Doomsday Warrior 12 - Death American Style by Ryder Stacy Page A

heat the poisoned and pitted landscape that was the new America. She had been afraid there might be trouble—with the anger of some of the Council and the crowd at the meeting early that morning. But no one was quite able to muster the will or gumption to take on Ted Rockson—and his five-man team of combat hardened strike troops. No way, Jose. Rock himself wasn’t sure if he would have defied the Council if the second re-vote had gone against him—instead of in his favor. He was glad he didn’t have to find out. This time.
    The rest of the Freefighters had already gathered and were waiting for Rockson when he showed up, Rona by his side. The five men looked at one another with quick knowing glances and their faces softened into grins. Rock had been at it again. If the guy wasn’t out somewhere blowing up mountains, he was in bed with Rona. The woman had the energy of a she-lion. But not a man among them wouldn’t have had to admit he was a little jealous. For she was probably the most beautiful woman any of them had ever seen.
    Archer, the seven-foot-tall near-mute, who Rockson had rescued from a quicksand pit years before, was already atop his huge mount, the largest of all the ’brids. But even this steed, with the weight of 350 pounds—and a load of fighting gear on its back—had a decidedly pale look on its furry face. The huge mountain man tested the wire of his homemade crossbow. It had been giving him trouble lately, but he had tightened a few things here and there and . . . He took a steel arrow from a quiver on his back and fitted it into the firing slot of the immense crossbow. A small handle that worked through a simple but effective gear system easily pulled back the piano wire, so that the steel bow bent far back and locked in place. Archer lifted the bow to his right cheek and sighted around the departing chamber, filled with stables, supplies and hybrids. He pretended to take out a few of the whining animals at the far end of the place. And then, satisfied that all was in working order, put the weapon on its strap back around his shoulder and looked over at the rest of them, anxious to set off. He jammed down his floppy leather hat in anticipation of wind as they exited the fortress.
    To his left, Chen, the Chinese-American martial-arts expert and fighting teacher of Century City, leaped up in a single smooth motion onto the back of his ’brid. He had always been an expert at the martial arts, gymnastics—but he had never gotten to work on his rodeo-relationship with the hybrid horses until just recently. He had been working out along with some of the other “cowboys” of the place on perfecting his riding skills—leaping mount and dismount were two of them. Though no one seemed to particularly notice. Chen sat atop his black-and-white ’brid and checked his weapons pack. The fighting expert, Rockson’s oldest and closest friend in the world, felt most alive when starting out on a mission. He hated to admit it to himself, for he had always counseled moderation and not to take pleasure in violence. But it wasn’t really the violence that drew him, so much as just being out there. Alive, all senses on full alert. And yes, when it came down to it, testing his strengths, his skills against other men, other creatures. For wasn’t that what life was—a challenge? A challenge between all things on the planet, for supremacy.
    To his side, McCaughlin—cook, “doctor,” woodcutter—a bear of a man, and not getting any smaller as time went on, was loading the last of the kitchen supplies onto his two pack hybrids. The men always made fun of him when he loaded up the damned clanking pots and pans, the slabs of bacon and elk fat, spices and powders. They laughed now—but they wouldn’t later, not when they were in the middle of nowhere, sweating it out in the broiling sun, stomping through mud. Then the steaming chow he served up was the most delicious damned stuff on the face of the earth. Thus