David Robbins - Denver Run

The front rows of troopers were torn to ribbons by the initial volley from the east wall. Soldiers twitched and jerked as round after round tore their bodies apart. Dozens dropped in their tracks. But the rest came on.

Crockett moved to the left, to the north, directing and goading the defenders.

The din was deafening.

Sherry saw a dense cluster of soldiers closing on the section of wall below her position. Samson was right. The troopers were concentrating on the breach in the wall. Even with the top portion gone, 15 feet of wall remained. The soldiers would have to use the ladders.

And use them they did.

Four ladders were thrown up against the wall below the breach.

Soldiers started to climb upward while their comrades provided covering fire.

Sherry took a step forward, but before she could enter the fray and rake the troopers below, Samson reached the edge of the wall.

Resembling a magnificent titan, Samson stood in the middle of the breach, ignoring the gunfire from the enemy on the ground, and cut loose with his Bushmaster, catching the troopers on the ladders in a hail of lead, blasting them from the ladders and checking the assault.

Sherry glanced along the wall. Everywhere, defenders and troopers were embroiled in life-or-death struggles. So far, the defenders had managed to prevent any of the troopers from reaching the top of the wall.

Samson stepped back from the breach. “Reloading!” he shouted.

Sherry took his place.

The soldiers below had regrouped and were frantically mounting the ladders again. Some of them aimed at the blonde woman on the wall, their M-16’s chattering as they fired.

Sherry could hear peculiar buzzing noises. Her left shoulder jerked backward as something slammed into her. She experienced a numbing sensation, but no pain. Undaunted, she angled the M.A.C. 10 over the wall and pointed it at the troopers milling below. She squeezed the trigger and held on tight as the gun bucked in her hands.

One of the soldiers was almost to the top of a ladder. Her burst caught him in the face, and his eyes and nose disappeared in a crimson geyser.

His arms flung outwards, he toppled backward from the ladder, landing on several of his buddies below.

Sherry swung the M.A.C. 10 in a wide arc.

Four, five, six troopers were knocked to the ground as their forms were perforated by the slugs.

“Reloaded!” Samson bellowed, and shouldered her aside, his Bushmaster belching death and destruction.

Sherry ducked behind the parapet, her left shoulder stinging. She glanced at it. The fabric of her brown blouse was torn, and a rivulet of blood was pouring from the wound. She was surprised by the absence of pain.

A horrified scream attracted her attention.

About 15 yards to the north, three troopers had reached the top of the wall. One of them was hung up in the cicular strands of barbed wire attached to the top of the wall, but the other two had circumvented the barbed wire and reached the rampart, firing their M-16’s at the defenders.

Even as Sherry watched, a woman was struck in the chest; she screeched as she was hurled from the rampart by the impact, her body tumbling end over end until it splashed into the moat 20 feet below.

Sherry rose and ran toward the soldiers. They were facing to the north and didn’t hear her approach. For a moment she hesitated pulling the trigger; she had never shot anyone in the back before. A training session with Hickok flashed through her mind. One of the Family had told her Hickok was capable of killing anyone, anytime, anywhere, and for no reason whatsoever. She had questioned him about the allegation. After he finished laughing, he told her part of the statement was true. He could kill, and would kill, anyone, anytime, and anywhere, if they posed a threat to his loved ones or himself. He denied killing for the sake of killing. But, as he took care to explain, killing to protect the ones you loved, to defend your Family and your Home, was justified. And, when it came time for the killing, he said it didn’t matter how you did it, just so you got the job done. “Get the job done,” he had advised her, “or all of those who depend on you will suffer because of your failure.” For once, he hadn’t bothered to use his phony Wild West lingo.

Get the job done.

Sherry let the two soldiers have it in the back. Her bullets smashed into them, stitching patterns across their shoulders, a string of bright red dots, and they pitched onto their stomachs on the rampart.

The one hung up in the barbed wire stilt had his M-16 in his hands. He twisted and aimed the barrel at the blonde woman.

Sherry whirled and squeezed the trigger on her M.A.C.

Nothing happened.

The gun was empty!

She saw the trooper smile as he realized her predicament, and his finger tightened on the trigger of his M-16.

Sherry tensed, expecting to be riddled by bullets.

The trooper’s smiling visage suddenly exploded as the right side of his face sprayed outwards.

Crockett ran up to her, his Beretta smoking. He gripped her right shoulder. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“I’m fine!” she said louder.

The east wall was now a writhing mass of defenders and troopers. At least a dozen of the soldiers had reached the top and were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the defenders.

“We can’t hold the wall!” Crockett shouted to Sherry. “There are too many of them!”

Sherry hastily replaced the empty magazine in her M.A.C. 10.

Crockett shot a soldier endeavoring to clamber over the edge of the rampart. “We’ll have to fall back!” he directed her. “Get as many as you can down the ropes and across the moat to the trees. The other walls are probably in the same shape we are, so it won’t do any good to retreat along the other ramparts! Move!”

Sherry nodded and ran off, downing another trooper as she did. She found herself doubting the wisdom of Crockett’s decision. The other walls might be holding their own; to abandon this wall would put the others in jeopardy. Still, how could she presume to doubt his command? She was a novice Warrior, new to her position, and Crockett was her leader, the boss of her Triad, of Zulu Triad. And now was not the time to squabble over his strategy.

A soldier loomed in front of her, frantically struggling to eject a spent magazine from his M-16.

Sherry cut him in half with the M.A.C. 10 and reached a group of seven defenders involved with pushing ladders from the wall and shooting at the mass of troopers below the wall. “Get down!” she yelled at them. “Use the rope and get to the ground! Hurry!”

One of them, a tall man, eyed her quizically for a second, then ran toward the nearest rope. The others followed on his heels.

Sherry took their post at the wall, risked a hasty look-see over the parapet, and drew back.

The soldiers were packed all along the base of the east wall, five or six deep in some spots. Dozens of ladders were inclined against the wall.

Crockett wasn’t kidding.

They wouldn’t be able to hold the wall.

Sherry fired a few rounds at the troopers below, hoping to stall their ascent. She ran further north, telling everyone she met to climb down the ropes. The defenders had temporarily repulsed the soldiers; all of the enemy who had attained the rampart were dead.

But the ones below were eager to take their place.

Crockett approached her, skirting fallen figures as he neared. “Everyone is on their way down!” he told her. “Samson and I will hold them up here.

Get below with the rest!”

“My place is with you!” Sherry retorted.

“That’s an order!”

Sherry reluctantly turned toward the closest rope, attached by its sturdy grappling hook to the lip of the rampart. She didn’t relish deserting her fellow Warriors.