yet another spiral staircase, just a few meters away. Courting the shadows, Morton soundlessly directed the others toward it. He checked behind one last time and saw only one person looking their way: an older man with smeared face paint and close-cropped white hair. He had no weapons, nor did he point and call out to alert any guards in earshot. He might have been a person of interest, one of their targets, but a rattle of nearby gunfire scattered the otherwise oblivious civilians and the man disappeared among them.

Ah, fuck it.

Morton spun into the new staircase and followed his men down into the city. With the battle raging along the south and western wall, the side near the waterfall would be less defended. From there, they could flank the enemy and draw some of their fire.

It might be enough to enable the attack to succeed.

* * *

Aliza darted between buildings, heading toward the eastern glacis. There were doors and compartments cut into the wall’s thick base. She arrived at a door just as several panicked fighters burst out of it and rushed toward the central tunnels. Recoiling, she spun toward the waterfall at the extreme eastern end of the wall. There was a larger opening there with a retractable sluice gate capable of closing off the canal to retain water when the flow from the aquifer below was low. A quick glance over her shoulder did not reveal Waornaak in pursuit…or anywhere else. Hope surged in her chest as Aliza ran for the door and ducked inside.

The room was far larger than she expected. Barrels and other large water containers lined the walls. There was space enough for her to squeeze behind them, and she moved deeper into the room, against the foundations of the first point that protruded from the glacis. Along the inner wall, Aliza found several arm-length metal rods. She grabbed one and touched the M1911 pistol holstered on her right thigh, just to make sure it was still there. She ducked behind a waist-high stack of wooden poles and tried to fold herself into the darkness. The light coming through the door flickered, and she heard heavy footsteps upon the dusty stone floor.

Aliza’s hand dropped to her side, and she silently gathered the long garment up so she could grasp the butt of her pistol. Carefully, noiselessly, she worked the safety strap holding the pistol in the holster and drew it.

Waornaak laughed. “I know you are here, woman. You will answer for the trouble you’ve brought.”

* * *

As the militia atop the glacis finally coordinated fire in his direction, Bo’s vehicles returned it. At first, the militiamen froze, then they quickly resumed. Rockets streaked down at the tacticals and other vehicles. Despite the intense fire rising up at them, the enemy militia continued to man their posts until the mortar shells began crashing down. The first impacts were spectacularly on target. In