Thunder Road

by James Axler

  “Sid, Hammill, anything going on out there?” she asked gently.

  Howard turned to her. His face was confused.

  It was Hammill’s voice that answered. “Status within secured boundaries is normal. There is no sign of intrusion, and no indication of encroachment. As far as intel and surveillance for the immediate area, there is nothing. They remain beyond the range, and have shown no sign of wishing to come closer. It may, perhaps, be possible to monitor them if the remaining spycams are launched, and the flight patterns are planned so that they can fly above the range of the ordnance used. However, while this would give some intelligence, the quality of such would be compromised.”

  “No, Hammill, I think that at this stage it would serve no purpose to risk equipment. Can you or Sid provide refreshment for us in the recreation area, please? Meantime, keep surveillance on triple red—I mean, maintain at the highest level. If anything happens, let us know immediately.”

  “Certainly, Storm Girl,” Sid replied.

  He catches on quickly, Krysty thought. Howard would like him calling her that. It was a way of letting her know, too, that he and Hammill had understood her plans.

  Howard still looked confused, but he smiled at her.

  She resisted the temptation to sigh and said, “Come on, there’s nothing we can do here at the moment. While they remain out of range, then there’s no way of knowing what they plan to do. And if we try to gather intelligence, they’ll just take it as a hostile move and shoot down the spycams. Best thing we can do is take some downtime and rest.”

  Howard nodded, letting her lead him from the console room.

  Okay, so she’d got him away from the controls and the possibility of doing something both drastic and stupe. It didn’t solve her long-term problem. She still had to work out how to get the hell out and also to ensure the destruction of the bunker. But it did mean that she had bought some time for her friends.

  And maybe that was all that they’d need.

  THE ENEMY WAS CLEVER. But they could not outfox Thunder Rider. Not now that he had Storm Girl at his side. Her actions during the recent engagement had shown him where her loyalties now lay. Indeed, the solicitous manner in which she was caring for him following his efforts in the latest skirmish only served to reinforce this.

  The loss of the spycams was nothing in itself. They were not weapons, had no defenses of their own, and in many ways were flags run up the pole to tempt fire, to instigate action. What had pained him was the fact that he had lost face in front of his new partner. But perhaps she had not seen it this way: her attitude suggested otherwise. She had assumed command as naturally as though she had always been there. She had ordered the defenses, commanded Sid and Hammill to act if necessary, and had arranged for them to rest while they waited.

  While they did, he had to plan: a plan of action was of necessity, he felt. And yet…When he looked at her, the idea of spending time planning for battle seemed somehow less appealing than it had in the past.

  Perhaps now…

  WHEN THEY REACHED the recreation area, the robot workers were still present, depositing the coffee and hot food that they had prepared in the kitchens. They looked like automatons, and would not have stirred any feeling in her if she hadn’t heard Sid’s story. Instead, all she could think about was how these scuttling cans on wheels had once been living, breathing human beings. It made her sick to the stomach to contemplate this, and she had to force the coffee down her constricted throat.

  Howard, on the other hand, had no such problems. Although she wanted to blame him, she knew rationally that he was an innocent in this. Born to it, he knew no different. That didn’t make him any the less dangerous, though. As she watched him rooting among the vids and comics, looking at covers and pages as though he sought inspiration from them, she knew that his detachment from reality could lead him to acts that had no thought for their consequence.

  He turned to her, holding a vid case that said something about a savage—somehow she couldn’t imagine Doc being that way, let alone looking like the bronzed hero on the cover painting.

  “I’m glad you took me away from the control room,” he said haltingly. “I’m still very new to all this. I trained, of course, but nothing prepares you for the real thing.

  “You see, that’s where you score over me. You’ve lived on the outside all your life. That means you’ve seen the dirt, and you know how to deal with it. That’s an invaluable skill, you know.”

  “I know,” she said simply, knowing he craved response, but not wanting to deflect him.

  “I want to show you something,” he said almost shyly. “Come with me.” He held out his hand. Krysty rose from her seat and took it. Her guts were churning. So this was it, was it? Well, she’d done worse things, but nothing that felt so grubby.

  It was a feeling that she couldn’t shake off as he led her out of the room. And yet he wasn’t leading her toward his room or hers, as she had expected. Confusion joined revulsion. But this was nothing compared to the feeling that she had when he opened the door to a room that was, like the console room, lined with comps. But on the monitors for each of these, a different kind of weapon was on display.

  “The ordnance chamber,” Howard said proudly.

  Krysty took it in. “Oh, my,” she whispered.

  Howard beamed like the child he still was. “I knew you’d be impressed.”

  Impressed was not the word she would have chosen.

  TIME TO LAY THE CARDS on the table. It was a phrase that came back to Doc at this time, and set off an association of ideas in his head. He remembered the ace of spades—the death card—and the dead man’s hand. He should be a dead man, by rights. Many times over. But he wasn’t, so maybe he had a lucky hand. Maybe they had a lucky hand. Certainly, there seemed to be a variety of weaponry now on display that he had not seen before.

  J.B. had been the first to tip his hand, at Ryan’s request. The Armorer, never keen on revealing what he carried even though he may be able to talk about it forever and a day, had understood why Ryan felt they should declare first. If they wanted to totally win over these people, then they had to meet them more than halfway to begin with.

  So J.B. had them take out their blasters and lay them down, then their blades: his Tekna, Ryan’s panga, Jak’s collection of leaf-bladed throwing knifes. Oddly, he had noticed that Robear warmed slightly when he saw the number of knives Jak carried, and the crafty places of concealment he used. Ryan had also thrown down his scarf, weighted as it was at the end for use as an offensive and concealed weapon.

  Then, this done, with a sigh he opened the bag he carried with him always. Grens of varying types—gas, frag, stun and high-ex—were carefully emptied out onto his coat, which he had spread on the sandy ground for such a purpose. These were joined by blocks of plas-ex and their detonators, carefully separated. Finally, he took out the spare ammo of all kinds that he carried in his pockets.

  When he had finally unloaded, Rounda chuckled. “Who woulda thought that so much stuff could have come from such a little guy. No wonder you people have such a reputation.”

  “Guess that’s a compliment,” the Armorer remarked. “So how about you return the favor. We’ve shown you ours, so why not show us yours?”

  “There was a time when saying that would have got you far, far more than you bargained for, little man. But this isn’t the time or place, is it?” she added, catching Mildred’s eye. “Guess I’ll come clean with you…and you’d better do the same,” she commented, casting a glance to Bryanna’s direction.

  The icy blonde said nothing, and as their eyes locked, it seemed for a moment as though the prior argument would kick off once more. Ryan sighed, shook his head almost imperceptibly at J.B.’s quizzical eyebrow, and was ready to step in when aid came from a unexpected quarter.

  “Rounda, there ain’t no living animal could support your bulk, so why don’t ya get off that high horse and just show us what you’ve got. Bry will when she’s asked, right,
Chief?”

  Robear’s words could have contained a hidden threat, if not for the joshing, jocular manner in which he delivered them.

  It had the desired effect. Rounda’s face split into a grin.

  “Cheeky little fucker. One day I’ll come and sit on you, and you’ll know about it,” she returned as she began to unload the pods on her bike, laying out the contents.

  For such a seemingly light structure, the bike was obviously immensely strong: not only did it carry her bulk, it also contained the short, wide-barreled blaster with the collapsible stock that she had previously displayed. There were also several types of ammo for the blaster: rockets, frag and incendiary grens and high-ex. She had a smaller blaster, which looked like an antique from the early twentieth century, and was a small 6.75 mm with a pearl handle. A lady’s pistol, which seemed absurd with her bulk, but had the advantage of being easily concealed and good for close-range shooting. Not that anyone suspected they would need it in this instance.

  She also had several metal boxes, with dials and faders, in some cases exposed circuitry.

  “These are things that got handed down to me,” she began, without bothering to explain their origins any further. “I’ve worked on ’em over the years, found out how they ticked…maybe even improved ’em. Stranger things have happened.

  “See this,” she continued, holding one of them up to the skies. “This one is a doozy. It’s a scanner. Originally it could pick up any kind of broadcast, analog or digital, that was within a half-mile radius. It has a filter so that you can select from the jumble and zero in. Not that you need to do that these days, of course, as there isn’t that much in the air. But that’s okay, ’cause I’ve adapted it so that it can pick up other scanner signals. If you like, this little beauty can tell if we’re being spied on.

  “Now then,” she added with a grin, “I can see that you’re asking yourselves where that’s any use. Okay, so we know when we’re being spied on. Big deal. We can’t do anything about it.” The grin grew wider. “Oh yes, my friends, we can.” She held up the other box. “See this? It went with the first box from the beginning. It was designed to work with the filter on the first box and jam out any signals that you wanted. So I’ve adapted it to respond to the other box in exactly the same way. Hey, we’re being spied on? One flick of the switch, and shazam—we’re not!”

  She put the boxes down and rooted around in the remaining pods. She brought out an ax, several knives of varying ages, with stains and rusting that could have been neglect, or could have been blood, and an SMG that Ryan and J.B. recognized at once as a Heckler & Koch MP-5, a blaster that Ryan had once favored.

  “Got these, too. The ax and the knives I tend to use for practical stuff rather than fighting, and I’ve not got much ammo for the MP-5, which is why I tend to keep it stashed. But I’m always looking. There is one other thing.” She turned back and rooted around in one of the storage pods, coming up with a small transmitter and a handful of tiny objects like the one on the locket Ryan had used to summon the tech-nomads.

  “This is a personal comm transmitter. We’ve all got them, or variants on them, right?” She looked at the others. There was agreement, willingly from Corwen’s people, not so from Bryanna’s. “That thing you got from the rail ghost before he bought the farm is a variation on these.” She held out the small objects. Like the red transmitter in the locket, they seemed too small to be of any use. But this was obviously not the case.

  “They act like locators,” she stated. “The personal comm things like these—” she held up the larger box “—are radios, working on analog and digital frequencies.” She spotted the look of confusion on Jak’s face, echoed to a lesser degree by some of the others. She grinned. “Just means that we can talk to someone no matter what tech they’re using. Might be very useful. I haven’t got spares, but mebbe the others have, if they’re generous enough to share. Easy to use, and will help us keep informed on whatever the hell we do. Anyway,” she said, returning the comm materials to their storage with care, “that’s about it.”

  “You say that as though it were not an impressive display,” Doc murmured. “Those scanner-jammers of yours may be most useful, indeed. Do you not think, Ryan?”

  “Yeah, you’re right there, Doc,” the one-eyed man agreed. “But we really need to have greater offensive weaponry. What about your people?” he asked, turning to Corwen.

  The green-haired, point-eared man considered that. “I will show you, but I fear you may be disappointed. We like to live in peace as much as possible, and our armament is primarily defensive.” With which he turned to his people and gestured. His soft-spoken voice was no affectation. It seemed to be part of the way that his people lived that their communication was mostly nonverbal, which would no doubt explain why they had been so quiet up until now.

  At his command, they returned to the parasails, and in short order had unpacked the small storage pods and capsules that were cunningly located in the crevices of the slings that carried and distributed the weight of the passengers and the small engines.

  Corwen beckoned them all to him. Bryanna’s people, the companions, and Rounda all moved toward the parasails. Aware that this may leave them open, Ryan cast his eye to Jak, who nodded.

  “Can see, hear from there,” he murmured, pointing to the top of the dune. “Someone need keep eyes open.”

  “Good idea,” Robear commented. “I can do that, too. Need help?”

  Jak shrugged. “Can manage, but extra eyes and ears not bad thing.”

  The two men peeled off from the gathering group to keep surveillance, while the rest paid attention to Corwen, whose soft voice accompanied his indication of the equipment now laid out by each parasail.

  “Bombs and missiles are a necessity, but heavy,” he began, indicating the small, round bombs they carried, housed in a khaki polycarbon. “We’ve got some materials from which we make our own. Supplies are limited, hence our reluctance to use them except in emergencies. Plas-ex, motion detonators and a light casing. Even so, we can only carry six per parasail at any time.

  “This is more use to us,” he continued, indicating a small, plastic-boxed device that all parasails carried. Each was slightly different in its arrangement of wires that wound in and out of the box, placed in small junction sockets in varying combinations. “We use it defensively, but it could be used as an offensive weapon. Each one of these sends out a different set of frequencies. Some are very high, some are lower. To produce really low frequency waves, it would be necessary to have a unit that would be too heavy for the parasails, at least, using the materials we have. That is a pity, as with ultra-low frequency it would be possible to render any enemy incapacitated in the blink of an eye.” He grinned. “You can’t fight when your muscles refuse to respond and your bowels are opened by pure sound. But as it is, our little boxes can cause excruciating pain in the ear canal and the skull, and can disorient. Directed from the air, it can be extremely effective against ground forces.”

  “Yeah, and us if you’re not careful,” Mildred pointed out.

  Corwen nodded. “True, we would have to use it with care. We’re used to fighting entirely from aboveground. But it is directional, so we could use it to sweep ahead of our allies.”

  “Now that, I’m glad to hear,” Mildred commented.

  Corwen allowed himself a quiet laugh, then continued. “We may not talk much, but we have communications equipment, too. Not as advanced as Rounda’s, perhaps—talking is her speciality, I think.” He allowed himself a small smile. “However, we do have small personal transmitters and receivers. As we double on our craft, we can spare some for your use.” He looked at Ryan. “They’re simple to use, so you can pick it up quickly. We will be airborne most of the time, so your need and Bryanna’s for individual communication may be greater.”

  “That’s appreciated.” Mildred glanced at Bryanna and her people with more than a hint of suspicion and reserve.

  “My pleasure,” Corwen s
aid. “As I say, we spend most of our time airborne, and don’t carry much in the way of firearms. Bulky, heavy and the extra weight of ammunition is something we can’t afford. We have these for personal defense if someone should get close.”

  As if from nowhere, and with little indication of concealment, he produced a rapier from beneath his clothing. His people did likewise, as if synchronized.

  “At the risk of sounding too confident, we’re very good with these in close quarters. Frankly, we have to be. The trick is not to get caught on the ground unless necessary.”

  “I’m impressed,” J.B. said, “but you can’t beat a blaster from more than arm’s length.”

  “A very good point, my friend,” Corwen agreed, “which is why we tend to use those, as well.” He indicated the blasters that had been stored in each parasail. They were a combination of Lugers, Brownings and a Walther PPK. Each had spare clips. They were light yet powerful at middistance, and J.B. felt that Corwen and his people had made a good choice, suitable to their needs and limitations.

  Ryan let a flicker of a smile cross his lips for the first time in what seemed to him to be forever. So far, they had a limited arsenal, but one that could be utilized in a plan. As well, they still had Bryanna’s people to examine. If any one of these tech-nomads carried offensive tech, it would be her crew.

  “Time to put out, honey,” Rounda said mockingly.

  “Very well,” Bryanna said evenly, refusing to rise to the bait. With an imperious gesture, she indicated that her people should empty the land yachts and show the array of equipment they carried.

  And, as Ryan had expected, it was a much more offensive collection than the others. Declining to lower herself to explaining the equipment, she gestured to the black man—it was indicative of her attitude that she had never used his name, and even now they still had no idea what he was called—to guide them through the armament laid out.