by James Axler
Turning at the waist, Hawk scowled as the sec man landed in a tangle of loose limbs, with one of his boots coming off. That’s when the baron noticed the gaping hole in the man’s chest. A split second later, the muted boom of a high-power longblaster rolled from the desert.
“Ambush!” Hawk cried, hitting the ground and pulling out his handcannon.
The rest of his troops did the same and hauled out their weapons. However, there was nobody else in sight, the bare ground clear for miles in every direction.
Since the body had fallen to the east, Hawk studied the west, trying to find some movement in the sand from the hidden sniper. At any range it was a hell of a shot and the coldheart had to have a scope. Probably expected the rest of them to run away in panic so he could jack the goods left behind. But that scam wouldn’t work today. Soon, he would be wearing their guns in his belt.
“Jones, gimme a recce!” Hawk ordered, sweeping the sand with the barrel of his gun.
Rising up on his elbows to peer down the slope of the dune, Jones jerked backward as his throat exploded and his head came off. A grisly spray of dark blood gushing from the ragged stump of his neck. Fingers twitching, body wiggling, the deader seemed to still be alive as the echoing blast of the big-bore sniper rifle washed over the high dune once more.
Now the sec men opened fire randomly, shooting at anything that moved. The sergeant lit the fuse of a black-powder gren and heaved it far and high toward the west. Seconds later, the bomb detonated in a thunderclap and hot shrapnel rained upon the desert.
“Again!” Hawk commanded, approving of the tactic. If there was anybody hidden behind those dunes, they had a hundred holes in them now and were in a lot worse shape than Jones.
As the sergeant sent another gren airborne, Hawk grabbed a rib from the horse skeleton, jabbed it into the base of the dead man’s head and lifted it up. As the force of the explosion dissipated, there was no response.
“We got the fucker!” Hawk shouted, casting away the ghastly prop. “Okay, saddle up and let’s ride him into the ground!”
The remaining sec men cheered at that and scrambled for their horses, just as a thick plume of gray smoke puffed up from a dune, and a section of the sand seemed to avalanche away in a clump. It took a moment for Hawk to realize it was a disguised vehicle draped with sand-covered cloth, but even at this range he could clearly spot the long ventilated barrel of a .50-cal sticking through the covering.
“Gaza!” Hawk cried, leveling his blaster blowing flame at the approaching APC. “Get the 25 mm mounted, and ready more pipe bombs!”
“Fuck that, we gotta run!” Mikel roared in reply, then flew sideways off the dune to roll down the sand slope, leaving a grisly trail of entrails and organs.
Reloading, Hawk glanced up in time to see a thin puff of smoke disperse from the fifty. Nuking hell, they had a scope on the fifty and were using it as a longblaster? Was that possible? Guess so, because here he was splattered with the blood of dead men who said that idea worked just fragging fine. Then Hawk gave a grim smile. If Gaza was using the fifty as a longblaster, then he had to be shit low on ammo. Perfect!
Dashing for the cart, Hawk ripped off the canvas sheeting over the 25 mm cannon and hauled the big blaster to the edge of the dune.
“Ammo!” he commanded, awkwardly opening the breech of the deadly rapid-fire. The recoil might break his arms, but this was the best chance to get Gaza so he’d pay that price.
A sec man rushed to the cart and used a knife to force open the wooden box where the oily linked shells were stored. Grabbing the top coil, the sec man ran to Hawk and they started to insert the fat shells into the cannon.
Suddenly, a growl shook the air. The horses screamed and sec men fell as the big fifty began to spit flame, the heavy combat rounds hitting flesh and sand with wet smacks as the hot lead chewed a path of destruction through the massed troops.
The sec man carrying the ammo belt cried out and clutched the ruin of his face. Dropping the useless cannon, Hawk looked around frantically for the sergeant with the pipe bombs, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Had the cowardly son of a bitch run away?
Then a hot sledgehammer slammed Hawk in the right thigh, and he went down in confusion and pain. Shitfire, shot by Gaza again! Crawling backward from the others, Hawk pulled off the sweaty cloth from around his neck and tied it tight just above the wound in his leg. The hole was clean and tight. It had to have been an armor-piercing round to leave this little damage. And his toes still curled, so it hadn’t hit the bone. As long as Hawk was still sucking air, this fight wasn’t over! Gotta find those grens…
Rummaging among the dead and the dying, Hawk discovered the canvas satchel of homemade explosives trapped underneath a dead horse. Straining with all of his might, the man couldn’t free the pinned bag, and started to dig with both hands, frantically scooping away the loose sand when a rumbling shook the world and something large blotted out the burning sun.
“Freeze right there, asshole,” a familiar voice commanded. “Move and I ace ya on the spot.”
Filled with the conflicting urges to keep fighting or surrender and try for a deal, Hawk fought a silent battle within himself for several long seconds. Then he slumped and turned from the traitorous corpse to raise both of his hands.
Silhouetted by the sun, the APC was only a black shape. But Hawk could hear the internal hatches being opened. Several people walked out carrying rapid-fires. As his eyes became adjusted to the light, Hawk could see it was Gaza and his wives, the women looking as if they just got fucked long and hard from the pleasured expressions on their faces. Obviously, the bitches liked to kill, and Hawk now debated the wisdom of surrender.
Walking closer, Baron Gaza looked as if he had just strode out of the keep to review the troops. His boots were shiny, clothes crisp, and he was freshly shaved with his hair slicked back shiny. Stepping over a headless torso, Gaza put a spray of lead into a corpse that moved and now swung the smoking barrel toward Hawk. To the former sec boss, the barrel looked as large as a bazooka and filled with the infinity of eternal night.
“Find any other survivors,” Gaza demanded, grinning down at his captured foe, “and line ’em up alongside the mighty Baron Hawk here.”
Whistling and grunting in reply, the women spread out through the fallen men, finishing off the badly wounded with a knife in the throat. The rest were stripped of their weapons and marched over by Hawk. With their hands on their heads, the four sec men formed a ragged line in the dirty sand, the stink of death already spreading from the recently deceased.
“Traitors,” Gaza muttered hatefully. Then he shouted, “All of you are traitors!”
“My lord!” a cringing man pleaded. “We didn’t know it was you!”
“We thought it was the Core, or coldhearts!” another added.
“Just get it over with,” Hawk retorted, lowering his hands.
Grinning in pleasure, Della fired a round at the prisoner, and Hawk felt the lead hum by his cheek it passed so close. Damn, they were good with those! But aside from a tiny flinch of surprise, the big man refused to move.
Minutes passed in silence. Hawk could feel the blood trickle down his leg, and sweat poured off his face, soaking his shirt and making the earlier injuries itch fiercely. As if waiting for something to happen, Baron Gaza did nothing as the desert breeze ruffled his clothing, blowing loose sand over the living and dead alike. Then the baron pulled a handcannon from his belt holster and tossed it to the first sec man in the line. The trooper stared at the weapon and then at Gaza in confusion.
“My lord?” he asked, swallowing hard. Was he expected to chill himself now?
“Prove your loyalty,” Gaza said as the women behind him racked the bolts on their weapons, driving home the point. “Redeem your oath to me by taking the weapon and killing Hawk.”
He was going to live! In a rush of exhilaration, the man eagerly nodded and grabbed the blaster to swing it toward Hawk. But Hawk was ready and ducked as he threw a
fistful of sand into the sec man’s face. Temporarily blind, the man pulled the trigger only to find the safety was still engaged. No! As he fumbled with the weapon, Hawk dived forward and wrestled it away. Then rolling over, Hawk held the sec men before him as a living shield and thumbed off the safety to aim and fire at Gaza.
Or rather, he pulled the trigger, but there only came the solid click of the hammer falling on a spent shell.
Throwing back his head, Baron Gaza let loose a bellow of laughter as Hawk desperately dry-fired every chamber.
“Such a waste.” Gaza sneered, lowering the barrel of his rapid-fire. “Haven’t I aced you already?”
“In the keep!” Hawk screamed, gesturing with the empty weapon. “I saw it all! He—”
Sitting in the gunner’s seat of the APC, Allison burped the .50-cal once, and Hawk flew backward, his last words torn from his exploded lungs by the hail of hardball round before they could be formed.
With the sand crunching every step, Gaza walked over to the still corpse and looked at the black scorpion crawling madly about the body as if trying to rouse its master. Muttering a curse, Baron Gaza stomped on the creature, cracking open its shell, and then ground his boot back and forth until its squeals ceased.
“All hail the Scorpion God,” he said with a guttural laugh, then spit on the dead man.
“Wh-what about us, Baron?” a sec man asked nervously. “How…how c-can we prove our loyalty to you?”
Baron Gaza looked at the man coldly.
“You can’t,” he said, and the women cut loose in a volley of lead, cutting down the rest of the sec men on their knees.
The sound of the blasterfire was still echoing among the dunes as Gaza went to the fallen 25 mm cannon and lifted it from the filthy sand. As gentle as stroking a lover, the man caressed the satiny smooth barrel.
“Now we’re a match for the Trader,” Gaza said with feeling, and started walking to the APC with his prize. “Load the rest of the ammo, and loot the bodies of weapons or anything else useful. I’ll see to the installation of this personally.”
Impressed at the display of raw strength, his wives preened in pride as the man walked the staggeringly heavy weapon over to the LAV 25 and started attaching it to the pintel mounting. Then shouldering their blasters, the women started stripping the men and horses when Victoria suddenly stood straight up and pointed to the south, making loud grunting noises.
Scowling, Allison turned and gasped, dropping the bloody boots in her hands. There, rising high above the world, was a white mushroom cloud.
EVENTUALLY, the rumbling winds passed and the companions slowly eased hands away from their faces to fill their aching lungs with the clean fresh air blowing in from the desert.
Dusted white from the billowing salt, Ryan blinked hard to clear his vision and could finally see again. The building under their boots still shook slightly, but the salt dome was gone, exposing something from another world.
It was a preDark city. The companions were standing on top of a skyscraper that rose above a perfectly preserved town that appeared to stretch for dozens of blocks in every direction. Mebbe more! The city filled a circular depression in the ground, edged by a sheer rock wall that rose to the desert floor above them. For a moment the man had a rush of vertigo as he adapted to the fact that he had fallen down to land high in the sky.
In the distance the remains of the dome crumbled along the rim of the cliff, the huge pieces falling into the city to smash cars and buildings. White salt clouds moved like fog along the streets, and a raging fire burned out of control in an intersection where a gasoline tanker had been flattened by the plummeting tons of the falling dome.
“By the Three Kennedys,” Doc whispered in unabashed wonder, turning in a circle. “It is as if we have traveled backward in time.”
“A preDark city,” J.B. said, recovering his hat from the rooftop. “Not a ruin, but the whole damn thing.”
Walking to the corner of the roof, Ryan looked out across the nameless Texas city. The skyscraper they were on was in the middle of the sprawling metropolis, near some sort of an open stadium, dust clouds still billowing inside resembling a winter snowstorm.
“A sink hole,” he said. The one-eyed man had seen similar before, but never anything on this scale. It was staggering! “Must have been caused by the first nukes. Sometimes the land just cracks apart, sometimes it rises into new mountains or mesas, and sometime falls into the earth like this.”
“I remember seeing pictures in Time magazine about a mining village in Pennsylvania,” Mildred said, shifting the satchel on her shoulder into a more comfortable position. “Almost the same damn thing as this happened. A section of ground dropped out from under the folks like an elevator, removing the heart of the city. Only it didn’t drop nice and even like this, it was sharply titled. Took the Army Corps of Engineers a week to rescue everybody while it continued to slowly descend.”
“Is that happening here?” Dean demanded, suddenly alert, hands splayed for balance. “We still going down?”
“No, we’re stationary,” Krysty said, her fiery hair slowly uncoiling from the startling sight of the city. She kept starting to call them ruins, but the buildings were in perfect condition, aside from some minor damage caused by the falling dome. A few of the larger chunks had hit the streets below and not broken apart, the slabs of pristine white salt scattered about like pieces of an eggshell amid the homes and office buildings.
“But how do you know for sure?” the boy demanded, a touch of fear in his young voice. Ever since Zero City, and then the cliffs of the Marshal Islands, he had been developing a hatred of high places.
“No elevator feel in gut,” Jak stated. “Remember how feel in redoubt when go fast? Not here.”
Dean frowned as he concentrated inside himself, then nodded as he eased the tension from his face.
“Gotcha,” he said, exhaling deeply. “Right. No problem.”
Turning slowly to recce the roof, Ryan paused and pulled out his SIG-Sauer. “Who the hell is that?” he demanded, pointing at a pair of legs sticking out from behind the brick kiosk of the rooftop stairwell entrance.
Drawing weapons, the companions advanced fast, then holstered their blasters when they saw the face of the person. The skin was dried like jerky, eyes gone and lips pulled back in a rictus of death. Yet the clothing was in good shape: leather shoes without holes in the soles, pants and shirt, and a shiny wrist chron along with a gold wedding ring.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mildred said, crouching alongside the desiccated being. The flesh was wizened and now dark brown in color from sheer age, the original race of the person hidden by the passing on the long decades. The clothes appeared to be casual, but with matching stripes on the sides and cuffs. Some kind of a uniform, but not the police or firefighters. Maybe a paramedic? There was a tool belt with a cell phone and an electronic clipboard and some weird pliers that were vaguely familiar to the physician. Then she saw a plastic name tag pinned to the shirt, the photo and card inside the clear material was easily readable as the day it had been issued.
“It’s a cable repair man,” Mildred said, for some reason a shaky laugh bubbling up from inside. Of all the people to find from the lost world it would have to be a damn cable TV guy. Then she looked again at the photo ID.
“Excuse me, cable TV woman,” Mildred corrected, then addressed to the corpse. “Sorry.”
“Somebody important?” Dean asked, inspecting the wrist chron. But the timepiece was digital, the powerful long-life batteries inert for a century.
“Depends on your priorities,” the stocky woman replied, standing. “She was a television technician.”
“Woman?” Jak asked, wrinkling his brow. “Hard to tell.”
Mildred shrugged. “Everything shrinks with age.”
“Dark night, there’s more,” J.B called out. “Hundreds, thousands of them!”
Standing at the cornice of the building, one boot resting on the low ledge, J.B. was usin
g the telescope to scan the metropolis below.
“The streets are littered with people,” he announced. “They’re behind the steering wheels of the cars, and trucks, in the shops. They’re everywhere.”
“The entire population of a preDark city,” Ryan said aloud, rubbing his jaw. “As well preserved as the city itself.”
This was something horribly new to him. He had seen death a thousand times, and killed that many in battle. But this was beyond imagination. The sheer scope of the death toll was unnerving, staggering. A hundred thousand corpses? A million? There was no way to tell. He had known since childhood that billions died in skydark, but to now see them laid out on the ground all around like autumn leaves brought the volume of the destruction alive in his heart. What kind of madmen had brought about this level of destruction to their own people, their own world?
“Gaia rest their souls,” Krysty said softly, spreading her arms as if to embrace the entire city.
“Amen,” Doc said, then added some phrase in Latin, which Mildred repeated solemnly.
Staying resolute, the rest of the companions said nothing. They were also affected by the city of the dead, but refused to be rattled.
“Well, this certainly caused the stink,” J.B. said, rubbing his nose, trying to change the dark mood. “When the salt dome cracked, it released the graveyard fumes of a million corpses, stored for a hundred years.”
“I’m surprised we survived,” Mildred agreed grimly. “The methane levels alone should have killed us.”
“The irregular cracking of the dome must have forced most of the dead air skyward, channeling it away from us,” J.B. suggested. Explosions of any kind were home turf to the Armorer.
“That would explain it,” she relented.
Just then, Ryan gave a sharp whistle and pointed to the north. “We got company,” Ryan said gruffly, brushing back his black hair. “The Core just arrived.”
Facing that way, the companions could see small figures moving along the edge of the rocky cliff.
“Bet they’re triple angry over this,” Dean said, pulling his Browning Hi-Power and briefly checking the blaster. It was dusted with salt, but the rack worked fine and the clip slid in and out without hindrance.
