Perception Fault by James Axler Page A

to have hit something incendiary or explosive, because there was a dull whump and the wag suddenly erupted in a large fireball, tossing the rest of the nearby green shirts through the air, many of them also on fire.
    The explosion made every head on the hill look their way. Cranking the wheel hard left, Ryan gunned theengine, trying to reach the top of the hill as fast as possible. The crack of multiple small-arms fire roared in his ears as Krysty, Mildred, Jak, Doc and Rachel unloaded on the nearby soldiers, caught flat-footed with no cover except the featureless, unforgiving ground.
    The roaring mil wag, bristling with weapons, rampaged through the herd—a herd armed with blasters, but a herd nonetheless. Although a few managed to draw or aim their weapons, they were either cut down by bullets or mowed down by the vehicle itself, Ryan plowing through them in his relentless quest to reach the top.
    J.B.’s machine gun stuttered out its relentless death song, hammering another mil wag trying to make a run at them, this one unfortunately topless, especially for the men inside. They didn’t make it within fifty yards before the heavy slugs turned the driver and passengers inside to bloody corpses. The Armorer put another short burst into the front grille, the burst of steam jetting from under the hood confirming another one down.
    By now other vehicle-mounted blasters were coming into play, with streams of bullets kicking up dirt and grass near the fleeing wag. Ryan jogged the wheel left, trying to zigzag up the slope, but almost put them into the side of the rocky escarpment for his trouble.
    “Almost out. Mebbe fifty shells left!” J.B. shouted from above.
    “Keep hitting them—we’re almost there!” Ryan was hunched over the wheel, trying to will the shrilling engine to carry the wag the last dozen or so yards to the top. Bullets spanged off the armor, small pings of blasterfire interspersed with heavier ponks of automatic rifle round ricocheting off the armor plate.
    “Shit!” Jak pulled himself back inside from the turret, clutching his bleeding arm. “Bouncer got me!”
    “Doc, cover fire!” Ryan could see the top of the hill now, but the engine was making unhealthy grinding noises. Doc’s LeMat boomed, and he heard screams from outside, followed by a more ominous lack of noise—the .50-caliber blaster on top wasn’t firing anymore.
    “I’m out!” J.B. shouted.
    “We’re over!” Ryan exclaimed.
    Unfortunately, although they had crested the hill, they were far from being out of danger. The other side leading down to a refinery was not choked quite as much with fighters or wags, but there was enough to make them pause, all of them charging up the hillside. In the distance, on the other side of the mob, was a ville wreathed in smoke and fire, behind what looked like a long wall made of some kind of crushed ruins of cars blocking the streets, forming a ten-foot-high barrier. How his group could reach it alive, Ryan barely had an idea.
    “Hold your fire!” he hissed at his group just as the nearest green shirt reached the window.
    “What the hell’s going on over there?”
    “Ambush by people from the hills. We got wounded we’re bringing back.” Ryan nodded at Jak, who picked up on the cue, and moaned loudly, clutching his arm.
    The soldier drew back at Jak’s appearance. “Never seen him before.”
    “New conscript—just got him in our unit last week. Look, they need reinforcements quick. Get over there and help them. We gotta fly!” Ryan released the brake and stepped on the gas, letting gravity help get the overloaded wag moving.
    “Make a hole! Wounded coming through!” the green shirt shouted after them. Men and wags moved out of the way as the vehicle began to descend the hill.
    “Pretty clever, Ryan,” Mildred acknowledged while reloading her Czech target pistol and snapping the cylinder shut.
    “Yeah, well, we aren’t even close to out of the woods yet.” Ryan heard shouts and