The Blastlands Saga

by DK Williamson

  Not long after, Jack arrived at the small house and knocked on the door.

  A tall pleasant looking blonde woman drying her hands with a dishrag opened the door. “You must be Jack Traipse,” she said with a smile.

  “Yes ma’am. I have a package from your husband.”

  “Please, call me Annabelle. Come in and have a seat.” She directed him inside to a chair and sat opposite him on a sofa. “Dan speaks highly of you.”

  “I’m honored,” Jack replied. “Your husband is a good man.”

  “How is he doing? I talk with him fairly often, but I haven’t seen him in some time.”

  “I think he is doing well. He’s overworked since we are so short on Rangers at Geneva, but he is holding up. I know he misses you.”

  “I know. I hope we can get moved up there in a few weeks. We can go as soon as my replacement is trained.”

  Annabelle explained that she was a nurse at the local hospital, then asked Jack about life in Geneva.

  Jack told her what it was like growing up there through the early days of the settlement, and what it was like now. As he talked, bells began sounding outside. The bells were the alarm signaling militia members and Rangers to report to the Ranger HQ. The noise woke Mrs. Geiger’s baby who was sleeping in the next room. As she went to check on him, Jack remembered the package in his rucksack and retrieved it. Annabelle asked Jack to carry a small package back to Geneva for her husband, which he said he was happy to do. They hastily said their goodbyes as they swapped packages and Jack quickly made his way back to the Ranger HQ.

  He arrived to find Lieutenant Blake and the settlement’s militia commander assigning Rangers and members of the militia to various points on the wall.

  The lieutenant saw Jack arrive and motioned him over. “Traipse, I know you are new to the Rangers and got shorted on your training, so I don’t feel comfortable putting you in a high threat area on the wall. It’s not that I don’t think you won’t do well, but I don’t know you and I don’t think two months is enough time to turn out a decent Ranger, no matter who your father was. Sorry, but that’s how it is.”

  “You have to do what you think is best, Lieutenant,” Jack replied. Remember what Art said.

  “I’m going to put you near the southeast gate. It’s fairly rare to see aliens over there, but occasionally it does happen. You’ll be with a militiaman, so you don’t have to fret going it alone. If you do see an alien, get word out and we’ll send help. Don’t panic, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Jack replied, somewhat galled at the lieutenant.

  “I know you will, Ranger. Sergeant McCaffrey will get you positioned,” he said gesturing to a Ranger standing a few feet away.

  As the lieutenant walked away, Sergeant McCaffrey said, “Don’t mind him. He’s still learning how to be a lieutenant. Dan Geiger and I go way back. If he says you’re up to snuff, you are.”

  “It’s okay, Sergeant. Thanks.”

  “The LT wasn’t quite right about the southeast part of the wall. It’s not uncommon for some aliens to wander over there. Just shoot straight and you’ll be fine. You can shoot decent?”

  “I can shoot a little.”

  “Good. It’ll be awhile before we head out, so don’t wander too far.”

  Twenty minutes later Sergeant McCaffrey led a group of Rangers and militiamen to the southern wall of the settlement and began directing them to their positions, dropping them off as they went along. Jack’s position was isolated, a couple hundred yards from the closest position to his right and an equal distance to the gate to his left. His partner was a young militiaman named Bern Smith.

  McCaffrey led them up onto the wall-walk behind the battlement, a parapet with merlons and crenellations. “You’ll notice this area of the wall is the only spot for a ways that the aliens can get close because of the stockyard walls out front. Those walls funnel cattle into the holding pen down here by the wall where they get brought through for slaughter. They’ll also funnel any biped that may come over here, so you have a chance to drop it as it enters through the walls out there.”

  “Any chance there might be any other kind of aliens?” Jack asked.

  “Not likely. If this is a big bloom—and it looks like it is—there’s a chance we might see some shamblers, but we are seeing less of them as the years go by. If you do see one, send for help. If you haven’t seen one before, they can be daunting the first time. A shambler is tall enough to reach in here, remember that. Any questions?”

  Jack and Bern shook their heads.

  “Okay then. It will be awhile before the aliens get here, so don’t fall asleep and keep your eyes open. If you hear shooting to your right, you’ll know things are kicking off.”

  After Sergeant McCaffrey left, Jack spoke with Bern Smith and learned the young man had only just recently joined the militia, right after his sixteenth birthday, and had done little more than gate guard duty. This was the first time he had ever responded to any sort of emergency.

  Less than an hour after McCaffrey left, the shooting started. At first it was single isolated shots, which quickly grew into a loud mass of gunfire, including bursts from an M60 machine gun.

  Minutes later, Jack thought he could see movement in the woods to the south. He alerted Bern to this and pulled his binoculars from his rucksack.

  “Bern, they are definitely bipeds,” he said looking through the optics.

  “Are they coming this way?” Bern asked anxiously.

  “I can’t tell yet, but there are quite a few of them. I count five or—they are coming this way. Be ready.”

  The two men readied their rifles, keeping them trained on the tree line. Before long they could see a group of six bipeds enter the stockyard walls, followed by a few more trailing some distance behind. As the last of the aliens left the woods Bern saw something else in the trees, “It’s a shambler! What do we do?” he yelled pointing at the monster.

  “I’ll engage them, you go see if you can find Sergeant McCaffrey or Lieutenant Blake. Stay calm and tell them we’ve got approximately eight bipeds and a shambler, okay?”

  “I got it! Be back soon,” Bern said as he went down the stairs at a run.

  The first group of aliens neared the exit of the stockyard walls. Jack put his sights on the chute that led out into the holding pen and waited.

  From the tree line came two more bipeds, following the path of the shambler headed straight at the fencing to the left of the first group.

  The group of bipeds rounded the last corner and headed for the exit and straight at Jack’s position on the wall. Jack dropped the first alien in line with a shot to its ‘face’ while it was still within the confines of the chute. The body slowed the following aliens and Jack quickly shot the next two in line, creating a block the rest of the aliens had to climb over to escape the chute. As they did, Jack began picking them off one by one as they tried to clamber over the impromptu barrier.

  The shambler was crashing through the stockyard walls by now, crushing some of the walls with its mass and knocking down others as it closed on the holding pen. The two bipeds trailing the shambler scrambled over the wreckage left in its wake.

  Jack glanced between the two groups closing on him. There were at least two bipeds clawing their way over the pile of dead aliens in the chute as the shambler and its biped companions smashed through the last wall and into the holding pen. The bipeds sped past the shambler, charging straight at Jack’s position.

  He put his sights on the shambler, concerned with what might happen if the big alien made it to the wall before he could deal with the bipeds. A single shot into the hump between the shoulders of the big alien dropped it in its tracks. That worked exactly as Art said.

  The two aliens that were with the shambler were almost at the wall, impressing Jack with their speed. A glance to the right showed him a pair of bipeds at the top of the mess in the chute. The pile collapsed under them, tumbling them into the holding pen. They were upright again in no time an
d charging.

  Jack looked to the left and shot and killed the nearest biped with a pair of rounds as the other alien raised its arms as it reached the wall, its impact audible to him.

  Jack leaned over the battlement and fired a trio of rounds almost straight down into the top of the biped, hoping the full metal jacket rounds could bore their way deep enough to kill the alien. They did.

  The aliens from the chute were bearing down on Jack as fast as they could run. He turned and fired, striking the lead biped, but a fraction too high to be lethal. The two creatures slammed into the wall almost simultaneously, hard enough that Jack felt a shudder.

  He stepped to his right, to the next crenellation, and leaned out with his rifle. A flailing arm passed by in a blur, narrowly missing him. Jack fired a pair of rounds as the nearest biped stepped back slightly with its arms raised. The alien staggered and fell.

  As Jack turned and brought his weapon to bear on the remaining biped, a two-pronged appendage, the alien’s analogue to a human hand, grasped the wall where crenellation met merlon just inches from Jack. The biped was climbing the wall.

  At almost contact distance, Jack fired, now feeling confident where the alien’s equivalent of a brain was located. The biped went limp, but maintained its grip on the wall, slowly swinging in a pendular motion.

  Jack heard noise coming from behind him and saw that it was Lieutenant Blake running up the stairs accompanied by Sergeant McCaffrey and two Rangers with Bern Smith trailing them. They looked over the parapet and Lieutenant Blake said, “I’ll be damned. How many are there?”

  “I think there are twelve, counting the shambler,” Jack replied, flipping the selector lever on his rifle to the safe position as he moved to stand beside the lieutenant.

  “He might have done better if he’d had four months of training, right LT?” McCaffrey commented with a grin as he crouched and recovered the spent shell casings ejected from Jack’s rifle that were laying on the walkway.

  “I may have to reevaluate my opinion, Sergeant. My apologies for what I said earlier, Traipse. That was some dandy shooting.”

  “You might want to reevaluate that opinion too, LT,” a smiling McCaffrey said as he handed the lieutenant the casings he had gathered. “Fourteen shots, Lieutenant. A few more cartridge cases below. He didn’t even need to do a mag change. That ain’t just good, that’s crazy. I’m sure Hardin Traipse had nothing to do with teaching this guy to shoot, or how to Ranger.”

  The other Rangers laughed softly.

  “I’ll be damned,” the lieutenant replied as he looked from the casings to Jack, then over the side of the wall. He laughed as he shook his head. “You can Ranger, that’s for sure.”

  The bloom certainly did not produce the largest alien attack Pea Ridge had ever seen, but it was by no means small. Several dozen bipeds were killed along the south wall, with three shamblers in the mix. Aliens in smaller numbers also attacked Gravette, the settlement to the west of Pea Ridge.

  Once the attack appeared to be over, the Rangers met at the headquarters building, the town militia maintaining watch on the walls.

  By now, all of the Pea Ridge Rangers had heard of Jack’s encounter with the aliens, and many of the Rangers joked that it seemed appropriate since it was near the slaughterhouse. After a short debriefing, Jack was free to go, so after arranging to have the Rangers in Pea Ridge call Geneva and tell them of his status, he found Bill Carson and they saddled up their horses and hit the road to Gravette.

  The two men traveled slowly, keeping a keen eye out for aliens, knowing there was no need to rush as they would never make it to Gravette in time for the train that day.

  After spending the night at a boarding house, the two travelers went to the livery stable and left Bill’s horse and the two saddles they had been using. The arrangements Mr. Greely spoke of were all set, so Jack knew Jenny would be well taken care of until his return. When boarding for the train began shortly before noon, Jack and Mr. Carson climbed aboard for the seven hour journey to Heaven.

  The distance from Gravette to Heaven was listed as 108 miles on the board at the train platform. The train would make eight stops between Gravette and Heaven, at locations as small as trading posts like Fat Horse Hollow and as large as Silo Springs, one of the most populous towns within the Freelands. The stops were a good chance for passengers to relieve themselves, stretch their legs, or grab a cool drink, which was welcome on hot summer days like they were experiencing.

  The trip was uneventful and the two travelers arrived in Heaven with the sun still in the sky, but edging down toward the western horizon. Jack and Ol’ Carson parted ways briefly, with Bill going to check on their accommodations at the hotel while Jack went to the Ranger Center.

  He hoped Jennifer might have made it to Heaven before he arrived, but to his disappointment, he found that not to be the case.

  He was able to leave the box of extremophiles with the evening Ranger watch, and complete that portion of his mission once the box was secured and he received a hand receipt. He chatted with one of the Rangers and learned there was not much in the way of news about the problems near Kings Town or of any new Ranger arrivals.

  Jack left the Ranger Center and walked slowly to the hotel, enjoying the sounds of cicadas and other night bugs that began their song as day turned to dusk.

  The next morning Bill was departing south by train to Hell and Jack made sure to be there to see him off before taking care of some personal business.

  “Thank you for letting me tag along with you, Bill,” Jack said.

  “Tag along? This was a fifty-fifty venture, Jack.”

  “I assume you’ll going back to Geneva before too long, right?”

  “Yes, probably in a couple of weeks. I’m sure young Jim is doing a fine job, but check on my mules if you would.”

  “Certainly. Thanks again and travel safe.”

  “You do the same. Well, it looks like I’m going to Hell, Jack.”

  “That joke never gets old, does it?” Jack said with a smile.

  “Doesn’t seem to,” Bill replied with a wink and a wave as he boarded the train.

  Jack saw the train off and went to the medical clinic for an eye test and to buy two new pairs of glasses. He felt they may be needed with the amount of time he would likely be spending in the field.

  After his eye exam he talked with Doc Nelson.

  “Looks like there are no changes necessary with your prescription, so we’ll have your glasses ready for you this afternoon,” Nelson said.

  “I won’t be able to make the train north today then.”

  “No, but I am sure you can find something to do. Hey, have you ever met Professor Limestone?”

  “Once when I was a kid. He scared the hell out of me.”

  Doc Nelson chuckled. “I’ve known him for I don’t know how many years and he still has that effect on me. The reason I ask is, he happens to be working on a lens set for the radmask and hood Rangers and salvagers and the like wear out in the field. He is looking for volunteers to test his design.”

  “Would this provide prescription lenses on the mask?”

  “That’s the plan, I believe.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go see him.”

  “Great, I’ll get your glasses sent over to the Ranger Center this afternoon. Travel safe, Jack.”

  . . . . .

  Professor Adelbert Limestone was the closest thing to a mad scientist that the Freelands possessed. No one knew where he hailed from originally, but he wandered into the Freelands about twenty years before as a brilliant, if eccentric, young man and set up shop as an inventor, researcher, scientist, and as some call him, alchemist.

  He had created, or had a hand in developing, numerous items and devices of great use. He improved the filters in the radmask, helped develop the radiation treatment using radioresistant extremophiles, developed lubricants and seals for internal combustion engines, created a glow paint, and many other equally useful items and technologies.


  Some of his research was considered too dangerous—and loud— to be conducted within the population center of Heaven, so a proving ground a few miles outside of town was set up for this purpose. Among this type of research were rockets and rocket fuel, smokeless powder for ammunition cartridges, and explosive compounds.

  Jack met the Professor just as he was leaving his lab to visit the proving grounds. Limestone invited Jack to accompany him. On the wagon ride out, Limestone explained—in his peculiar, high-pitched, wavering voice—that his design for the radmask modification was quite simple. It was just a goggle-like apparatus that mounted corrective lenses on the outside of the mask. All that would be necessary would be for Jack to have his prescription on file at the optic lab and they could make lenses and mount them into the apparatus and send it to Geneva.

  As they climbed from the wagon Limestone said, “You wouldn’t be an expert on organic semiconductors by chance?”

  “No, I’m afraid I’m not really an expert on anything. I’m knowledgeable about shooting and weapons, but I don’t know much about semiconductors.”

  “Pity. Organic semiconductors is a new endeavor for me. Come along.”

  Limestone showed Jack some of the projects that were being worked on, and after speaking with Jack further thought he might be interested in a weapon he was developing.

  The professor led Jack to a weapons range and had an assistant uncover the weapon, which was swiveling rack holding twelve one and a half inch barrels that were able to be adjusted to fire straight ahead or spread to cover an arc of up to twenty degree. Jack immediately recognized it as a variant of the Ribault.

  “You’ve built an adjustable organ gun,” Jack said.

  “A what? No, it’s a weapon for engaging multiple targets at once,” Limestone replied.