Pandora's Redoubt

by James Axler

  Accepted. Implement. And the mammoth war machine rumbled off toward the east at its top speed.

  Chapter Six

  Rifles and handblasters were held tight in sweaty hands as good luck charms as Leviathan rolled over the flat plain of the nuclear crater for miles. In spite of their exhaustion, everyone's face was pressed tight to a window or blasterport, watching for the return of the dreaded predark war machine.

  Scanning ahead with binocs, Krysty cursed. "There's a river coming up ahead. If the Ranger tries to circle around and ambush us from the other side, it'll reach the water and be able to see inside the blast crater and track us."

  "No, it won't," Ryan decided, twisting the wheel sharply. The tires squealed, as Leviathan banked sharply on a new course. "We're cutting a tangent. By the time it reaches the river, we'll be long gone.

  The redhead nodded. "Hopefully."

  "It's all we have."

  The rippled glass under the wheels gave way to streaks of fused glass, shiny fingers reaching into the sterilized dirt. Acid rain gullies cut miniature ravines across the arid plain. Eventually, the pale dirt darkened in color to a proper brown, with some mutated plants and milkweeds appearing in tiny clumps, fighting for subsistence. Then flecks of true grass were seen, the faint green as incongruous as flowers on the moon amid the rad-blasted vegetation. Then more green grass, thickening to patches, followed by small irregular fields with stumpy bushes and corpses of withered bushes that became copses of mutant trees. The trunks were gnarled and malformed, the branches knotted as if in pain and the fruits hairy pulsating sacks. But even these malformations were a welcome sight after the blighted zone of the rad pit.

  "Almost out," Mildred stated, motioning with a hand. "See there! Fields of green grass. Been a while since we saw that."

  "East wasn't as bad hit as the west," J.B. said, stubbornly chewing bites off a bar of stale cheese as he manned the starboard Remington. "I don't think the big radstorms ever made it this far."

  "Doesn't seem as if the acid rains hit here much, either."

  "It's not paradise," Ryan said, feeling the desolation, "but I've seen worse."

  A rabbit bolted by them, its six legs hurtling it across the clearing into the safety of the greenery. "Muties don't seem too extreme, either," Krysty observed.

  "I noticed."

  Sipping a cup of MRE coffee from a battered tin cup, Krysty perked up in her seat as Leviathan crested a low ground swell. "What's that noise?" she demanded.

  Ryan slowed their speed. "I've been noticing it for hours. Getting worse."

  "Controls say the engines are fine," Mildred announced. She tapped the console with a finger. "If the gauges are working correctly, that is."

  "Seems to be coming from underneath us," J.B told them, cupping an ear to listen. "Mebbe there's a branch caught in a wheelwell."

  "Could be the tire the hellhounds ate," Dean said, loading his weapon from the cache of rounds in his vest. "You know, the empty rim spinning loose."

  Easing out the clutch, Ryan braked the vehicle to stop and pulled the handle to set the tandem brakes, fore and aft. "More reasonable than a branch." He released the seat harness and stood stiffly. Checking his 9 mm pistol, Ryan accepted the flashlight from Mildred, clicking it on once to make sure it was working properly. "Come on, J.B., let's go see what's the prob."

  "Right," the Armorer said, grabbing a toolbox and his Uzi.

  The two men climbed outside while the rest kept a careful watch. After ascertaining there were no surprises waiting for them below the vehicle, they lay on the grass and slid out of sight.

  Walking to the middle of the tank, Krysty undid the bolts and clamps on the belly hatch and lifted it out of the way. "See anything?" she called down.

  "Shit, yeah! We got a hole in our transmission!" J.B. shouted. "We've lost all of our gear oil!"

  "We catch some shrapnel from the Hummer?" Dean asked through the hole.

  His father answered. "No. Apparently, the coldhearts didn't tighten the draining bolt good enough.

  "J.B., check the fill plug to make sure it's okay."

  "Doing it," the Armorer answered.

  Ryan's face came into view. "Dean, Jak, search for that bastard bolt in our wake;" he said. "Mebbe it only came off recently. Should be just behind a big puddle of smelly reddish oil."

  "Be right back, Dad," Dean said. The two youths took their weapons and headed off on foot. In the harsh sunlight, Jak blinked harshly and removed an old pair of taped-together sunglasses from a pocket of his camous. Sliding them onto his pale face, the albino blinked red eyes for a moment, then followed after Dean, easily catching up to the hurrying boy.

  "How bad is our situation?" Doc asked, who had been sharpening his blade with a whetstone. The sword whispered a sigh as he slid it into its ebony sheath, then locked it into place with a click and a twist. There was no way for an outsider to know it was anything but a walking cane.

  "Pretty bad," Krysty replied, her hair coiling and uncoiling nervously. "The gears will burn out in minutes without any lubricant."

  "So Leviathan is effectively dead?"

  Mildred got out of her seat and started to rummage in a box full of cartons. "Maybe not. We have some spare oil here," she said, lifting a can. "No, this is motor oil. Brake fluid, antifreeze, antijellying. What's that?"

  "For diesels," Krysty said. Kneeling by the pile of supplies, she started shifting boxes. "When it gets too cold, the fuel makes a sort of jelly and won't ignite anymore."

  "The hell you say"

  Laying his cane across an empty seat, Doc joined them in the task. "More oil, and more again. Do diesels consume a lot of oil?"

  "Always," Krysty said, shoving aside an ammo box and a backpack of food. The only boxes left on the floor were clearly fuel and tools. "No transmission fluid here."

  "None here, either," Mildred stated, rocking back on her heels. Then she motioned at the wall lockers. "Anybody check in there?"

  "Some blankets, a few tools, rope, not much more," Doc answered. "We lost a lot in the Hummer."

  "That's trouble," Ryan said from the doorway. He rested a boot on the corrugated floor. "We fixed the leak part. J.B. used a bolt from the knuckle of the dead wheel. Took some effort, but it fit the hole."

  "Won't ever come out again," J.B. stated, standing behind the man and using a rag to wipe his hands clean. "But it's in there."

  "Is there any substitute we can use?" Krysty asked, lifting a plastic container of hydraulic brake fluid. "Mebbe mix a couple or distill them into something usable?"

  "No," Mildred replied. "Not without a full laboratory."

  "Yeah," Ryan countered. "We can use regular engine oil."

  "But..."

  "Yeah, sure," J.B. said, brightening. "That'll do, long as we keep the tranny in low gear, and don't go very fast. That should minimize the frothing."

  "Frothing?"

  "But we won't be able to shift gears," Ryan added, scratching his unshaven chin. "First, mebbe second, will be it."

  "Ryan," Mildred stated, "there's bound to be plenty of transmission fluid in the redoubt. Think we can sneak past the Ranger?"

  "Even if we did," Ryan replied, "we'd never make it that far. What do you guess, J.B., ten, mebbe fifteen miles?"

  "At most."

  Jak and Dean returned, hands empty.

  "Zip" the albino teen reported.

  "The oil trail was only scattered drops for as far as we could track," Dean added apologetically. "We must have been losing it for a while. Stretched out of sight."

  "Shitfire, and we can't go back. The Ranger might be flanking us, and if we're caught walking out in the open..." J.B. made a slicing sound and drew his thumbnail across his throat.

  Climbing out of the tank, Krysty raised a pair of binocs to her face and stared into the distance. "I say we go due east," she said. "Those aren't mountains out there, they're skyscrapers. I've been studying them since I woke."

  Resting the Mossberg on his shoulder, Dean said
, "That Doesn't mean they have any garages or repair shops not looted."

  "Don't need them," Ryan said, extending a brass sailor's telescope to its full-length and lifting it to his good eye. The thing didn't have half the magnifying power of binocs, but it didn't give him a headache, either. "Any building that tall must have elevators."

  "So?"

  "The Trader used to drain the hydraulic fluid from the lifters in the basement to use in his tranny and gunswivels."

  "How far away do you think?" Doc asked, trying to gauge the distance with his thumb. "Fifteen miles?"

  "I'd guess thirty," Ryan replied, compacting the telescope. "Well beyond our estimated maximum."

  "So we better prep our packs to go on foot," Krysty said. "Just in case.

  "Right."

  J.B. started to collect cans of 10W40 motor oil in his arms. "Doc, still got the Swiss army knife?"

  Doc displayed his newest possession.

  "Need the can opener," the Armorer stated, accepting the multiblade. "Mine's kind of bent. Be right back."

  "Want help?" Jak asked, stuffing his long hair into his collar as a prelude to work. He had seen more than enough fools have their heads pulled into working engines because of long hair or loose clothing to know better.

  "No," J.B. told him. "This is the easy part. Putting it in."

  Jak released his hair. "Okay."

  J.B. went out of sight and muffled cursing wafted up from the floor.

  Yawning mightily, Ryan rubbed his eye and cracked the vertebrae in his neck. "Somebody else can drive for a while," he announced. "I'm too bastard tired to see straight. And any more of that damn MRE coffee and I'll start pissing black. Got to get some sleep."

  "I'll take over," Mildred offered, sliding into the driver's seat. The steering wheel was too high and she adjusted it downward. "Been driving since I was sixteen. My father had a pickup truck I used to borrow."

  "We better get some shut-eye," Ryan said, making a rough bed out of some moth-eaten Army blankets. "It'll take us a while to reach the town, ruins, whatever. Two-hour shifts."

  Doc covered a yawn himself. "Ah, the arms of Morpheus claim us all. To visit the land of Nod seems an unparalleled Bacchanalian delight."

  "Done," J.B. reported, stepping into the vehicle and sliding the door closed. "And catching some z's sounds mighty good."

  From his prone position, Ryan tossed the man a blanket. J.B. made the catch and laid it on the floor as a cushion.

  "Seats are more comfortable," Doc stated, lying lengthwise across several of them, the armrests folded out of the way.

  "And then I kiss the floor when I roll over," J.B. said, covering his face with his fedora. "So I might as well start off here."

  "I'm fine," Dean said. "Wide awake."

  "Me, too," Krysty added. "Just had a nap."

  Tightening the harness to fit her smaller frame, Mildred eased the tank into second gear, bypassing first entirely. "Then you two take first watch. Krysty, starboard guns, Dean, port."

  "Done."

  "Yes, Mildred."

  The physician started the twin engines and engaged the clutch. Leviathan lurched as if it had been kicked. Bucking and shaking, it start to roll and soon was moving with a steady rattle at fifteen miles per hour.

  "Hardly better than walking," Mildred muttered, making a mental note to herself to watch the pressure and not burn out the clutch. Lord alone knew if they had a spare. Then a thought occurred and she killed the interior lights rear of the machine guns.

  "Thanks." Rolling onto his side, Ryan slid his SIG-Sauer under the makeshift pillow and ordered himself to sleep. It worked at first, but every dip and hole jarred him awake again. Privately, he was beginning to regret his wishing for a war wag. Flat tires, bad wads, mechanical breakage, and they made one hell of a target for raiders. Right about now, a mat-trans jump, even with the sickness, was starting to look pretty good.

  SEVENTY MILES to the east, a cold wind moaned over the bare stone battlements of a medieval-style tower, the tallest edifice among many such buildings. The design of the granite-block complex with its distant outer walls was primitive, crude, a brute force-approach to architecture. However, platoons of sec men sporting autofire blasters patrolled the heights in grim resolution, hand-rolled cigarettes of local tobacco dangling from their tight-lipped mouths. The smokes offered only a small source of fleeting warmth against the bitter winds that flowed down from the surrounding mountain range like an invisible river of ice.

  In the cobblestone courtyards below, ragged slaves pushed ramshackle carts of withered winter vegetables and hauled buckets of muddy water past

  an ominous array of high wooden gallows. Several of the dangling nooses were occupied by the remains of outlanders. The rotting bodies had been left in full view of all, both as an object lesson to other would-be troublemakers, and to lure in crows for the Citadel larder. No food of any kind was never wasted in Novaville.

  Every movement and expression of the shuffling workers was duly scrutinized by fat overseers for any hint of rebellion, their own faces gleaming with health, coiled bull whips of knotted leather held in callused hands. Dressed in bulky military jackets and predark jumpboots, the guards still shivered from the omnipresent cold and looked eagerly for any excuse from the prisoners to vent their displeasure at this onerous duty.

  However, deep inside the labyrinthine bowels of the massive stone Citadel, a beautiful woman rose smiling and naked from a silver bathtub, the soapy water dripping off her long limbs and full breasts.

  Servants stepped forward with soft towels and began daintily drying off her alabaster skin. Primly, almost absentmindedly, the Lady Ward Amanda Coultier nodded approval at their gentle attention.

  Torches of pitch and wood lined the stone block walls, but those were only for emergencies. Chandeliers of electric lights hung from the oak rafters, filling the spacious room with illumination so bright that most visitors to the Citadel of Novaville considered it magic.

  "It's a foolish plan," her brother, Richard, said

  from the other side of a folding lacquered screen.

  The deputy ward was sounding extremely concerned. "Chances of success are very small."

  The heiress to the Citadel ran strong fingers through her long silky hair as a young female slave stroked a soft towel along her inner thighs, then even higher, drying the woman everywhere.

  "I agree, dearest brother." She laughed. "There's no need to be so gentle, little one. I am not made of crystal."

  The girl bowed. "Yes, Lady Ward." But her administrations became even more careful.

  Spreading her arms wide, Amanda allowed the other female slaves to dry her arms and towel her cascading blond hair.

  "It won't work," Richard repeated, louder than before.

  "Perhaps," Amanda agreed, "but more importantly, would Father approve of me trying?"

  There came an unseen sigh from the deputy ward.

  "Well, yes, of course. Cowards cannot rule a ville. But consider the danger!"

  Anger flared in Amanda's face for just a second, distorting the visage of beauty into a feral mask.

  "Oh, my dearest brother, you know they must die and as quickly as possible. Who better than I to accomplish the task?"

  "So when will you leave?" Richard asked. "This afternoon? Tonight, under cover of darkness?"

  "All in good time, brother. All in good time."

  RYAN AWOKE to the sound of splashing. Popping a stick of MRE gum into his mouth to remove the sour taste of sleep, he checked out the starboard blasterport. The tank was lumbering across a shallow stream, the water foaming over its fifteen tires. Then he noticed the vehicle had been organized while he slept, the spent shells from the .50-caliber and the rapidfires stuffed into boxes and tucked under seats. The rest of the supplies were piled on seats and strapped into place for ease of access. Everybody else was awake and sitting at their posts.

  "Good morning," Doc called out from the driver's seat.

  Stretching,
Ryan swallowed the gum and returned the greeting. "Where are we?"

  "Just a mile or so from the skyscrapers." To Ryan's expression he added, "We thought you needed the rest."

  "I did," he agreed, as the smell of breakfast filled the air.

  "Go eat," Krysty said, sipping coffee in the gunner's seat. "We already have."

  "Thanks." He found J.B. warming some rations in an aluminum frying pan held over a small campfire, made out of what appeared to be slats from a packing crate, the bits of wood stuffed inside a brass 75 mm shell. The shell was shoved through two large wooden slats in a cross pattern, which kept it from tumbling over.

  "My idea," J.B. told him. "Jak did the carving."

  "Nice job. MRE rations, I see," Ryan said, squatting on his heels.

  "Yep, powdered eggs, dehydrated bread, artificial butter, bacon, jerky, coffee, no sugar, the usual crap." J.B. added another sliver of packing crate to the flames. "Doesn't taste bad."

  Ryan took a deep breath. "Had worse." Careful not to spill any, he filled a tin cup with pale coffee and stirred in the hundred-year-old artificial cream powder. He took a sip. "No, don't think I have," Ryan corrected, making a face. "But it's warm, and edible."

  "If you say so. There's vacuum-packed nutcake for dessert, if you want some."

  "Anything that doesn't bite me first," Ryan replied, wolfing his meager share of the fare. Afterward, he used a rag and a canteen to wash the sleep from his face.

  Unceremoniously, J.B. shoved the breakfast debris out a window.

  Feeling vastly refreshed, Ryan checked his weapons and armed himself properly. "I'll take over, Doc," he told the white-haired gentleman at the wheel.

  "Certainly. However, it is too much trouble to start and stop this cumbersome dreadnought," Doc said, undoing the belt. "Grab hold of the wheel, and as I slide out, you squeeze in." The exchange was made without mishap.

  Ryan settled into the task, almost enjoying it.

  Less than an hour later, the soaring skyscrapers were readily visible over the treetops, and Ryan looked for a clear path through the trees to the city beyond.