Judas Strike

by James Axler

  Swallowing the morsel of food, the baron wiped his mouth on a sleeve, then drew his blaster and knife. Unfortunately, the blade wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. Hampered by the darkness, Kinnison had missed stabbing the scurrying rats several times, damaging the needle tip of the stiletto on the granite floor. In desperation, he lit his only candle and killed as many as he could before the rodents understood what was happening and fled for their lives. Skinning and eating the raw flesh, the baron then stuffed the corpses into cracks in the walls. With those blocked, no more rats could get into the cell, and Kinnison could sleep for quite a while, recharging his body and clearing his mind.

  But as time passed, he had been forced to clear the cracks and smear some blood on the floor to entice the rodents back and maintain a steady food supply.

  The footsteps in the corridor stopped in front of his cell. Kinnison assumed his old position and put both hands into the air, trying to appear as if he were still shackled to the ceiling. Just let the fools get close enough, and he would be out of the stinking prison in a heartbeat.

  There was a clanging of keys and squealing of the rusty lock, then the door swung open and a grinning sec man walked inside.

  “Ah, he’s asleep.”

  “So wake him up,” another said, chortling.

  Kinnison tried not to move as a bucket of seawater splashed on him. The salt sizzled in his open sores, the pain beyond description, but Baron Kinnison moved from an instinct of raw will and slashed open the throat of the first guard even as the man reached for his blaster. He stumbled away, spraying his life onto the dirty stone walls.

  With a curse, the second guard tried to shove the door closed and Kinnison fired the revolver three times, the big-bore .45 punching into the door and driving it back, cracking the wrist of the sec man holding the latch. The guard could only stare in shock at the bones jutting from his skin when Kinnison charged. He hit the portal at a run, his five hundred pounds forcing it open all the way and crushing the guard between the door and wall.

  Pinned helpless, barely able to breathe, the guard tried to draw his blaster and fire a shot to summon help. But Kinnison savagely sliced along the length of the exposed arm, from wrist to elbow, severing tendons and arteries. The guard cried out in pain, dropping the weapon, and the baron kicked it away for later. Now the urge for revenge filled Kinnison with blind rage, and he pulled the door away, only to slam it on the man several more times, bones cracking and blood gushing until he was fully satisfied the traitor was aced. Then he dragged the corpse into the cell and looted both guards for more shot, powder and extra knives.

  Pausing in the corridor, Kinnison brushed back his wet hair and listened for any response to the fight. There was nothing to hear but the excited murmurs of the other prisoners. They knew something unusual had just occurred and were terrified it would happen to them next.

  Lifting the dead guard’s oil lantern, Kinnison went to the nearest door and turned up the wick to let the prisoner inside clearly see his bandaged face.

  “B-baron?” the woman gasped through the tangles of her long gray hair. She backed into the corner and began to whimper.

  “Hello, dear sister,” he said, unlocking the door. “There has been a revolt and I have been deposed. But fight with me to reclaim the throne, and you will be set free. Free!”

  But there was no response as the man undid the shackles around her wrists. Still shaking, the Lady Dana Kinnison simply stood there rubbing the thick calluses on her wrists.

  Kinnison handed her the ring of keys and a bloody knife. “Free the rest, sister, and head for the armory. Together, we’ll fight to the dock and get off this hellhole.”

  Lady Kinnison stood confused, her arms still partially raised from the years of confinement, the endless rapes and beatings having stolen the will to act from her weakened mind.

  “Well?” he insisted. “Decide, woman!”

  The woman looked at him with the dull eyes of an animal, and Kinnison sighed in disappointment, then slit her throat with a backhand slash. Reclaiming the items from her scrawny body, he went to the next cell and made a similar offer to a cousin. The baron went to every cell, family and friends, continuing down both sides of the dank corridor until he had an army of thirty, and ten more corpses.

  “Give me a blaster,” one of the men demanded, his face hidden by twenty years of hair. “You got three.”

  Kinnison knew this was a turning point, so he placed the loaded flintlock into the prisoner’s bony hands, then helped the weak man to place the barrel against his own throat. The man’s eyes went wide in shock, then gleamed in bestial pleasure.

  “This is your chance,” the baron said, pushing back the hammer until it clicked into place. “Pull the trigger and everything done to you will be avenged.

  “Or,” he added quickly, “you can use that powder on the next sec man you see and earn yourself a place in the council once more.” Kinnison almost choked on the next words, but he got them out and tried to sound sincere. “I was a fool to mistrust loyal men and have paid the price. Join me in my fight and command troops once more. Or fire that blaster and warn the guards. They may even let you live and go back to your cell. Twenty more years of chains and torture—isn’t that worth the single moment of satisfaction you would get chilling me?”

  Murmuring among themselves, the crowd shuffled its feet, anxiously waiting for the matter to be settled. Breathing heavily, the prisoner stared at the blaster, then at Kinnison, the internal battle clearly visible on his haggard features. Finally, he released the trigger and lowered the blaster.

  “A high seat on the council,” he growled in correction.

  “Done,” Kinnison said, releasing the revolver in his pocket to pass out the other flintlocks. Damn feeb took so long the baron almost believed that he would rather live forever as a prisoner, if only he could ace the baron who put him there. He was a fool and would have to be executed immediately once Kinnison was back in power.

  Leading his pack of rats up the stairs, Kinnison unlocked the door at the landing and eased it open only a crack, then started mumbling about a woman’s breasts.

  As expected, a sec man came to the door and peeked there. “What you got there?” he asked eagerly. “A new prisoner for us to ride?”

  Kinnison stabbed the stiletto into the man’s left eye, the blade penetrating deep into his brain. Already dead, the body fell to the floor and the prisoners swarmed over the warm corpse, taking his clothes and weapons. Then a woman noticed some food on the table and the starved people tore the bread apart, swallowing the chunks intact, almost gagging on the first wholesome meal any of them had eaten in months.

  While they licked the crumbs off the floor, Kinnison went to a blaster rack and unlocked the chain, passing out pistols and longblasters, along with heavy pouches of ammo.

  “Everybody know where the armory is?” he asked.

  They nodded eagerly, fondling the weapons.

  “I’ll distract the guards,” Kinnison lied, making a mark on a burning candle with his thumbnail. “When the wax burns down to here, you come charging out with blasters firing. Chill anybody you see. I’ll meet you at the armory, and we’ll make our stand. By noon tomorrow, the mansion will be ours, then the ville and finally the entire island. Nothing can stop us now. Victory or death!”

  “Vict’ry,” a man cackled, and the rest took up the cry, their hoarse whispers raised in a determined chant, broken by ragged coughing.

  Kinnison hid his repulsion. It was pitiful. Then the baron saw that several of them were giggling like children. The wild, feverish looks on some of their faces made Kinnison think many thought this was merely a wonderful dream and wasn’t actually happening. How could it? But that was fine. Their madness would make them dangerous and draw lots of attention from the sec men, giving him the few minutes necessary to reclaim his ville.

  Exiting the dungeon, Kinnison hesitated to listen for the sounds of marching guards coming this way, but this wing of the mans
ion was quiet. His heart pounding, the baron walked barefoot along the cold stones, pausing only to snatch a pillow from a chair set close to a window. There was some kiwi fruit in a bowl, and he gobbled it down without peeling it first, the tangy juices running down his swaddled chin. It tasted better than sex, and the baron wondered how he could have ever thought the fruits were too tart to eat. Simply wonderful.

  Soft singing could be heard from outside, the words drifting through the windows as he proceeded along a hallway. Celebrating his demise, were they? Somebody would pay for that.

  Reaching the main corridor, Kinnison slipped behind some tapestries and bypassed a group of visiting barons chatting with the ville quartermaster. Selling them Firebirds, eh? More fools to chill when he got the chance.

  Darting around a corner, he surprised a maid and he stabbed her in the heart, leaving the blade in place to hold down the bleeding until he dragged her into a closet.

  Exiting the closet, Kinnison saw that the corridor was clear, a lone armed guard standing before the closed doors of the throne room. That shotgun was real trouble, but he had no choice. Summoning his courage, Kinnison sheathed the blade, then with blaster and pillow ready, he made his run toward the sec man, moving as fast and as quietly as he could. When the baron was only a yard away, the sec man spun, reaching for his alley-sweeper, then balked in surprise.

  “Baron Kinnison!” the sec man cried out.

  Shoving the pillow against the sec man’s chest, Kinnison shot him directly in the heart, the cushion muffling the shot. The man sagged, and Kinnison hauled him to a chair, propping up his head with the reverse side of the pillow, and placed the shotgun across his lap. Ah, quite lifelike.

  Kinnison felt troubled about the death, but it would have been unwise to waste a moment learning if the man was glad to see him, or ready to shout a warning. The baron consoled himself with the fact that every throne in history was built on the dead. Such was the way of the world.

  Going to a suit of armor standing in a nearby wall niche, Kinnison lifted the visor and fumbled about inside until finding the switch. He lost a fingernail forcing the mechanism to operate. Been too long since it had last been oiled.

  As the pedestal disengaged, he pushed it into the wall and squeezed his bulk into the cramped passageway beyond. Bandages and skin were scraped off painfully until he was deep enough into the passage before he could swing the secret door closed again. Obviously, the baron had been much thinner when he last used it.

  Lighting the candle he had been saving from the stash in his cell, the baron forced himself along the passageway, the rough bricks tearing the scabs off his sores, the salty damp clothing burning like red-hot coals against his diseased flesh. It was becoming difficult to breathe in the cramped quarters, but Kinnison forced himself onward. Victory or death.

  Reaching a flight of stairs formed by the back side of stone lintels, Kinnison froze as the sound of marching could be clearly heard from the hallway underneath, closely followed by blasterfire and wild shouting. Nuke those feebs! His army was attacking early. Now racing against the clock, Kinnison maneuvered faster through the narrow crevice until reaching a small storage room hidden inside the thick walls of the predark post office. Panting from the exertion, he fumbled with a wooden chest, breaking the wax seal along the edges, and extracted a bundle of oiled cloth. Lovingly, he unwrapped the machine pistol and quickly thumbed an empty clip full of fat greasy bullets from a plastic sandwich box. One of the most important lessons his father had ever taught the young baron was to never leave a rapidfire loaded for long periods. The spring in the clip would get weak over time, making the blaster jam exactly when you would need it the most. Vital data, indeed.

  Going to a spyhole, Kinnison worked the bolt on the MAC-10 and peeked out at the roof of the mansion. A squad of sec men was smoking seaweed cigars and casually talking as they milled about. The news of the mass escape hadn’t reached up here yet, but it would soon. He had to move.

  Carefully, the baron counted their numbers until he was sure all of them were in sight at the same time. Then putting the barrel of the MAC-10 machine pistol to the hole, he cut loose at their shins, blowing away clothing and flesh until the screaming men were lying on the roof, and he emptied the clip into their faces.

  Pushing open the panel, Kinnison now heard the alarm bell and knew he had won the race by only a heartbeat. Going to the Firebird launch pod at the edge of the roof, Kinnison looked down upon his domain, savoring the sight. Then he turned and, lifting a Firebird from the pod, hugged it close until his fat arms warmed the missile and he felt a stirring of the pilot within. Leaning close, Kinnison whispered the words of command to the tiny mutie and slid the Firebird back into place. Then he lit the fuse with the lantern that was always present and watched it sizzle steadily. Ten minutes to go. All was ready.

  Waddling to the doorway, he slid the external bolts home, sealing off the roof from anybody who might alter his settings. Then returning to the secret passageway, Kinnison worked his way to the ground floor, leaving streaks on the walls from his forced travels. His shirt and pants were in rags, most of his bandages flapping loose, exposing his horrible mottled flesh beneath. The oozing sores still stung from the bath of salt water from the jailers, and Kinnison was ashamed to admit losing a finger in the passageway.

  At the suit of armor, Kinnison looked through a spyhole into the corridor to make sure it was safe to leave, but saw two more armed sec men staring aghast at the dead man in the chair. The tall private shook the corpse, and the shotgun clattered to the floor, the body slumping sideways to expose bloody clothing.

  “Nukeshit, this guy is aced!” he cried, backing away.

  As the other guard stuffed two fingers in his mouth to whistle for more sec men, Kinnison rammed the MAC-10 into the opening and fired off a sweeping burst. Removing the blaster, he checked the results and was pleased to see the guards prone on the floor, bleeding profusely.

  But even with the rapidfire behind the stone-block wall, the noise was bound to bring help. Leaving the passageway, Kinnison walked to the double doors on the throne room and peeked through the keyhole. Sure enough, Griffin the usurper was holding court with the new leaders of the island, discussing the unexpected revolt.

  “How did they get out?” Baron Griffin demanded, banging a fist on the arm of the throne. “And what happened to the guards?”

  An officer saluted. “We have no idea, my lord. The doors weren’t battered down or the locks shot off. It’s as if they were opened with the proper keys.”

  “Kinnison,” the new baron growled. “I don’t know how, but somehow that fat bag of pus is behind this.

  “Colonel, take a squad and find out if the former baron is still in his cell,” Griffin demanded, worrying a fingernail.

  “We have, my lord,” another replied. “But he’s long gone. Probably hidden deep in the jungle somewhere.”

  “Not yet,” Kinnison growled as he entered the room, the chattering MAC-10 mowing down the front line of sec men and barons. The rest dived for cover behind their chairs and the food-laden buffet table.

  “You!” Griffin shouted, drawing a blaster.

  Swinging around the chattering machine pistol, Kinnison peppered the chancellor on the throne, tearing out gouts of wood from the arms of the chair, throwing off Griffin’s aim. His blaster barked twice, hitting nothing. Then Kinnison rode the bucking rapidfire into a tighter grouping and tore Griffin apart, blowing away his fingers, shattering an elbow, breaking his knees and removing his manhood in a barrage of hot lead. The 9 mm rounds stitched a zigzagging path across his body, the spent brass arching through the air to land tinkling on the floor.

  Bleeding from a dozen locations, the mutilated man tried to rise, but instead he fell to the stone floor, twitching and choking, drowning in his own blood.

  Putting a burst into the ceiling to capture everyone’s attention, Baron Kinnison slapped in his last clip and walked boldly into the room, covering the crowd with his smok
ing weapon. Many of the sec men had weapons out, but none dared to fire, unsure if the baron was alone or if squads of soldiers were en route to the throne room to back his play. Exactly what Kinnison had been counting on—their fear of betrayal. Like the thief frantic with worry that others would rob his stolen treasure, the traitors expected treachery from others.

  “I’m the baron of this ville,” Kinnison stated loudly, glaring at them from within his swaddling bandages. “And if I don’t rule here, then nobody does. Surrender, or the island will be destroyed.”

  “Can’t chill us all with only one blaster,” a captain stated grimly, his hand yanking back the hammer on his mammoth handcannon.

  “Don’t need to,” Kinnison replied. “In a few minutes every Firebird on this island will launch, streak high into the sky and then curve back to blow this mansion and the ville below to pieces. The powder mills, the armory, all have been targeted. Maturo Island will burn, and nothing can stop them but my word.”

  Incredibly, the fat man then tossed the blaster aside and casually walked across the room to sit in the throne.

  “Swear an oath of loyalty and obedience to me,” he said, flipping over a hand, “or die. Your choice.”

  “It’s a bluff,” a lieutenant said, licking dry lips.

  Suddenly, there was a roar as a Firebird launched from overhead.

  “That was from the roof!” a sergeant exclaimed.

  “The first of hundreds,” Kinnison said slowly, trying to heighten the tension. Their fear was the only tool he had to regain the throne. This trick either worked, or he died. It was that simple. All or nothing. Victory or death.

  Holstering his piece, a young corporal went to one knee. “We are yours to command, Lord Baron,” he said.

  Kinnison spent precious moments studying the sec man. He had to be a new recruit as the face was unknown. Clean shaved and bald, the sec man moved with the grace of a jungle cat, only small scars marking his face. His gun belt was woven canvas, not the usual black leather, and the handles of his handcannons were heavily carved. Some sort of a tattoo peeked out from under a sleeve, and a gold earring hung from a lobe. A former sailor. How interesting.