Axler, James - Deathlands 61 - Skydark Spawn

by Skydark Spawn [lit]

  Without another word the two pairs went their separate ways, Ryan and Mildred heading up, Jak and Clarissa heading down.

  JUST OUTSIDE the nursery, Baron Fox escorted the two breeders from his office along the hallway. He'd given instructions to the new sec chief to use the redheaded beauty to convince the one-eyed outlander to leave the farm without destroying it completely. If it worked, wonderful, but even if it didn't, he'd be safe and in a position to reclaim the farm in no time.

  When he reached the dungeon, he found a sec man standing guard there.

  "Make sure no one comes down this hallway," the baron ordered. "No slaves, muties, outlanders… Not even any sec men. Understood?"

  "Yes, Baron!"

  Baron Fox pushed the breeders past.

  Farther down the hall and around a corner, the sec man heard a heavy door open, then close, and then the sound of a heavy mechanism locking into place.

  And then only silence.

  Chapter Forty

  The slaves opened the doors to their cabins.

  It was happening.

  The one-eyed outlander had spread the word that there would be something happening that night, a chance for escape, for freedom, and now it was happening.

  There were dead sec men everywhere, falling like ripe fruit at the end of the season. Blasterfire cut them down like axes, and their remades were being scooped up by slaves, the new masters of the farm.

  Muties were running through the complex, eating everything in sight, especially uniformed sec men.

  It was total chaos, and the slaves were never happier.

  Marguerite, a black-haired breeder who had given the baron six offspring in four years, could hardly believe her eyes. Slaves ran from cabin to cabin, some carrying blasters, some with tree branches, all with wild-eyed excitement in their eyes.

  "Come look, Joshua," she said, stepping out of her cabin. "They're chilling a sec man over there, doing him with his own blaster."

  Joshua, the man Marguerite had been rutting with the past six nights, stepped out of the cabin and joined her outside. About twenty-five yards away, four slaves were kicking and beating a sec man who'd been caught out in the orchards alone. They had shot him in the belly with his remade and were now taking great pleasure in torturing him before letting him die.

  "This means we're free," Joshua shouted.

  Marguerite shook her head and looked away. She was an older woman, well into her thirties, and had been a slave so long she feared her own freedom. Everything had been provided for her in the past, and she'd become comfortable with that. Being free meant fending for herself, feeding herself and finding her own way in life. The thought of it terrified her.

  "We can leave here," Joshua said. "Together. We could go to one of the eastern villes, maybe another barony. Whatever we do, we'll be doing it together."

  Joshua's words gave Marguerite confidence, reason to hope.

  Just then an arrow caught Joshua in the throat. Great gouts of blood began to pour from the gaping wound, and the fire that had been in his eyes just a moment before began to dim.

  Marguerite turned in time to have her face covered in a fine red mist, and her body streaked by the blood that was leaving Joshua's body like oil from a can.

  "What, where?" she asked in confusion.

  Joshua fell to the ground.

  "Who wants this one?" sec chief Ganley said.

  A dozen raiders stood behind him armed with a mix of blasters, bows and pikes.

  "I'll take her," a young man said, barely out of his teens.

  "What's going on?" Marguerite asked. "Who are you?"

  Ganley ignored her questions and pressed on, the rest of the raiders, save one, following him.

  "My name's Matthew," he said. "I've come from Reichel ville, a fishing village on Erie Lake not far from here."

  "What do you want?"

  "You," he said. "We've come for breeders, new blood for our dying ville."

  "I can give you offspring," Marguerite said.

  "Good," Matthew said, leading her into the orchards and the staging area they had set up on the other side of the fence. "I hope you can help me raise them, too."

  Marguerite was confused. "I'm not going to be a slave?"

  "No, not a slave. You're going to be my wife."

  JAK AND CLARISSA passed the nursery and rounded the corner to the dungeon, then stopped and backtracked around the corner again.

  A sec man stood guard in front of the door that led to the dungeon. He was armed with a 12-gauge pump-action blaster, and he looked determined not to let anyone get by him.

  "Must chill," Jak said in a whisper.

  Clarissa put her hand on Jak's arm. "No, we need him alive."

  "Why?"

  "My sister and the others are chained to the dungeon wall. We'll need keys to unlock and set them free."

  Jak nodded, then reached inside his coat for one of the leaf-bladed throwing knifes he kept hidden on his person. He balanced the knife in his throwing hand, mentally counted to three, then rolled past the corner into the hallway and came up onto his knees to make the throw. The knife sailed straight and true, catching the sec man in the right bicep and involuntarily forcing open his right hand. The blaster fell to the floor with a heavy clang, and Jak got to his feet, his huge Colt Python leveled at the sec man's chest.

  The sec man grabbed at his wounded arm with his left hand and tried to kneel to pick up his longblaster.

  "No," Jak said.

  "Give us the keys for the dungeon," Clarissa yelled as she came up behind Jak, "and he won't chill you."

  "Fuck you, you snow-headed mutie freak!"

  Jak squeezed the trigger and blew off part of the sec man's right foot.

  "Where are the keys?" Clarissa demanded.

  The sec man was too busy writhing on the floor and screaming in pain to answer.

  Jak pushed the barrel of the Python against the man's genitals.

  "Tell me where the keys are," Clarissa said softly.

  The sec man stared at Jak's big blaster in horror. "There's a master key in my right pocket." He fished inside his pants with a trembling hand and produced a key on a Lucite fob that had a picture of the falls on it in all its predark glory.

  Clarissa took the key from him. "Thanks."

  Jak raised the Python to the sec man's head. "Lose lot blood," he said to Clarissa. "Die anyway."

  She nodded.

  Jak looked at the sec man. "Not mutie."

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  RYAN AND MILDRED were back outside the front doors to the main building looking for Krysty and her captor.

  The courtyard was in shambles and utter chaos. The bloody remains of several sec men were strewed across the ground, several of them in the very circle Ryan had fought the day before. Muties ran through the compound, eating fruit, brandishing weapons and generally making up for years of hunger and near starvation.

  There were sec men still in the complex, but they all seemed to be trying to escape out the front gate, like rats jumping off a sinking ship. It was obvious to them all they'd lost the battle, and now they were just saving themselves.

  "Where are we going to find Krysty in all this?" Mildred asked.

  Ryan scanned the complex. "I know from experience," he said. "There are a hundred places to hide out in."

  "She could be anywhere."

  And then Ryan saw something, a familiar flash of titian hair, and he knew that their search was over.

  "You can stop looking," Ryan said, pointing. "She's found us. There."

  Mildred followed the line made by Ryan's finger. "That's the baron's new sec chief. Name's Fillinger."

  Fillinger stood on the roof of the main building with Krysty in front of him. Her hands were bound behind her back, and he had a large blued blaster pressed to the side of her head.

  "One-eye!" the sec chief called.

  Ryan looked up but said nothing.

  "I got something you want."

  Rya
n said nothing to the man on the roof, but just under his breath he muttered to Mildred, "He's too far for me to try with the SIG-Sauer."

  Mildred gauged the distance, wind, the slight movements of the target and shook her head. "He's got Krysty too close. If I'm a fraction off, she's on the last train west."

  "I want to make a deal," the sec chief shouted.

  The last thing Ryan wanted was to make a trade or strike some deal for the lives of his friends. Trading blasters and goods for food and shelter was one thing, but trading humans for those same items was just plain wrong. But this wasn't just any human the sec chief was holding hostage; it was Krysty. His friend and lover. He'd listen to the man's offer, and try to figure out some other solution in the meantime. "I'm listening."

  "You leave now and take your friends with you— the fish traders, the muties, all of them."

  There were a few moments of silence. So far the deal wasn't sounding very good. "And?" Ryan asked.

  "And Red won't be chilled."

  "That's not much of a deal," Ryan said.

  "Best one you get, One-eye."

  "Let her go and we'll leave."

  The sec chief shook his head. "The baron wants her. We need to rebuild the breeding stock, and she's just what we need."

  "You sure you can't take him?" Ryan muttered.

  Mildred made a second assessment. "Sorry, Ryan."

  "If you don't let her go, there won't be a piece of this farm left standing by the time I'm through with it."

  "I'll take that chance," Fillinger said.

  "What are we going to do, Ryan?" Mildred asked.

  "I don't know."

  THE REICHEL VILLE raiders had made it all the way through the orchards and had taken a dozen slaves with them—nine of them women. The entire operation had gone easier than they'd expected, and they were about to leave with eight more than they arrived with.

  The ville would survive and flourish.

  As Rhonda led a party of six toward the large group of buildings at the far end of the complex, she was looking for something to give sec chief Ganley. He'd been a selfless leader to the raiders, and they had all expressed their wish to thank him in some way. A mate of his own would be a excellent show of gratitude, but what sort of woman would suit him?

  They turned the corner on the cabins housing the men and women living on the farm, and Rhonda caught sight of a sec man standing on the roof of the biggest building on the farm. There was a woman with him, a woman with the most amazing red hair. He seemed to be shouting down at someone on the other side of the building.

  "Dwayne," she said.

  "Yeah," came the response from a middle-aged man as he came up behind her.

  "That first night we camped out on the south shore of the lake, what did the sec chief say when we asked him what he'd like in a mate?"

  Dwayne thought about it a moment. "Uh, he said she'd have to be healthy, and that he always liked red hair. Red hair, or dark skin, one or the other."

  "Look up there." She gestured with a flick of her head.

  "That's red, all right."

  "Take two others up onto the roof. When we take the sec man out, you bring the redhead down to the staging area. We'll cover your back along the way."

  "Right."

  "As soon as we're on the other side of the fence, we're outta here."

  "WELL, ONE-EYE!" sec chief Fillinger said. "I don't see you leaving."

  "Can't leave her behind," Ryan said.

  "Sorry to hear that."

  "You chill her, there won't be a farm left to rebuild."

  "It's already gone to shit."

  "Let her go!" Ryan shouted, then turned to Mildred and whispered. "Take your best shot."

  Mildred raised her target pistol slowly, knowing that once the sec chief saw the blaster she'd only have a split second to take the shot.

  But then the sec chiefs body suddenly jerked to the right. The man let go of Krysty and stumbled to keep his balance.

  With several feet of darkness between the sec chief and Krysty, Mildred had no trouble marking the target. She raised her ZKR and fired off two rounds, catching the sec chief first in the chest and then in the head.

  But he didn't fall.

  Instead he turned away from Krysty and in the dim glow of the auxiliary lights, the arrow that had pierced his neck and shattered his throat became visible to the friends on the ground.

  "Let's get up there and grab Krysty," Ryan said, already running toward the main building.

  Mildred followed him, five steps behind all the way through the building and finally up the ladder that brought them to the roof.

  But when they got there, all they found was a dead sec chief.

  Krysty was gone.

  Chapter Forty-One

  J.B., Doc and Dean had taken up a position outside the barn where they'd been told the baron kept a LAV and a few transport wags. They had considered storming the barn and capturing one of the wags, but a dozen or more sec men had already gone inside and following them in would have brought on a firefight.

  So instead they parked the wag about a hundred yards from the barn doors with the cannon loaded and the .50 calibers aimed at the open door.

  "How many shells left, Doc?" J.B. asked.

  "Six," Doc answered. "Of differing quality from good to questionable."

  "How about the fifties?"

  "Six feet of belt on the back," Dean reported. "Four and a half on the front."

  A noise came from the inside of the barn.

  "Hear that?" J.B. asked.

  "If I am not mistaken," Doc said, "that's the rattle and thrum of a diesel engine, most likely made in the predark city of Detroit, or perhaps one of the smaller villes such as Flint or Pontiac."

  "Diesel, all right. Get ready."

  Doc and Dean manned the fifties. J.B. tightened his grip on the cannon's trigger.

  All at once the door to the barn was filled by a black LAV. It had four large wheels, a small compartment for a crew and a single blaster mounted on a pivot at the top of a conically shaped turret. It weapon was smaller than the 37 mm, and it was also pointed in the wrong direction.

  J.B. held back on firing until the LAV approached his line of fire. Leading the target by about a yard, he pulled the trigger and the front wheels of the vehicle were blown off their mounts. The LAV foundered, falling forward like a horse that just had its front legs pulled out from under it. The blaster began to swivel in their direction, but the LAV had come to a stop directly in J.B.'s line of fire. Still, the Armorer turned the wheel of the wag to the left and backed it up about two feet, bringing the LAV's turret directly in line with the cannon's barrel.

  "Doc, is it loaded?"

  In the back of the wag, Doc was busily making sure that the gun was loaded and wouldn't jam on the next round.

  "Doc?"

  "Do not wait for me, John Barrymore."

  J.B. pulled the trigger and the cannon thudded again, this time hitting the LAV's turret and shattering its blaster into a pile of hot steel.

  The top of the LAV popped open and sec men began to scramble out. Dean peppered them with .50-caliber fire, chilling two and sending the other running unarmed and empty-handed out of the complex.

  "Hot pipe!" Dean exclaimed.

  THE DUNGEON was little more than a damp, dark and musty basement. It housed water heaters, and electric heaters to keep the farm buildings warm through the winter, as well as filters and a few tables with seedlings being cultivated under banks of fluorescent lights.

  And six women were chained to the cinder-block wall behind them. All appeared to be in their third trimester and ready to give birth at any time.

  But unlike the well kept plants being cultivated under the lights, these women had been abandoned in the dark. Jak found a light switch that turned on a single bulb in an old ceiling fixture, and the women cringed under the dim light of the low-wattage light. The floor was cold and wet, stinking of feces and urine, and crawling with bugs that seeme
d to roam over the women's bodies with a purpose—as if the living beings were simply part of the terrain.

  Not surprising, the bodies of the women were covered with sores and scabs. Their flesh was pale white and pasty in texture, like the skin Jak had seen on hundreds of muties over the years.

  And then there were their eyes…

  They were full of fear, terrified that they'd be beaten, raped or otherwise abused. If the baron had brought women down to this place to break their spirit and obliterate their will to resist him, he had succeeded magnificently.

  These women were waiting to die as much as they were waiting to give birth.

  "Which one your sister?" Jak asked.

  Clarissa stared at the six women with a confused look on her face. "I'm not sure," she said, sounding afraid and just a little bit desperate.

  Jak wasn't surprised. These women barely looked human.

  "Melanie?"

  Jak didn't wait for one of them to answer. He began unlocking all the women.

  "Is that you, Clarissa?" the second woman from the end called out.

  "What's going on?" another woman asked.

  "What has happened?"

  "Who are you?"

  Clarissa lifted her sister off the damp and dirty floor. Her sister, Melanie, was unable to stand straight after months of crouching on the cold hard floor, but Clarissa bent to put her arms around her.

  "You came back," Melanie said.

  "I never left." Clarissa was near tears.

  "What?"

  "I stayed outside the farm, waiting for the chance to rescue you."

  "Who is he?" Melanie asked. By now the other five women were on their shaky feet, as well, and they all seemed to want to know the answer to that question, too.

  "This is Jak Lauren," Clarissa explained, drying her sister's eyes.

  Jak gave them a slight wave.

  "He and his friends have freed the slaves."

  "Free?" one of the women asked.

  Jak nodded. He pointed to the stairs leading out of the dungeon and then out of the building. "This way."