Portals in Time 3

by Michael Beals

  Just not fast enough.

  As Capson ducked his head down and howled, the twin machine guns hiding behind gun slits on each side of the citadel’s steel entrance found them.

  As the first tracers shattered the windshield millimeters over Kat’s scalp, one of Ghost Patrol’s wagons of death cut across their bow. A gunner in the back let go of his weapon and hurled a pair of green smoke grenades at the entrance. He took a belly full of lead for his trouble, punting him off his truck. Capson managed to swerve a little and only crushed the mangled body’s leg.

  A split second later, the green smoke tickled his nostrils. “Hold—ugh!” He yanked on the parking brake and spun the wheel to the right, ramming their 5-ton civilian truck sideways across the entrance. Even with his helmet on, his eyes crossed as his head bounced off the tower’s concrete wall.

  Something clicked and racked backward inches from his ear, bringing him back to reality. Without thinking, Capson reached up and snagged the red-hot machine gun barrel poking out of the gun slit. He tried to drop the searing rod as soon as his dying nerve endings rebelled, as his melting palm stuck fast to the gun.

  Inside the bunker, the young German soldier panicked when some superman tried to steal his only weapon. He yanked his MG42 back inside with all his might… not letting go of the trigger.

  As soon as the muzzle slid out of sight, taking several layers of Capson’s skin with it, the firing hole lit up with ricocheting shells, followed by a gurgling, gasping sound.

  Kat spun away from the second gun slit above the rear fender, covering her ears as the grenade she cooked off popped inside. She bounded over to Capson and slapped his back.

  “Smooth move, you creative little killer! I’m impressed.”

  Capson leaned his head back and took a raggedy breath while clutching his screaming paw. Some rubber tubes flopped on his shoulder and snapped his eyes open. Kat heaved another loop of hose over him and perched on the hood.

  “What are you waiting for? Time for the real killing. Or do you want to do the honors?”

  “Let’s just get it over with…” Capson could only blink at the grinning redhead on the hood. He jumped out of his seat and began twisting nozzles on the banged-up gas tanks in the back.

  Kat took a knee and tucked the jury-rigged welding gun assembly into her shoulder as the first hose gushed propane into the empty gun slit. She flicked the Zippo taped to the front of the nozzle and lit the room ablaze. A moment later, Capson activated the second hose… one pumping out pure oxygen at volcanic pressures.

  The little bonfire blossomed into a living ocean of raging flame coursing through every inch of the flak tower. A geyser of bright orange lanced out of the second gun pit a few feet from Capson. Still, with nowhere else to go inside the giant, sealed castle, most of the starving fire raced up the staircase.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  Capson snapped his submachine gun up as a NAZI leaped from the roof of the devil’s barbeque and bounced off the hood. He grimaced and put the smoking man, flopping around with his spine bent almost 90 degrees, out of his misery with one round.

  In less than 30 seconds, all four propane and oxygen canisters emptied their infernal loads, though the blaze in Kat’s eyes burned hotter than ever.

  She dropped the nozzle and took cover behind the bumper as a sniper picked their number. Capson slid down next to her as Captain Owen’s truck rolled up beside them, all three gunners rocking away deeper into the harbor.

  “Let’s go! Time to extract.” Trufflefoot reached for her, while Dore and Atkins blasted away at something unseen.

  “So close. Maybe better luck later—”

  Kat slapped his hand away. “The hell you say, we just got here!”

  “Yeah, and so did they!” Captain Owen chucked his last protective smoke grenade right in front of them. Just before the white plume gushed out, she caught sight of a gray wall on the far side of the harbor.

  It took her eyes a moment to realize the wall was made up of 12 gray panzers in a line formation, only a yard or two of space between each tread. At least a hundred grim riflemen hovered behind the tanks.

  And the whole unit clanked their way.

  “They can’t fire willy-nilly. Too many ammo and fuel ships in the harbor. They’ll have to get close…” A barrage of cannon fire sliced through the smoke and over their heads, except for two shells vaporizing a Ghost truck racing towards the main gate.

  “Rather a moot point now.” She jerked her thumb at four panzers crawling through the smoldering husk and machine-gunning the lone survivor. Fifty more well-armed ducklings followed the tracks, blocking their only escape route.

  Captain Owen didn’t waste a beat. “Fall back into the tower! We’ll make our last stand there.”

  Kat rolled her eyes and grabbed Dore and Trufflefoot as they hopped down. “Like that worked so well last time. Let’s do what we came here to do, eh?” She snapped a knife-hand at the subs squirting out of their armored pens. Since the shelters were laid out to protect from sea or airborne threats, they all opened parallel to the harbor.

  The closest sub cruised on the surface a few yards away from the dock.

  Dore’s eyes widened, a grin spread across his hairy face. “Atkins! Time to be a hero.”

  Behind him, the private threw down his weapon and dived off the back of the truck… Dore snagged him by the belt midair and chucked him in the driver’s seat.

  “That’s a good lad.”

  Lieutenant Stewart shouted something before he disappeared in the smoldering flak tower with the rest of Ghost Patrol. Kat ignored him, as well as the machine gun fire zinging far too close now that the smoke cleared. She looped a couple of demo satchels over her chest and swung the purses out behind her back.

  “Atkins, get me on that sub!”

  “But they already cast loose! We can’t get close.”

  Kat climbed on the .50 Caliber, racked the slide, and screamed over the chuck chuck of the half-inch slugs.

  “I didn’t say close. Get me on that bloody thing!”

  Atkins caved to the gal, the nearest of the many things trying to kill him, and hit the gas. They roared off milliseconds before three tank rounds crisscrossed their last position.

  Trufflefoot clung to the rear seat, whiter than the surrounding smoke. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Sergeant Dore shoved a demo satchel in his chest and crouched with his knees in the side seat. “The subs were always the real target.”

  Capson shrugged, snagged an explosive sack, and mirrored Dore’s position on the other side of the truck.

  “Good God… what about the tanks?” No one answered the Major, however, upfront, Atkins crossed himself.

  He cut across the harbor and straight towards the laughing wall of gray troops and tanks, while mumbling a prayer to every god he’d ever heard of. Atkins was on Zeus when a bolt of lightning blasted a panzer into shreds. Less than 200 yards away, the entire line of tanks leveled their cannon and machine gun barrels in unison.

  Atkins aimed for the only thing around that might shut up the lethal, redheaded Siren behind him, and shut his eyes.

  The firing squad boomed as one, every shell rocketing way over their heads and blasting chunks out of the flak tower. Through the smoke and shrapnel, Ghost patrol held on and raked the German line with a quad-barreled 40mm craziness.

  The tower of death kept most of the Germans busy, but not all.

  A split second before reaching their target, Atkins’s last nerve broke. With a whole platoon of NAZIs peppering his racing truck, he scooched higher in the seat and tried to twist the wheel away. The second his knuckles closed around the top of the wheel, a stray round tore through his palm.

  “Jesussssss!”

  He clung tight to the wheel as they hit the concrete loading ramp for an empty railhead, running parallel to the water’s edge. The stripped-down light truck rocketed off the steep ramp a good five meters in the air. Dozens of German rifles tracked t
hem but checked their fire… no way to hit the airborne truck without striking the U-boat dead ahead of them.

  “Jump!” Kat’s heels swooshed over the driver’s head as she led by example.

  Atkins fell more than leaped out as the truck corkscrewed through the air. He locked doe eyes with a young German sailor scrambling up the conning tower and tearing open the top hatch. He managed to get one foot inside before the Chevy’s fender pancaked him at 30 mph.

  The grill crumpled as it sheared off the periscope mount, and the whole truck flopped over. With the front end wedged tight into the fulcrum, the cargo bed catapulted into the deck-mounted cannon ahead of the tower and snapped the chassis clean in half.

  Dore landed in the warm water closest to the boat. He shed the dead weight of his ammo belt and side stroked like a madman towards the escaping steel tube. Kat gasped for air and consciousness a few yards away and screeched.

  “No! Get out of here!”

  Kat torpedoed away from the sub, sans demo satchels over her shoulder.

  All the other flopping men transformed into two-legged fish, darting after her as she pumped her arms towards open water. Less than a minute of silent, desperate flapping later, a muffled roar whooshed overhead.

  Seconds later, a three-foot wave shoved the whole team underwater. Two seconds after that, an undersea demon swooped them up and dragged everyone back to the flaming U-boat. The Captain-less steel tube rammed the concrete dock and flopped on its side, sucking 100 tons of water into the gaping hole where the conning tower used to be. “I… camph…”

  Trufflefoot’s jaw breached the surface, then disappeared fast. Despite flailing away with what little strength he had left, only a few bubbles came back up. Capson and Dore struggled against the riptide to reach him, only to be pushed back another six feet for their trouble.

  Kat groaned and punched into the relentless tide. “Boss!”

  She blinked back the salty tears as a flat green fin popped out of nowhere and then slipped under the water. The man-sized dolphin came up with a coughing and cursing Trufflefoot, pushing him perpendicular to the invisible current.

  Atkins waved his trousers over his head, while Trufflefoot clawed at him in panic. “Quit fighting, you fools! Just let the current take you until it weakens, and then swim sideways to it.”

  Trufflefoot blanched as Atkins kicked him off. The kid tied the end of his pants’ legs together and flopped the waist in the air. As soon as the legs ballooned open, he swooped the whole thing over Trufflefoot’s neck and under his splashing arms.

  “Just hold this tight and quit flippin’ moving, sir.”

  Trufflefoot gasped as his broken muscles finally rested over the makeshift life preserver. “Were you a lifeguard or something?”

  “Most dangerous job I ever had!”

  Atkins coughed from acrid smoke from the capsized sub and glided effortlessly over to the group with the Major in tow.

  Amidst the endless gunfire on the dock, a lone horn blasted. Kat chuckled as a life ring flew out of the acrid smoke and splashed in front of her face.

  “Gotta love these efficient Krauts.” Dore paddled up and flicked a hand at the search and rescue tugboat idling towards them. “Ladies first.”

  “Oh please, age before beauty.”

  Dore snickered and grabbed the ring. A black-suited sailor reached over the rails and tugged him up.

  “Kommt, Jungs! Schnell.”

  As soon as he was on deck, Dore spun his back on the confused German and yanked Kat out of the water. She landed on her feet and shook like a dog, letting her red bangs flap around.

  “Was in Gottes Namen…”

  She shoved past the guy’s gawking face and dashed into the wheelhouse as Dore kicked him overboard. The tug operator let his gaze linger too long on the soaking blouse clinging to her heaving chest. He didn’t spot the knife until it cut into his inner thigh. Kat gave him a husky whisper in German.

  “You were trying to save lives, so I’ll spare yours. For now. Get in the water before I put you in the ground.”

  Kat turned her back on him as he shuffled out of the wheelhouse. The sailor took one glance at the hulking Scotsman rushing towards him and dived overboard.

  As Capson and Atkins pried Trufflefoot’s wet sack out of the water, Kat shoved the throttle down and spit-up an epic plume over the score of submariners swimming their way. Dore fell to his knees as she whipped the boat around in a 90-degree spin.

  She idled the engine and blared the horn on the far side of the tower, mostly hidden from the enemy’s fire. A friendly face peered over the ledge four stories above.

  “Let’s go, you macho fools! Ten seconds!” She waved both hands over her head and started ticking off fingers. The face above disappeared. Over all the machine gun fire and cannon blasts, she could have sworn she heard a heated Aussie cussing.

  When she reached zero, she hung her head and reached for the throttle. Dore’s nostrils flared. Kat couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got things to…”

  “Bloody hellllll!”

  Three figures charged off the roof. Two of them, clearly Special Air Service by the uniforms, straightened out and entered the water with Olympian grace. The third fell with the finesse of a duck shot out of the sky, flapping his arms the whole way.

  Kat raced the boat over while the men scooped up the survivors in passing. As soon as Lieutenant Stewart popped his wet head over the railing, she opened up the throttle and roared off.

  “Wait, where the hell you going? Captain Owen’s dead and the NAZIs breached the door. Maybe we can save some more guys!”

  The soaking wet fury behind the wheel straightened her shoulders and picked a target. “They’ve already made their choice.”

  She shot the Lieutenant a wink. “Besides, who said we’re rescuing you? Trust me. They’re safer in that fort than with us. Safer than anyone else in the harbor.”

  Trufflefoot monkeyed over to the wheelhouse, keeping both hands on something at all times. “I know that look. What are you planning?”

  Kat dipped her forehead, never taking her eyes off the main shipping terminal, now only a few hundred yards away.

  The Major followed her gaze and shook his matted head. “No… you really are off your rocker! It’s time I pulled rank.”

  “You were right. We failed. So it’s like they say, If at first you don’t succeed, then blow up the whole damn world.”

  “You spent way too long in Germany.”

  Dore came up between the two and frowned back at Ghost Patrol’s last stand in the flak tower. “Kat, hate to be a spoilsport, but everyone lost their weapons in the drink. Maybe we should…”

  “Then we’ll just have to go shopping for more.”

  He snapped his head around at the naughty giggle in her voice. Dore stared up at the mammoth 10,000-ton freighter berthed broadside against the pier ahead. Two giant dock cranes had begun tackling the mountain of crates on board. Scores of shipping containers were still waiting for pickup.

  All labeled “Caution, High Explosives.”

  Two suspicious riflemen guarding the gangplank pried their eyes off the battle waging across the harbor and leveled their weapons on the tug racing their way.

  “You still pulling rank? How about we finish this thing for good?” Kat gave her most innocent smile.

  Trufflefoot shook and cursed, flipping to German and staggered towards the guards. “Help! We have wounded. Medic!”

  Both of the Special Air Service guys, still in their Wehrmacht uniforms, skipped off the boat as the two soldiers on the dock wavered. One German slung his rifle and reached to help. The other caught something in the newcomers’ eyes and snapped his weapon to his shoulder.

  But not faster than the k-bar knife slicing into his neck.

  Kat ignored the two bleeding, twitching corpses dropping into the boat and bounded onto the dock.

  “Nothing complicated, fellas. First to blow this thing up before the subs get back in the
ir shelters wins. Race ya!”

  “Damnit!” Stewart called after Kat as she ran up the nearby gangplank with no other weapon than her blade. A sailor came running out of the bridge with a Luger and leveled it at her chest.

  He flicked the safety off as one of the Special Air Service troopers put a round through his nose. Kat caught the handgun before the body hit the ground with one hand while blowing a kiss with the other at the men racing to catch up.

  She ignored the bridge and the blaring alarm, as well as the gunfire as her team rushed inside. Instead, she dashed among the shipping containers, reading off the German manifest lists taped on the doors.

  “Bridge clear! Kat, we got a problem…”

  “Bingo! Come give me a hand.” She skidded to a halt and tore open the latch on one of the giant green boxes. Rummaging through the wooden crates inside, she whistled up at the bridge.

  “Are you guys coming or what?” Kat stamped her foot as the two Special Air Service shooters blazed away at something down on the docks. Dore joined in with a liberated sidearm a second later. He ducked down to reload the small magazine.

  Just as a jackhammering wave of .50 Caliber tracers swept the bridge and siding, cutting both of the Special Air Service troopers into chunks of hamburger. Kat popped her head over the ledge and growled.

  An anthill of Germans scurried out of five trucks on the dock. A single, impeccably black-clad figure hovered in the middle of the storm and shouted orders. Kat shot to her feet and screeched ‘till she was blue in the face.

  “Hey, Papa! Why don’t you come up and play yourself?”

  Oberführer Pernass whipped his hawk nose up and howled. He ripped a machine pistol away from a private dashing by and charged across the gangplank, shoving aside his men.

  “Follow me!”

  Stewart shoved Trufflefoot and the rest of the survivors down a side ladder. He snagged an oversized wrench from a locker and ran towards the attackers, stopping only long enough to throw Kat a confused sneer.

  “Papa? I’ve got plenty of questions for you when we meet up in hell.