Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Page 19

  "Gaia," she whispered as she saw Ryan moving toward the sec-door panel. She turned her head, her skin sore from the burns, and could see that the Illuminated Ones were as blinded, and in no position to fire on Ryan.

  Which meant that they were also in no position to see if anyone was ready to fire on them. If she got everyone to move triple quick, the companions could turn this to their advantage.

  "Mildred, we've got to move on them now. They can't see!" she hissed in her friend's ear.

  Tammy heard, as well, and replied, "I can't see them, either, but fuck it. If we come out blasting they won't have a chance to return it, will they?"

  "Go, girl." Mildred grinned. "As long as we blast in the right direction…" She left the rest of the sentence unsaid. In the first place it wasn't necessary, and in the second her throat felt red raw as she tried to speak in the still hot and dried out air.

  With a hoarse whoop, Tammy began to advance, reeling off blasts of laser fire in the direction of the opposition. She was followed by Krysty and Mildred, who also began to fire in the general direction of the Illuminated Ones.

  Tammy's whoop and the sounds of laser fire acted as a galvanizing influence on Gloria, Dean and Jon on the far side of the wag.

  "Hey, the wee one's going for the big one," the Gate queen yelled at the men with her. "Our Tammy's going forward. Let's get in line and get after her."

  "I still can't see too well," Dean said urgently. "How the hell can I aim?"

  "I can't see too well, either," Jon answered, "but we just need to keep firing in the right direction. Try and keep it low. We need to put that fucking big bastard blaster out of action, and there's no way we'll do it any damage unless we can knock out the tires. If it can't move, or if we can get it to pitch over, then it won't be of much use to them."

  "Okay, let's do it," Dean said, following Gloria and Jon as they progressed. They had no idea that Ryan was trying to open the sec door, but figured that one of the other party had to be trying, as there would be no sense otherwise in a forward push.

  Back at the sec door, Ryan had pulled himself upright, and was painfully aware of how vulnerable he was. He stood by the keypad that accessed the door code, squinting to try to read the numbers that were scratched on the metal plate in which the keypad was housed. The fact that human nature didn't change, and that worried sec foot soldiers still found it a fail-safe to scratch the access codes on the interior plate of every door, was something that the one-eyed man felt thankful for as his eye began to return to its normal vision, and he was able to read the numbers as he keyed them in.

  The sec door began to open, groaning into action, and he leaned heavily against the concrete pillar that framed the door. His heart was still pounding, but he could feel strength begin to flow back through his limbs as he began to breathe more normally, the oxygen reaching muscles filled with lactic acid that could now disperse, the shock of the flight and impact beginning to lessen as his resilience took over.

  Blowing hard, he turned to watch the light flood the immediate outside area. The question was, how long would it be before the remote was activated and the door began to close again? For he was sure that it would, and it was playing percentages to see if it would rise enough for the oncoming attacks to gain access before the remote kicked in.

  The door, seeming to rise with an infinite slowness in his impatience, reached the height of Ryan's head. Let it rise a foot or two more, and that would be all that was needed.

  His attention was distracted by the furor occurring farther down the redoubt tunnel. The onrush of the six people dressed in Illuminated uniforms had taken the actual Illuminated Ones by surprise. Their vision and reactions hadn't recovered as quickly as those of their opponents, and they had been completely caught out by the sudden barrage of laser fire. To this was added conventional blasterfire, as Gloria and Tammy clutched their laser rifles in one hand, and used their free hands to take pot shots at anything they could see.

  The Illuminated soldiers were unable to compete with this sudden onslaught, and were thrown into confusion by the attack. Unable to return fire, other than the desultory blast as they pulled back, the Illuminated Ones were driven farther into their own lair. Jon and Dean, keeping their blasts low, were able to blow the tires on the cannon's wag, and as the first tire went the wag tilted, throwing off the cannon crew. They didn't bother to try to remount, scrambling backward to escape the oncoming war party.

  Three Illuminated soldiers went down, injured or chilled, as laser fire cut through their flesh and bone. There was little blood, as the heat of the beams cauterized the flesh as it cut through. The others pulled back to the next sec door, taking up defensive positions as the companions advanced. Once they were safely behind the sec door, it began to descend.

  There was no way that the advancing party would reach the door before it closed, and no way that they could open it from their side…and if they did manage to get beyond, they would be at the mercy of whatever reinforcements were being sent along, having to defend their position while reopening the sec door for the Gate and Crossroads warriors who would follow.

  "Fireblast," Ryan cursed softly to himself as he tried to reason the best course of action. He had to make sure that the advance party didn't get trapped, and also keep this sec door open. His mind raced. There was only one chance, but it depended on a long shot.

  Looking up, Ryan saw that the sec door was at an optimum height. If Dean's theory proved correct, he could shoot out the circuits now and freeze the door open. He stepped back and turned, leveling the laser blaster at the keypad. How would he know if it worked or not?

  The question was answered for him as the door shuddered and then began to descend. A remote system had been used to reverse the door. Now he had no choice. He leveled the laser rifle and fired a charge into the keypad. Sparks flew as the circuit shorted out, but Ryan's eye wasn't on his target, but rather on the door. For a fraction of a second it kept moving downward, but then, with another shudder, it stopped. The one-eyed man breathed deeply, willing the door to stay put. When it remained, he let the breath out with a sigh. The light from the redoubt spread out over the territory beyond, lighting the way as dawn broke.

  The next move from outside would have to be left to J.B. There were more important matters to attend to. Ignoring the pain that still seared through the muscles along his ribs as he ran, Ryan sprinted back to the wag and jumped in through the open rear door. Inside, the circuits on the comp looked blown, blackened around the grilles and keys. The electrical starter system was probably blown, as well, which may ruin everything. Would he have time?

  Ryan seated himself behind the wheel. If the alloy shell had acted as a conductor for the blast, if it had acted in the same way a normal wag shell acted when lightning hit, then it may be that the engine systems had escaped, and the comp systems had blown independently because of the break in the maintenance ducts beneath the chassis.

  No time to try to figure it out. He could only to hope for the best. Ryan hit the self-starter.

  Once more, fate was on his side. The engine caught at the third attempt, firing into life. Ryan put the wag into gear and eased the vehicle forward. The wheels, now tireless after the jolt it had received from the laser cannon, ground on the concrete floor, sending up sparks as the wheel rims bit into the redoubt floor.

  Ahead of Ryan, through the shattered armaglass shield splintered by extreme heat, was a clear run through to the closing sec door…at least in terms of his companions, who were taking cover as they fired at the Illuminated Ones, and were almost at the point of making it past the closing sec door. The only thing that lay in his path were the few corpses and wounded, and the laser cannon itself, deserted and standing at an oblique angle, still in the middle of the corridor.

  Ryan ground his teeth as hard as he went through the gears, picking up speed rapidly as the wag's powerful engine gunned into full life, the axles protesting against the battering they were taking from the twisting wheels a
s they bit into the concrete floor, the contrary twists of the angles at which they cut into the concrete stressing the axles until it felt as though the four-wheel-drive were taking the wag in four different directions, pulling the steering almost out of the one-eyed man's grasp as he tried to keep it on a straight course.

  The cannon was a big weapon, but nothing against the gathering speed and momentum of the wag as it hit it full on, battering the chassis of the cannon to one side, the barrel flying off in the opposite direction. The power source of the cannon ignited and blew on impact, almost blinding Ryan as he covered his face with one hand, the wag veering to the left as the steering pulled at the hand left grasping the wheel. The armaglass may have been shattered, but it was still just about strong enough to protect him, and he was able to get past the cannon without too much loss of time or speed.

  "What the fuck is Ryan doing?" Gloria yelled as she heard the wag gun into life, turning to see it advancing rapidly.

  "Blocking the sec door to stop it being closed," Dean snapped breathlessly. He added, "Drive them farther back until he gets there!"

  The warriors continued to fire on the Illuminated Ones, who were now also entrenched in defensive positions, and were returning fire. The tactical blunder in leaving the cannon behind was amplified for them as the blasterfire from the laser rifle bounced ineffectively off the alloy of the wag body.

  Ryan urged as much power as possible from the wag as it headed for the ever narrowing gap between the bottom of the descending door and the concrete floor. It was a race against time, and measured in a matter of seconds. If the door descended too far, then the wag would just hit it and be crushed in the impact. Ryan had to get the wag underneath the descending door before it was too late. That was the only way that he could jam the door and maybe short the mechanism—certainly keep it open until they could secure the position and raise it from the other side of the sec door itself.

  The door loomed large across the armaglass windshield, the vista of the door and the corridor beneath— itself a narrowing band of vision—filling the whole of Ryan's vision.

  "Fuck!" he yelled in shock and surprise as the front of the wag squeezed beneath the door, beating the descent by a fraction of a second. It was also a cry of adrenalined terror—a declamation of being galvanized into action as he realized what had happened. The wag had jammed beneath the door as it fell, but the momentum of the wag had been arrested as the descending door halted the vehicle in its tracks, making the wheels scream and squeal as they bit into the concrete, forced lower by the descent of the door as it pushed down, squashing the front of the wag.

  Ryan leaped from his seat, fighting the jolt caused by the wag's halted momentum, and threw himself backward, barely keeping his balance as he reached the back of the wag.

  The sec door crushed the roof of the wag at the front, shattering the armaglass windshield beyond all recognition, driving metal onto the seat where the one-eyed man had sat a few moments before. The sec door squealed and scraped like the metal it crushed, its momentum halted by the mass jammed underneath.

  Grabbing his laser rifle—the other blasters already secured on his person—Ryan leaped from the back of the wag and raced back to cover, where he joined Krysty, Tammy and Mildred.

  "Glad you could drop in, lover," Krysty said dryly.

  "Just had a few things to do," he replied. Looking ahead, he could see that the crushed wag—driven down with such force that the rear wheels had left the ground—held the sec door open for a gap of three or four feet. There was little indication of whether the Illuminated soldiers beyond were still in cover, or whether they had retreated.

  Looking back, he could see through the open outer door, into the dawn light beyond. The larger war party was advancing.

  Chapter Twelve

  J.B. watched the door rise from his position of cover. All around him, in the semicircle around the recessed entrance of the redoubt, he could feel the tension rise, and the anticipation of the warriors for battle. And yet, it still nagged at him that there seemed to be no defenses between the covering foliage and the entrance itself. The wags always seemed to follow a well worn track, which had to, by necessity, be free of traps. Yet it would be folly to send their entire force down that track. It would make taking them out just too easy.

  J.B. turned to Dette, who had ended up beside him.

  "Listen," he said urgently, "I want you to run and pass this on. I want Jak to lead a party down the wag track, moving triple fast and keeping triple red for any attack from the redoubt—the sec cameras will see them easily. I'm taking a group around this side, and I want Doc to bring his side around in the same way. I'm pretty sure that there'll be booby traps of some kind, so we may take casualties. The only thing is that no one do anything stupe, and move up as quickly as possible, but taking precautions. Test the ground ahead as much as possible. Got that?"

  Dette smiled, her eyes flashing excitement at the thought of the battle ahead. "Sure thing. Give me just a couple of minutes to get there, yeah?"

  "Do it quicker if you can," the Armorer advised her.

  "You'll know if I have, 'cause we'll be moving up."

  J.B. allowed himself a smile. "Okay, go."

  He didn't watch the Gate woman disappear into the early light of dawn, turning instead to the warriors around him.

  "We move in two minutes max, mebbe sooner if we see a party start for the track. Don't take stupe chances. We need all of us to fight in there. I figure there'll be mines of some kind, mebbe wire traps hidden beneath the topsoil. Use sticks and stones, prodding the ground for wire and throwing them ahead to try and find mines. Last blaster check now, and gather stones, as well. Then we move on the signal."

  The group around him indicated their agreement, and as the Armorer ran through a last check on his Uzi, the M-4000 with its load of barbed metal flechettes, and checked his Tekna knife was secure for any close combat, his mind was racing. He picked stones from the soil, ready to begin pitching them to test the way ahead, and wondered what was happening in the redoubt There were so many possibilities, it would be a question of thinking on their feet when they got inside.

  He wondered if Dette had delivered her messages yet…

  JAK NODDED his understanding, his impassive visage belying the attention he paid to Dette. When she had finished, he looked around at the group of warriors he headed, and asked, "Everyone get?"

  There was a murmur of agreement, and Jak's red eyes glittered as they searched the group around.

  "You know what do," he said simply. "Give Dette time, then go fast, triple alert. Get ready."

  The warriors around checked their blasters and prepared themselves mentally for the charge.

  It depended on Dette reaching Doc's group and relaying her message in time.

  DETTE WAS SWIFT, slowed only by the need to keep cover as she traveled from group to group. She had time to spare when she reached the cluster of warriors on the far side of the arc, where Doc was waiting for word of action, his LeMat percussion pistol loaded, primed and ready.

  "How charming of you to drop in," he said smoothly when Dette arrived in the clump of foliage where they were concealed. "I presume you bring word from John Barrymore?"

  "Eh?" Dette gasped, momentarily nonplussed.

  "Don't worry about it," Cat said easily from her position by Doc. "Just tell us what you've got to."

  Dette relayed the message from J.B. Doc checked on his old chron.

  "Time to spare, as well," he commented. "I would say that you've done a fine job. Pray take a second to get your breath back while we finalize our preparation."

  "Shit, how do you ever get your breath back, the amount of words you use," Dette panted.

  "Don't worry about that, either," Cat said slyly. "You got any intelligence, you soon get used to it."

  The two women exchanged glances of mutual loathing. Doc picked up on the atmosphere and said, "Save that for those we are about to face. I would say, from your expressions, that
if you transferred that to the enemy, then you could eradicate them on your own."

  JAK LOOKED toward the area where he knew that Doc and his group were hiding. In the dim light he could see no sign of Dette. There was sparse cover between the two areas, and he knew he would be able to spot her moving among the undergrowth. Not many could have been so sure, but Jak's eyes were better attuned to the dim light, and his almost preternatural hunter's instincts could spot things that a lesser mortal might not.

  So the Gate warrior had to have reached Doc and imparted her message. The door of the redoubt had been opening as she arrived, and was now still. By his estimation, there was still a little time before the limit J.B. set for the woman would be reached. But he was certain she had reached her final destination, and was also certain that the Armorer and Doc would lead their parties out on a cue from the albino.

  Inside the redoubt, he heard the roar of the wag engine cutting across the sounds of blasterfire, both laser and normal.

  There was no time to waste. Jak made a decision and turned to his group.

  "We go," he said simply.

  Leading from the front, the albino broke cover, moving rapidly across the land between their cover and the track that led to the redoubt. He hit the compressed earth of the track, feeling the uneven surface hard beneath his feet. He was moving at speed, the .357 Magnum Colt Python clasped in his fist. He could hear the movement of others behind him, some dropping back, others keeping pace. Without bothering to look back, he could tell from the footfalls that it was the Gate warriors who were with him.

  Suddenly, from all around there came the sound of exploding mines, showering the runners with earth and small stones. Jak didn't flinch, knowing that they were safe from such devices as long as they kept on the track. He didn't dare to think of his friends and the other warriors, trying to traverse the booby trapped area. Instead, he could only focus his attention on the redoubt door ahead.