by James Axler
"Yes," replied his father. "Their leader must have got lucky and figured out the access code. When he got chilled fighting over who would own the Leviathan, that was it for everybody."
"They did it to themselves. The damn fools."
"Damn dead fools." Ryan started to unbuckle his safety harness, but Krysty stopped him.
"I'm faster," she said and was out the side door before he could respond.
"Fireblast!" he cried, "Everybody to the ports. Give her cover!"
Ryan hit the controls, turning on every light they had, as blaster barrels extended from every port. Sprinting to the wall, the redhead rapidly punched in the access code, then turned and headed for the tank.
A flurry of blasterfire from the side .50-caliber machine guns cut loose and the woman crouched low, both hands gripping her S&W revolver. She had no idea what they were shooting at. The blasters were pointed low, the rounds glancing off the concrete wall. Then from under Leviathan came two hellhounds, the nightmare beasts springing straight for her. The crossing streams of heavy slugs caught one and brutally cut it in two. The undamaged animal retreated into the darkness, while the wounded dog writhed grotesquely, still trying to reach Krysty, the tentacles and paws dragging along the bloody hunks of dying flesh. Standing, she kicked the animal out of the way with her silver-tipped boot and scrambled into the safety of the tank.
"Thanks," she said, locking the door tight
J.B. tipped his hat. Partially hidden by the large pile of supplies in the middle of the vehicle, Mildred flashed a smile. "No prob," she said, patting the boxy breech of the Remington. "Feeds a bit slow, but it's much better than my Czech revolver."
"Here we go," Ryan announced, shifting gears. The massive steel portal had risen into the ceiling with the sound of oiled gears and smooth hydraulics. Brilliant sunshine poured into the tunnel. Ryan accelerated out of the darkness, and the tank was engulfed in a blinding glare. Nothing could be seen through the windows. Then, incredibly, the glass tinted, dimming the light to bearable levels. "Dean, jump out and punch in the code to close the door," Ryan ordered. As the youth did his father's bidding, the rest of the companions covered Dean until he was safely back on board. When the door had finally descended, the entrance to the base was a solid sheet of sand-colored alloy, the squat dome resembling an outcropping of granite. Leviathan was only a short distance away, and the friends found it difficult to pinpoint the entrance.
"Good disguise," Jak stated, sounding impressed.
Shifting sands and bare rock stretched to the horizon, without a single break of withered grass, dead trees or the ancient remains of a sidewalk. As far as they could tell, this was virgin desert, as pristine as before humanity walked erect.
Krysty gave a shiver. "Dead, it's so dead," she said, hugging her shaggy bearskin coat tight as if she were freezing. "There's no life out here I can feel."
"Good," Jak said, idly stropping one of his countless throwing knives on a pocket whetstone.
"Reminds me of the lunar landscape," Mildred commented.
Dean stared at her and began to ask a question, then stopped. He would take her word on the matter. Mildred knew things that were almost impossible for him to believe, but were true nonetheless.
"It Does resemble the moon, dear lady, except for those," Doc noted, pointing. In the far distance, gray mountains rose high into the sky, their sides twinkling as if set with a thousand diamonds.
"Now that's interesting," the physician murmured, raising a pair of binocs to her face and pressing them against the tinted composite glass. "Note those rolling hills before the odd mountains? That's atomic landscaping. When the nuke hit, the soil rippled liked a pond when you drop in a stone, then solidified into place."
Opening the window a crack. Ryan unclipped the rad counter from his collar and held it outside. "Clean!"
"Same here," J.B. said from the starboard machine gun, inspecting his own rad counter. "Must have been a short half-life bomb that leveled this area. Background is tolerable."
"So where are we?" Mildred asked. Tucking away his rad counter, LB. reached into his shirt and produced a minisextant. "Give me five minutes and I can tell you."
"Anywhere not Chicago is fine by me," Doc said succinctly, his face full of memories.
Returning the rad counter to his collar, Ryan closed the window. "Area seems secure, but don't dawdle, J.B. Everybody else watch for-"
"Incoming," Dean cried loudly from the rear doors.
Doc joined him at the louvered slots. "By the Three Kennedys, those Dantean canines are yet after us!" Then his expression changed to befuddlement "Shades of the great Houdini! Th-they're gone!"
"Ran away?" Ryan asked pointedly. He was looking in both the sideview mirrors, but couldn't see the mutie dogs.
"No, sir," Dean reported, swallowing hard. "They're just.. .gone. Sort of, faded away."
"They turned light tan in color," Doc explained, making sure the bolt on the rear doors was secure. "Exactly the same hue as the sand."
"Like chameleons?" Mildred asked, studying the desert outside. Only the baked sand was visible, but every little puff of wind-driven dust now held hostile intent. "That's why they were black inside the garage, and the dead went neutral in tone. Better cover. Fascinating."
"Deadly," Ryan corrected, swiveling in his chair. "Krysty, anything on that infrared gizmo?"
"Checking," the redhead replied, fumbling with the unfamiliar controls. It took her a few moments to figure out what was where. "No, it's too hot out here. There's a switch here for something called ultraviolet"
Krysty flipped a switch and a vid screen came to life, showing a stark black-and-white view of the landscape. She rotated a tracking ball, and the picture spun to their wake. "Found them! Smack on top of that big sand dune."
"Got them." The Armorer smiled and he hit a switch.
There was a metallic clang, then a roaring noise that built in volume, then quickly faded away. From the side windows and ports, the friends could see a silvery dart riding a column of reddish fire streak away to violently impact on the hilltop. The entire dune vanished in a tremendous explosion, a geyser of sand blowing into the sky for dozens of yards.
"Dead," Jak said, his scarred face twisting into a smile.
Easing on the clutch, Ryan brought the rumbling machine to a gentle halt. "Well?" he asked.
"No," Krysty replied, fine-tuning the controls. "Two figures are running off into the sunset"
"Where? Directly into the sunset, or on a vector?" J.B. snapped.
"Too late," she announced, as the screen went blank. "They're gone."
"Well, we got most of them," Dean said.
"But not all."
J.B. yanked off his hat and smacked it into his hand. "Dark night! Bastard things are harder to kill than a three-headed stickie!"
"And uglier," Jak drawled, testing a knife edge on a thumb. "Least they gone."
"Indeed, sir," Doc agreed vehemently. "And good riddance I say."
Rolling down a window, Ryan let the dry desert wind blow over his face. "No," he said, "it's not good. Until we have two corpses, nobody goes outside this vehicle alone. At least, not until we're far away from here."
"Can't know we're away till we get the coordinates of here," J.B. said, undogging the lock to the side door. "Okay, everybody cover me. I'm gonna find out where we are."
"Scope is clean," Krysty said, fiddling with the contrast. "But you best hurry. I can't scan on every side at once."
"No prob."
Their handblasters primed, Jak and Dean took positions on either side of the open door, grimly watching the landscape for any suspicious movements. Slinging his submachine gun, J.B. reached inside his shirt and pulled out his minisextant "Just a second," he announced working the device. Focusing the mirrors on the sun, then the horizon, he checked his arcs and counted off the seconds.
"Hmm, 40 minutes 32 seconds longitude, 82 minutes even 30 seconds latitude. If memory serves me right, we're in northwestern Ohio." The Armorer cr
acked a smile. "Smack in the middle of Salt Fork Lake."
"Lake?" Jak snorted, squinting at the blazing sun and windswept landscape.
"Nuke landscaping," Ryan reminded him, resting both arms on the steering wheel. "Seems to be desert on every side but straight ahead. What are those odd mountains to the east?"
J.B. climbed in and closed the door. "The Alleghenies, extending into West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Can't tell you more. I don't know this section of America."
"As I recall, it was mostly farmland," Doc said, leaning forward in his seat. "Very low-level-priority targets. No military bases or heavy industry. Therefore, the area most likely avoided a major attack."
"Even some is a lot," Krysty commented, her hair moving as if stirred by unfelt-winds. "One nuke can ruin your whole damn day."
"Pennsylvania. That means the Amish," Mildred said thoughtfully. "Even in my day they had renounced technology. Lived by muscle power. Their civilization wouldn't collapse."
"Slave muscle?" Ryan asked suspiciously.
"Never! They were good Christian folks," Doc stated. "Hopefully, they still are. We should be able to trade with them."
"Sounds good," decided the one-eyed warrior. Pulling out the choke, he started the Detroit power plants with a low rumble. The gas gauge read just under the full line, and the side gauge read a reserve tank of four hundred gallons completely full. Plus, they had to have another couple of hundred gallons in cans. "J.B., any roads?"
"Nothing on the map. But there's supposed to be a river ahead of us. Always easy traveling there. Even if it's gone, the bed will make us a good road."
"East it is, then." Easing in the clutch and engaging the gears, Ryan brought the vehicle to a forward roll just as a beep sounded from the dashboard. Then another.
"It's the radar," he said, sounding surprised. "Something is coming our way."
"The dogs again?" Mildred asked, moving quickly to a Remington. She snapped the release and opened the breech, laying in a fresh belt of ammo. LB. did the same on the other side. In an ever-increasing rhythm, the beeps slowly started coming together faster and faster. "No. Not the dogs," Krysty said.
"So, what is it?"
"I don't know," Ryan said, pushing down the gas pedal, Leviathan moving off with increasing speed. "But it's bastard big and coming our way."
"Direct?"
"Sure is."
Resting the Mossberg on a vacant seat, Dean went to the port blasterslot and scrutinized the desert. Only sunbaked desolation was visible. Some clouds in the far distance. Nothing more. "You sure?" he asked.
Dodging an irregular outcrop, Ryan glanced at the glowing green blip on the luminescent screen, which was increasing in size by the second. "Hell, yeah."
"Found it!" Mildred cried, binocs to her face. "At seven o'clock, and moving fast."
"What is it?" Ryan asked, urging more rpm out of the engines. Fight or flight, speed was to their advantage either way. He didn't care what it was, anything that large was trouble.
"Squat, low." Mildred paused, adjusting the focus. "Resembles a tank, but I'm not familiar with the model. Must have been on patrol around the base."
"Waiting for coldhearts," Jak said. "Another Leviathan?"
"No," she retorted. "A real tank. Straight military. Only it is larger, like a Abrams on steroids. It's covered with antennas and dish shapes. But it only has a little cannon."
"That means no range," J.B. stated confidently. "No prob, as long as we keep enough distance."
"What kind of little?" Ryan interrupted. "Short in length, or thin, a small-caliber blaster?"
"What's the difference?" the physician asked. He stared in the sideview mirror. Nothing in sight yet. "Escape," he told her over the beeping radar.
"Short and fat," J.B. announced. Hat in hand, the Armorer had his face pressed hard against the slot to steady his view against the jostling of the vehicle.
In response, Ryan pressed the accelerator firmly to the floor. The twin diesels roared in barely restrained fury. The quivering needle of the speedometer steadily climbed to forty kph, fifty, sixty, seventy, seventy-five, seventy-six....
Chapter Five
The radar was starting to keen so J.B. turned the machine off. They had been warned, its job was done.
"Could it be," Krysty asked urgently, "an intact Ranger?
"Hope not," Ryan said through gritted teeth.
"What's a Ranger?" Dean asked.
"A predark robot tank, comp-operated, no driver. Never heard of anybody ever stopping one."
Krysty spun her chair and worked the breech on the 75 mm recoilless rifle. It was empty. "Jak, help me find the shells for the rifle!"
"Move it or lose it, people!" Ryan shouted, watching their Hummer of supplies bounce along behind them. Several boxes had already come loose, and they were losing more goods constantly. But there was nothing he could do about that. Supplies and food could be replaced. Not lives.
"If only we had some bastard trees for cover," he snarled to himself. Those strange gray mountains seemed a million miles away, and there was a nuke crater between them. If it was old and cold, it would mean hardly any cover. Exactly what they didn't want. If it was hot, an even worse death awaited them of bleeding sores and coughing out pieces of their lungs. Maybe it was only the dogs pulling a trick, or some coldhearts in a Hummer.
"I do not see anything," Doc announced at the rear doors. "Just sand and... No, wait. There it is."
"Dark night, it's bigger than us!"
"Stop behind a dune and kill the engines," Doc suggested. "Perhaps it is following us by the noise.
"Must be the tracks in the sand."
"No," Krysty said. "It's following our radar!"
"Already off." Ryan cursed.
"Mebbe the guys inside only want to talk or trade," Dean suggested hopefully. "Or we can lure them out and-"
"There's nobody inside it," Ryan said, turning around a dune so quickly that six wheels left the ground. "That thing is fast."
"We are faster," Doc said in false confidence.
"Not by much," Ryan stated grimly.
Krysty looked at the speedometer. "Can't we get any more speed?"
Weaving around rocks and gullies, Ryan checked the console. "We're at the red line."
Krysty glanced in a mirror. The black shape was closer and bigger. "It's not enough."
"I know."
His face pressed hard against the cushioned eyepiece of the periscope, finger lying next to the launch button of the missile pod, J.B. worked the focus and there it was, just as Mildred had described the thing. A squat angular box covered with antennae and with a single, front-mounted cannon. He couldn't ID the caliber of the gun, but it sure didn't seem big enough to damage anything armored like the Leviathan.
"Hey!" Mildred cried. "Its muzzle just glowed in a rainbow pattern."
"Rainbow?" Dean repeated.
"Yes," Mildred said, clearly puzzled. "No explosions or missile launched. Just some pretty colors. There it goes again!"
Handing Krysty a shell from the bin, Jak scowled.
"Colors?"
"Brace for impact!" Ryan yelled, twisting the steering wheel hard. Everybody not buckled in was thrown from their seats, and supplies scattered as the ground alongside the Leviathan violently exploded. The armored craft rocked from the concussion.
"It has a laser," Doc gasped, unable to believe his eyes. "The rainbow was the spectrum effect."
J.B scowled. "Laser? Then what exploded?"
"Nothing. That was a thermal cloud from the vaporized sand, or so I would guess," Doc replied.
"Vaporized!"
"Yes."
"Hole's big as a bathtub," Krysty added.
"Laser, schmazer," J.B. said, and he pressed the trigger hard as if he were thrusting a knife into the vitals of a living enemy.
In the sideview mirror, Ryan spied a rustling firebird leap from the rear missile pod to streak away and impact on the turret of the tank with a thunderclap. A fireball
blossomed over the machine, obliterating it from view.
"Bull's-eye!" J.B. yelled.
"Hold on," Ryan told him, and he pulled in the choke on the engines. Hooded with fuel, the military diesels revved madly, the console gauge needle going off the scale as the twin 1,250 horse power plants shoved the front wheels of the tank off the ground in its haste to depart.
"Why the rush?" Doc asked, sitting in his seat and calmly crossing his legs. "John Barrymore delivered a mortal blow."
Dean agreed. "We should stop and loot the wreckage."
Concentrating on his driving, Ryan made no reply. As his grinning friends watched, out of the crackling inferno of the blast rolled the ebony tank completely undamaged.
"Dark night, it isn't scratched," J.B. whispered. He took a step from the periscope and almost tripped over a box of spare parts on the floor.
"Rainbow again!" Krysty shouted, and another blast rocked their vehicle.
Ignoring the fight around her, Mildred sat quietly in her chair, studying her watch and counting.
"J.B., launch another missile!" Ryan snapped. "Mebbe it'll work this time! Aim for the laser itself!"
"He can't," Krysty said from the front seat. "The whole control board just went dead. Our rear pod is gone."
"What about the front pod?"
"It can't shoot backward. You want to turn around?"
"Hell, no!"
"My turn," J.B. snapped, cranking the wheel to traverse the rear Vulcan 40 mm cannon. "Jak, Mildred, load me with AP and keep them coming."
"That won't work on a tank," Doc reminded him.
"You got a better plan?"
"Yes, I do." Doc stood, swaying to the motions. of the racing vehicle and went to rummage in the wall locker, tossing out ammo boxes and grens as if they were rubbish.
"I saw the empty cases in the garage," he grunted. "So they must be here. They must! They couldn't have used them all against each other."
Ryan watched cut of the corner of his vision. He had no idea what the old man was planning and fervently hoped he wasn't off again on a daydream trip to the good old days.
"Twenty-two!" Mildred cried, staring at her watch in triumph. "Yes!"
"What?" Ryan demanded, swerving past the remains of a stone fence. A plastic sign was still in place' but any words had long been abraded off by the windblown sands.
