Pandora's Redoubt

by James Axler

  The guards not slain in the first sweep threw away their weapons and fled. Its armor buckled and battered, leaking hydraulic fluid and oil, the Beast rolled after them, crushing the remains of the mighty cannons under its armored treads, vaporizing the swift and blinding any who dared to glance its way. Then the machine paused, spying a tall building of stone and brick standing prominently within the fortress. The Beast traversed its turret and concentrated its polycyclic laser on the base to remove a potential danger.

  A TREMOR SHOOK the Citadel, the windows cracking, suits of armor falling from their wall niches to break apart on the floor in noisy crashes. Whimpering slaves huddled under the map table.

  "It's melting the foundation," Richard cried, righting himself as the floor titled to a greater angle.

  "We have lost a battle, not the war," Amanda said, grabbing her holster and blaster, heading for the door. "Summon the guards! We'll continue the fight from the tower!"

  Richard turned, spitting in rage. "And leave Father alone with the rabble?"

  "You fool," she screamed furiously. "Father is dead!"

  "What?" he whispered, backing away from her madness.

  "Dead! You idiot! Dead. Has been for years. I killed him myself when he refused to make me his queen! Even after I gave him a son!"

  "Lies, all lies," he started, then saw the mocking triumph in her face, the face that looked so much like his own.

  "You bitch!" the deputy ward roared, wildly firing his pistol.

  Lady Ward Amanda Coultier of Novaville fell to the floor, hugging her stomach, holding in a spill of intestines. "Fool," she croaked, blood running from her mouth. "We could have.. .ruled the world... together..."

  One final shot resounded in the audience room stopping any further traitorous words from the madwoman.

  Going to his chair, the deputy ward ripped off the seat cover, exposing a red lever. Wrapping both hands about the switch, he pulled it upward until there was a metallic crack and the lever broke away clean.

  "There's no stopping it now," he said, slumping to his knees. "We're dead, they're dead. Everybody is dead"

  DEEP UNDER THE Citadel, the antiriot gas of the predark wardens erupted from its storage container as the primary seal was permanently ruptured. Following the path of least resistance, the gas poured through a maze of pipes hundreds of years old, and thousands of yards long, hissing into every street, every building. The vapor wafted along the ground, constantly rising higher, cresting doorsills, then windows. A thousand cubic yards of chemicals swirled into the smoky atmosphere of the ville unnoticed until it was far too late.

  Slaves toppled to the floor and out windows, sec men dropped as the gas floated past the flaming ruin of the barricade, down the raised concrete embankment and out into the fields. Galloping horses shattered legs as they were engulfed, snarling dogs became drowsy then somnolent, the wounded and the dying mercifully ceased their screaming, wrapped in the anesthetic arms of the soporific.

  Lisa and Troy collapsed trying to gain entrance into the armory. Clifford became insensible chained to the wall of a jail cell. David and Kathy succumbed firing their stolen weapons at escaping sec men. Deputy Ward Richard went limp at the foot of his gilded chair, the Citadel crashing down around him, as the very rock it was built upon dissolved.

  Men, women, children, young or old, whether they quietly accepted their fate or cried in fear, fired their weapons or hid under furniture, it made no difference. Some held their breath, while others formed crude masks from wet clothing, but these only offered the briefest of respites. Eventually, the gas seeped into their pores and they were unconscious. Only minutes after the gas release, dead silence filled the ville, from the leaning tower to the still burning timbers of the palisade.

  Then from out of the swirling smoke and gas came the Ranger, its black angular form moving like a nightmare through the fiery desolation. Sleeping people lined the streets, but the machine moved ever onward, uncaring of the bloody carnage the armored treads left in its wake. It was very near to the source of the enemy radio signal, and getting closer.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Violently, the disguised door to the secret passage in the stone wall exploded across the intersection, showering the sec men in the brothel with hot shrapnel. Caught by surprise, they wasted precious seconds recovering and by then Leviathan was in the street and moving away. Holding torches aloft to spread the light, guards ran into the night. Some cursed, some knelt and fired their blasters.

  "Attack!" screamed the sergeant standing in the doorway, blood trickling from an ugly gash in his cheek

  The Vulcan minigun awoke with a roar, unleashing a solid stream of rounds that stitched a line of black holes along the granite wall and across the rear end of Leviathan.

  THERE WAS a double bang, and two holes appeared in the side of the tank.

  "Damn!" Dean cried in shock. Then he jerked about and sure enough there were two exit holes in the flapping wall tapestry and the hull behind.

  Doc angled the vented barrel of his weapon and tripped the rear 40 mm rapidfires. He hosed the suspect building with high-explosive death. Both sides of the street erupted in a series of fiery detonations, and the deadly buzz of the Vulcan stopped, replaced with screams of pain.

  "Keep going," Doc shouted, working the bolt to clear a jam. A brass shell popped out of the breech and hit the carpet. "They will not bother us again."

  "Good," Ryan said, scrutinizing the buildings they passed for any furtive movements. The area seemed to be deserted. Then he noticed the bodies sprawled in doorways and out windows. "They gassed the whole place!"

  "Heirs," Jak growled menacingly, as if he were about to hawk and spit.

  Experimentally, Mildred took in a deep breath from the breeze coming through her blasterport.

  "Not affecting us," she said. "That antidote must work."

  "What did they hit us with?" Dean asked, sticking a finger out the hole in the composite armor.

  "Might have, been depleted uranium rounds," J.B. said, nesting his glasses onto his nose with a finger. "Don't know exactly what the stuff is, but it's hellishly good armor, and the only thing that can get through it is DU slugs."

  "We got that?" Jak asked, rapping the hull.

  "Hell, no. Wish we did."

  "Could that be what the Ranger was covered with?" Ryan asked, bumping over rubbish in the road. He was trying to avoid as much of the debris as he could, but the stuff was everywhere. They had only eight tires and losing one now could be deadly.

  "Sure," the Armorer said. "Why not?"

  Zeroing the trim on the front 75 mm rifles, Krysty frowned. "Then it might still be functional."

  "That sec man did say 'the Beast,'" Mildred added nervously, "and that's their term for the robot tank."

  "Hold on," Ryan said in a whip-crack tone, and he slammed his foot on the gas pedal. Leviathan dramatically increased in speed and noise. "Shard, fastest way out of here!"

  Groaning with the effort, the man lurched from his seat and staggered across the tank to grab the back of the driver's seat.

  "Take that corner," Shard replied, pointing. "No, that one, sir, and follow the small road. It ends at the palisade. There used to be a gate once, long ago. But it's been walled over."

  "Another secret door?" Ryan asked, switching on the powerful headlights. This far into the slave quarters, there were few lanterns hanging from posts on corners. It was getting more and more difficult for him to avoid the unconscious people strewed in the streets.

  "Not secret," Shard answered. "Useless."

  Downshifting, Ryan took the corner on four wheels, rubber screeching. "Explain," he snapped.

  "The road on the other side leads to nowhere." Shard paused in thought. "Or so we have been told."

  J.B. snorted. "Wouldn't trust that blond bitch if she said the knives were sharp."

  MOVING. TIM'S RADIO signal was moving to the southeast.

  Locking a tread, the Ranger careened in a new direction and t
ook off around a stone tower with a broken garage door. The thin metal stripping was bent outward, and the main computer reasoned this was where the enemy tank had been hidden. Pivoting, the front video cameras showed the garage was full of munitions and mechanical equipment, a perfect location for its own repairs for the damage incurred by the attacks. Hydraulics were at fifty percent normal, oil pressure was near critical, but still at functional levels. Only one video camera remained, and the motion detectors no longer existed. But the laser was fully operational and that was what mattered.

  THE BARRACKS BUSTLED with activity. Every sec man who took the antidote had gathered here, the farthest point in the palisade away from the approaching Beast. All had blasters, and most had been smart enough to grab food or ammo. The good times were over here. The heirs were dead, and they were leaving.

  Then the door burst open and a guard backed into the room, staring into the street as if hell itself had appeared. A cold night wind blew into the barracks, whipping clothes and extinguishing candles. Only the crackling fire in the hearth was undisturbed.

  "Sweet Jesus!" the guard cried, colliding with a table. Bottles and mugs went flying, adding to the litter on the dirty floorboards. "It... It's..."

  "What? It's what, you triple-stupe fool?" a corporal demanded, stuffing cans of food into a sack by the light of a lantern. He wore a bandolier of ammo slung across his chest, and two holstered automatics. "More guards? Some slaves?"

  "The Beast!" the guard screamed, cowering in a corner and covering his face with both hands. "Don't look at it! You'll go blind!"

  "THERE!" SHARD GESTURED, pointing straight ahead at a two-story house with bars on the windows and motorcycles parked in front. The building was crawling with sec men, dropping boxes of supplies, yelling orders and scrambling for weapons.

  "There?" Krysty asked in disbelief, leaning forward in her chair. The headlights of Leviathan bathed the entire area with brilliant white light, dimming the coal oil lanterns to merely reddish points.

  "Yes.

  "The guards' barracks?"

  "Good way to block a hole," Ryan said, steering around the still form of horse. "Looks like the place is only made out of pine boards. Don't waste a missile."

  "No problem," the redhead agreed as she pulled the lever and the vehicle bucked as the twin 75 mm rifles fired in unison.

  The whole building blew into pieces, exposing the wooden barrier beyond. Moist green moss-coated areas, and a piece of the second floor yet clung to the palisade, loose boards dropping like autumn leaves. But a ten-yard section reaching to the ground was lighter in color than the rest, and Krysty oriented the recoilless rifles there. They volleyed again, and the patch in the palisades simply disintegrated under the assault.

  Crunching over rubble, the tank bucked through the jagged hole. Breaking timbers loudly scraped across their hull. The sideview mirror snapped off.

  Splinters sprayed in through the blasterports, somebody howled in agony underneath the floor, then they were through and moving fast.

  A two-lane asphalt road stretched out before them, the cracked surface disappearing into the trees. Krysty lowered the rifles and fired a third time. Spewing gouts of rock and dirt, the trees were uprooted, but stayed standing, their limbs intertwined through decades of growth.

  Pumping the clutch, Ryan hit the gas and Leviathan rammed into the forest, branches and bird nests smashing on the protective ironwork grid over the front windshield. The tank plowed out of the trees and instantly dropped down a steep incline, going straight into a river, the force slamming everybody into the seats. Water sprayed skyward from their arrival, sending a tidal wave across the river that sloshed onto the asphalt road on the far bank.

  The advance of Leviathan noticeably slowed, and Ryan downshifted to account for the loss of traction from the mud.

  "Seal the ports!" he ordered, hitting the wiper blades and clearing the windshield. "Don't know how deep this goes. We got a snorkel, but I don't know if this thing is really waterproof."

  "Now is no time to find out," Mildred warned, watching the surface of the stream climb higher and higher toward the windows.

  Something on the console beeped suddenly, and Krysty stared at the circular screen, puzzled for a moment. "Sonar?" she said aloud.

  Rising from the dark waters, a horrible segmented creature appeared, the many mouths of its three misshapen heads snarling and hissing.

  Ryan hit the brakes, as Krysty triggered the left 75 mm rifle. The the round caught the mutie in the chest, blowing open its chest in a grisly rain. Reeling from the strike, writhing in pain, the aquatic mutie thrashed about as it slithered beneath the turbulent waters.

  "River snake," Shard said, watching a gobbet of flesh slither off the window leaving a slimy trail. "Didn't think they existed anymore. Haven't heard of them for years."

  "Hope there's not too many more," Ryan said, grinding gears and putting the tank into motion. "Wasted two shells on something we can't even eat."

  The water level continued to rise to a dangerous level, then blessedly receded and the vehicle lurched as the front wheels encountered asphalt again lumbering onto the road.

  "Made it." Mildred sighed.

  The radar beeped.

  Muttering a fast prayer, Krysty checked the glowing green screen. There was a big blip directly behind them, heading their way, slow but steady.

  "The Ranger is back," she called out. "Range... mile and a half, mebbe less."

  "Any chance we can lock a missile onto the radar signal, and fire them at the thing?" Dean asked hopefully, holding a stanchion with grim determination.

  "Mebbe this war wag can," his father replied, flicking the wipers again, "but we've never had enough time to study the controls well enough. Running is our best bet."

  The companions held on tight as the output of the engines rose to a mechanical roar, and the speedometer needle hit the red line. Trees and brush flashed past in the darkness, the bouncing headlights making the road surface barely discernible. Occasionally they collided with something, weeds and grass having grown out of the ancient cracks in a natural carpet of greenery. But Leviathan plowed through everything in its blind haste to escape, bulldozing aside hedges to unexpectedly reach salvation.

  "It's a bridge!" J.B. cried. "Dark night, now we're cooking!"

  "Mebbe," Ryan said, grinding gears and hitting the brakes to slow their speed.

  Fully illuminated in the headlights, the box girder assembly was covered with vines, moss and general corrosion. Its age was indeterminate, as was its structural integrity.

  "Think it can it take our weight?" Mildred asked, trying not to hold her breath.

  "Two thousand yards," Krysty announced, intently watching the beeping radar screen.

  Ryan shifted into low. "Let's find out."

  At a slow creep, Leviathan gently rolled onto the bridge. The struts groaned as the front tires put their full weight on the roadway, and Ryan slowed. When nothing adverse occurred, he started again, moving even more cautiously. A ghostly wind blew over the tank, moaning softly, and as they reached the middle span the steel girders began to sway slightly under their tonnage. Cresting low on the horizon, a silvery moon flooded the valley with unearthly light. Through the windows and blasterports, the companions could see a tiny thread of sparkling blue stretching along the distant valley floor.

  "This is a gorge, not a valley," Mildred said, touching her heart. The physician disliked heights, but had no intention of showing her fear.

  "How deep do you think it is?" Dean asked, craning to get a better look.

  "Thousand feet, or so."

  "Spam in can." Jak frowned.

  "I beg your pardon?" Doc said curiously.

  "It's an old armored cavalry phrase, tank soldiers actually, that precisely covers this situation," Mildred explained, obviously pleased to know something the time traveler didn't. She mashed two palms together in a smack. "Spam in a can."

  "How graphic," he said, returning his attention
to the world outside.

  "At least there's no way the Ranger can follow us," J.B. stated, removing his fedora and wiping the brim with a handkerchief. "It's too big and too heavy."

  "Fifteen hundred," Krysty said, hunched over the screen as if trying to glean additional informaton by sheer force of will.

  His hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, Ryan said nothing, concentrating on not driving them off the side. A lot of the supporting members of the bridge had rusted completely away, and the guardrail was a thing of the past. One wrong move on his part, and they wouldn't have to worry about the Ranger, or anything else, anymore.

  As their front wheels reached the other side, everybody sighed in relief.

  "Goodbye, bridge," Doc said, tripping the rear submachine guns.

  A stuttering stream of shells peppered the bridge, blowing away chunks of steel and greenery.

  "Hold it!" Ryan yelled, brakes squealing. "Stop all firing!"

  The guns ceased, and Doc turned, wearing a puzzled expression. "What is wrong? Remove the bridge and the Ranger can never follow us."

  "Unfortunately we need that bridge intact."

  "What for?"

  "To leave. This is a dead end."

  Abandoning their posts, the companions gathered to look out the front window. Directly ahead was a cul de sac, the road leading into a mountain pass with steeply sloping sides. This once might have been a highway for travelers, but that was aeons ago. Rain and snow had weakened the slopes and the mountainsides had slumped onto the road, dirt and rocks filling in the pass completely.

  "That's why they never feared an attack from this direction," Shard said. "Who could make it over such an obstacle?"

  "Not us, that's for bastard sure," Ryan stated, checking the side of possible avenues. However, the mountain range rose straight from the gorge. There was no cliff or ledge for them to drive along.

  "Don't think we could even make it over that on foot," J.B. commented. "Too smooth. We'd need climbing gear."

  Everybody jumped as Krysty triggered the 75 mm rifle. The shell went deep into the earthen mound blocking the road, and the landslide shook from within, nothing more.