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

  Unable to keep her balance, it was all that she could do to stop herself from falling onto the panga blade as she pitched forward. Her arm out to one side, she caught it awkwardly as she fell, the blade jamming in the soil and acting as a sudden barrier to the free movement of her arm, the bone snapping as it was driven in two directions at once. The sudden pain forced a high pitched scream from the woman, and her body jolted in the opposite direction, as though an electric shock had flowed through her.

  Jak was on his feet and running toward her as she tried to recover from the pain and shock of the broken arm, which hung limply at her side. She looked up at him, the pain misting her gaze. Fumbling, she reached for the blaster that was bolstered on her hip. Jak knew that it was a Vortak Precision Pistol, capable of incredible accuracy because of its lack of recoil, and that he had little, if any, time in which to act. But the pain and shock had dulled her reactions, and she was too slow. With his last stride, Jak took a flying kick at the Gate queen, his heavy combat boot connecting with her skull at the temple. It was too high to snap her neck, but enough to fracture the bone and to render her unconscious. With a dull grunt, the light went out in the woman's eyes, and they rolled back into her head as she slumped to the ground.

  Jak was beside her before she hit, taking her head in one hand and pulling it back so that her throat was exposed. Like the rest of her, it was covered in a patchwork of sores. In his other hand, Jak had a leaf-bladed knife.

  The blade pricked her skin, drawing a bead of blood. For a moment, Jak delayed his action. Usually, in such a situation, he would have no hesitation in cutting the throat of a foe and eradicating the threat. But this was Gloria…

  He shook his head. Whoever this had once been, it was no longer the woman he had loved, and her only aim had been his chilling. He knew what he had to do.

  And yet, still he looked away as he drew the blade across her throat, opening it up and draining her life onto the soil, which drank it in hungrily, absorbing the moisture in its rich depths.

  Jak stood up and moved away from the chilled corpse, the knife—wiped swiftly on his jacket—back in its secret place.

  It was then—with the prickling of the white hairs on the back of his neck—that he became aware that he was no longer alone. Whereas there had been nothing except small mammals within the range of his senses before, now there was something altogether more menacing.

  Jak was on his feet and pivoting toward where he felt—rather than heard or smelled—the new threat to be. As he swung on the balls of his feet, he dropped into a crouch, palming one of his knives, his free hand reaching for the .357 Magnum Colt Python that he kept bolstered at his hip.

  By the time he had turned through 180 degrees, he had a weapon in each hand. But there was no way that he was prepared for the sight that met his bloodred eyes.

  For in front of him was a detachment of the sec force from the Illuminated Ones, complete with one of their high-tech battle wags. The vehicle stood motionless at the mouth of the clearing, where a narrow trail cut through the dwarf elms. No sound had revealed its approach, which seemed nonsensical. Equally, no sound had announced the disgorging of the seven sec men who stood before him. They had the one-piece, shiny battle suits that he was all too familiar with, and the outlying pair carried the laser blasters that he had seen used to such devastating effect.

  How had they arrived with no noise at all? Given that he could possibly have been distracted to some degree by his battle with Gloria to pay close attention to the slightest sound, the amount of noise made by a wag and detachment of sec would have cut through even the noisiest of hand-to-hand fights.

  Jak's stomach flipped. This wasn't real; this was a nightmare like the one he had encountered on the last mat-trans jump. It was in some way precognitive, just as that had proved to be. The albino had no doubt about that now, as the likelihood of his having two such hallucinations during a jump was remote for any other reason. But what would it tell him?

  More importantly, would he make it out of this nightmare alive? He didn't know for sure, but he had heard stories of dreams and nightmares that killed, bringing on fatal heart failure. He couldn't risk that there was any truth in these tales, he had to fight to the last.

  But against seven lined up against him? With no cover? And with two of them carrying laser blasters that could obliterate him in a second? Why not? The albino hunter knew that he had no choice but to fight, and it was odd that they hadn't simply blasted him when he was facing away from them. Could it be they wanted to take him alive and not chill him?

  If so, he had a chance.

  As that flashed through his mind, he shifted his weight from side to side, giving no true indication of what his next move may be. He would wait for the enemy to make the first move.

  And so they did. The two outlying sec men, their laser blasters trained on him, moved in a pincer movement, slow and steady steps carrying them over the springy loam. Jak's head moved from side to side, following their progress. The other five sec men strung themselves in a line and began to advance upon him. They weren't armed with blasters, but carried knives that looked like the Tekna favored by J. B. Dix. One of them carried a hypodermic syringe in his free hand.

  Suddenly Jak's mind clicked the pieces into place. The syringe carried whatever had infected Gloria, whatever had made her that way, and he was their next target. That was why they hadn't simply blasted him with the laser rifles when they had him unaware. They wanted to take him alive.

  It gave the albino an advantage, and one that he had to exploit fully. Testing their tactics, he moved lightly to one side. The sec man on the left sent a ray of light from the laser blaster that scored the earth beside him, leaving a smoking trench two feet in length.

  Jak nimbly skipped aside, his lips drawing back over his sharp teeth in a humorless grin. As always, their tactics were predictable. Even though they shielded their faces—their eyes—from view, the thoughts that ran through their minds were always visible.

  He focused on the center figure, the one who held the syringe, as well as the knife. He was their key man. Take him out of the hunt, and they couldn't fulfill their task. Then they would have to take Jak alive. That was his priority, to stay alive long enough to awaken from the mat-trans jump.

  The albino fought to clear his head. He couldn't allow such thoughts to take him over, as they could so easily distract him from the task. He needed all his wits and reactions about him to carry out his next move.

  As the line drew closer—hesitant as they could not work out why he seemed to be static—they arced even wider, so that they formed a semicircle around him. The sec team directly in front of him was now no more than a few yards away.

  Time to move.

  Jak crouched low, almost squatting and drawing as much power as he could from his whipcord calves and thighs. He had no run to gain momentum, and nothing to give him advantage in terms of height or drop, but he had no other option. This had to be as good as it got.

  With a sudden yell that broke the unnatural stillness, causing a ripple of alarm in the sec ranks and unleashing the power of his strength and skill, Jak straightened in a leap that carried him over the gap between the advancing line and his position.

  The sec soldier with the syringe and the knife saw Jak come toward him, the white hair flailing in the air, his eyes red like the blood he would spill, but could do nothing. For that all important fraction of a second, the soldier was frozen in fear and confusion.

  It was only that fraction of a second that Jak needed. He cannoned into the man and took him into a forward roll. Unlike Jak, just minutes earlier when Gloria had taken him in this fashion, the sec man wasn't ready for the assault. He fell heavily, making a muffled sound behind the visor of his helmet as the breath was driven from his body. Jak also heard the crack of bone as one of his adversary's arms hit the ground, the elbow shattering. A muffled scream, strangled by lack of air, also escaped Jak's prey.

  Following through the roll an
d coming upright, Jak swiveled to face his opponent and took the arm that still grasped the syringe—the shattered elbow was on his knife arm. The albino stamped heavily on the forearm, the pain deadened tissue causing the fingers to open. The syringe fell limply to the earth, and Jak stamped again, shattering the plastic vial and spilling its contents into the earth.

  Whatever happened now in reality, in this nightmare he had forced them to take him alive.

  This was the last thought to cross his mind before the butt of a laser blaster thudded against his skull, knocking him into unconsciousness. How the sec man had reached him without his noticing he didn't know, but then again, it didn't matter now.

  JAK AWOKE with a pounding in the front of his skull, and a succession of bright flashing lights that whirled around his head. He tried to open his eyes and raise his head, see where he was, but that only made things worse, so he let his head fall back, closing his eyes until things began to settle.

  "Oh, no, you're awake now," a harsh, guttural voice screamed. At least, that was how it seemed through the pain and the lights. Jak felt his head jerked forward by a hand that grasped his hair and pulled hard. He opened his eyes, ignoring the spinning and swirling lights that obscured a clear view of the bearded man clad in white who stood over him. The man held Jak's head in one hand, and in the other he grasped a syringe.

  Jak tried to raise his arms to defend himself, despite the weakness that ran through his body. His muscles were slow and sluggish to respond, but even so it took him no time at all to detect the restraints that tied him down to the hard bed or table on which he lay.

  "That won't do you any good," the voice rasped. "You're not going to get away from us this time. Just like that bitch whore, you're going to be our test sample. We'll see just how good this shit is, and how quick it travels. She was supposed to be our carrier, until you turned up and chilled her. Now you can be the carrier and we'll monitor you."

  "Why?" Jak managed to croak through the blur of his head and his parched throat.

  "Because we can use this to retain out rightful position in the world. The world as it is now, anyway."

  There were other questions Jak wanted to ask, but he couldn't marshal his thoughts, and his throat was too dry and cracked to force out any words at all.

  He felt the pressure of the bearded man's hand on his arm, and the pricking pain of a needle, the pressure of liquid forced into the vein.

  And then it began to fade…

  Chapter One

  Jak woke to find a similar pressure in his arm. Still halfway between conscious and unconscious, he yelled in pain and horror as he felt the needle spike him. Eyes wide open but seeing nothing, he sprang upright, hitting out around him. He felt his wildly flailing arm catch something—someone—and he dimly heard a shout of surprise and pain mixed with the crash of a human body hitting a hard floor.

  "Fireblast! He's freaking out. Hold him down!" Ryan Cawdor yelled, springing forward and grabbing Jak, pushing him down onto the bed in the redoubt sick bay.

  "Got him," J. B. Dix gritted, approaching from the other side of the bed and joining the one-eyed man in pinning Jak to the hard surface. The albino continued to yell, but it was broken by a coughing fit as he began to choke on a stream of bile that rose unbidden into his throat and mouth.

  Dr. Mildred Wyeth struggled to her feet, aided by Doc Tanner. She had fallen awkwardly and twisted her ankle, and the sudden pain as she put weight on it made her gasp.

  "If you will allow me to teach you, as it were, the art of egg sucking, then I would suggest you let me spray that ankle and apply something cold to it before it begins to swell."

  "Doc, you old buzzard, if you stop it hurting like hell on a hot day, then you can teach me anything you like," Mildred replied, seating herself gratefully on a chair. Doc smiled, his perfect white teeth giving his gaunt face a momentary resemblance to a grinning skull, before hurrying to a cupboard in order to obtain a painkilling spray.

  Meanwhile, Jak had subsided from his fit of violence, the need to vomit out the bile taking precedence in his still clouded mind. J.B. and Ryan rolled him onto his side and stepped back, allowing him to release the toxin from his body.

  "What the hell was all that about?" Ryan asked of no one in particular.

  "I don't know," Mildred replied, "but I sure as hell wish he'd found a quieter way of coming to. Ah, that's better," she added as Doc sprayed her ankle, almost instantly deadening the pain.

  WHEN JAK AWOKE, seemingly for the third time, the sick bay was in semidarkness, only one small lamp lighting the room.

  "I see you've awakened a little more quietly this time," Mildred said, getting to her feet and walking to the bed. "Which is something I'm glad for, if nothing else."

  Jak blinked, his albino eyes already accustomed to the gloom.

  "Skip it," Mildred dismissed in answer to his unspoken question. "The point is, how are you?"

  "Feel like shit," Jak croaked by way of reply.

  "Yeah, and you look like it." Mildred grinned. "You've been out for a long time. I thought you'd fallen into some kind of coma. That's why we've been waiting here for some kind of sign from you."

  "Waiting?" Jak was bewildered. It hadn't occurred to him up to this point, but it now registered with him that he was in a redoubt sick bay. How had he gotten here? He couldn't recall a time when Ryan would move his people out of a mat-trans chamber and into the main body of a redoubt without everyone being triple red and sharp.

  "Gate?" Jak asked suddenly, his guts lurching when he thought of Gloria and his bizarre dream.

  In the semidark he could see Mildred's plaits move on her shoulders as she shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I've been taking a look at the computers here and reckon that the mat-trans computers at the other base must have had some kind of fail-safe device on them."

  "Eh?" Still dazed, Jak was finding it hard to take in what she was saying.

  Mildred came and stood over him as she continued. "When we arrived, and it became obvious that you weren't going to come around, Ryan got Doc to stand guard over you in the chamber while the rest of us recced. As soon as we were out, we could see that there was only one chamber in the room, and we already knew that it wasn't as big as the one we'd used when we parted company with the Gate. And part company is exactly what we did.

  "It was pretty obvious that whatever happened, we were nowhere where the Illuminated Ones had gone, and nowhere where the Gate had ended up. We divided up and searched the redoubt. It's small as they go, and still pretty well equipped. We haven't gone for the upper levels yet, so maybe it's been left alone because you just can't get in and out of it. Whatever, it's empty and safe for now, so we set you up here so I could examine and monitor you. Speaking of which…"

  Mildred began to test Jak's reflexes and check his vital signs. The albino youth was silent while she carried out her tasks, waiting until she had finished before speaking.

  "So we're on our own?"

  Mildred nodded. "Seems like the Illuminated Ones computers had an automatic reset to send the contents of the mat-trans to a random redoubt unless it was operated manually. We're here, God alone knows where the Gate tribe is, and the Illuminated Ones are safely wherever the hell they wanted to be. Which is just the way they wanted it."

  "And me?"

  Mildred sucked in breath through her teeth. "That's a good question. You know as well as any of us that you always take a while to come around from the strain of a jump. But this time it seems that you went into some kind of deep trance, almost like a coma. You were completely unresponsive and there was nothing I could do."

  "How long?"

  "We've been here four days," Mildred replied, shocking Jak. He didn't realize that he had been unconscious for so long.

  "Know where we are?" Jak asked. "Not yet. Not until we try and get out." Jak closed his eyes. He needed to get his strength back. Every fiber of his body was aching, and as he closed his eyes, leaving Mildred to exit the sick bay, he felt
waves of sleep wash over him; sleep that was devoid of dream, good or bad.

  "IT'S A BASTARD this has happened," J.B. muttered as he surveyed the armory of the redoubt. The walls were lined with racks where rifles, machine pistols, lightweight antitank blasters and grens should have stood. Instead there were only the remnants of trashed plastic-and-carbon fiber, the rusting remains of scrapped metal. The last scavengers or inhabitants of the redoubt had stripped the armory and then destroyed whatever was either too much to carry or simply surplus to requirements.

  For the Armorer, the sight of deliberately destroyed weapons was like sacrilege. His obsession was to keep as much of this old tech as possible in good working order—not just because it was essential to survival in the Deathlands, but also because he could see beauty in the varieties of weaponry, and the ways in which they worked their art of chilling.

  Ryan Cawdor stood by his friend, his single, piercing blue orb taking in the destruction.

  "Whoever was last here didn't want to give any help to those who came next, that's for sure," he stated.

  The armory was on a higher level of the redoubt than those they had been inhabiting since their arrival. The dorms, showers, kitchens and sick bay had been in fairly good condition, with enough supplies remaining to keep the seven companions alive, clean and fed while Jak recovered from his postjump trauma. His strength had returned quickly, and only a few days after his awakening they were ready to leave.

  Which was just as well, as already the supplies of self-heats were running low. Also, the heating of the water in the shower blocks was prone to be erratic, leading to a few scalding or freezing encounters. The heating and air conditioning, which were also supposed to be comp controlled, had also shown some signs of falling into decay, with sudden switches in temperature, and the presence of dust in some of the rooms that should have been taken from the atmosphere by the air recyclers.