Gaia's Demise

by James Axler

  The helicopter passed by again, lower this time.

  "Why isn't it shooting?" Dean demanded, tracking its passage, but withholding fire. The boy hated to admit it, but he was terrified. Machines that flew—it was unnatural!

  "He's getting our range!" J.B. shouted, firing some rounds into the sky.

  "That's a Bell bubble chopper," Ryan stated. "It has no armor, and no blasters."

  "Gives us a fighting chance to live," J.B. said. Dark night! A helicopter. What else did the blues have in their arsenal?

  "The vehicle is unarmed?" Doc demanded. "Then it is merely here to frighten us, or track our location for others?"

  "Hell, no!"

  A powerful explosion ripped about the night, the ground shaking as a column of boiling flame reached into the sky.

  "That's dynamite or TNT," J.B. said, sticking both weapons through the bars of the safety cage and firing, the winking muzzle-flashes illuminating the man in the darkness. "The pilot is tossing out sticks like bombs!"

  Another column of strident fire blossomed directly ahead of the companions. The concussion slapped them hard, and they fought to keep the bikes upright as they narrowly skirted the steaming blast crater, clumps of hard soil under their wheels making the bikes shake madly. A fall now meant sure death.

  "Figure eight for sixty!" Ryan shouted, leading the others sharply to the left, then to the right in evasion tactics. "We go on the next blast!"

  Another blast roared, and Ryan killed the headlights. The companions spread wildly across the field, only to meet again farther away.

  "Volley fire," Ryan shouted. "Go!"

  Doc, Dean and J.B. cut loose with their blasters, filling the sky with a hail of bullets. As a clip was emptied, they tossed it away, slapped in a fresh one and continued shooting. Speed and luck were their only chances now. A single stick landing in the middle of the bikes, and they would never hit the ground alive.

  "Forest ahead!" Ryan shouted, dodging a primitive plow. A ville had to be close by. He only hoped they weren't friendly with the blues.

  The subgun finally empty, Doc dropped the useless weapon and triggered the LeMat. In the darkness, the muzzle-flash reached out for more than a foot, the detonation sounding like a peal of thunder.

  In throbbing majesty, the helicopter angled away and moved fast into the night until it was gone. Tense minutes passed as they waited for its thundering return on another bombing run, and then the companions broached the forest and were riding under its canopy of branches. Slowing, Ryan listened carefully for the pre-dark machine, but only the hushed silence of the woods could be heard.

  "Why did it leave?" Krysty asked suspiciously.

  "Mayhap I hit the infernal contraption," Doc rumbled, studying the sky dubiously.

  Sliding the last spare clip into the subgun, J.B. scowled at the clouds above. "Seems unlikely," the Armorer said. "But it's possible, and those damn .44 mini-balls would punch right through a civilian copter."

  Smiling with his oddly perfect teeth, Doc fondly patted the huge handcannon. "Which is why I still retain her, sir! Very few enemies, indeed, need to be shot twice with this."

  "Well, the Bell would have to leave if the old coot hit the rotor," Mildred added. "A helicopter can't fly straight without its tail rotor."

  "At least the thing is gone," Dean said gratefully, yanking on the bolt of the subgun, trying to free a jammed round. The misfire was caught in the breech tight and wouldn't come loose. He might have to disassemble the blaster before it would fire again.

  Suddenly, the boy could see the blaster a lot clearer as a wealth of moonlight flooded into the forest, the silvery light illuminating the trees in a cool glow.

  "Clouds broke," Krysty said, the hair on her head coiling tightly. "Haven't seen that happen in quite awhile."

  Squinting with his good eye, Ryan rubbed his unshaved chin, making a sound like sandpaper. "You don't suppose—"

  But the Deathlands warrior was interrupted as something rustled in the trees, bouncing from limb to limb to land in the bushes. The same thing happened again, and then once more, this time the object landing in plain sight on the carpet of leaves. It was a blue jay, its feathers splayed and steam rising off its body. "What in hell…?" Ryan said. Everybody jumped and aimed their blasters as dozens more birds fell to the ground, robins, hawks and owls, the impact of their bodies sounding almost like hail. Then a scream-wing plummeted through the foliage to hit the safety cage around Ryan. The dead mutie was only a foot away from his face, and he stared at it hard. This was the closest he had ever been a scream-wing. Steam hissed from its mouth and rectum, the eyes had burst apart and its hide was bubbly as if the creature had been dipped in boiling oil.

  "The copter?" Dean asked fearfully. The boy had no idea what was going on here. Cooked birds falling from the sky?

  "Oh, my God," Mildred whispered, pointing behind them with a shaky hand.

  Thousands of leaves and needles were falling from the trees in a heavy wave, the bare branches darkening, and some of the small growths bursting into flame. The bushes began to smolder, and the grass withered. It was as if the forest were dying before their very eyes. There was a sharp line of the approaching destruction, green plants on this side, withered death on the other.

  "Sweet Jesus save us, it's a Kite!" Mildred fumbled twice in her haste to kick the motorcycle into life. "That's what the bastard Jamaisvous was talking to, a goddamn freaking Kite!"

  "Silas ace plants?" Jak demanded.

  "It kills everything!" the woman shouted, and twisted the throttle to the last stop. The wheels spun wildly in the loose leaves, spraying out debris, then contacted dirt and the Harley roared forward, almost crashing into a tree. The cage slammed into the trunk, ripping off bark and making J.B. drop the subgun.

  "Hey!" he cried out, nursing a wrist. There was a sharp pain inside as if a bone had been broken.

  "Fuck it!" the physician screamed, plowing through a bush. "Run, run for your lives! And for God's sake don't look up!"

  Starting their bikes, the others took off after the woman, not exactly sure what was happening. Doc watched as the oncoming line of destruction approached to within only a few yards of the rolling motorcycle, when he began to twitch uncomfortably. It felt as if a million insects were crawling over his skin, and the grip of the LeMat started to grow warm.

  "Faster, madam!" he shouted, almost throwing the blaster away. "We have to go faster!"

  Ahead of them, the forest was cool and green, the thick foliage starkly lit by the full October moon. His left eye socket itching madly, Ryan fought to control the Harley as he drove full tilt through the woods, sometimes the trees so close he thought the safety cage would jam tight between the trees. But the bark scraped loose, giving scant inches, and the Harley roared onward.

  Glancing behind, Krysty saw the crumbling forest was steadily gaining on the bikes. "It's gaining on us!" she yelled, tears flowing down her cheeks. It felt as if her hair were on fire, the pain almost beyond endurance. She had a hard time thinking clearly, and more than once the bike nearly toppled over from her clumsy driving. Silently, she prayed to Gaia for the strength to live.

  Their bikes riding side by side, the companions crashed through a wall of thorny rosebushes, the safety cages holding most of the stems at bay, but still their clothes snagged and trickles of blood flowed from a dozen small cuts.

  Ryan glanced into his rearview mirror. "We're not going to get away!" he shouted grimly.

  "We have to!" Mildred answered, then shrugged and dropped her heavy med kit. "Heave the baggage! Lose everything!"

  Stunned for a moment by the incredible act, Ryan resolutely reached behind himself, grabbed a backpack and stuffed it through the warm bars of his safety cage. When there was only one left, his speed noticeably increased. The man hesitated for a heartbeat, then also threw away that pack. Mildred knew her stuff, and whatever it was that was after them, he didn't want it to reach them for the sake of a few pounds.

  Droppi
ng the subgun, J.B. watched the weapon fireball as the crackling wave reached the blaster. The man hesitated for a tick, then tossed away his precious accumulation of explosives and primers.

  "Brace yourselves!" he shouted just as the bag thunderously detonated, the blast toppling over the dying trees, bushes flying, shrapnel zinging through the air in every direction.

  Struggling with one arm at a time, Krysty got out of her heavy bearskin coat and stuffed it through the cage. Dean dropped his canteen, then the newly acquired Kalashnikov and the ammo clips. The coat burst into flames, and the ammo exploded as the grass turned brown underneath the items.

  The brown line in the soil streaked after them, coming closer by the second. Frantically, the companions emptied the pockets of MRE packs, spare knives, extra ammo and everything else they could find.

  "Radios!" Jak shouted, ripping the transmitter free and casting it away.

  With the motorcycles moving at top speed, the companions raced through the forest in a nightmare of dodging trees and crashing through bushes. Unstoppable, the death wave from the Kite swept onward, getting closer and closer with each passing moment.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Their load lightened, the companions began to pull away from the wave of death, the crackling of the leaves slowly fading into the distance. Soon it was gone from sight, and living green plants surrounded them once more. The itching eased, and the metal of their blasters started to cool. But the riders didn't slow their frantic pace through the Tennessee woods. Soon, the trees began to thin, and the companions broke out of the woods and onto smooth rolling grasslands again. An hour passed in silent speed, clouds forming overhead to mask the eternal stars and moon. Thankfully, there was no sign of the pools and streams that had surrounded the redoubt before. The waters must have receded over time and the land was alive again. But not for long.

  "We should be safe now," Dean said hopefully. The boy held his Browning Hi-Power and a single clip in sweaty hands, ready to lose both should it prove necessary. He had tried unlacing his combat boots, but it was plainly impossible to do that on a moving bike.

  Shaking her head, Krysty released her hair from its confines, and the fiery cascade flexed freely once more. "Thank Gaia that's over," she exhaled. "My hair was in agony!"

  "Nobody stop until we reach the redoubt!" Mildred countered, still hunched over the handlebars. "And watch the clouds! The Kite might be skipping ahead of us, so we race straight into its beams."

  Maneuvering his bike closer, Ryan shouted, "What was that?"

  The open spaces allowing her to relax a notch, Mildred bit a lip and tried to figure a way to explain what they had just faced. "In the kitchens of the redoubts," she replied, "you've used the microwave oven to boil water, and once we baked a potato. Same thing."

  Ryan frowned as the engine of his bike sputtered, and he revved the throttle. The Harley was dangerously low on fuel. "You called it a Kite," he called out. "That a war satellite?"

  She shrugged. "Not originally, but I guess it is now." The quivering needle of the fuel gauge stopped moving as it reached the empty mark, and Ryan concentrated on squeezing a few more miles out of the gas vapors in the tank. Silas had found a microwave satellite and gotten control with an old SETI dish. Good thing he had aced the old bastard on sight. But if Silas was chilled, then who was operating the Kite?

  The landscape began to take on a familiar shape, and Ryan began to remember details of the last visit there, the fights, desperate running, a bloody ambush and the endless chilling. It had been one of their worst jumps, and the redoubt itself was as bare as a spent round. There wasn't a can of beans, or anything useful inside just an armored vault filled with predark works of art—bronzes statues and antique oil paintings. Why would the Pentagon waste valuable space storing those things away from the ravages of a nuke storm? That was just another of the endless mysteries about the redoubts, and one he had no desire to solve.

  Just then a familiar shape rose from the ground in the glare of the headlights. The front of the redoubt was as Ryan remembered, battered and charred from the nuke blasts of skydark. But the armored door was as sturdy as ever, and the companions would be safe once they got inside.

  "The redoubt!" Krysty shouted, slowing her speed.

  Taking the lead, Ryan rolled his bike around the outcropping until reaching the front of the underground base. Massive black doors stood untarnished and immutable in a small recess, an armored keypad set into the burnished jamb of the portal.

  Braking to a halt, the companions turned off the engines and set the kickstands. Silence greeted them, a soft wind blowing from the direction of the distant forest.

  "Thermal currents from the Kite," Mildred said to the unasked question, as she stiffly climbed from the cage. For a second, she looked for her med kit, then memory flared, and she grimly walked toward the redoubt. They physician could assemble another kit over time. More important, safety was only a few yards away.

  Ryan was already standing at the door, tapping the entry code onto the keypad when the ground underneath the man heaved and he was thrown sprawling yards away.

  Spitting curses, the companions drew their blasters as a nightmare crawled out of the soil directly in front of the door. It was a twisted mutie unlike anything they had ever seen before. The grotesque creature possessed a misshapen head covered with different-sized eyes and multiple ears. Its drooling mouth was filled with fangs, and a forked tongue lolled over pale leathery lips. The long serpentine body was covered with spotty fur as if it suffered from mange or rad poisoning. However, massive muscles rolled beneath the leathery skin as the mutie shambled closer on four powerful legs, two tiny shriveled limbs dangling impotently from its hideous chest. Sharp claws ripped apart the hard soil as the slavering beast started to crawl catlike toward the companions.

  "Silas!" J.B. cursed, working the bolt on his Uzi. "He knew we'd try for the redoubt and left one of his DNA experiments for us!"

  Rising to one knee, Ryan leveled the Steyr SSG-70. He was down to only a few clips, but there was no time to waste with this mutie. They had to get inside before the Kite returned. "Chill it!" he commanded, triggering his longblaster.

  In unison, the companions opened fire in a ragged volley, the barrage of rounds tearing the screaming animal apart. It slumped to the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds.

  "See any more around?" Ryan demanded, standing and chambering a fresh round. He glanced at the ground for any suspicious movements, then at the sky. The clouds were still thick and heavy. Good.

  "Looks clear," Doc reported, studying the fields around them while waving away the smoke from his LeMat.

  Colt at the ready, Jak dropped to one knee and placed the flat of his hand in the cold soil. "No vibrations," he reported.

  "Nasty-looking bugger," J.B. stated, then stared in astonishment as the dead mutie began to stir.

  Sluggishly, the thing rose on its hind legs, the holes in its skin closing into dainty puckered scars.

  "By the Three Kennedys," Doc whispered as he switched the selector pin on his LeMat from the .44 miniballs to the smoothbore .63 shotgun. There was only a single load, but at such close range it should remove the creature's head.

  Hastily, Krysty thumbed fresh cartridges into her revolver as a rill of porcupine quills extended protectively along the neck of the snarling mutie. "Gaia protect us, it's regenerating," she said, dropping a few rounds but reloading the blaster in record time. The redhead closed the cylinder with a snap of her wrist and fired again immediately. The soft-nosed bullets hit the creature in the chest and neck with less effect this time. The wounds closed without scars after only weeping a few drops of the weird semi-transparent green blood.

  "How the hell are we going to chill something that can do that?" she demanded, backing away.

  "Don't have to chill it," Ryan yelled over his booming rifle. "Just have to get past!"

  Furiously working the bolt on his Steyr, Ryan pumped two rounds from the longblaster direct
ly into the beast, stalling for Doc until he was ready. The long 7.62 mm cartridges each took out an eye, which started to regrow. J.B. added a burst from the Uzi, concentrating on the chest. Greenish blood spurted with every hit, the wounds closing faster as if the mutie were accelerating the healing process.

  Stepping closer, Doc ducked under a lashing tail and fired the LeMat at point-blank range. The massive black-powder weapon vomited flame and smoke from the wide muzzle, the shotgun round slamming the beast backward against the door of the redoubt. But as the companions watched, the growling mutie rose again. The gaping hole in its chest, leaking a greenish ichor, began to close and the bleeding stopped.

  Dodging to the left, then darting to the right, the mutie came ever closer, a forked tongue running hungrily along its mottled jaws.

  "Dark night!" J.B. snarled, releasing the Uzi and swinging the S&W shotgun into play. Only four shells remained, and the Armorer knew he had to make every one count.

  Working the pump, he fired two shells at the creature, the spray of flechettes tearing its head apart. But the bleeding pieces of flesh slid together again, and a pair of scorpion tails arched from its mottled back, the barbed tips glistening with moisture.

  "Poison!" Mildred warned, targeting its face with her ZKR pistol. Several of its eyes exploded from her soft lead rounds, and the hissing mutie started directly toward her, the other orbs extending on pale stalks.

  Suddenly, clear moonlight flooded the battle scene.

  "The Kite!" Krysty yelled, her flexing hair already coiling protectively.

  "Go for its head!" Ryan shouted, moving forward and firing with each step. The companions aimed and unleashed a ragged volley, the beast screaming in agony, the barrage of lead and steel tearing apart its writhing form. But their weapons achieved only the same meager results.