James Axler - Sky Raider

“Odd,” Krysty whispered. “There doesn’t seem to have been any fighting up here.”

“Mebbe whatever caused the madness never reached this level,” Ryan said, sucking his hollow tooth thoughtfully. “Or—”

“Or this is where it started,” she finished for him.

“Yeah.”

A sharp whistle cut the air, and the two spun around, automatically taking a step to the side to throw off the aim of an enemy. Then they saw J.B. and Mildred coming out of the tool room near the fuel pumps. He was carrying a handful of road flares, and she was tucking a roll of duct tape into her open med kit.

“Any sign of Doc and Jak?” Krysty asked as their friends joined them, tucking away her weapon.

“Not yet,” Mildred said, tying shut the flap on her med kit. “But knowing that old coot, he’s probably grabbing a snack in the kitchen.”

“Hope so,” Ryan added, walking among the rows of wags. “We’re low on food. Only got a couple of cans left.”

“Find any MRE packs?” J.B. asked, tucking flares into his munitions bag.

Rattling the door to the pickup, Ryan shook his head. “Nothing. Even the armory was stripped bare.” Then he grunted in remembrance and pulled out the box of cartridges.

“Here you go, 12-gauge,” he said, tossing it over.

“Thanks,” J.B. said, making the catch and placing the ammo alongside the flares.

“Well, we found some soldiers wearing gas masks,” Mildred said, and then told them about the sandbag nest.

“But they went insane, too?” Krysty said, resting a cowboy boot on the fender of a car. In the bright fluorescent lights, the embroidered pattern of winged falcons could be dimly seen through the layers of dust and dirt. “So either they put the masks on too later—”

“Or else they didn’t work. Yes, exactly.”

“Gaia protect us,” the redhead muttered.

“Amen to that,” Mildred added grimly.

Stepping over a corpse in greasy coveralls sprawled on the floor, Ryan tried the handle on a sports car. Opening the door, he got hit by an exhalation of trapped air that sighed out carrying the smell of rotting leather and dust. He quickly closed the door. There was rarely much to scav in an ordinary wag.

Spotting the fuel pumps in the far corner, J.B. started maneuvering through the vehicles. If the pumps were still sealed, they might be able to get a few of these machines going again. If Doc and Jak didn’t find anything in the kitchen or galley, they would have to go hunting outside, and wags would let them cover more ground in shorter time. With luck, there might even be a ville nearby where they could trade with the local baron. A single working wag and a can of juice would buy more food than the companions could carry in a week.

“Hell of a lot of wags here,” Ryan stated, sounding suspicious. “It’s as if everybody drove inside, parked their cars, then went downstairs to go insane.”

“Come on, let’s check the mil wags,” Ryan suggested, getting back to business.

Going to a workbench, the three took some tools, then walked over to the wire fence. With a hammer and chisel, Krysty notched the padlock holding the gate closed, then Ryan easily smashed the lock open with a sledgehammer. The noise echoed loudly across the still garage.

As the chain snaked noisily to the floor, Mildred swung the gate open as Ryan and Krysty walked into the motor pool.

Separating again, the two circled the vehicles to make sure the area was clear, then started checking the machines. Choosing a Hummer, Ryan went to the back for the emergency kit. Sure enough, the box was there and still sealed. Forcing it open with his panga, he extracted a small first-aid kit, some road flares, a thermal blanket, three MRE food packs and a gun case. Opening the black plastic box, he found a Veri pistol coated with Cosmoline gel. The flare gun would need a good cleaning before it could be used, but it seemed in perfect shape, and there were six flares nestled in the soft gray foam cushioning alongside the pistol. Three of the aerial flares had split along the sides from age, but the others were intact, and the plastic tubes felt resilient when he gently squeezed. As a blaster, the flare gun was pitiful, but it made excellent trade goods.

Smashing open a locked window with the butt of her blaster, Krysty was already checking inside the cab of the half-track as Mildred pawed through the contents of another Hummer.

“Anything good in the first-aid kit?” Krysty asked.

“No.” The physician sighed, tossing the open box back into the wag. “It’s all useless. Just too damn old.”

“Well, I found a few grens.”

Excellent! Any ammo?” Mildred asked.

“No.”

“Damn.”

Just then, the concrete floor shook with a low rumble.

“Is that a quake?” Krysty asked, looking over a shoulder, her hair flexing as if stirred by secret winds.

“No, too weak,” Ryan snapped as the sound increased in volume and strength.

“Mother of god…that’s the blast door!” Mildred gasped in astonishment, dropping an ammo box. It hit with a crash, spilling brass rounds across the floor. “Somebody is coming inside!”

The startled friends turned to stare at the front of the redoubt where a wide tunnel opened in the wall. The distant end of the zigzagging tunnel couldn’t be seen, but there was no mistaking the sound of the powerful electric motors hidden inside the walls as they started to cycle open the massive nuke-proof doors that lead to the world outside.

THE CRATER WAS blisteringly hot under the sun, the hard stone ground seeming to reflect the solar heat until the temperature became almost unbearable.

Carrying a small umbrella, Sandra Tregart relished the meager shade it gave as she watched the almost-naked eunuchs toiling under the harsh sunlight. The lean men were wearing only sandals and loincloths, their sweaty skin burned to a deep, rich brown. The eunuchs were crawling along the rocky ground, removing every bit of windblown trash or sharp rock from the volcanic ground. The predark tires of the Angel were heavily patched, and every bump threw off their balance and shook the plane badly. Sometimes, it was difficult for her to gain enough speed for take-off. Thus every obstruction, no matter how small, had to be removed. It was a dirty job, inching along the strip that served as the runway, but Sandra refused to have slaves do the job. Slaves always wanted to rebel, and couldn’t be trusted. The eunuchs were fanatically devoted to her, and so only they could perform the vital task.

That is, Sandra griped, unless the Demon worked. Then all of her prayers would be answered. After which…

From the tent that served as the eunuchs’ barracks, she could smell roasting meat and bread. After she had bombed Indera ville out of existence, her eunuchs had ridden the last few horses there to loot the ruins. In return, she gave them the first pick of the food. Naturally, the rest went to Thunder ville, but her men were fed before the ville folk. After all, they guarded her at night, and, what was more important, they protected the Angel. Although few enemies had ever gotten onto the impact crater that served as an airfield.

Jagged peaks of ancient lava formed an impassable barrier around the crater. There was only one break in the rocky walls, and it was closed with a barrier of tires filled with rocks and topped with rusty barbed wire. Flanking both sides of the small door were wooden sentry towers containing armed eunuchs who trained every day with their homie crossbows. They could ace a vulture on the wing at a hundred yards. Neither man nor mutie got close to the wall, and nobody had ever even touched the gate without her permission. Anything that headed in its direction was chilled on sight. Even her brother Edmund had been wounded once for coming too close. To her father and mother, Sandra had professed her most sincere apologies for the terrible accident. But in private, she had praised Digger for his marksmanship and promoted him to sec chief for the airfield.