Deathlands 51-Rat King

by Axler, James

Electrostatic air conditioning also kept the dust from the floors and walls of most redoubts—in theory. But in truth there had been occasions where time had led to at least one part of the system failing.

  "Your grasp of logic is most admirable," Doc said weakly. "Would it therefore be remiss of me to suggest even more than our usual caution?" He was still shaky on his feet, but had the heavy LeMat blaster ready, his lion's-head swordstick thrust into his belt.

  Ryan nodded grimly. "Last thing we need just after a jump. Going into a situation cold like this is the best way to get chilled."

  But already his fighter's brain was going into action. Whatever lay behind that door would expect them to come out blasting…if it was anything like other inhabitants of Deathlands. But what if it wasn't? What if it was like Alaska, where gatekeeper Quint had been using the redoubt as a refuge from the harshness of life outside?

  He dismissed the option. The only way to stay alive was to assume that everything was hostile until proved otherwise. And maybe even then you'd have to chill it.

  Ryan looked at J.B. and could see that the Armorer had been thinking the same way. He had the M-4000 in his hands and was checking the load.

  "Think what I'm thinking?" he asked laconically.

  "Guess so," Ryan replied. "Mebbe one or mebbe many. Either way, they'll expect us to come out blasting. It's our only chance. Bastard door is so narrow it doesn't give us a chance to spread quickly."

  "Can't stay like rats in trap," Jak said.

  In a trap or walking into a hail of blasterfire. Not much of a choice. The Trader used to say there was only one choice: choose to live or choose to die. Ryan knew that they couldn't stay in the chamber forever.

  "J.B., you lay down covering fire when the door opens. I'll head out and try to find cover. Mildred, Krysty, you follow. Jak, bring up the rear."

  "What about me, Dad?"

  Ryan turned to his son. "You and Doc take longest to recover from the jumps. Mebbe buy you a few seconds. You come out after J.B. blasts again. Door that narrow, it's difficult to come out with covering fire unless you want your head blasted."

  "Bad enough that some other bastard wants to chill you, without us chilling ourselves," Mildred commented with a dark humor.

  In just a few seconds, the group had loosened the chains of torpor and fatigue that the jumps usually left binding them, and were all running on adrenaline.

  Krysty's hair still clung protectively to her head.

  "I've got a bad feeling about this, lover."

  "So have the rest of us," Ryan replied.

  She shook her head. "No, not like that. I just get the feeling that this is going to be the easy part."

  "Fireblast! If this is the easy part, then I don't want to be around when the difficult part arrives."

  He turned to the Armorer. "Ready?"

  J.B. nodded.

  "Backs to the wall, people. This is it."

  With caution Ryan tried the wheel lock that opened the chamber door. They hadn't seen a chamber door like this since the old military installation in Dulce, New Mexico. Was this going to be a regular redoubt, or something different? The door was unusual but the rest of the chamber was the same as most—armaglass, not concrete like Dulce. The wheel gave easily under his grip, far easier than he expected. Yet more evidence that this redoubt was in regular use.

  Did this mean someone else knew the secret of the gateways?

  The wheel spun, and the door opened smoothly.

  Only a fraction. Ryan stopped it and braced himself for any immediate attack. J.B. was at his side, the scattergun up and ready.

  Nothing.

  "So far, so good."

  "Doesn't mean much," the Armorer added. "They're not stupe enough to rush us. Could make them more dangerous."

  Ryan nodded. They would proceed as planned.

  As they flattened themselves to the green-and-cobalt walls on the left side of the chamber door, Ryan reached out a hand and steadied himself to fling it open. J.B. stood slightly away from the wall, to one side of his friend, ready to step out and fire a covering blast as the one-eyed man flung himself through the door.

  Many years of traversing the Deathlands and encountering death, staring it in the face before blasting it away, gave the two friends an almost telepathic bond. Ryan gave only the slightest of nods before flexing his wrist and flicking the door.

  As he had expected from the ease with which the wheel lock had worked, the door opened freely, as though smoothly oiled and with no friction to impede the motion.

  J.B. stepped in front of the door at an oblique angle, aided by the hexagonal shape of the chamber, his finger closing on the Smith & Wesson's trigger and squeezing until the cartridge exploded with an almost deafening impact in the enclosed space. The flechettes of barbed steel were driven from the barrel in an ever-widening arc. Anyone standing in the room beyond wouldn't be standing for long.

  Ryan sprang through the doorway, rolling across the floor, trying to get a fix on any possible cover. He moved so quickly on the back of J.B.'s shot that the hot air from the blaster seemed to brush his cheek as he passed.

  His eye took in the surroundings at a glance as he rolled. The throbbing pulse of the siren still pounded in his head, but otherwise conditions seemed normal. The usual anteroom was missing, but the control room was fairly standard. There were the usual free-standing comp terminals, as well as desks, chairs and terminals that blinked on and off in the controlled atmosphere. The harsh fluorescent lighting cast no shadow on the room, leaving no place for anyone to hide.

  Ryan came out of the roll into a crouch behind one of the desks, which he pushed on its side to provide cover. It would be no good against heavy blasters, but the steel would act as a shield against small-caliber handblasters, as well as providing a visual blind.

  It was only when the clatter of the uprighted desk and comp terminal died away that he realized the alarm had stopped.

  Krysty, Mildred and Jak sprinted from the doorway to cover, risking their speed in the enclosed space against the reactions of anyone training a blaster on them.

  There were no blasters; there was nothing.

  Behind a desk on the far side of the room, Jak picked up a framed photograph that had been knocked onto the floor. The glass had cracked, throwing a web of lines across the smiling face of a young woman long since dead. There had been similar personal mementos on desks in some of the other redoubts they had seen.

  They meant nothing to Jak, but it didn't escape his notice that there was no dust on the frame. It had been regularly cleaned.

  Without pause he threw the frame high in the air, over the top of the desk and out into the unknown territory that was the rest of the room.

  There was no response. No blasterfire.

  Following through in one motion and using the momentary distraction of the airborne object, Jak aimed the Python over the top of the desk; bobbing up briefly to locate any enemies.

  The room was empty. Seemingly.

  Mildred had taken advantage of the diversion to scan the room.

  "Damn place is empty, Ryan," she called.

  "Mebbe. Mebbe only seems." Jak smiled across at her. "Mebbe not stupes."

  The last thing any of them expected was the voice that came from the corridor beyond the door at the end of the room.

  "Right so far, Sarj. Let's see if they're officer material."

  WALLACE WAS WATCHING the outsiders on a vid monitor positioned in the corridor. He could see two men and two women strung out in a line behind their temporary cover. The camera was behind them, positioned on the wall above and to the right of the mat-trans chamber door, on the angle of the hexagon.

  He now knew that there were at least four of them. They were sharp and showed intelligence. Were there any others still in the mat-trans chamber? The armaglass was too opaque to be sure.

  Murphy stood behind the big man, watching over his shoulder. He was irritated that Wallace had taken over management of this operation. As h
ead of sec corps, it was Murphy's job to handle attacks of any kind.

  Even if they came from within.

  "Temporary stalemate, Sarj. We go in, they blast. They get blasted back. Need them alive, but we got more men. Numbers, Sarj, that's the key. That's why the mechanism is so important."

  Murphy didn't respond. The problem with the mechanism was bothering Wallace more than he wanted to let on. Why else mention it?

  This could be the break that Murphy had been waiting for. The circumstances when the regs could be broken. But that was for another time. Right now there were more pressing problems.

  Like how many were left in the chamber.

  RYAN SCANNED the empty room.

  "How many people beyond the door?" Mildred asked.

  "One is one too many," Krysty replied. "I feel like a complete stupe behind this." She tapped the edge of the desk with the barrel of her Smith & Wesson .38.

  "Any cover is better than no cover. And if we don't know how many of them, they sure as hell don't know how many of us." Ryan kept his attention fixed on the doorway at the far end of the room, watching for the slightest movement.

  Jak took the opportunity to recce the area to the rear, knowing that Ryan had the front covered.

  "Not sure. Vid behind. Mebbe watching us."

  Mildred looked around and saw the camera above Ryan's head.

  "Smile, you're on TV."

  One round from her ZKR 551 took out the camera through the lens in a shower of sparks. They rained over Ryan, but the one-eyed man ignored them, keeping his attention fixed on the redoubt doorway.

  "Just as well I held the second shot," J.B. said quietly from inside the chamber. He kept his voice as low as possible in the eerie quiet mat had succeeded the siren. "If they know about you, then there's three of us they don't know about."

  "So what do we do? We can't stay here forever, just like we couldn't stay in there," Mildred said grimly, gesturing to the mat-trans chamber.

  "One trap for another." Jak had his back to the table, checking his blaster. He looked over at Ryan, smoothing the milk-white hair away from his scarred albino skin. His red eyes were piercing.

  Ryan smiled tightly. "Read something once about what they used to call a Mexican standoff. Bastard stupe name, but I guess this is what they meant."

  WALLACE CURSED as the monitor went dead.

  "Sir, what do you want me to do, sir?" Murphy said in a flat monotone, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

  "I want them alive. No casualties. I want to know how they used the mat-trans."

  "It might be that they don't see it that way, sir."

  Wallace turned toward Murphy. The sec man shivered as he looked into the heart of his superior and saw a glimmer of insanity too close to the surface. He knew that the Gen would be a hard man to usurp, and hoped that Wallace couldn't in some way know his plans. The Gen was a true believer, fired by the regs. He had the fire of generations burning in his veins.

  "They will, Sarj. You make them."

  The fat man turned on his heel with an astonishing precision for someone his size, and waddled off down the corridor.

  Murphy looked after him, then turned to the five sec corps personnel he had with him. They were all trained by him personally, and were the cream of his corps. Their uniforms were crisp and well laundered, although still carrying some stains from the chilling they had accomplished on the raids to the outside. They were well drilled from the manual, and also had a few tricks Murphy had picked up along the way.

  They were the elite he would use when the time came.

  But how was he going to break this stalemate?

  Chapter Two

  Inside the chamber both Doc and Dean had taken advantage of the time bought by Ryan's actions to recover fully from the effects of the jump. They stood, blasters ready for action, to one side of the Armorer.

  "John Barrymore," Doc whispered, "if I may hazard a suggestion. We three are something of a Trojan horse, and could perhaps be of some use in that manner."

  "No sense there, Doc. Tell me a little more."

  "When the Trojans were at war with—"

  "Not the history, Doc. Not now. Just what you mean for us," the Armorer interrupted. Like Ryan he was easily irritated when Doc's lectures appeared at the worst moments. Like now.

  "My apologies," Doc said with a short bow. "I shall endeavor to explain in simple terms, in order to save precious moments. If we are in here, and our opponents have no idea about us, then our companions can act as a decoy by appearing to surrender—"

  "That's a stupe idea," Dean said angrily. "Sure way to get everyone chilled. Why don't we just jump again?"

  J.B. shook his head. "Came across a chamber like this before. The door isn't the trigger…maybe an earlier mat-trans, I don't know. This'll need triggering from out there." He gestured to the outside with the M-4000.

  Dean was unconvinced. "I still say Doc's idea is double stupe."

  "Mebbe not. Not if we're all quick enough," the Armorer replied. Raising his voice slightly, he continued, "Ryan, you hear that?"

  "We all heard," the one-eyed warrior replied. "A slim chance is better than no chance, and I'll go bastard crazy unless we break this deadlock." He turned to the others. "It's the only way to draw them—whoever the hell they are—into the room. But we need to be triple alert here. Scatter as soon as the others appear."

  He was greeted with three nods of assent.

  Ryan called out. "Hey, you out there. How are we going to end this?"

  "Only one way," came the voice from the corridor. "You outsiders throw down your blasters and we come and get you. No way you can get out, and there's more of us than you. Besides, we're under orders to keep you alive."

  Ryan looked across at Krysty, whose hair was still protectively clinging to her.

  "Sounds like shit to me," he whispered.

  "Amen to that," Mildred added.

  Krysty shook her head. "No, I think he's telling the truth. It's what comes after that worries me." She shook her head as she noted Ryan's puzzled expression. "I can't explain it, lover. It's just not clear enough."

  "Move or sit?" Jak asked. The inactivity was making him restless. A born hunter and predator, Jak had the ability to stay still and patient for hours when tracking and hunting. Patience wasn't the problem. A decision had been made, and now he was itching to spring to action.

  "Let's do it." Ryan threw the Steyr over the top of the upturned desk. He kept the SIG-Sauer, holstering the blaster, and checked automatically for the panga, secured in a sheath against his leg. Beside him Krysty threw her blaster out into the middle of the room. Mildred threw hers with reluctance.

  The last to throw out his weapon was Jak, the heavy Python thudding loudly on the floor. Like Ryan, he chose to keep something close to hand—the leaf-bladed throwing knives stayed secreted on him, hidden in the folds and patches of his jacket.

  "Okay—sounds good to me," Murphy said from beyond the door. "Now come forward slowly."

  Almost as one, the companions stepped around the flimsy barriers of the overturned desks, Ryan fractionally ahead of the others. All kept their muscles as tight as whipcord, nerve ends jangling for the slightest sign of movement. It was a fairly large room, looking identical to the ones in all the redoubts they had come across. It was cleaner, and had less of an empty, desolate feel than the others. For all that, it was just a standard control room.

  So there was that advantage. They knew the territory. Whoever they were facing wouldn't expect that.

  It wasn't much of an advantage, but it might be all they needed. Behind them, in the chamber, J.B. clamped his fedora on his head and adjusted the wire rims of his glasses. He could feel, rather than see, Dean tense up for action with the same granite stance as his father. Doc raised the LeMat, tension transforming him from a seemingly mad old man into a taut killing machine.

  They were ready.

  MURPHY HEARD THE MOVEMENTS around the blind corner. He had sharp ears
, honed by a lifetime of avoiding stickies and the ambushing gangs of outsiders he encountered every time he led a party from the redoubt. It was part of the hereditary chain that he had been trained for this since birth.

  When he knew they were in the center of the room, he nodded to one of his sec corps.

  "Okay, Panner. Now."

  Pri Firclas Panner was a short woman with hooded eyes and a heavy body build. In spite of the extra weight, her uniform was too large for her. It showed the marks of being altered and gave her a deceptively unbalanced and clumsy look. In fact her father had been a born killer, and her mother an outsider who had slit her throat after her daughter had been born, as though knowing the psychotic offspring she had produced. Panner liked her work. Too keenly. Panner was Murphy's most trusted ally, and it was only gene-pool regs that stopped him joining with her.

  A flicker of a sadistic smile crossed Panner's face.

  "Those fuckers'll wish they'd never tried to invade, Sarj," she said in a lusty, throaty voice. The thought of what they were about to suffer excited her. She'd seen these grens at work before. They didn't kill, but were far more subtle in their pain. It lasted longer and left the sufferer alive for other tortures.

  Before Murphy had time to take in Panner's arousal, the stocky sec woman soldier swung her body in front of the doorway with a rebel yell that had been passed down her line since the days of skydark.

  As she yelled, she adopted a classic firing stance, bracing her legs apart. The gren launcher in her hands was of an experimental type rarely seen in the Deathlands, and was one of only two that were left on the redoubt.

  AT THE SOUND of Panner's voice, the friends scattered across the room, diving for whatever scant cover they could find. Jak flipped over and landed on his feet behind a desk, one of the leaf-bladed knives balanced in the palm of his hand, perfectly weighted for throwing. Ryan also sought cover, rolling and coming to a halt with the SIG-Sauer in hand, his eye trying to sight the woman in the doorway.

  But she was already gone.

  The yell had covered a loud popping sound as the gren had launched. It hit the wall above the chamber door and bounced in front of Krysty.