The Amtrak Wars: Blood River

by Patrick Tilley

  The Kojak brave acknowledged his signal and placed his fingers together in front of his mouth. The shrill terror-stricken cry of a small animal caught in the jaws of a sharp-toothed predator pierced the silence for a brief instant. Not loud, but chilling.

  Startled by the sound, Steve rolled over onto his side. ‘Jeez! What the hell was that?’

  Cadillac moved back alongside them. ‘Some poor creature about to come to a sticky end, I imagine. Could I, uhh …?’

  ‘Sure.’ Steve placed the ‘scope in the Mute’s outstretched palm.

  As Ruddock ran back with the two securing straps, the air around Gus’s Skyhawk was pierced by a quite different, but equally chilling sound.

  Zzzzzzwheeeeee!

  Gus ducked instinctively. ‘What the fu –?’

  Zzzzzzwheeeeee! Something else flew past them then – Zzzzzzwhikkk! Zzzzzzzwhokkk! Two crossbow bolts hit the Skyhawk. The first passed straight through the port tail fin and kept on going. The second entered the nose, just missing Ruddock on the way in, and came to rest with six inches of the sharp end sticking out the other side right where Gus White was standing.

  Gus leapt away like he’d been electrocuted. ‘Hoh-lee SHIT!’ He pulled his gun out and dived for cover.

  Ruddock joined him. ‘Can you see ’em!? Can you see ’em!? Where the hell are they!?’

  Jodi knelt down beside them. ‘Don’t panic, boys. They’re a long way away.’

  ‘How can you tell!?’

  ‘Because those guys don’t usually miss. If they were close, that bolt would have skewered all three of us.’ Jodi sighted along the embedded crossbow bolt and pulled out her handset. ‘Blue Four this is Snow Bird. May Day. We’re under crossbow attack by unknown number of hostiles. Estimate range one thousand yards from our position. Watch my red for bearing. Over!’

  Jodi tossed the handset to Gus and hurriedly loaded a red flare into the fat-barrelled pistol. Resting her hands on the top of the fuselage above the bolt, she fired the flare towards the distant line of trees. The range was not one thousand yards but one thousand three hundred and twenty-five. She had gone out there with Brickman and the others to lay the false trail during the night and she had mechanically counted the paces on the way back. And the red flare was aimed directly towards the point where she had last seen them. Jodi could not even begin to guess what had gone wrong but there was nothing she could do to protect Brickman now. If the lump-heads he’d opted to run with had decided to get into a shooting match it was a simple case of Them and Us.

  Zzzzzzwhonkk! A crossbow bolt sped in from a different direction and bounced off the open canopy of Gus’s Skyhawk. Ruddock, who was tying the extra straps to the pair on the buddy frame, ducked and swore, but kept his fingers busy.

  ‘See that!’ shouted Gus. ‘Came from over there!’ He thumbed the handset. ‘Blue Four, this is Ground Hog One. We got incoming fire from hostiles at one o’clock as well as our eleven! What are you waiting for!? Go get the suckers!’

  ‘We’re on our way, Ground Hog. Blue Four out.’

  Jodi fired a second red flare towards the right hand end of the treeline as the four circling planes split into two pairs and dived towards their invisible targets.

  Ruddock grabbed her shoulder. ‘Get over to my ship and pull down the buddy frame. Can you do that – and get into the bag?’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  ‘Okay, go for it! Gus and I’ll get your friend stowed away and I’ll be right with you.’

  Jodi dodged round the back of Gus’s plane, crouched by the propeller then darted towards the second Skyhawk. Zzzzzzwheeeeee! Another crossbow bolt flashed past her. Then a couple more, overhead this time, wider of the mark. Zzzzwheeee-zzzzzwheeeee! The lumps behind the crossbows must have realized those four planes were now coming down to nail their asses.

  A voice came into her mind. Insistent. Demanding. Reminding her of something she had to do. Yes, of course. It all made sense. This wasn’t an attack. Nobody was meant to be killed. This was a diversion, to draw away the attention of those who might not understand while she helped her friends …

  It might have seemed like a lifetime to Gus and the others who were pinned down on the ground but the four orbiting Skyhawks were on the case in under thirty seconds. The delay was due to the fact that Blue Four, flown by Sheela Cray, had to give Hartmann a rapid sit-rep before she could obtain clearance to lay down covering fire. But now, at last, it was open season for Mutes. Cray, who was leading the attack on the left hand section of the wood, switched on the electric motor that would spin the six barrels of the Thor needle-gun and placed her right thumb on the firing button. When she pressed it, Thor would spit out a deadly hail of razor-sharp flechettes at the rate of twelve hundred rounds a minute.

  In the target area below, the twelve Kojak Mutes were already on the move, racing back deeper into the wood and converging on the crude shelter of woven saplings they had built during the night to Cadillac’s instructions whilst he and the other Sky Travellers had been busy elsewhere.

  Steve and Cadillac were still in the danger zone, locked in violent argument and on the verge of coming to blows. Clearwater, temporarily forgotten by both men and oblivious to their presence, stood several yards away, eyes closed, feet apart, hands on thighs, face turned towards the sky, her mind turned to something beyond it.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ raged Steve. ‘I thought you were in control of these people!’

  ‘Calm down! They know what the score is. Nobody’s been killed. All they did was take a few pot shots!’

  ‘A few pot shots!? Those apes nearly wrecked the whole fuggin’ exercise!’

  ‘Don’t you understand!? These guys are warriors, Brickman! That’s the enemy out there. There’s a question of pride involved here. The honour of the clan! It took a lot of arguing to get them to hold back. I had to agree to let them make this gesture of defiance.’

  ‘Yeah? I suppose it didn’t occur to you that the guys up there might respond with a little gesture of their own!’

  ‘In that case we’d better get going.’ Cadillac reached out to take hold of Steve’s arm.

  Steve brushed his hand aside and turned towards Clearwater.

  Cadillac grabbed him firmly. ‘Don’t interfere, Brickman! She knows what she’s doing!’

  Clearwater’s body shook as the initial jolt of earth power entered through the soles of her feet and travelled upwards to meet a similar charge that came funnelling down from the sky like an invisible lightning bolt. The muscles in her body hardened, the sinews became taught, her face turned into an implacable mask and when her eyes snapped open, they glowed with an intensity as terrifying as the legendary Medusa of ancient Greece, part-bird, part-beast, part-woman whose gaze turned men to stone.

  Her arms shot forwards and upwards, the index fingers pointing towards the two oncoming planes and the shrill ululating cry that was the mark of a summoner burst from her lips. An inhuman, unearthly sound, impossible to describe. Heart-stopping, gut-shrivelling, brain-piercing. A sound that left an indelible scar in the minds of those who heard it, turning bones to jelly and blood to water.

  As she had learned in Ne-Issan, Clearwater could only enter the minds of others if a door was open, but had no need to confront those whose blood lust was roused and whose killer instincts were directed against herself or those she had been chosen to protect. The energy that fuelled their hatred acted as a conduit for her power, sucking it into the very centre of their being.

  The same madness that had seized Steve’s classmate Fazetti over the forests of Wyoming and caused him to turn upon his wingman, Naylor, now gripped Mark Riddell, who was flying behind Sheela Cray. He turned on his laser ranging sight, brought the red dot onto the fuselage of Cray’s Skyhawk and blew her out of the sky. The shattered plane flipped over to port and went in nose first.

  Riddell didn’t give it a second glance. Only one all-consuming thought filled his mind. He had to protect the lives of those below from his misgu
ided companions. Banking steeply to the right, he made a successful beam attack on the leading Skyhawk then turned towards the fourth plane, piloted by his friend Essex, and flew straight into him with a feeling of unutterable rapture.

  Ruddock who had run over to zip up Jodi’s buddy bag froze momentarily, his mouth and eyes wide open. The scale of the disaster, its inexplicable nature and the rapidity with which it occurred had left him speechless.

  Jodi, who sat up in time to see the last three planes go down shared his sense of shock and desolation but she had already been introduced to the destructive powers of a Mute sum-moner – and she recognized Clearwater’s handiwork. But there was no point in trying to explain what had happened to Ruddock. No time either.

  She wriggled back into the bag face down and hugged the frame. ‘Don’t bother zipping me in! Just get this thing out of here before the sky falls in!’

  Ruddock didn’t need any further encouragement. He leapt into the cockpit, pulled down the canopy and slammed the throttle wide open.

  Gus White’s Skyhawk was ahead of them, racing away over the snow. Jodi saw it lift off and climb steeply, with Kelso strapped to the port side. A second or two later, they were in the air too. A wonderful buoyant feeling.

  We made it, Dave. We’re going home …

  Hartmann received the news of the successful pick-up and the sudden, spectacular loss of the four escorting Skyhawks soon after lift-off. He thanked the two pilots for their part in the recovery operation and wished them a safe return flight. Hartmann knew something about summoners. The wagon-train commanders contributed to an unofficial pool of knowledge, and the subject of summoners and Mute magic was one of the items that were discussed in hushed whispers when two or three of them got together.

  There was no hard evidence of the existence of such people nor was there a logical, or even plausible explanation of where their alleged power came from but no one could deny that some appallingly destructive force unconnected with natural phenomena had, from time to time, been directed against the forces of the Federation. More specifically, it had been directed against The Lady. In Wyoming, and now here. A force that could warp minds and conjure up a storm out of a clear blue sky.

  Cray had been the first victim, but White had been uncertain which of the other three pilots was responsible for the carnage. It had a depressingly familiar ring but Hartmann knew his thoughts on the matter would have to be kept to himself and the few close associates whom he could trust. To talk about it publicly was a Code One violation. Some face-saving formula would have to be found for the official log. But this time, with four brand new planes involved, it would have to be something more plausible than ‘pilot error’.

  Gus and Ruddock set down smoothly atop the snow on the port side of The Lady and taxied back towards the flight car in the gathering dusk. The ground crew and some of the medics from the blood-wagon were waiting alongside. Hartmann had used the steam jets to blast away the snow beneath the wagon-train and the ramp in the belly of the adjoining section had been lowered for people to come in and out.

  Buck McDonnell was on hand as Jodi slipped out of the bag on the buddy frame. He had been planning to smile but with the loss of four wingmen, there was little to smile about. Even so he was relieved to see her. He cast a jaundiced eye over her ragamuffin fur outfit. ‘Kazan … You look like somethin’ people shoot for lunch.’ He threw his arm across her shoulders. ‘C’mon. The Old Man wants an urgent word with you. In private.’

  ‘I’ll be right with you – sir,’ Jodi broke away as the medics started to free Kelso from the buddy frame. She listed his probable injuries and the treatment she’d been able to give him, then added: ‘I’d forget the stretcher. Best thing is to leave him strapped to that hatch until you get him into surgical on a pre-op trolley.’

  The medic who’d come out to supervise Kelso’s transfer to The Lady agreed. ‘Good idea. Okay, boys, let’s do that.’

  ‘Dave?’ His eyes had glazed over. Jodi shook hands with Ruddock and waved to Gus White. ‘Check you guys later, huh?’

  As she walked up the ramp with McDonnell, the flight crew chief signalled the boom operator to start winching up Ruddock’s Skyhawk. Four ground crewmen stood on the lowered port bow lift ready to unhook the plane and manhandle it into the twenty-foot-high hangar deck. Below them, other members of the ground crew hurriedly folded the wings and tail of Gus’s plane and pushed it into position under the boom as the first few flakes of fresh snow drifted down.

  On board The Lady, the medics laid the cargo hatch and its foul-smelling fur-wrapped load onto a trolley. One of them stuck his nose close to Kelso’s body. ‘Think we’ve got some gangrene here …’ They ran the trolley down the centre aisle towards the blood-wagon, three cars aft of the ramp.

  Moving forward, Jodi and McDonnell passed through the flight car before Ruddock’s Skyhawk came down on the forward lift. With four planes gone, there’d be a lot more room in the hangar. And empty seats at the mess table. McDonnell ushered Jodi onto a battery powered wheelie parked in a side bay and sent it gliding along the aisle towards the command car.

  The belly ramp of the wagon behind the flight car closed as the last man came aboard. Gus White’s Skyhawk was brought down into the hangar then the lift rose, sealing the rectangular hole in the flight deck. The remaining wingmen and other crew members clustered round and listened intently as Gus and Ruddock described how the whole operation had almost gone down the tube. Harmer, the hardnosed lieutenant from Pueblo simmered with anger. If his request to put his men out there on the ground had been taken seriously it would have been lump-heads lying gutted and bleeding into the snow instead of boys in blue.

  In the blood-wagon, Surgeon-Captain Keever’s team checked to see that Kelso was still alive, and listened to the report of his suspected injuries. Keever decided to make a visual examination followed by a top-to-toe sonar scan. He told the medics to remove the straps holding Kelso to the cargo hatch then cut away the furs and reflective foil wrapped around his broken body.

  Jodi and McDonnell stepped off the wheelie and entered the command car. Baxter, the Flight Operations Exec came down the steps from the saddle.

  ‘Is the Commander up there?’ asked McDonnell.

  ‘Yeah. He’ll be down directly.’ Baxter offered his hand to Jodi. ‘Long time no see. How does it feel?’

  ‘To be back on board? Kinda strange but – it gets better by the minute.’

  ‘What happened to your face?’

  Jodi fingered the disfiguring slab of pink scar tissue that ran down the left side of her face and neck and responded with a twisted smile. ‘I got that when I kissed goodbye to The Lady. I’m hoping the “welcome home” is gonna prove less painful.’

  Baxter gave a disinterested nod then turned to McDonnell. ‘Go on through. Everything’s in there. I’m just gonna catch up with my guys in the flight car.’

  McDonnell shunted Jodi along the passageway into Hartmann’s private quarters. A clean wingman’s uniform lay in a neatly folded pile on the bunk alongside a couple of fresh towels. ‘Okay, strip off.’

  ‘Strip off …?’

  ‘That’s what I said, soldier. We can’t have you up front of the Old Man looking like that. So c’mon. Peel that rancid junk off your back and get in the shower.’

  Jodi looked confused. ‘I – I – can’t!’ She clutched her forehead. It felt as if someone was stabbing her brain with a red-hot knife.

  ‘Kazan, I said strip off!’ He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. ‘What the hell’re you tryin’ to pull!?’

  Jodi shrank away, snarling like a cornered mountain cat as the pain in her head reached a new crescendo. ‘Get away from me, you sonofabitch!’ Her right hand flew towards the combat knife tied to the outside of her thigh. ‘Touch me again an’ I’ll kill you!’

  McDonnell’s mental radar registered a troubling echo. There was something badly wrong and it called for immediate action. His pile-driving punch knocked her senseless
before the knife was clear of its scabbard. As he knelt over her crumpled body, he sensed someone behind him. Hartmann was in the doorway.

  ‘How much did you get of that?’

  ‘Enough.’ Hartmann stepped inside and knelt down beside them ‘What’s going on, Buck?’

  ‘Can’t say, sir. But I’ve got a feeling we’re in deep shit.’ As he spoke, he started to rip the loosely sewn furs from Jodi’s body. He came to the now grimy blue-grey cotton tunic she wore as a slave-worker in Ne-Issan, pulled it open and saw what looked like square stick of wood wedged under the sash around her waist. Except that this piece had a radio-controlled detonator embedded in it.

  ‘Christo!’ gasped Hartmann. ‘That’s not wood, that’s –’

  ‘A fucking BOMB!!’ yelled McDonnell. He grabbed hold of the stick of P3X, tore the detonator out and flung it through the open door into the passageway beyond. ‘Sound the general alarm!’

  Hartmann straightened up and lunged towards the big red slam button on the wall by his video console.

  The move which would have automatically sealed each wagon from its neighbour came too late.

  As five medics lifted Kelso off the cargo hatch, the detonator in the passageway outside Hartmann’s quarters shattered with a loud bang and two simultaneous explosions ripped through the wagon-train.

  The most catastrophic blast was centred on Ruddock’s Skyhawk. The charge placed beneath the pilot’s seat, caused the fuel tanks of the adjacent tightly-packed aircraft to explode. This, in turn, triggered further detonations as the racks of napalm canisters and underfloor pressurized fuel tanks ignited, causing the flight-car to erupt with the convulsive fury of a mini-volcano.

  Blazing fuel and glutinous fireballs of napalm combined into a hellish tidal wave that swept along the aisles of the adjoining cars, engulfing those standing in its path. Two car-lengths away in both directions, shocked crewmen had the presence of mind to close the emergency doors, containing the fire but sealing the fate of all those trapped on the other side.