“Fireblast! We need to get the hell out here. That way,” Ryan commanded, taking in what was happening with a single scan of the area. The sec party making its way toward them was coming from one direction, and from all around they were starting to attract more and more hostile looks—but there was no sign of any other sec. If Ryan took them in the opposite direction, forging their way through the crowd, they could reach one of the exits from the square and try to lose themselves in the side streets—assuming, of course, that there were no other sec parties making their way toward the square from any of the other exits.
Only one way to find out. The recce party forged its way through the crowd, picking up its pace as the sec party located them by sight and began to increase the speed of its own progress. It wasn’t hard for them to locate the recce party, as they were pushing their way past people who looked at them with blank eyes that were turning to hatred and even confusion as they were barged out of the way. The wake they created of jostling, shouting people could be easily seen in the otherwise calm and hypnotized environment of the shrine. But at least the disturbed people were less easy in giving way to the next force trying to part them, even though it was their own sec.
All members of the recce party now had their blasters to hand and were waving them to part the crowd. The people, despite their hostility, seemed reluctant to draw and fire in the square—if it was some kind of shrine to Dr. Jean, as seemed likely, then by the same token this could be a kind of sacrilege—and parted as the handblasters were made visible. Ryan hoped that they wouldn’t have to fire yet—no knowing when and how often they would have to fire once they were in the streets, and they didn’t have an infinite amount of ammo or time to reload at leisure.
Riding their luck, they reached one of the side streets, charged out of the square and into the thoroughfare. Once again the people parted, despite having blasters of their own, and there seemed to be an air of shock about them. Perhaps it was unusual for such dissent to be shown inside the walls.
Ryan had two great concerns: first, they were in a different street to the one they had used to enter the square, so they had no idea where they were in relation to their escape route. Second, if there were vid screens on the street corners broadcasting the glories of Dr. Jean, then it was also possible that among his old tech he had vid cameras that could be used to spy the streets. In which case, they were in trouble, as the sec force would be able to trace their movements and close on them.
“Where the fuck are we going?” LaRue yelled breathlessly. The potbellied swamp dweller was having trouble keeping up.
“Away,” Ryan answered shortly. “Worry about it later.”
In truth, things looked bleak. They were five men alone in enemy territory, with the possibility that they could be easily tracked. Certainly, if the sec party had fought its way through the confused crowd and into the streets, they could follow the recce party by the trail of angry residents left in its wake. And yet, despite the fact that everyone seemed to be armed, they had encountered no blasterfire.
That, allied to the attitude in the square, got J.B. thinking.
“Jak, know where we’ve got to go?” he yelled as they pounded along the road, scattering the confused residents.
“Come in due east, go out northwest—yeah, can figure it,” the albino rapped back. Unlike the others, he wasn’t even short of breath.
“You do it, we’ll follow,” the Armorer gasped, feeling his heart pounding in time with his footsteps.
“Got an idea?” Ryan asked, drawing breath into his aching lungs.
“Mebbe,” the Armorer replied enigmatically. That wasn’t his intent, but he had no wish to waste valuable breath on talk.
And with good reason. The commotion and noise behind them grew louder as the sec force gained ground, the crowd parting more readily for the men in the distinctive uniforms. They were gaining ground—enough for them to risk shots over the heads of the scattering crowd.
It was the last thing the recce party needed. There was no way they would be hit by the first volley, but as it forced the crowd to part, it gave the sec party chasing them an easier path…and a clearer shot.
“Jak, find a side street soon,” J.B. gritted.
The albino hunter had an inkling that he understood what the Armorer had planned—it was no more than he would have done himself—so he complied as soon as possible. A narrow street on the right would start to double them back toward the dormitory building that concealed their escape. Jak took the right turn, and the others followed.
The street was almost empty, the human traffic being confined mostly to the main drag, and it was lit by five electric lamps spaced the length of the street. J.B. raised his mini-Uzi as he ran, with the blaster set to short bursts, and hit the lamps with chattering SMG fire that shattered them. For good measure, he took out the vid unit that stood on one lamppost, silencing the flow of drivel about the mightiness of Dr. Jean.
Ryan grinned. The darkness marked their path, but would make it harder for the sec party to draw a bead on them.
But J.B. hadn’t finished. Jak led them onto another thoroughfare, cutting across to a side street almost diagonally opposite. As they ran across, cutting through the crowd and pushing people out of their way, J.B. dropped back so that he brought up the rear of the recce party. He turned on his heel and fired above the heads of the crowd, taking out some of the lights and plunging a portion of the street into darkness. Lowering his arc of fire, he also took out some of the startled pedestrians. Whether he chilled or merely injured them was of no significance to him. What mattered was that, as they went down, the street erupted into panicked chaos.
J.B. turned once more on his heel and raced to catch up with the others. As he suspected, there was no return fire from the street behind him. From the behavior of those in the square, he had deduced that they were unused to any blasters being used in the ville except by the sec force, and as Dr. Jean’s mind-control techniques worked so well, that was probably a rarity. So to actually fire into them would cause panic and confusion rather elicit return fire, and the more panic and confusion, the harder it would be for the sec to follow them.
Now all they had to worry about was another sec force intersecting them…and the small matter of finding their way back to their own way out of the ville.
The vid screens on the street corners were now filled with images other than those relating to Dr. Jean: they were filled with images of the recce party running through the streets. A voice exhorted the people to help the sec force stop these intruders, who were already responsible for chilling innocent citizens—with which the screens lit up, repeating images of J.B.’s spray ‘n’ pray fire into the crowd a few moment before.
So everyone in the ville would now be on their tails, and it certainly answered the question about whether Dr. Jean had surveillance camera tech. In turn, this would make attaining their exit safely all the more difficult.
They had no time to take in any more of their surroundings. The streets became a blur of artificial light, people and moving buildings. No time now to make a proper recce, they had seen enough before this, anyhow. Now all they had to do was get the hell out. Ryan had no idea where they were headed, he could only trust to Jak’s instinct.
The albino cut across more streets, this time firing to left and right of him with the Colt Python, clearing a path before him. The recce party was now using its handblasters to clear a path, zigzagging the sporadic and random bursts of fire that spit past them. Some of the residents were alert enough to react when the recce party burst past them, and drew their blasters to fire on them, but the fire from the running men was enough to deflect their aim. And now, after seeing the vid broadcasts as they took flight, they had no illusions that they could proceed without being noticed.
All that mattered now was to get back to the exit tunnel down the sewer. And only Jak could guide them.
Ryan wondered where the hell they were going. They had headed off the main drag and were running hell-for-leather down a series of back alleys that ran behind the old buildings that faced onto the main roads.
Suddenly, Jak stopped and halted them with a hand. They pulled up short, all gasping for breath, LaRue and Prideaux almost sobbing as they gulped the air into their lungs, every breath catching painfully in their throats. They had run down at least four intersecting alleyways, and they had no idea where they were. In the distance, they could hear shouts and the sounds of commotion. They could also hear wags rumbling in the ville, transporting sec men to the last known locations to mount a search of the area.
So much for keeping the recce mission low key.
“Why stopped?” Ryan gasped.
“Lost them for while, and no cameras. Look.” Jak gestured upward, and Ryan could see that there were no vid screens and no posts on which cameras could be mounted.
“That’s okay so far,” Ryan panted, “but what—”
“Ryan, we left the screens behind a while back. And I’ll tell you something else…” The Armorer indicated to one side of the alleyway. It was a brick wall, with a four-story building behind it.
Ryan allowed himself a laugh. “Fuckin’ A—you did it, Jak. And they won’t be able to find our escape route. Let’s get to it.”
In their exhausted state, the twelve-foot wall was more daunting than it would have been ordinarily. Jak went up first, given a lift by Ryan and J.B. Once up, he laid himself down and extended an arm to LaRue while Ryan and J.B. assisted him to scramble up. After a struggle, he was on the wall.
“Shit—weak link, Jak. Get started on the cover,” he gasped heavily and almost incoherently. Jak slapped the bald man on the shoulder to acknowledge what he was saying, and leaned down to help Prideaux up while LaRue lowered himself to the ground on the other side and ran across to the cover over the sewer access.
Prideaux was able to ascend with greater ease, and was soon over by his fellow fighter, helping him to remove the cover. The fat man dropped into the sewer, sliding down the ladder.
Back by the wall, Ryan had lifted himself up and clapped Jak on the shoulder. “Go—I’ll help J.B.”
The albino nodded and slipped down onto the ground, moving like a silent white shadow over the ground to the open sewer access.
Ryan reached down for J.B., and the Armorer grabbed at his hand and tried to scramble up the wall. His feet lost their purchase on the wall, and with a curse he fell to the ground on the wrong side of the wall. Looking to his left and right, he could see nothing, but the sounds of pursuit were closing in.
“Dark night, why do I always have to take it last,” he hissed at Ryan, pulling himself to his feet and taking a running jump at the wall. He gained enough height, and grabbed at the top of the wall. He felt Ryan’s iron grip on his wrists, and the one-eyed man hauled up his old friend.
“Because I know I can trust you to get it right,” Ryan grinned as J.B. made the top of the wall safely.
“Well, thanks,” J.B. replied, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “I’ll bear that in mind next time I’m being shot in the ass.”
The two men dropped down and ran across the yard in a crouch. Ryan waved J.B. down first, ignoring the sly grin the Armorer gave him as he entered the tunnel. Ryan paused and took a good look around before he followed. The yard was quiet, there was no sign of any cameras or anyone who could catch sight of them. At least they wouldn’t be followed from this end.
He lowered himself into the tunnel, feet groping for the ladder, and pulled the metal access cover over the hole as he retreated into the dark of the narrow ladder shaft.
By the time he had secured the cover and descended the ladder to the bottom, the concrete pipe was lit by the two torches, which the swamp dwellers had retrieved from where they had safely stashed them on the way out. They had waited in the dark until J.B. had reached bottom, then used his flint lighter to fire up the torches. They were giving off a strange hybrid smell, where the sewage water they had used to extinguish them mixed with the alcohol that had soaked into the rags. The burning effluent and the alcohol produced a roasted smell of indefinable unpleasantness, and also reduced the flame from its previous bright yellow and orange to a purple-blue.
“Fireblast, what are those people eating and drinking to make it like that?” Ryan said, pointing to the torches.
“Who knows, but we need a better light than that,” J.B. said, shaking his head. “You got any more of that alcohol?”
LaRue frowned. “Aw, man, you gotta be kidding. I’m gonna need that to get me back home.”
“We don’t get a good light, then we’re not gonna get home,” the Armorer replied, gesturing for the bald swamp fighter to hand over his canteen.
LaRue looked at Prideaux, who indicated his agreement with a brief nod. Sighing heavily, LaRue got out his canteen, took one last swig and poured the remains over the burning torches, which Prideaux held at arm’s length. Both flared brightly, causing the recce party to wince at the sudden brightness, and then settled into an orange-and-yellow flame that was possibly brighter than before. Gobbets of flaming alcohol hissed and whooshed as they dropped from the torches into the effluent.
“More like it. Let’s haul out as fast as we can,” Ryan said.
They trawled their way through the sewer, back the way they had come, until they reached the point where the broken pipe began to slope up. As they reached it, Ryan stayed them with a gesture.
“So far, so good. Now we need to check this out.”
“Let me,” Jak murmured. “Fresher than you.”
Ryan nodded. Certainly, the albino hunter looked less tired than the rest of them, and was moving with much more ease. But more than that, he had the hunting instincts to know if there was anyone watching at the top of the pipe, or a sec patrol roaming nearby, he would be able to hear and track it. The last thing they wanted was to give away their position before they were clear of the ruined city.
Having arranged to signal his return with a bird call he sometimes used on such operations, Jak left them waiting at the bottom of the pipe. LaRue and Prideaux waited anxiously, barely able to control their nerves. They were exhausted and strung out, could hardly wait to put as much distance between themselves and the Lafayette stronghold of Dr. Jean as possible. By contrast, although they were also exhausted, Ryan and J.B. felt strangely calm. They had seen what the mad baron had to offer, and they had trust in Jak to find them a safe passage back into the bayou.
They didn’t have to wait long. The call sounded softly, but still jarring in the total silence of the pipe, before the albino picked his way down.
“No sec outside. If got radio, then outside patrols not tracking back. Can hear noise inside ville walls, but figure still looking for us there.”
Ryan gave a short laugh and shook his head. “Same old shit. So arrogant in their position that they can’t figure how we could get out. Fuck ’em, let’s use that time they’ve given us.”
The recce party climbed out of the broken sewer pipe, squeezing themselves out into the narrow alleyway where the access was hidden. Moving swiftly and silently, realizing that they were, to all intents and purposes, alone in the ruined city but not wishing to make their presence obvious, they made their way by the shortest route to the outskirts of old Lafayette, passing through the ruins of West Lowellton.
They paused at the point were the swamps began to reclaim the ruined suburb.
“Okay, we need to keep it real cool and look for the sec patrols,” Prideaux muttered, still keeping his voice low, even though the surrounding area seemed deserted. “If we’re lucky, we can make it through without encountering any of them.”
“Do you know the routes they take, and how regular their passes are?” Ryan questioned.
Prideaux shrugged. “Not really. We don’t go near enough to make notes, you know what I’m saying? How about you, LaRue? Ever noticed anything like that?”
The bald fighter tugged on his beard and thought about it for a moment. “Dunno. Tell you one thing, though, they all seem to move out from their wags in a clockwise direction, spiraling, and they keep quiet the whole time. Ain’t no help, I know, but all I’m saying is that we’ve got to be real careful.”
Jak frowned. “No noise and no scent. Got to be ready to blast anything moves out there.”
There was a moment’s silence as the problem hit them in its entirety. There was no way they could plan to move around the worst of the patrols. All they could do was to quite literally trust to blind luck.
It wasn’t the greatest of prospects.
J.B. looked up at the night sky. It was starting to lighten with the encroaching dawn. “Mebbe we’ll be all right,” he murmured. “Sun should be up in about an hour, and if they come back during the day, then as long as we avoid the main paths, we should be okay. We can hear the wags, if nothing else. Other thing we need to watch is if they’ve got a radio system working in those wags.”
Ryan understood immediately, even though Prideaux and LaRue looked a little confused. “Let’s hope that they think we’re still in the ville,” he said with a mirthless grin. “Otherwise we’re gonna be running an obstacle course in a blindfold.”
“Given the choice, I think I’d rather take that right now,” J.B. replied wryly. “Let’s haul ass.”
Ryan agreed, and the recce party headed out into the swamplands, keeping close and moving in single file. They kept to the lesser used and little known paths that had been cut by the swamp dwellers during Dr. Jean’s rule. These were disguised and ran in oblique patterns to lead anyone who may stumble upon them away from the hidden settlement. Only rebels like Prideaux and LaRue knew when to diverge from them and hit other paths that had been cut.
If the sec from the walled ville of Lafayette ever stumbled across these paths, it would be by accident, and they would have little idea of their true use. However, the recce party still proceeded with triple-red caution, knowing that at any moment they could cross paths with the undetectable sec patrols.
They moved swiftly and in silence, as they had on the outward leg. There was no sign of any life on the return leg, no clue as to where the sec patrols may be, and so everyone felt the tension build on them, exacerbated by the still-oppressive atmosphere that hung like a tangible fog over the bayou. Nerve-endings jangled and heart rates exceeded the exertion of the trek.
They were well into the swamp, and skirting around the area where the swampies had gathered, when Jak stayed them with a gesture.
“Listen—in distance,” he whispered in reply to Ryan’s questioning glance.
They could hear the rumble of a wag and the whine of its engine as the gears ground to cover the uneven turf and mud of the swamp. Listening closer, there were other wags whose engine notes were farther away, but could be heard blending into the overall sound.
“Guess that settles that—they’re on their way back. About time, too,” J.B. added, looking up at the lightening skies above the canopy cover of the trees.
“Yeah. It’ll make getting home just that bit easier,” LaRue said with an audible relief in his tone.
They relaxed, but not that much, as there were still other dangers that could spring at them, they resumed their journey through the swamp. With the sec patrols safely on their way back to the walled ville of Lafayette, there were only natural hazards that stood in their way.
By the time the sun had broken over the horizon, they had skirted the treacherous quicksands and bogs within the swamp, moved past any wildlife that could have posed a threat, and avoided any roving hunt parties of swampies. They were almost home.
Home… Jak found himself thinking of the settlement in that way. Not because of the actual place, but because of the people in it: not just Marissa—although she was a part of it—but all of them. They were bayou people like himself, and ones who had opted to take the rough path rather than give in to the mad Baron Dr. Jean.
Yeah, home sounded good.
They reached the settlement and were escorted in by scouts who patrolled the area at all hours, protecting the hidden position of the ville. Waiting for them were the elders of the settlement, including Marissa and Beausoleil, as well as Krysty, Doc and Mildred. Marissa was eager for them to make an immediate report, but Beausoleil could see that they were exhausted after their mission. He overruled her, asking Mildred and Krysty to take them away and make sure they were fed and rested before any further action was taken.
All five of the recce party were grateful for that. It would give them time to recover, and also to think about what they had seen in the ville. For all of them had very different ideas about what should be done.
“NO! I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re saying that. What are you, some kind of fuckin’ stupe coward? You… Ah, I can’t believe that Jak would have anything to do with you!”
Almost spitting out the last sentence with disgust, Marissa turned on her heel and stormed toward the door of the hut. Prideaux rose and cut off her retreat, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“Hey, princess, wait and hear what everyone has to say. You can’t go around saying shit like that about people just ’cause you don’t like what they say,” he added as she pulled herself away, eyes flashing.
“I’ll say what the fuck I like,” she shouted, aware suddenly of how stupe she was making herself sound, like a petulant child. “Shit, Ryan, I didn’t mean—”
Ryan dismissed her apology with a gesture. “Doesn’t matter. It’s only words in the heat of the moment. Doesn’t change what I think.”
“Didn’t think it would,” she snapped back, eyes suddenly afire once more.
Her anger had been caused by Ryan’s considered conclusions about attacking the walled ville within the ruins of old Lafayette. After the recce party had slept for a few hours, eaten and bathed so that they felt more awake, they had convened with the elders of the settlement for a debriefing. The whole population knew what the recce party had been for, but were to be told the details after the five-man party had been able to put their views individually in counsel.
As leader of the recce party, Ryan had been the first to speak. He had detailed as accurately as he could how they had entered the ville, and what they had seen within the walls. He spoke of the square, the way in which it had been converted into a shrine to Dr. Jean, and of the attitudes of the people, and the way in which they seemed to be in a trance.
Discussing the sec cameras and the vid screens on the street corners was more difficult. The companions had a greater knowledge of the old tech than the swamp dwellers, and it was sometimes hard to make them understand just what the old tech meant in terms of attack.
Judging from the hardware he and J.B. had seen the sec patrol toting, the ville also had a good armory. With old tech surveillance and a strong sec force, plus the sheer size of the population within the ville, it would be a suicide mission to mount an attack.
“In the end, I agree with you—Dr. Jean is evil scum, and dangerous scum. If he spreads out beyond the swamp, then it could be bad news, and make things worse than they already are out there. But there’ll be more fighters out there to oppose him. Here, he’s a shark in a lake. Out there, he’s a fish in the sea. I’ve looked around here, and I’m telling you, there’s no way you have enough hardware or enough fighters to take him on in his own territory. If you could fight and run, then mebbe—just mebbe—you could make inroads on depleting his forces. But even if you could get all your people inside without being spotted on the way, you’d still get wiped out.
“Face a few facts, here. You might be against him, but you’re going to need more than that. You’re going to need hardware—where’s that coming from? And half the people here are either children or too old, like Beausoleil. Shit, he’ll tell you that himself. You need people old enough to have some fighting smarts, but young enough to still move at speed. You haven’t got that.
“Truth—it’s not our fight, and I don’t want to send my people in to buy the farm because of someone else’s fight.”
There had been a moment of silence after Ryan’s speech before Marissa exploded. Now she had calmed a little and returned to the table.
“Let’s hear what the others have to say,” she said through gritted teeth. “Mebbe they’ll have more balls.”
J.B. spoke next. In many ways he echoed what Ryan had said about the capabilities of the sec force, and the difficulties the old tech presented to any force attempting to gain access to the ville and fight. He finished up, “Have to agree with Ryan on this. There isn’t the armory here, or anywhere near enough fighters to make it anything other than surefire way of buying the farm. If I was in his position, I wouldn’t want to commit us to this.” He took off his spectacles and polished them, expecting another explosion from Marissa. It didn’t come.
Instead she asked, “LaRue, Prideaux—what have you got to say about this?”
The bald fighter screwed up his face, scratched his head and tugged at his beard. Slowly he said, “Y’know, Rissa, everything about me wants to fight them, but they scare the living crap out of me. They’ve got it nailed down tight, and even with these guys, me ‘n’ Prideaux nearly got ourselves iced in there. We could mebbe take out some of them, cause some damage, but we wouldn’t stop them.” He stumbled as he saw the expression on her face. He had been her ally in the camp, as she saw it—one of her own—and now he was letting her down.
“Fuck it, Rissa, I’d say let’s go for it if there was any chance. But at the very least we’d have to spend a lot of time training up, mebbe try to get some more hardware. It’d take a shitload of time.”
“Time’s something we’ve had a lot of, still got a lot of,” she murmured bitterly. “I suppose you’re gonna back everyone on this,” she added, turning to Prideaux.
The ponytailed fighter shrugged. “Princess, you got me all wrong. You think like I’m some kind of coward who doesn’t want to fight. You really think that after we’ve stood together and blasted fuck out of whoever was against us? Shit, babe, it’s not about that. If I’d thought we had a chance of taking on Jean and a realistic chance of kicking some ass and ending his reign, then I’d be with you. But you weren’t there, you didn’t see it. It was like Ryan said. All of it. Shit like we’ve never seen. Shit we couldn’t do anything against. It’s like I’ve said all along. There ain’t enough of us, and we don’t have the firepower. I wish we did. No matter what you think of me, that’s true.”
For once, he dropped his sardonic exterior and allowed his true self to show to Marissa. That made his words hit harder than any of the others, who she had expected to be on her side.
“Figure it’s not really worth going any further,” Beausoleil sniffed, “but I’d still be interested in what young Lauren has to say.”
All eyes were on Jak. What he had to say surprised them all.
“Figure we can take them. Not easy, but it can be done.”
There was a stunned silence. Then Krysty said, “Jak, you can’t be serious, not after everything else that’s been said. Not after what you must have seen.”
Jak fixed her with an impassive stare. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind those immobile features, but it was some moments before he answered.
“Wouldn’t understand. Not about what and what not possible. About what you make happen. Figure can take these people, work with them, make them better fighters. Take time, but what else we got but time? Mebbe even get some better blasters. Jean not going anywhere, and neither are we.”
“Jak, there’s no way you could take these people and make an army out of them—not one that could beat Jean,” Ryan said. “Fireblast man, you’ve seen what it’s like in there.”
“And you not seen what it’s like in here,” Jak replied vehemently, thumping his chest with a fist. “Can’t leave again. Once was enough. Stay and fight this time.”
Ryan said nothing. Suddenly it made sense. Jak felt he owed these people because he’d walked out on them before, back in West Lowellton. They were his history, his home. This was the place where he was raised. It was his history, his self that was being eradicated by Dr. Jean. What else could he do? How would Ryan have felt if it was Front Royal they were talking about? It didn’t take him more than a second to realize that this had nothing to do with rational thought. It was something your conscience would make you do, regardless of the consequences.
But he couldn’t let Jak’s imperative dictate what the rest of the companions should do. To stay and fight would be to buy the farm. He couldn’t agree to that.
Jak had to realize that this was going through Ryan’s mind, for he said, “Want you to stay and fight. Can do this without you, but don’t want to.”
Ryan looked at the others around the hut. J.B. shrugged. Like Ryan, he knew what a thankless and futile gesture it would be. Krysty, Mildred and Doc looked as though they couldn’t make up their minds what they wanted to do, which wasn’t surprising, as this had been sprung on them and they had all realized what it would mean if they said no.
Ryan spoke slowly, considering every word. “We’ve been together a long time, and done a lot of things that looked triple stupe at the time. But we’ve always stuck together, and not put each other knowingly in danger. But what you’re asking now is for us to stay because you want to, and do something that’s almost certain to buy the farm. I realize why you have to do this, but I’d rather you stayed with us.”
“Means you won’t stay,” Jak said flatly. It was statement, not a question.
Ryan shook his head.
“We can’t just do it like that,” Mildred exploded. “We can’t just desert Jak.”
“You didn’t see it in there, Millie,” J.B. said softly. “Jak’s doing what he has to do, but Ryan’s right. We can’t follow on to what’s a certain chill, because we don’t have the same reasons Jak does.”
“John, I wouldn’t have thought you’d give it up that easily,” Mildred said, looking at him in puzzlement.
“It’s not about that, it’s about what’s best for all of us,” J.B. replied.
“But surely it is not best for all of us if we have to leave one behind,” Doc mused. “Certainly not for that one,” he added, casting a glance toward Jak.
“That’s what they used to call democracy, isn’t it?” Krysty asked him. “Back in the day, the greatest good for the greatest number?”
“Not quite.” The old man smiled. “Democracy was about everyone having a say in how things were done, which I venture to suggest—”
“This isn’t a democracy,” Ryan interrupted. “It never has been. Trader taught me and J.B. that years ago—unity is strength, you get a leader who you can trust, and you act on what he says. Sometimes it isn’t that easy to ask everyone’s opinion. You need a fast decision, and so you have a leader to carry the can for that shit. And don’t think that this was easy.”
“My dear sir, that is the last thing I wished to suggest,” Doc said quietly. “The responsibilities of such leadership weigh heavily, and I would not wish to criticize the manner in which you have handled anything. It’s just that to leave Jak behind seems, somehow…” He shrugged.
“I know, but Jak wants to do this, and he’ll do it anyway. I have to think about the rest of us. And this would be bad for us as a group. I can’t see it any other way. And I doubt if any of you can, in truth. But if you accept me as leader, then you have to accept my decisions. That’s part of the deal. Otherwise you get a new leader, and we don’t stay together at all.”
The swamp dwellers had been watching this silently, wondering what would happen. It was Jak who broke the tension.
“Ryan right. I stay, can’t accept his decision. But the rest of you need to be strong together. No matter how much it hurt.”
“Yeah, no matter how much…and, believe me, it does,” Ryan said with a sad shake of his head.