Outlanders 15 - Doom Dynasty

by James Axler

  There was no point in trying to hide. Already scar­let threads stretched from the sights and cast red pin­points on Kane's shoulder epaulets. Kane exploded from his position, bounding to his feet. Domi lunged to the opposite side of the aisle, both people instinc­tively adhering to the rule of never presenting easy targets in a killzone.

  Two of the Calicos stuttered, and bullets peppered the crates behind him. At least three rounds struck Kane's body, stopped by the polycarbonate sheathing. He heard the ear-knocking concussion of Domi's Combat Master cycling through the clip of ammo. Blasterfire thundered in the enclosed space.

  Turning, Kane slid between two crates and saw a figure on the other side, trying to cut him off. He raised the Sin Eater, depressing the trigger and un­leashing 3-round bursts.

  Domi's blistering full-auto fire hammered into the front line of attacking hybrids, lifting them from their feet and bowling them backward.

  Kane picked off another man running to assume a flanking position, placing shots through his skullcap. He flailed and went down. Kane continued on through to the other aisle. His body ached from the bruises inflicted by the bullets. The armor stopped the 9 mm rounds, but it did not blunt the kinetic shock much.

  As he sprinted down the aisle, his motion detector beeped again. At least ten dots crawled across the

  LCD, converging on his position. He reached the mouth of the crate-walled canyon and saw a box-shaped, yellow-painted forklift parked nearby. He raced to it and vaulted into the seat. He keyed the engine to life and put it in gear.

  With a whining drone, the little machine leaped forward. He twirled the wheel, steering toward the nearest exit from the warehouse. Over to his left, four hybrids were cutting diagonally across the floor in an attempt to intercept him. He quickly drove between a cross row of packing crates, braked the vehicle and put it into reverse.

  With a reverberating bang, the forklift slammed into a series of metal containers forming a tower be­hind him. The stack teetered ominously for a moment, then toppled heavily onto the four hybrids. They had been running too fast to be able to stop and dodge, though two of them raised their arms and fended off the falling boxes. Kane had no idea what was in the crates or how long they had been stored there, but whatever it was, it was not very heavy.

  Kane kept the machine in reverse, and by manip­ulating the forklift's steering wheel, he spun it on screeching tires in a complete circle, revolving as if on an axis. As it rotated, the flame and noise leaped from the short barrel of his Sin Eater. He played the stream of 9 mm rounds over the two standing hybrids like water from a high-pressure hose.

  The first half-dozen bullets sewed bloody little dots across their chests, smashing them backward into screaming, tangle-footed sprawls.

  In the same instant as the Sin Eater began its deadly stutter, Kane saw three more hybrids dashing toward him. One had an infrasound wand in his hand, and its tapered tip blurred as it sent a rippling sonic shock wave surging toward his head.

  Chapter 23

  All stealth was useless now, Domi knew. She was up against at least a dozen well-armed, swift-footed ad­versaries. Speed and agility were the tools she brought into play. She had no plan except to evade capture. As a blaster barrel swept toward her, the albino's legs propelled her into a one-handed cartwheel. As her feet spun over her head, the Combat Master spit flame, the recoil only slightly affecting her balance as she landed lithely in a crouch.

  She fired a final round and saw a figure drop amid a spray of blood, then she scuttled back into the aisle. Domi holstered her blaster and, bracing her back against a row of crates, she lifted her legs and kicked out at the stack in front of her. They swayed, and when she gave them a second kick, they crashed over. The hybrids managed to get out of their path, but the sharp corner of one container slashed across the top of an oversized head, cutting a large, blood-spurting gash. She was surprised to see that it was red.

  The lids on some of the crates popped open, spill­ing out small machine parts that spread all over the floor and made the footing treacherous.

  A clamor of orders and counterorders erupted be­hind her.

  Domi raced across the warehouse, feeling as if her feet scarcely touched the floor. She dashed down a narrow side lane between the aisles, then up another one scarcely wide enough to accommodate her slight frame. The bulky combat vest caught on the corner of a crate, and for a second she was stuck fast. She managed to unzip it and wriggle free, losing the kit bag at the same time.

  The hybrids were coming toward her from three sides. That left her only retreat the way she had come—a move that the enemy expected. She chose to disappoint them, climbing up a tower of crates, using the gaps between the individual containers and the wooden skids upon which they rested as hand-and toeholds.

  Domi reached the top of the stack and, running at full sprint across the flat surfaces of the crates, she took an alleyway yawning before her in a single leap. She misjudged the distance of the adjacent aisle, came down too low, fumbled her grip on the edge, scraped skin from the palms of her hands and pulled herself atop it. She dashed across the top of the stacks and jumped to another aisle.

  Only then did she pause to look back and catch her breath. Her exertions had already drenched her in sweat. Her ragged mass of white hair was soaked through to the scalp, and salty, stinging trickles slid into her eyes.

  Domi saw no sign of Kane or any of the hybrids, but she did see the outermost lip of an upslanting, concrete ramp close by, leading up to the second level of the vast structure. Clambering down, she emerged on the far side of the stacks and began running toward the ramp. No one shot at her or tried to block her way.

  She loped up it, knowing the ramp was a point of exposure since there was no cover available. When she reached the next level, she did not waste time sighing with relief. It was as dimly lit as the level below and filled with row upon row of the airtight containers. She moved along the sides of them warily, trying to stay close to the shadows, drawing her knife.

  The stacks tunneled into an open space that had been cleared throughout the center of the floor. On the side opposite her position was a doorframe formed of piled boxes. Domi paused, eyeing it suspiciously. She waited for some sight or sound, staring out with slitted eyes, her thumb resting on the razor-keen edge of her blade.

  She did not wait long. Shadows shifted on the far side of the clearing, and she glimpsed two figures stationed seven feet apart against the far wall, aiming their little subguns at the doorway, intending to catch her in a devastating cross fire.

  Domi scrutinized the two figures. They were not the slender, small-statured hybrids, but men, human males wearing one-piece coveralls of a drab olive green. She smirked briefly. The hybrids had appar-ently proved themselves incompetent in a combat sit­uation, so the masters of the art had been summoned, calling in predators to catch predators.

  Although Domi despised the breed of so-called new human on general principles, she reserved her most unregenerate hatred for the breed of old human who willingly served them. As far as she was con­cerned, they were worse than traitors to their own kind; they were groveling, submissive lapdogs.

  She assessed the severity of the threat presented by the two men, and in a fraction of a second planned her next move.

  As carefully and as stealthily as she could manage, she scaled a stack of containers and crept along the top, intending to reach a point directly above the two men. A gap between the stacks separated her from the position she wanted to reach. She knew if she jumped it, they would hear her. However, she saw a support column only a yard or so away from the gap.

  Gathering her legs beneath her, Domi sprang up and outward. Grabbing the post firmly in the crook of her elbow and taking advantage of her momentum, she used it as pivot point. She swung her legs forward and around, sliding down swiftly and landing out of the line of fire next to a box.

  When she landed, she bent her legs under her like springs and sprang into a leap. She flew across the c
lear space toward the man on her left, twisting cat­like in midair as she did so. The knife in her right hand slashed out sideways, the edge of it sinking into his neck. He clapped a hand to his throat, as if trying to staunch the geyser of scarlet spewing from between his fingers.

  In one continuous, fluid motion, Domi hit the floor, tucked, rolled, spun herself over and around and launched herself at the other man.

  His reflexes were excellent. He swiveled and brought up his blaster to fire, but by then Domi was atop him, feet first in a flying drop kick. The driving impact of her weight knocked him down, and she went with him. She stabbed the man with all her strength, the blade crunching into his chest and through his heart.

  The man jerked, his heels drumming on the floor, his mouth opening as if to voice a scream. Only a vermilion torrent spilled out of his lips.

  As he went limp, Domi breathed a small sigh of satisfaction and began withdrawing the knife. A sud­den motion at the very limit of her peripheral vision caused her to turn, but before she could see anything, a hand closed in her hair in an excruciatingly tight grip. A neck-wrenching jerk catapulted her off the corpse. Through the tears of pain that sprang to her eyes, she caught a fragmented glimpse of a bug-eyed-antennae head.

  Domi kicked herself off the ground, flowing into the momentum of the heave. She slashed backward and blindly with her knife, feeling the tip drag through fabric and flesh.

  The hand tangled in her hair opened, she heard a grunt and Domi flung herself into a headlong som­ersault. She came out of it on one knee, blade held between thumb and index finger, arm cocked for a throw.

  She stared into the shivering tip of an infrasound wand, only inches from her face. She did not hesi­tate—her leg muscles propelled her in a lunge to the right, her body angled parallel with the ground. Her arm and wrist snapped out and down in perfect co­ordination of eye and hand. She was not able to see if or where the knife struck because her optic nerves were suddenly overwhelmed by a blinding ripple ef­fect and her head filled with an insect-swarm hum.

  Domi hit the floor gracelessly, her entire right side numb. Her heart thudded slowly, seeming to thump irregularly in her chest. Breathing took a deliberate, conscious effort.

  Her vision cleared, and she saw the hybrid fondling the knife hilt sprouting from his breast. A red line of blood shone on his left hand where Domi had nicked him. Slowly, the bug-eyed man dropped to his knees, the silver rod clanging dully on the floor. He gazed beseechingly toward Domi, and in an aspirated whis­per declared, "I was not going to let you die."

  Then he fell forward on his face, expiring very quickly and quietly.

  Domi sucked in a rattling gasp and clawed herself forward by the strength of her left arm. Her head pounded as if pickaxes were chopping away at the bone on the inside of her skull.

  She fought, wrestled and cursed her way to her knees, then to her feet. The boxes tilted and spun all around her. She staggered, fell to hands and knees, forced herself erect again, her face dripping with sweat. Her right leg shook violently in spasm, and she dragged it behind her like a sack of flour, the toe of her boot scraping against the floor.

  The paralysis spread in a wave, numbing her entire body, and she fell, limp-limbed and face forward.

  An invisible hst struck the side of the forklift only a few inches from Kane's leg, metal slivers rattling against the armor. He threw himself into a sideways lunge, out of the machine. He felt a pins-and-needles tingle high on his left thigh.

  He hit the floor, rolled and got to his feet, keeping the forklift between him and the infrasound wands. He squeezed off another triburst that drilled a hybrid through the middle, slapping him off his feet

  Although Kane could not see her, he heard the boom of Domi's Combat Master. About twenty yards away, he glimpsed an antennae skullcap and the cra­nium beneath it breaking apart under the impact of the .44-caliber slug. Blood gushed down the hybrid's face as he flailed over backward, arms windmilling.

  A silver rod swept toward him, and Kane's steel-spring legs propelled him into a flat dive. His blaster belched flame and thunder again, and a bug-headed figure shrieked, slapping at his right shoulder as the bullet bit a chunk of meat and muscle out of it amid a spray of blood.

  Kane kept moving, never still for a microsecond, ducking and weaving, dodging the flashing wands as they hummed and shivered. Survival depended on movement. Having been on the receiving end of the ultrasonic kicks delivered by the wands, he knew how quickly they could disable. The rods flailed at him like whips, buzzing at him like insects, and the hel-meted men wielding them panted in exertion and frus­tration.

  Kane was able to sidestep one of the hybrids com­pletely, and he went running past him. He received a spinning crescent kick against his back, which snapped his spine. A hybrid was able to lurch forward and graze Kane's leg with the shivering, humming tip of the silver rod. Pain stabbed through his body, and bringing up his Sin Eater, he shot his assailant once through the night-vision headset and knocked him backward.

  Pivoting, Kane ran toward the open doorway. His leg twinged as he sprinted, but he paid it no attention. The hybrids only halfheartedly gave chase, since Kane was far fleeter of foot, and the triburst he fired behind him discouraged pursuit.

  He pounded into a murky corridor, turned the first corner he reached and kept running. Like the other hallways he had seen in the installation, the floor was of dust-filmed linoleum. When he reached a pair of swing double doors, he pushed through them and paused to regain his breath and thumb a fresh clip into his Sin Eater.

  He looked around and saw he stood in a huge kitchen, with at least eight ranges, twice again that many sinks, refrigerators, food lockers and freezers. He figured as vast an installation as Area 51 appeared to be, this kitchen was probably only one of dozens scattered throughout the place.

  He waited for a count of sixty, and when no sounds of pursuit were forthcoming and his motion detector did not register any movement, he tried raising Domi on the comm-link. He received no response, but he tried not to worry about her. The girl was as self-sufficient and resourceful as anyone he knew, includ­ing himself.

  Kane glided silently through the kitchen, his boots making almost no noise. He walked through a huge dining hall and found himself in a corridor that was dimly lit from overhead bulbs encased in wire cages. The hallway was lined with numbered, electronic-locked doors.

  There was a small circle of one-way glass set in each door. Kane peered through one. All he saw was a tiny room, almost a cubicle, with a snoring man, a human male, sprawled naked on a narrow cot.

  Kane moved on, senses alert, his finger on the trig­ger of the Sin Eater. He heard the murmur of voices somewhere ahead of him, so he slowed his pace. The voices were coming from inside one of the rooms, so

  Kane very carefully looked through the one-way glass in the door.

  Although the lighting was poor, he saw the room was much more spacious than the first he had peeked into. He also saw another naked man, but this one lay spread-eagled on a metal framework. He was bound to it by canvas restraints crisscrossing his chest and chrome shackles around his wrists and ankles. A strap of leather over his forehead pressed the back of his skull into canvas webbing.

  A molded plastic object resembling a respirator mask concealed the lower half of his face. Vertical slots perforated it, and Kane realized it was a muzzle. The eyes above the mask were wild and wide with sheer, abject terror. The man's hair-covered chest rose and fell in spasmodic jerks. Veins stood out in stark relief on his neck.

  Kane's eye caught a flicker of a motion at the op­posite end of the room. Two figures shifted in the gloom with the graceful, studied movements of hy­brids. Both were females, a little less than rive feet tall. One wore a crisp white coverall over her com­pact, tiny-breasted form. Her huge, upslanting eyes were of a clear crystal blue, her pale delicate features elfin and beautiful in an unreal way. The silky blond hair topping her domed skull fell in wispy ringlets to her shoulders.

>   The other female hung back, out of the imprisoned man's field of vision. At first, even second glance,

  Kane was not sure she was even a living creature. She seemed more like a mannequin.

  She was naked, her body gleaming in the murk. Her thick jet-black hair fell to her shoulders, the ends flipping inward. The color was such a dead black, the texture so unnaturally shiny, Kane knew it was a wig.

  Her high-planed face was so thickly made up with rouge, powder and lipstick she resembled a malevo­lent doll. Her hazel eyes were starkly outlined with mascara.

  When the female in the white approached him, the man on the framework trembled violently, and faintly Kane heard him shouting. The hybrid did not speak to him or even appear to hear him. From a pocket of her coverall she produced a small tube, similar in size and shape to that of toothpaste.

  Squeezing a generous portion of a semitransparent gel onto his chest, the hybrid used the palms of her hands to spread it over his upper body. Her move­ments were deft and mechanical. The prisoner shud­dered at her touch, his eyes rolling in animalistic panic. When his torso glistened with a thin film of the substance, the female stepped away. Kane saw her gesture toward her nude companion, indicating she should continue the ministrations.

  The bewigged hybrid did so, stepping with lithe grace to the man and laying her delicate, inhumanly hands on him. Whereas the woman in white had spread the gel in a desultory fashion, the naked female caressed him slowly and even lovingly.

  Her hands made slow, languorous sweeps over and around and down his body. She bent her shiny black-haired head, as if whispering endearments into the man's ear.

  Inside of a minute, the prisoner stopped shudder­ing, but his limbs still shook. With a jolt of nausea, Kane understood it was due to building sexual arousal. Evidently, that was the response the two hy­brids were hoping to elicit. The blond one said some­thing to her companion, who instantly transferred her attention to the man's organ. As the nude female climbed up onto the framework, straddling the man's pelvis, Kane turned away from the window, cold sweat collecting between the lining of his helmet and his hair. It seeped out and slid down his cheeks and as he retraced his steps, returning first to the dining hall, then to the kitchen.