Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [101]
“Keeping up with the expedition isn’t going to be a problem, Red.”
“I know.” Hella stayed focused, sweeping the surrounding landscape in case some of the Sheldons had scattered and gotten lost.
“We can travel faster than they can, but they’re going to maintain the tactical advantage. More men. More guns.”
“I know. But there has to be something we can use to shift that. This is our world. We know this place better than they do. And there’s a whole lot of distance between here and where we got them. We’ve got days to think and plan.”
The expedition moved out early the next morning.
From her position high in the mountains, Hella watched the ATVs grinding cross-country through her binocs. She reached down and shook Stampede awake. “They’re on the go.”
Stampede glanced at the eastern sky and saw the sun was barely up. “Got an early start.”
“Probably didn’t sleep after last night.” Hella continued watching the line of hardshells and ATVs snaking through the forest. She caught only glimpses of them, but the overall movement of the expedition was plain. Disturbed birds took off from treetops as the noisy vehicles neared, creating a visual marker system to the trained eye.
“They’re navigating by GPS, not maps.” Stampede stood and stamped his hooves to work out kinks in his legs. “That’ll slow them down too.” He scratched his chin, and his ears twitched. “Why would Pardot do that?”
Hella didn’t have an answer either. She and Stampede had created maps of the area and given them to Riley as they’d traveled. There were no real trade trails through there, but the expedition could get to one if they traveled north.
“Maybe they’re staying off the trade routes, hoping to lose us.” Stampede shifted his gear. “Could be Pardot is thinking we might try to rob him.”
“The two of us?”
“He could be worried that we could convince someone on the trade routes to throw in with us.” Stampede rolled his head, and his massive neck cracked. “Let’s get moving. We’ll find out soon enough. With them moving on not enough sleep, they should break for camp early this evening. At the very least, they’ll be fatigued tonight. That’ll work to our advantage.”
Hella rode Daisy and the forest around them became an endless sea of green leaves and gnarled bark. The mountain boomer’s movements still caused twinges of pain to skyrocket through Hella. She undressed her wound and worked on it some more. She expected to have it healed completely in another two or three days.
That knowledge filled her with hope, but she knew the task she and Stampede had set for themselves was almost impossible. She wondered if it would be better if they just cut their losses and didn’t try a rescue attempt.
Even trailing the expedition in a tandem fashion exposed them to danger they might not see coming. Another group, possibly the Sheldons from the previous night, might discover the group and try to close in on them. The first thing they would find would be Hella and Stampede.
If the new group found them, they’d try to kill them quietly to get them out of the way. Failing that, they’d just open fire and chase Hella and Stampede back into Riley’s security team. The welcome there probably wouldn’t be any less lethal.
A rock and a hard place pretty much summed up the potential situation.
Early that afternoon, a line of dust to the west drew Hella’s attention. She pulled her binocs from her chest pack and studied the terrain.
“Something?”
“Dust to the west.”
“How far out?”
“Maybe a couple klicks.” As she watched the movement of the dust, the way it constantly hung in the air, Hella grew more confident and more afraid that the dust meant there was another group in the area.
Stampede clambered atop a nearby stand of rock and took out his telescope. “There’s someone out there. Looks like a sizable group.”
“A group that big, you’d think they were a trade caravan, but there aren’t any trade routes there.”
“Could be another highwayman