Sky Raider. James Axler

he said, cowering slightly.

      As Sandra stopped in front of him, the teen bent a knee in respect. She smiled at that. Respect given freely was twice as sweet as obedience though fear. Yes, he would do nicely. “You may rise, boy,” Sandra said benignly. “I saw you start forward to help me in this.” She gestured at the sprawling corpses.

      “I live here, and you are the daughter of my baron,” he muttered, turning red in the face as he awkwardly stood.

      “Apparently you are the only man who remembered that!” Sandra said, her voice rising into a shout.

      The other people standing nearby shuffled uneasily as if trying to hide behind one another. Sandra gave them the full weight of her stare for a few moments, then turned her back on them.

      “I need a ground man,” she said, running her fingers through the boy’s mane of greasy hair, but finding no lice or other vermin. “To help with the Angel. The job is yours. Report to the barracks for a hot bath, a meal and a blaster.”

      His head snapped up at that, his young eyes going wide. “My lady?” he whispered.

      “You heard me, lad.” Tregart chuckled. “What is your name?”

      “Brian, my lady.”

      “Nothing more? No last name?”

      He shrugged. “No, my lady.”

      “Then I shall give you one,” Sandra stated, glancing at the rock he had tried to use earlier. “From this day on, you’re Brian Stone. Is that acceptable?”

      Eagerly, the teenager nodded.

      “Very good, Stone,” she said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe her hand clean. “Now get moving, and go get that bath, Afterward, you can claim what you want from the clothing of the outlanders. I can’t have my guards fighting muties barefoot.”

      “Boots, too, my lady?” Brian asked, his voice rising a notch in disbelief. His bare toes wiggled at the prospect.

      Sandra began to laugh. “Yes, boots, too, Mr. Stone. And don’t forget a gunbelt for your new blaster!”

      “Yes, my lady!” Brian cried, taking off down the street toward the barracks. “Blessings upon you!”

      As the teenager raced away, Sandra turned in a slow circle to scowl at the rest of the people present.

      “As for the rest of you!” she said, not shouting, but somehow her voice seemed to cascade along the street. “My thanks for your loyalty!”

      Nobody dared to speak as a dry wind from the desert beyond the Ohi moved across the ville.

      “It shall be remembered.” She sneered, then turned on a heel and headed for the gate once more.

      “She never would have acted like this with Edmund still alive,” a bald man muttered, watching her leave. “Do you think she’ll…you know…to Brian?” He made a vague gesture.

      A toothless old woman nodded as the line shifted forward. “She did to all of the rest, so why not him, eh?”

      “I’d rather be aced,” another man stated.

      “Ghastly,” a young woman shuddered.

      Just then, the breeze shifted direction to bring them the tantalizing smell of the cooking food, and the hunger in their bellies drove out any further thoughts of compassion toward the fate awaiting the new young sec man.

      TAKING THE STAIRS, J.B. and Mildred climbed over the corpses littering the steps. A lot of the lights were out in the passageway, and Mildred decided it would be wise to use her flashlight.

      Reaching inside her med kit, she pulled out the precious device and pumped the small handle several times to charge the ancient batteries inside. The survivalist tool had been among several items the companions had found in a looted hardware store, and it was irreplaceable.

      Flicking the switch, Mildred was relieved to see a pale yellow beam from the device illuminate the stairwell in golden tones.

      “Dark night!” J.B. cried, swinging up his Uzi as something moved in the shadows. But the man refrained from firing at the very last moment when he saw the rope wrapped around the man’s throat. As a warm breeze wafted from the air vents in the wall, the body moved again, gently swaying back and forth.

      “A suicide,” Mildred said, tightening her grip on her revolver.

      “Can you blame him?” J.B. answered as they climbed the steps rising past the dangling body.

      At the top of the stairs J.B. found a Marine with an M-16 assault rifle by his side, an ammo pouch of clips over his shoulder. The sergeant had been shot in the belly and clearly bled to death, as evidenced from the pool of dried blood around him on the floor.

      Checking the pouch, Mildred found only spent clips, but J.B. found the clip partially inserted into the M-16 was fully loaded. Easing the clip into the weapon, he flicked off the safety and worked the arming bolt by hand to cycle all thirty rounds through the weapon. Nothing jammed. Reloading the clip, he slapped it into the assault rifle and slung it across his back. There were hundreds of dead soldiers in the redoubt. If each of them only had a few live rounds on their person, this could be the biggest find of weapons in many a month!

      “Sure hope there’s some food, too,” Mildred said, obviously following his train of thought.

      “Gotta be,” he said, easing open the door to the next level with the barrel of the Uzi. “This many mouths had to be fed.”

      Mildred clicked off her flashlight at the sight of the brightly illuminated hallway. Then she stopped in her tracks, and J.B. muttered a curse.

      A sandbag nest had been built in the middle of an intersection of corridors, the dead men lying on top of the belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns. These soldiers had no obvious signs of violence, but more importantly, they were all wearing gas masks.

      HEADING DIRECTLY to the galley, Doc and Jak found the doors barred with tables, bullet holes and spent shells everywhere, along with several ruined sections of the corridor that could only have been caused by grens.

      “Like started doing wolfweed,” Jak muttered, brushing the silky white hair from his face.

      Pressing his face to the window in a door, Doc looked around the kitchen and recoiled in shock.

      “They had somebody tied down to a table,” Doc began, then his stomach rebelled and he turned to heave in the corner. But only bile came up. What food he had eaten that morning was long gone, purged from his system by the multiple jumps.

      “Cannies?” Jak asked, peeking inside.

      Wiping his mouth clean on an embroider handkerchief, Doc spoke softly. “Jak, my dear friend,” he whispered. “I am fully aware that my mind is half gone from…the things that have been done to me by scientists and that madman Strasser, but if whatever befouled this redoubt starts to enact its virulent filth upon me, please…”

      “Won’t feel thing,” Jak promised, patting the time traveler on the shoulder. “My word. But you do same for me.”

      Doc solemnly nodded, and the two men shared a moment beyond friendship, brothers in blood standing against the world.

      “Then let us press on,” Doc said, starting down the corridor. “There is much to do, and I yearn for the feel of clean air on the face.”

      “Hope blast doors work,” Jak said, pushing open the door to a lavatory. The smell was long gone, scrubbed clean by the life support system, but the floors were smeared with ancient filth. “Else, why these not run?”

      Doc tilted his head at that comment, and looked upward as if he could see the blast door somewhere above them.

      “A very good question, my friend,” he muttered. “That is a very good question, indeed.”

      THE