James Axler - Sky Raider

Hesitantly, everybody took a sip of the brew, making sour faces. Giving back the empty canteen, Ryan started to speak when he saw Krysty staring behind him. Dropping the canteen, he spun in a crouch with his blaster out and ready.

That was when he saw the corpse.

Holstering his piece, Ryan shuffled over to the body leaning against the exit door, one of its desiccated arms parched on the lever that opened the oval portal. The corpse was dressed in a predark military uniform, the patches and medals meaning nothing to the Deathlands warrior. But the flap was open on the holster at its side, and the handblaster was gone.

Scowling, Ryan noticed that the corpse appeared to be blocking the door.

“Bastard died trying to hold the door closed,” Ryan muttered, glancing at the portal with growing unease. He wondered what was on the other side.

Staring at the closed door, Krysty rubbed her temples as if in pain.

Ryan noticed the gesture. “Got something?” he asked tightly.

The redhead paused, then shook her head.

That didn’t reassure the big man much. The woman’s psionic abilities were sometimes blocked.

Kneeling alongside the grinning corpse, Ryan checked the ammo pouch and found only one spare clip where there should have been three.

“Must have been a hell of a fight,” J.B. said, moving closer. The Armorer clicked the safety back on his Uzi machine pistol and let it drop at his side.

“We better take it slow, just in case of a booby,” Ryan warned, rubbing the scar on his cheek. He sure wasn’t ready to do another jump. “If this guy was trying to keep folks out, whatever was on the other side might have had the same idea.”

“Woman, not man,” Jak added, pointing. “Ears pierced.”

Tucking a strand of beaded hair behind an ear to get it out of the way, Mildred hid a smile. “That didn’t mean a thing in the modern American Army, my friend.”

Taking the corpse by the shoulders, Ryan gave a gentle tug and the withered arms broke off with a snap. They slid out of the loose sleeves and stayed attached to the rifle as he carried the body away.

Placing it against the wall, Ryan saw the identification tag on the chest. S. Jongersonsten. Damn name was too long for them to add the first. Mebbe it was a woman. No way to tell now.

Carefully breaking the fingers, Mildred got the ancient arms free and put them with the body.

Going to the door, J.B. pulled out some tools and checked for any traps. The rest of the companions formed a defensive arc behind the man, their weapons ready.

“It’s clean,” J.B. finally announced. He tried to move the lever. The mechanism worked smoothly as if freshly lubricated, the internal bolts disengaging with dull thuds.

“Ryan?” J.B. asked, tugging his fingerless gloves on tighter.

Working the bolt on his Steyr SSG-70 rifle, Ryan said, “Go ahead.”

The Armorer pulled the door aside on silent hinges. He stayed crouched behind the door to give his friends a clear field of fire, ready to throw his weight forward to close it again fast if something tried to come through. But there were no blaster shots, only mutters of surprise.

Swinging his Uzi machine pistol to the front, J.B. clicked off the safety and stepped around the door just as Ryan and Krysty walked through into the antechamber beyond.

Following close behind, Doc, Mildred and Jak blocked his view. But as the companions spread out, J.B. saw the place was full of corpses. Old corpses. Dozens of them. And the floor was covered with the empty brass casings of spent ammunition. Most of the bodies were in pieces, and there was a smudge on the inside of the vanadium steel door suggesting that a gren had been used to try to blow it open, resulting in a spectacular and deadly failure.

“What the fuck went on here?” Ryan growled, sweeping the room with a stern gaze. The body in the jump chamber had been desiccated to the point of mummification, but these looked as if they were only a few years old! The wrinkled skin resembled leather instead of ancient parchment.

Careful of where they stepped, the companions moved through the antechamber and entered the control room. There were more bodies here, all of them showing signs of death by violence. Bullet holes, knives in chests, and one poor bastard bent over the control console with a fire ax buried in his back.

“Check the comp!” J.B. ordered. “If that’s damaged, we’re not going anywhere.”

Holstering her weapon, Mildred went to the control board while Ryan stepped to the master computer. The lights still rippled across its face as always, but he found a line of dents across the front of the machine. Somebody had fired a full clip from a machine gun, but the rounds hadn’t gotten through the thick metal housing of the mil comp.

“The government really built these redoubts to last, that’s for damn sure,” Mildred whispered. “Well, the controls aren’t damaged, aside from a busted monitor.”

“Good show, madam, then we can still egress as desired,” Doc said, checking a corpse slumped in a chair. The colonel had stopped in the middle of reloading a shotgun, but the body seemed to be without damage. Then he spotted the thin line that went from ear to ear. Somebody had slit his throat from behind as he’d thumbed in spare cartridges. Ghastly.

“They killed each other,” Krysty said, walking among the slain soldiers. Every branch of the service was here, Army, Navy, Air Force, and a few that she couldn’t recognize. Delta Force. Who were they?

“And when the ammo ran out,” Ryan muttered, resting the stock of his rifle on a hip, “they kept fighting with whatever was available, handblasters, knives, table legs, bottles…”

Slowly turning in a circle, Jak frowned. “What cause?” he asked. “Mutiny?”

“Not on a U.S. base,” Mildred stated as a fact. “No, a war plague seems more likely. Yes, that could be it. I had heard of such things. Rumors only, of course. Biological agents that drove the enemy temporarily insane so that they would slaughter each other, then our troops could march into the territory without opposition.”

“Filthy way to fight a war,” Doc rumbled, easing down the hammer on his massive LeMat revolver. “Although Tennyson would have been darkly amused.”

“This is the way the world ends,” Ryan said softly. “Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

Doc beamed at that. “You remember the poem!” he cried in delight.

“It’s about war,” Ryan countered gruffly. “And you sure as hell have repeated it often enough.” He nudged a corpse with his Army boot. The clothing rustled like old leaves, the dried body rocking from the impact as if weightless. “Mildred, why are the ones in here fresher than the husk in the jump chamber?”

“I have no idea,” the physician said, seemingly annoyed by the mystery. “The life support system keeps the redoubt constantly flushed with sterilized air. These bodies should be withered husks by now.”

Ryan scowled, but said nothing.

Kneeling next to a mutilated corpse with the glass fragments of a busted bottle embedded into his face, Jak eased the dead man’s service revolver from its holster and checked the load. Four spent shells, and one live round.

“Think safe stay?” Jak asked, pocketing the .38-caliber bullet. His Colt Python could use both .38 bullets and .357 Magnum rounds. Never made sense to him for anybody to carry a wep that only used one caliber of ammo.

“Yes, it’s safe,” Mildred said without hesitation. “There are no biological vectors that could survive exposure for a full week, much less a hundred years. But if anybody starts feeling dizzy, stop whatever you’re doing and sing out fast.”

“Fair enough,” J.B. said, pushing open the hallway door with the barrel of the Uzi.