spit from the muzzle, cutting down the rancher even as he grabbed the butt of his own pistol.
The man toppled to the dirt with an agonized cry, his hand still locked on the pistol he had not had the chance to draw. His breath mask was shattered, blood gushing over his jaw.
All around, the other ranch hands were reaching for their own weapons, some worn proudly on their hips, others stuffed in hidden places in their waistbands or tucked into the pockets of their pants.
Irons had his blaster in his hand a moment later, reeling off shots at the nearest of the illegal farmhands as they reached for their guns. Above and behind him, the twin USMG-73s came to life on the roof of the SandCat, sending a relentless stream of bullets into the ranchers as they ran for cover. The woman with the blond dreads went down in a hail of fire, and so did another of the farmhands, his chest erupting with blood as the SandCat’s bullets drilled through him. Everyone else ran for cover, including the two magistrates, as bullets flew back and forth between the two groups.
Irons and DePaul were behind the armored side of the SandCat in seconds, a trail of bullets cutting the ground all around them.
“Quick thinking,” the older man said as his partner reloaded his pistol.
“Saw him reach,” DePaul said. “Made the decision without hesitation, the way they taught me in the academy.”
Irons nodded, satisfied with the rookie’s reasoning.
The turret of the SandCat continued to send bullets at the retreating farmers, the sound brutally loud as it echoed from the distant mesa walls. Another of the farmers went down when he poked his head out from behind a pressured canister used to collect the mutie sweat. A moment later a bullet clipped the container and it went up in a burst of expelled gas, hissing like some colossal snake as it spewed its contents into the air.
Without warning, a line of bullets rattled against the side of the Sandcat, inches from the magistrates’ heads. Both mags turned, searching for the sniper.
“Spotted someone hiding in the shadows of the rocks,” DePaul commented.
“I saw him, too,” Irons agreed. “We need to pick him off if—”
DePaul was on his feet and running toward the rock face immediately. “Cover me!” he called back.
Irons ducked as more bullets slapped against the ceramic armaglass side of the SandCat. Then he was around its front edge, blasting his sin eater again as another of the farmhands tried to sneak up on him. His play was backed by Bellevue on the turret, whose bullets cut another of the ranchers down before he could take two steps out from cover.
* * *
DEPAUL RAN, the sin eater thrust before him as he ascended the incline toward where the sniper was hiding in the long shadow of the mesa. A bullet whizzed past him, while two more flicked against the ground just a few feet behind. DePaul weaved, shifting his body left and right as more bullets cut the air. He was taking a heck of a chance here, he knew, but sometimes a chance was all you had.
The sniper kept firing, three more bullets burning the air just feet from the sprinting magistrate rookie. Then there came a lull; he guessed the gunner was reloading.
DePaul scrambled up the dry and dusty incline, his rubber-soled boots dislodging loose soil and small stones as he hurried toward the sniper’s hiding place. He saw a head appear between two boulders to his left, a flicker of silhouette glimpsed only for a moment. He ran at the nearest one, keeping his balance as he clambered up its side. The rock was fifteen feet in height and the faded orange color of sand.
DePaul reached the top in seconds, the sound of his footsteps lost in the continued reports of blasterfire coming from the ranch. He crouched down, peering over the side. The sniper was down there, kneeling behind the rock, eye to the scope of his rifle. He had dusty blond hair and wore a kerchief over his mouth and nose to stop him from breathing in the dirt that was being kicked up by the wind. He had obviously lost his target in that brief moment when he had reloaded and the rookie magistrate had clambered out of sight.
Steadying himself, DePaul leaned forward with his Sin Eater and squeezed the trigger, sending a swift burst of fire at his would-be killer. The sniper gave a startled cry as bullets rained down on him from above, but before he could react, one drilled into his skull and he sank down like a wet sheet of paper.
Still crouching atop the rock, DePaul turned, scanning the area all the way back to the ranch. The gunfire was easing now, the constant blasts replaced by occasional bursts of sound as Irons and Bellevue mopped up the last of the farmhands. There was no one else about. Whatever other security the farm had employed had been drawn into the firefight and killed.
DePaul scrambled back down the rock, marching around to its far side and checking on his target. The man was dead, eyes open but unfocused, blood pooling beneath his head. DePaul took the man’s rifle and checked him over, swiftly and professionally, for other weapons, finding a hand pistol and a knife. He stripped him of these before making his way back down to the farm compound, by which time the senior magistrates had finished containing the farmers.
“You did good today, rookie,” Irons told DePaul as he saw him approach. He was disarming the dead ranchers, tossing their guns behind him into the open door of the Sandcat. Bellevue sat on the lip of the seat, taking stock of the illegal weapons.
“Thanks,” DePaul said. “Sorry I missed the main action.”
“You got the main action,” Irons corrected. “Nailed it. That sniper woulda had both our heads if you hadn’t moved so quickly. You did yourself proud.”
“What happens now?” he asked, gazing around at the farm and the dead bodies left in the wake of the firefight. There was a scent in the air this close to the pen, sweet like refined sugar. It was mutie sweat, buckets of it, waiting to be processed and sold.
“We’ll free the muties,” Irons told him, “and leave for the birds and wolves these poor saps who thought they could take on magistrates.”
DePaul nodded. His first patrol of the Outlands had been a success.
Ten years later
“Well, this royally stinks,” Kane said as he pulled the rebreather mask from his face. Barely covering his mouth and nostrils, the mask fed oxygen in the same way a diver’s breath mask does.
Kane waded through the murky, knee-deep water that covered the floor outside the mat-trans chamber, a scowl on his face as he looked around. He had expected trouble, hence the rebreather, but it was still grim seeing the place in person. He lit the way with a compact but powerful xenon flashlight that bathed the mold-scarred walls of the control room in stark brilliance.
Kane was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early thirties, with long, rangy limbs and a sleek, muscular torso hidden beneath the second skin of his shadow suit. He was handsome, with a square jaw, and had dark, cropped hair and gray-blue eyes that seemed to take in every detail and could look right through you.
There was something of the wolf about Kane, both in his alertness and the way he held himself, and personalitywise, too, for he could be both loner and pack leader.
The shadow suit’s dark weave clung to his taut body, made from an incredible fabric that acted
