Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Read online

  Damn and fireblast. He'd have to trust his own instincts, which were screaming at him to be triple red right now, and hope that the others would catch the inflection of the voice.

  Because—and he didn't know how—something seemed to have gone wrong.

  There was no more time for reflection, or for any kind of consultation, as the outer sec door began to open. The light from inside the redoubt—a fluorescent strip that was garish in the outer, predawn atmosphere—spread across the wag and the surrounding ground. Ryan had to squint as the light penetrated the windshield of the wag, and for a moment he was unable to see clearly into the tunnel of the redoubt. He blinked quickly, willing himself to be able to see into the tunnel.

  The sec door opened to its full extent, and the light from within lit the area, extending to the edges of the cover where the Gate and Crossroads warriors waited. J.B. cursed the extent of the light, as he was sure that there would be sec cameras scanning the immediate area, and the light would make them more visible than he would have wished. But the Gate were experts at making the most of any cover given, and as he glanced around, he felt sure that their security had been maintained.

  In the wag, Ryan's eyes adjusted to the light, and he could see that the corridor ahead was clear. There was no welcoming party, hostile or otherwise, and the empty corridor extended for a couple of hundred yards before coming to a close at the next set of sec doors.

  Thinking rapidly, Ryan considered it likely that this would be a regular precaution: to not open up the rest of the base until the outer doors had been secured. But something still didn't seem right. He was distracted by a tap on his arm and turned to face Dean, who was gesturing toward the radio speaker.

  Ryan listened. The distorted voice was hard to understand, even though the earpieces on the helmets did allow outside sound to filter through, amplifying it to allow for the layer of metal and insulation between the hearer and the outside world. The problem was, they seemed to be individually adjustable, and there hadn't been enough time to set the level as each of the companions in the wag would have wished. Ryan had to strain to hear.

  "Evan? What the hell is wrong with you people? Am I supposed to keep the doors open all damn day? Get your asses in here!"

  Unable to voice his feelings or canvas opinion, Ryan swore softly and put the wag into gear and advanced into the corridor of the redoubt.

  STILL OUTSIDE, watching the wag enter and the outer sec door close, bringing the darkness of predawn down upon them once more, Yardie turned in his hiding place to face Doc and Nita, who were waiting with him.

  "Shit, what do we do now?" he asked.

  "We wait until they get the door up again, and then we fight," the blond Gate warrior replied.

  "But what if they don't?" the fat Crossroads sec chief asked.

  Doc smiled slowly and without humor. "Then, my dear sir, we have a conundrum to which we have to find a solution within a very small time frame."

  "Eh?" An uncomprehending Yardie looked pleadingly at Nita.

  "I think he means we have to move triple fast and work it out as we go along," the blonde replied.

  "Succinctly put, my dear," Doc said with serenity. "Now let us keep watch, so that we may not miss any opportunity."

  PULLING UP just inside the main sec door, Ryan kept the engine ticking over and waited. He felt the need to keep the wag near the main sec door so that one of them would be able to key in the sec-door code and open it up as quickly as possible. He also had a knot of tension in the pit of his stomach that told him not to get too close to the menacing blankness of the next sec door. He had a feeling that his battle plan was about to throw a loop. His instincts were telling him that the Illuminated Ones had tumbled to their true identity, though he couldn't work out quite how they had given themselves away.

  The seconds crawled past with an agonizing slowness, the tension in the wag making it seem all the more oppressive. Cursing to himself again, louder this time so that it could be heard—albeit muffled—by the others, Ryan pulled off the metal and Plexiglas that had been stifling him.

  "Fireblast, that feels better!" he exclaimed.

  "Something's wrong, right?" Krysty asked as she removed her helmet, shaking loose red, sentient hair that refused to unfurl and uncoil. It was obvious that her mutie sense had picked up some danger, and it only confirmed Ryan's own suspicions.

  "Reckon so," the one-eyed man replied. "Why aren't they here to greet us, if we're the long lost wag crew?"

  "Hot pipe, it's my fault," Dean said bitterly. "If I hadn't got the radio going again they wouldn't have had the chance to get in contact, and they wouldn't have figured out that we weren't the real deal."

  Ryan shook his head. "No, I figure that mebbe that didn't matter too much. Without the radio, they still could have been suspicious about us. Blaming yourself is just going to waste time and energy. We're here, we need to get the sec door open again and we need to cover our backs while we do it."

  "One thing," Tammy said in a small voice. "Even if we get the sec door open again, what's to stop them shutting it like they did when we came in?"

  "She's got a point," Mildred said. "If they're using a remote system, we need to keep the door up once it's up."

  Ryan turned to Dean. "Would a remote system and the manual keypad be on the same circuit?"

  The younger Cawdor, who had learned some pre-dark electronics at the Brody school, pondered this for a brief moment. "Mebbe, mebbe not. Even if it isn't, you shoot enough of a charge into the hardware and you'll blow out all the circuits. Get it up, then use the laser blaster on the keypad and the resulting charge should short out every piece of fiber optic or wiring in the system."

  Ryan nodded. "Okay, so we know what to do when the door is up. Let's get to raising it."

  "Wait! What the fuck are they doing now?" Gloria asked, staying the one-eyed man with a hand on his arm.

  While he had been speaking, Ryan had been facing away from the windshield, with the other occupants of the wag watching him. Only the Gate queen had been watching through the windshield, keeping her eyes on the sec door that lay a couple of hundred yards from them.

  At her words and her touch, Ryan swung around, bending low over the dash to get as wide an angle as possible on the area in front of them.

  The sec door was beginning to rise. For the first couple of inches, there was little that could be seen through the narrow gap that made any sense. But as the door rose higher, the one-eyed man was able to discern several pairs of legs, and also the wheels and undercarriage of what seemed to be a small wag…not a personnel carrier of any sort, but rather some sort of attack wag, possibly heavily armed and wheeled for ease of transportation.

  It was not a sight that boded well.

  "Shit, we've got real problems," he said quietly. "It looks like they're bringing up some heavy hardware."

  "And we're sitting targets in here," Gloria added. "Guess it's time to check our own hardware."

  "You got that right," Ryan agreed as he checked the laser blaster, and also his SIG-Sauer and Steyr, which had been sitting on the floor of the wag. All those in the Illuminated uniforms had brought their own blasters with them, keeping them in the wag. The original plan had been to exit the wag with the laser blasters and with the helmets in place, apparently the returning Illuminated crew. Only when they had opened the sec door and begun to establish the bridgehead in the redoubt would they collect their own blasters, with which they felt much more comfortable in battle. But now, if they were going to stand any chance and come out fighting, then the only thing that they could do was to load up with their own trusted weapons and hit the ground firing.

  It was as they were checking their own blasters that the voice came to them, blaring and distorted over a loudspeaker from beyond the opening inner sec door.

  "Whoever you are, come out without your weapons and you won't be harmed. We have no wish to chill you, only to expel you from our base."

  "Yeah, right," Mildred mutte
red, "maybe you do, but only when you've dosed us with your foul pox so that we can spread it."

  "I'd rather go out fighting than let them do that," Tammy agreed. "They've tried that shit on us already."

  Ryan looked at the warriors gathered around him. His face was set and grim. Were they ready? He turned to look out of the windshield at what they would encounter. The inner sec door was now almost fully raised, and he could see that there were twelve Illuminated soldiers lined up against them, with the center of the corridor taken up by a motorized blaster that was on wheels because of its sheer size. Like a laser cannon, it stood imposingly dead center, manned by two Illuminated Ones, making a total of fourteen adversaries that the companions on the wag were facing.

  Ryan was aware of a presence at his side and inclined his head to see that he had been joined by Jon. The young Armorer was appraising the laser cannon, and although he had been silent up to this point, he now felt on territory where he had a right to comment.

  "See that giant bastard?" he asked rhetorically. "If that has power in relation to size like these—" he patted the laser blaster he was holding "—then we are in deep shit if we stay in here."

  "Even with the strength this wag has?" Ryan queried.

  Jon nodded curtly. "I've tried and tested these fuckers to see what they can do, and if that works on the same principle, with it being that size, it'll either cut through us like a panga through mud, or it'll heat the metal so much that we'll fry in here."

  "Not much of a fireblasted option either way," Ryan gritted. "There's only one thing that we can do."

  "Sweets, I think we've all gathered that," Gloria said. There was a resignation in her tone that was belied by the flush on her cheeks as she turned and kicked open the back of the wag. "When there's no chance, honey, then there's nothing to lose," she yelled as she jumped out of the back of the wag and dived for cover behind one of the reinforced concrete buttresses that held up the roof of the redoubt. They were positioned every few yards, and had often been of use as cover in a firefight.

  Never more so than now. The Gate queen was in position before the Illuminated Ones had a chance to register her action, and she moved from cover long enough to loose off a couple of laser blasts in their direction.

  There was no time for her to take aim, but the Illuminated soldiers were so densely clustered on either side of the laser cannon that it was inevitable that a double blast in the general area would do some damage. One soldier was chilled as he was taken unaware by a blast that hit him directly in the middle of the chest, burning a hole in his uniform and flesh that caused a plume of smoke to rise from him as he fell, his scream high and anguished. Inside the redoubt, although still in the one piece uniforms, the Illuminated soldiers were without the protective helmets they wore on the outside, and so it was easier to see which were male and which female.

  It was a woman who escaped a little more lightly with the second burst of fire. Realizing that Gloria's aim was restricted, and therefore more likely to be in the same area each time, the other Illuminated Ones who were clustered on her side of the laser cannon began to seek cover, either falling flat or running to dive behind a concrete pillar. It was while attempting to find this cover that the Illuminated woman was injured. Tall and heavily built, with long blond hair that was tied back in a tight ponytail, she was slightly slower than her companions, and as she dived for the cover of the concrete, she twisted awkwardly in the air. Although that didn't save her from great pain and injury, it did possibly save her life, as Gloria's second laser blast cut through the air and scorched across the woman's shoulder as she twisted. If her passage had remained straight, it would have burned through her ribs and barbecued her internal organs. As it was, her scream and subsequent sobs as she hit the floor told of an injury that was painful, but not fatal.

  Gloria's covering fire was the cue that Ryan needed to rally his troops.

  "Tammy, other side, yeah?" he yelled. The Gate number two assented and dived out of the back of the wag, throwing herself in the opposite direction to her queen so that she could take the other flank of the Illuminated Ones. She rolled and came up firing indiscriminately, three sharp bursts that went over the heads of the soldiers as they took cover, but nonetheless prevented them from firing on her as she gained cover.

  The Illuminated soldiers on the laser cannon directed the nozzle toward the wag and let loose a burst of laser fire. The air seemed to become dry and charged as the cannon prepared to let loose, and in that fraction of a second Gloria yelled, "Jump!"

  In the interior of the wag, none of those left needed to be told that an exit was imperative.

  "Go! Go!" Ryan yelled, pushing toward the rear of the wag.

  Mildred and Dean were nearest the rear. The young Cawdor leaped out, landing on the run, keeping to his feet and turning to fire a covering charge from the laser blaster as he sought cover. It diverted fire from Illuminated soldiers who were aiming at himself and Mildred—they pulled the shots upward as they dived to avoid Dean's blast, and their charges hit the ceiling, bringing down a layer of concrete dust and plaster on Mildred, who wasn't so fortunate as she left the wag. Her reflexes and balance upset and slowed by the onset of the disease, she landed awkwardly, stumbling and falling on her side, her elbow twisting inward to knock the breath from her. She seemed to have no energy as she tried to rise to her feet, everything seeming to happen about her in slow motion.

  She was vaguely aware of the strong hand that gripped her upper arm, hauling her up and flinging her against the wall behind Tammy. Panting heavily, Mildred focused on Krysty, who had followed her out of the wag and had grabbed at her as she passed by.

  "Thanks," Mildred gasped. "Told you I wasn't up to it."

  "I'll cover you. You're the only one who can find the antidote," Krysty replied, snapping off a couple of bursts at the Illuminated Ones, who were now also safely in cover.

  Jon followed Krysty and dived to the other side, coming up behind Dean and Gloria, firing as he arrived in cover.

  Which only left Ryan. The one-eyed man was last out, and was reaching the rear of the wag when the air ceased to crackle and hum, and the brilliant laser burst of the cannon was loosed on the wag, the air split by a high pitched whine and the singing of overheated metal as the charge hit the wag full on.

  "Holy shit—look at it!" Mildred yelled at no one in particular, shocked at the way the charge affected the wag. Jon had been right in his supposition that the laser charge would either split the wag in two or cause it to act as some kind of superconductor, heated beyond belief by the charge that coursed through and across the alloy shell of the vehicle. The metal glowed red then white, the heat making the air around them shimmer, causing minute blistering on any exposed flesh on the arms, legs and torso, and making their faces red and burned, singeing hair.

  "Ryan!" Krysty yelled, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight, even though her eyeballs felt as though they were dried out by the suddenly hot air around her.

  For a fraction of a second, in the brightness of the glowing wag, it seemed as though there was no way that the one-eyed man could have escaped. But only for a fraction of a second.

  As the charge was loosed from the wag, Ryan was but two steps away from diving out of the wag and hitting the concrete floor at the rear. His intent, knowing that the others were safely out and covering their positions, was to head directly for the outer redoubt door, hit the code and then short circuit the system once the door was fully raised. He knew that it would leave him exposed while he was at the sec-door panel, but figured that the others could cover him, and any stray fire that hit him would be down to fate.

  Fate had something a little more convoluted in store for him. As the charge hit the wag, he was preparing to throw himself out of the back, his muscles tensed to make the leap. He was suddenly aware of a cone of silence that enveloped him, as though he were at the eye of a storm. He felt an immense heat grow rapidly, the metal under his feet and around him seeming to expand
as time itself seemed to slow. The inside of the wag glowed red through to white, spreading along the length of the wag interior, and as his last footfall hit the floor of the wag, it seemed that his sole and heel burned red-hot and painfully through his heavy combat boot. The expansion of air, like the metal, that had spread along from the front of the wag hit him as he started to leap, carrying him out of the back of the wag as though a giant hand had taken him and shoved hard in the small of his back, propelling him in a manner that left him with no control over his final destination.

  The heat and force drove the air from his body, his lungs sucking painfully for what they could extract from the superheated air surrounding him. He shot across the concrete, landing heavily and coming up with a sickening thud against the door of the redoubt, the concrete and metal somehow strangely soothing to his burned and heat sensitive flesh. His ribs cracked and strained at the impact, having no air to drive out, but not allowing any more to enter.

  Such had been the momentary brilliance of the blinding light that none of his companions had seen him leave the wag and land so badly. But neither, also, had the Illuminated Ones who opposed them.

  Expecting a hail of fire to hit his exposed position at any moment, Ryan fought against his own body to try to pull himself to his feet. His skin was hypersensitive and his muscles ached. His ribs protested and his knees refused to unbuckle, but still he persisted. There was no fire directed toward him, and he had to use every last moment he had to try to get the door open.

  There was no fire for the simple reason that the Illuminated Ones were as blinded by the laser cannon fire as their opponents. Until their eyes had adjusted to the sudden diminution of light, there was no way that they could see the wag as it went rapidly back from white to red to black, let alone see Ryan struggling to his feet and moving toward the sec-door panel.

  Too shocked to scream at the thought of losing Ryan, Krysty was the first to spot him, willing herself to see through the red mist of dots that speckled her vision postblast.