by James Axler
Using the beast as cover, Stirling charged into the fray, shooting at anything not on four legs. Longblasters thundered, the rapidfires hammered away. Something white-hot hit him in the leg and then the arm. Mouthing obscenities, Stirling dropped the BAR from his throbbing arm and whipped out his handblaster. A woman cursed. There was another loud explosion, then those mil rapidfires started chattering nonstop, firing on and on, the terrible noise seeming to fill the universe….
WITH A SHOUT, Krysty awoke and launched a punch at the shadowy figure kneeling over her doing something to her shirt. The tall man with silvery-hair made an inarticulate noise as the fist sank into his stomach, and he dropped to the rocky ground.
Half-dressed, Krysty threw herself at the attacker, yanking a huge blaster from his belt. The thing was colossal, some sort of double-barrel handblaster that was damn near identical to the one carried by…Gaia!
“Is that you, Doc?” Krysty demanded, thumbing back the hammer on the titanic LeMat.
A low moan answered in the affirmative.
Looking hurriedly around, Krysty saw that she was on a stony ridge set along the base of a towering mesa, the top of the column lost in the clouds above. Huge boulders and clumps of sagebrush dotted the landscape, giving good cover. There was just the two of them in sight, nobody else was nearby.
“Why the frag were you dressing me?” Krysty demanded, tossing her friend the blaster. “Where’s Mildred? What happened?”
“Our noteworthy physician is off tendering professional care to Lily,” Doc muttered, fighting for air as he slowly stood.
“Who?” Krysty asked, buttoning her shirt closed.
Rubbing his stomach, Doc briefly told her what had happened.
Finishing with the buttons, Krysty noted the shortness of the sleeves. “This isn’t mine,” she said.
“No, dear lady. Yours is gone, so Mildred donated a spare. She said it might be a little tight across the—” Doc faltered at the word “—across the, ahem, shoulders. I hope it is not too uncomfortable.”
“It’ll do,” Krysty said with a smile. “How long was I out?”
“How long?” Doc repeated, glancing at the stormy sky. A few stars peeked out from behind the ever-flowing bank of tox chems as they as they moved over the mesa and out of sight. “About two hours, perhaps less.”
“I see,” Krysty said, zipping up her denim pants. Walking over to Doc, she wrapped her arms around the old man and hugged so hard that he thought his ribs would break. Then she planted a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you,” Krysty whispered from the heart, gazing in his young but so-very-old eyes.
“A gentleman does what he can, dear lady,” Doc demurred, feeling slightly embarrassed by the show of raw emotion.
“Anyway,” Doc said hurriedly, “your…uh, your weapons are over here by my bike.”
Sitting on a rock, Krysty began to pull on her boots. “Your bike?” she asked in amusement.
He flashed his perfect teeth. “Well, it is mine now. Finders keepers, as they say.”
Standing, she stomped the boots into place. “You’ll get no arguments from me,” she stated. “Lead the way.”
Going behind some scrub brush, Doc removed a few tumbleweeds to expose the sleek black two-wheeler.
“Mildred believes the machines are solar-powered,” he said, patting the metal frame. “Which means that we are stuck here until daylight. The power reserves were low when we appropriated the machines, and by now they are totally exhausted.”
Which explains why we’re hidden in the bushes, she thought. “So we’re stuck here for the time being,” Krysty said, her hair flexing gently against the breeze.
“Indeed, yes.”
“Fair enough.” Krysty picked up her gunbelt and strapped it on tight. There was no sign of the MP-5, but her S&W .38 Model 640 was in the holster, the loops full of extra brass.
“Anything to eat?” she asked hopefully, checking the load in the revolver. It was clean and undamaged.
“Surprisingly, yes, there is,” Doc answered, going to the rear cargo compartment of the bike and lifting the lid. Nestled inside were spare ammo clips for the combo rapidfires, a canvas bag full of grens, a few tools, a bandolier of 40 mm rounds and dozens of bulky MRE packs.
Eagerly, Krysty ripped one open and yanked out an envelope of beef stew, using her fingers to wolf it down and licking the envelope clean afterward.
“Gaia, I needed that.” She sighed in relief, crumbling the Mylar pack into a wad and tucking it into a pocket. The material reflected light better than a mirror, especially at night, and leaving it on the ground would be like marking their trail. Riffling through the rest of the MRE pack, she used a wet nap to clean her hands, and then popped a stick of gum into her mouth.
“By the way, where’s my bearskin coat?” Krysty asked, chewing contentedly. Asking for a gift of strength from Gaia always left her exhausted and starving. She was still hungry, but experience had taught her the hard way that it was wise to eat in stages or else her stomach would rebel.
“The same location as my frock coat,” Doc answered lugubriously, sitting on a rock. “With our esteemed physician and her patient.” He jerked a thumb. “About a hundred yards that way inside a small natural cave we found before the power ran out and the bikes died.”
“A cave? Why didn’t she stay here with us? There’s safety in numbers.”
“True, dear lady, but Mildred needed to make a fire, and it would be infinitely less noticeable inside a cave.”
Mulling that over, Krysty popped the gum. A fire. That could mean Mildred was doing surgery. “How bad was this Lily hurt?”
“Unknown at present.” Doc sighed, facing in that direction. Then he glanced down at a shirt-sleeve marked with red. “But she was bleeding for quite a while.”
“Come on, then,” Krysty said, standing. “Mebbe they could use our help.”
“But, madam, we really should stay apart,” Doc said in an urgent tone. “Mildred warned about a device called a low-jack, and somebody should stand guard in case those Rogan brothers return!”
“Lily took lead helping us escape,” Krysty told him, going to the bike and lifting the canvas bag of grens. “I’m sure as nuking hell not going to sit here warming a rock, doing nothing.” Removing a gren, she pulled the arming pin and then tucked the explos charge behind the rear wheel of the bike where the shadows were thick. Then she took some loose sand and sprinkled it on top of the explos charge. Good enough. Anybody moving the wag would be blown to hell and give warning that the Rogans had arrived.
“Besides, my mother taught me a lot about fixing wounds,” Krysty added. “I’m going.”
“All for one, and one for all,” Doc muttered under his breath. “If you are determined to be D’Artagnan, than I shall be your Planchet.”
Traveling along the base of the mesa, the two companions kept their backs to the rocky facade of the stony column, moving almost entirely by touch. The crescent moon was behind the mesa, and the reflected light from the fiery clouds above did little to relieve the gloom. Rocks and brush were everywhere, along with the occasional cactus. Krysty tripped on some loose stones at one point, and Doc ripped his shirt on an outcropping. Grimacing at the pain, he said nothing and kept going.
Awkwardly climbing down a ridge in the ground, the companions paused when a lonely cougar snarled somewhere in the distance, the challenge answered by the cry of an eagle.
Just then, Krysty raised a clenched fist. Knowing what the hand gesture meant, Doc stopped and eased the massive LeMat from its holster. He was low on ammo for the .44 Ruger, but the .455 Civil War handblaster was fully charged and ready once more for battle. The range was short, but the LeMat could blow the head off a man at close quarters.
Tensely, the two friends listened hard to the moaning wind, then caught the snort of a horse. Correction. There were several horses, followed by a familiar voice.
“To the left?” Ryan asked, stepping out of the wall of the
mesa and into the dim moonlight. The Steyr SSG-70 was slung across his back, the SIG-Sauer in his hand.
“No, the right,” Mildred answered from within the rockface.
“Hi, Charlie,” Krysty called.
His blaster leading the way, Ryan spun at that. Charlie? The code was something the companions had developed over their long travels. If they meet each other after being separated, a code was used to make sure all was well. “Charlie” meant it was clear.
“Hey, yourself, Charlie,” Ryan answered with a grin, holstering the blaster. “Triple glad to see you alive.”
“Same back at you, lover,” Krysty said.
As the two went into a clinch, Doc politely slipped past them to give the couple a moment of privacy, and walked around a large boulder that partially blocked the entrance to a small cave. The rest of the companions were inside, and relieved smiles were exchanged.
Then Doc faltered at the sight of Lily. His frock coat was folded under her head as a makeshift pillow, Krysty’s bearskin coat draped over her like a blanket. Candles flickered all around the young woman, and a small alcohol lantern blazed brightly perched on top of a nearby rock.
“How did you find us?” Doc asked, looking anxiously at the unconscious woman. In the heat of battle, the old man hadn’t noticed how truly lovely she was. Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing, her delicate features lined from hard work and a lack of sufficient food. Thirty years old? Eighteen? It was difficult to guess her age. Besides, a child became an adult in the Deathlands on the day he or she learned to fire a blaster.
“How easy.” Jak snorted in disdain. “Been ticks behind since left ville. Bikes leave trail blind man follow.”
Sitting on a rock, Doc didn’t doubt the statement. The albino hunter boasted that he could follow a fish under water, and he had witnessed the lad follow tracks across bare concrete. “But how did you know…”
“Four bikes go west,” Jak said patiently, as if explaining to a child. “Then two go east, with double loads. What else but folks escaping?”
“Of course. How obvious. Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”
“How is Lily?” Krysty asked, walking in with Ryan.
As if in reply, the young woman gave a low moan and tried to turn over, but Mildred forced her to lie back down. Lily’s denim pants had been split to the crotch, exposing a bloody bandage near the big artery along the inner thigh.
Her hair flexing wildly, Krysty frowned at the sight. Jak had taught her that the inner thigh was a prime chill point for knife fighting. Stab a person there and they were aced from blood loss in only a couple minutes.
“She’s not good,” Mildred admitted, placing a sheet of cloth from her med kit on the sandy floor. “I have to cauterize the wound, or we’re going to lose her.” One at a time, she placed an assortment of crude medical instruments: longfingers found at an auto repair shop, surgical pliers from a veterinary clinic, pressure clips looted from an office supply store.
“Looks like there’s enough wood,” Ryan said, checking the small pile near the mouth of the cave. Several backpacks had been stacked to block the wind from the fire and to help hide the flickering light. The boulder would block most of it, the cave had been well chosen, but every little bit counted when coldhearts were out on a hunt.
“Sure. Got lots,” Jak replied, gesturing at another stack deeper within the cave.
“Good.” Checking the stack, Ryan saw that a lot of it was green wood, still alive and full of juicy sap. “No way a butane lighter is gonna start this going,” he muttered. “Anybody got a flare?”
“I have even better,” J.B. replied, lifting a hand to display a small pellet.
Taken back, Ryan raised an eyebrow at sight of the pyro tab. J.B. had to have been hoarding this prize for months, maybe longer.
Kneeling by the stack of wood, J.B. placed the tablet on a flat rock and crushed it with a single blow from the grip of his handblaster. The smashed tablet glowed for a moment, and the Armorer quickly stepped back. Soon, the glow began a sizzling flame that grew and enlarged until it was almost a yard high, the light nearly blinding in the stony passage. As the lambent rush faded, the pile of green wood was merrily burning away, including the larger branches set to help maintain an airflow to the heart of the blaze.
Rising from his rock, Doc began to lay thick sticks on the fire in a crisscross pattern, and Ryan pulled his panga to place the blade near the crackling flames.
Removing the cap from her canteen, Mildred poured some water into a palm, then broke open a tiny cardboard envelope from an MRE pack and sprinkled a couple grains of salt into the fluid.
“Here you go,” she whispered, dribbling the mixture onto the lips of the pale woman. The physician hated giving anything liquid to an unconscious person, choking to death was always a very real possibility, but Lily had lost so much blood that emergency measures had to be taken.
Mumbling something indiscernible, Lily licked the moisture from her lips. Mildred sprinkled some more, and after that was gone, she gave the woman a sip of plain water.
“Why do?” Jak asked, frowning.
“Blood is very similar in composition to salt water,” Mildred explained, putting away the canteen. “Lily has lost a lot of blood, but unfortunately I don’t have an IV of plasma, or isotonic saline, to give her, so this will have to do. Every little bit helps.” The physician sighed. “Besides, it’s all that I have.”
“Salt water?” Jak asked, tilting his head.
“We come from the sea. Evolution. I told you about that.”
“Right,” Jak said in a noncommittal manner.
Thoughtfully stroking his chin, Doc glanced out the mouth of the cave toward the forbidding Mohawk Mountain range. They were much larger than when seen from Broke Neck ville. The range had to be a lot closer, perhaps only fifty or sixty klicks away by now, less than a day’s hard ride.
“Anything like that in the local redoubt?” Doc asked hopefully.
“Doubt it highly,” Mildred replied, both hands busy. “There was a full medical unit in Blaster Base One, but before that…hell, I can’t remember the last time I saw blood plasma in a redoubt.”
From outside, one of the horses nickered softly.
“I stand guard,” Jak said, and he eased out into the chill desert night.
“Any antibots?” Krysty asked hopefully, brushing the thick ebony hair of the comatose woman. Everybody in the Deathlands could stitch a wound shut and knew how to cauterize a bad bleeder. But very few healers knew to wash the wound first, or how to stitch it closed so that a limb would still work afterward. Wherever she went, Mildred tried to pass on some of her knowledge. But a lot of people refused to listen, the ancient taboo against any form of science still strong. Baron O’Connor of Two-Son ville had been wise enough to welcome the physician and have her start to train every woman in the ville as a healer. An army of healers! What a grand thought. But then the news came of the strange chillings and the companions had had to leave long before the complex training had been finished. Hopefully, after this was over, they could go back.
“Lost all of the sulfur compounds and penicillin in the river last month,” Mildred answered, pulling a plastic bottle of clear bluish fluid from the med kit. “Only this is left.”
“Shine?” Krysty asked, taking a look inside the bag.
The contents of the old M*A*S*H field surgery kit were labeled in some sort of code that the physician had been working on for a long time. That way, if they were captured, Mildred could try to bargain their way free with the med supplies. But mixed among them were several doses of poison. Grim justice for any thief who jacked the irreplaceable med kit.
“Close enough,” Mildred answered sadly. “Mouthwash. But the good antiseptic stuff.”
Scowling, Doc muttered something in Latin.
“Best hold her down, John,” Mildred directed, taking a deep breath. “This is going to hurt.”
Gently, J.B. slipped a piece of soft leather between Lily’s teeth,
then placed his hands on the woman’s shoulders. Without any further preamble, Mildred poured the antiseptic mouthwash over the bloody bandage, letting it soak down deep into the cloth to reach the wound underneath. Pale and still, Lily gave no response as purplish fluids dripped onto the rocky ground.
“Goddammit, I was hoping for a scream of pain. I’m losing her,” Mildred said, her throat tight. “How is it coming?”
Turning the handle over, Ryan inspected the orange-hot blade deep in the campfire. “Almost there,” he said. “Better start stitching.”
Placing aside the bottle, Mildred nimbly began threading a tiny veterinary needle designed for surgery on cats with the thinnest fishing line she owned. Removing the wad of bandages from the young woman’s thigh, she worked with bare hands, stitching the nicked artery closed in record speed. When Mildred leaned back, the blood was no longer squirting out of the wound, but it did continue to fill the small depression.
“Give her some more saline, John,” Mildred whispered, preparing the needle line again. “Krysty, move that lantern closer!”
The redheaded woman did as requested, and J.B. dribbled more lightly salted water onto Lily’s lips. She sputtered a little at first, then started to hack and cough. J.B. stopped until she settled down, then gave her a few drops of clean water. Mildred washed the wound clean with water, then the last of the antiseptic wash, then touched up the stitching as best she could.
“Ready,” Ryan said, stepping forward. The end of the panga was glowing red-hot like the eye of a demon.
“Light!” Mildred snapped, reaching for the handle of the knife.
Wordlessly, Doc pumped the handle on Mildred’s survivalist flashlight, then flicked the switch. The bulb gave a weak yellow glow brighter than a couple candles, but almost immediately started to fade.
“Bulb must be dying,” Doc lamented, sounding apologetic. “Just need a moment to change the bulb.”
“No time,” Mildred said, artfully applying the hot metal to the inside of the deep bullet wound.