Free Iron Rage by James Axler Page A

shotgun barrel affixed beneath the pistol barrel of his LeMat revolver, shattering its upper jaw. Then he deftly stabbed it through the eye with his rapier as it wagged its ruined upper jaw back and forth, shedding dislodged, jagged teeth and sheets of blood.
    Sean and Suzan pinned a croc’s head to the soil while Avery whaled on the creature’s head with an ax.
    Targets were already getting scarce as Ryan peered across the iron sights of his Scout. He fired at one charging at Ricky from an angle, smashing its shoulder so that it collapsed writhing and snapping its jaw. Ricky turned and without batting an eye emptied the .45 ACP rounds in his Webley’s cylinder into its jaw when it opened. The croc subsided on its side with blood drooling from its whole snout onto the short, beaten-down grass.
    The smell of blood, digesting fish liberated from crocodile bellies, and burned powder of both the smokelessand ultra-smoky blasters filled the air. The crocs decided they’d had enough of eating lead—or of eating their own brothers and sisters that had been chilled or badly injured. They turned and vanished into the water with contemptuous flicks of their tails, some dragging still or feebly struggling crocs with them.
    â€œCease-fire!” Ryan yelled. He stayed on one knee with his longblaster held ready in case the monsters decided to make another try.
    All the shooting stopped. He realized the Queen ’s crew had obeyed his order as well as his own people, to whom the command was directed. Even Arliss, who had been laying into the attacking reptiles with fire from a lever-action Marlin carbine, lowered his weapon.
    Nataly rolled off Myron. Then, with her reloaded Ruger Old Army revolver ready in her right hand, she reached down and gently shook the grieving man’s shaking shoulder.
    â€œCome on, Myron,” she said gently. “It’s over. You need to get up and get away from the water now. We don’t know if or when those things will come back.”
    A shudder passed through her long, lean frame. Apparently man-eating crocodiles attacking en masse could do what unanswerable cannon fire, even when it was striking down her friends and coworkers around her, could not: shake her iron self-control.
    â€œRight, Mildred, Jak,” Ryan called. “Looks as if it’s safe to come back to shore now. Don’t hang around to hunt for crawdads, though.”
    â€œIs there any more unloading to do tonight?” Mildred asked.
    â€œI’d advise against it.” Ryan glanced at Nataly. The mate had managed to get Myron to stand and shuffle back a few yards from the water. Then he had promptly collapsed to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably once more, while Nataly stood beside him patting his shoulder uncomfortably. He seemed locked up double tight in his grief.
    Ryan couldn’t say he blamed him.
    He slung the Steyr. There were still eight croc carcasses on the beach, plus two injured too badly to pull themselves off the shore into the water. Avery quickly finished them with neck-blows from his ax. He wrenched Ryan’s panga from one of the corpses and returned it to him.
    â€œLet’s pick out some of the likelier-looking chills and butcher them. Some fresh meat wouldn’t hurt us. And does anybody even know if crocodile jerky is possible?”
    Everybody shook their head. Even Doc, which mildly surprised Ryan. Doc knew a lot of seemingly random facts about the natural world.
    â€œWhat about the others?” Sean asked.
    â€œShove them back in the water. Given what lives around here, we don’t want to be attracting scavengers. Remember, those crocs may not be the worst things that live in the area.”

Chapter Seven
    â€œSo, where do we stand?” Myron asked.
    The crew and companions were sitting around their driftwood campfire. Sitting across from him, Krysty studied the man’s face. To all appearances he was back in control of himself.
    But he was