James Axler - Sky Raider

The biplane sailed across the sky

It circled about, the buzz of its engine coming and going on the warm breeze, as it zipped in for another bombing run.

Leaning out the window, Krysty fired a single round from the M-16 at the sky. Yanking the steering wheel back and forth, Ryan sent the Hummer zigzagging down the riverbed. After a few moments, he hit the gas and raced straight for a while, before braking hard and swinging randomly left and right again. Speed was their only armor.

Suddenly, Jak roared past the Hummer on the motorcycle, then swung past in front of the wag.

Running was something Ryan hated to do, but dying was a lot worse.

Latitude Zero

Seedling

Dark Carnival

Chill Factor

Moon Fate

Fury’s Pilgrims

Shockscape

Deep Empire

Cold Asylum

Twilight Children

Rider, Reaper

Road Wars

Trader Redux

Genesis Echo

Shadowfall

Ground Zero

Emerald Fire

Bloodlines

Crossways

Keepers of the Sun

Circle Thrice

Eclipse at Noon

Stoneface

Bitter Fruit

Skydark

Demons of Eden

The Mars Arena

Watersleep

Nightmare Passage

Freedom Lost

Way of the Wolf

Dark Emblem

Crucible of Time

Starfall

Encounter: Collector’s Edition

Gemini Rising

Gaia’s Demise

Dark Reckoning

Shadow World

Pandora’s Redoubt

Rat King

Zero City

Savage Armada

Judas Strike

Shadow Fortress

Sunchild

Breakthrough

Salvation Road

Amazon Gate

Destiny’s Truth

Skydark Spawn

Damnation Road Show

Devil Riders

Bloodfire

Hellbenders

Separation

Death Hunt

Shaking Earth

Black Harvest

Vengeance Trail

Ritual Chill

Atlantis Reprise

Labyrinth

Strontium Swamp

Shatter Zone

Perdition Valley

Cannibal Moon

Sky Raider

James Axler

For Melissa, as always

Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things

underground, and much more in the skies.

—Miguel de Cervantes,

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1.3.6)

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.

Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.

Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope….

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

A hot, listless wind blew across the expanse of dried earth to form little dust devils that swirled around the group of armed men. An old weathered oak tree stood nearby, its gnarled trunk strong in spite of the constant flash floods that swept the river valley. The bare branches offered the men little shade from the scorching sun, and high overhead a pair of eagles soared on the thermals, calling their defiance to the storm clouds darkening the distant horizon.

Tied to the tree with a length of dirty rope, an old mule snorted in annoyance and shuffled its hooves on the hard ground. The animal was heavily laden with bulging canvas sacks and leather water bags. Nearby, old wooden planks had been laid across two big rocks to form a crude table.

“Look, ya wanna trade or not?” Digger snarled, leaning forward to rest his palms on the table.

Sitting behind the table, Baron Jeffers said nothing in reply. But the two sec men flanking the baron instantly worked the bolt on their longblasters, ready to start firing at the slightest hint of trouble. If Digger noticed them, he gave no sign.

The three men from Indera ville were dressed in rough clothing, the usual mix of predark cloth and home-cured leather. The baron also wore a fancy jacket with a military design, and had a big-bore longblaster slung across his back.

Only fifty or so yards away a gigantic mesa rose straight from the ground and dominated the valley in every direction. Its sheer rock sides were impossible to climb, but at some point in the past, a big section of the mesa had collapsed to create a large hollow with a rock overhang. Indera ville had been built directly below the overhang. A tall semicircular wall sealed off the ville from the hostile desert, along with the brutal men and muties that prowled the shores of the desert river. The rock overhang gave the population precious shade from the hot sun, and vital protection from the deadly acid rains that swept across the landscape every spring.

Crossing his arms, Baron Jeffers studied the skinny trader standing across the crude table. Indera ville was at the crossroads of a pass through the Diana Mountain and the sluggish Ohi River, so they had a lot of outlanders passing through. Which is why they had established the dealing tree.

Some of the newcomers wanted to stay in the ville. That was forbidden, even if the person owned a working blaster or was a healthy young woman. The ville was full and had plenty of homie weps, mostly crossbows and such, but more than enough to defend the ville. Most outlanders just wanted to get past the walls to see what they could jack, or to recce the ville for a raid. If they did and were caught, they were crucified, nailed to the dealing tree so that others would know better.

Jeffers scowled. And then there were a scant handful who came to trade, bits of predark metal for a bowl of soup, seeds from a nonmutie apple tree, and once, a whole box of predark meds! Of course, that had been many winters ago, when the Trader had stopped by in his armored war wags selling tech and books, and giving away hope for free. His deals were honest, his blasters always primed. The Trader didn’t steal, and killed faster than summer lighting if somebody else even tried. Nobody crossed the Trader and lived.