Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle

by Ahern, Jerry

  And Martin sprayed the weapon now, Rourke rolling into the rocks near him, up to his feet, lurching forward as he ran just barely outdistancing Martin’s gunfire. He would not kill Martin, not now, perhaps he never could.

  Martin’s energy weapon fire struck first one, then the second of the two surviving Nazis who lay unconscious near the fortress wall as Martin kept firing, indiscriminately, firing as rapidly as the trigger could be pulled it seemed. Energy bolts gouged deep into the rock wall on all sides as Rourke ducked and jumped to cover.

  Martin kept firing, trying to lead Rourke now.

  John Rourke dodged, turned back, jumped toward the center of the rock enclosure, reaching for Rauph’s lost energy rifle. Rourke grabbed it at the muzzle and hurled it toward Martin.

  The weapon struck Martin at the neck and right shoulder.

  Martin collapsed to his knees. Rourke was already up, the butt of his HK-91 slamming against Martin’s right forearm, knocking the energy rifle aside. Martin shrieked up at him. “Look!”

  John Rourke didn’t turn his eyes. Rourke gagged for an instant, coughed, nearly vomited. His eyes streamed tears from the gas and ash.

  “Look! We’re saved!”

  Above him, there was a roar distinct from the roaring of the volcano, and John Rourke grabbed Martin Zimmer Rourke by the front of his shirt, dragged him to a standing position as Rourke cast his eyes upward.

  Coming down out of the clouds of gas and ash and fire was a V-stol fighter bomber.

  The craft descended on twin pillars of fire, like the deus ex ma-china of Greek tragedy, a machine of the gods as the means of divine intervention to save them.

  But the rock fortress surrounded by lava was too small an area for any craft to land in.

  As if the pilot, whoever he was, had read Rourke’s thoughts, as the aircraft stabilized some sixty or so feet above them, a cable snaked downward, coils of it falling fewer than ten yards from them.

  “We can get out! We can save ourselves!”

  Rourke looked at his son, Martin. “Watch out for the prop washes. They could be deadly.” Rourke coughed. “Go on. Hook the cable around you. The pilot can winch it up.”

  Rourke shoved Martin ahead, warning him again, “Look out for the prop wash! It’s straight vertical.” Where the jets struck, fragments of rock were beaten up into cyclonic funnels. Rourke lurched after his son for a few feet, stopped. He turned, ran back to where the two unconscious Nazis lay. By rights they were dead after Martin had fired so indiscriminately as he sprayed the interior of the rock fortress; but, if they were not, Nazis or no, Rourke could not leave men to die here.

  His rifle safed and pushed away behind his back, Rourke, coughing, gagging in the ash and dust and gas, his eyes streaming tears, found the first of the two. The man was dead. The second man, his face shot away.

  Rourke peered upward, the V-stol still above. And, as Rourke threaded his way between the propwashes of the downwardly firing jets, the cable snaked downward again. Rourke caught up its end, falling to his knees as he did so. There was a hook on the end of the cable. Rourke wound a length of the cable round his body beneath his buttocks, hooking on. He jerked at the cable, but there was no way to tell if the pilot or winch operator (if there was a two-man crew aboard) could see him.

  But the cable began slowly to move.

  Rourke dragged himself to his feet, feeding out cable through his still-gloved hands.

  The cable was nearly taut. There was an instant of weighdess-ness, his feet off the ground, a sickening pendulum motion carrying him dangerously near the propwash from the portside engine. And then he was rising. The ash was thicker here and Rourke held his breath against it as he passed through a denser portion of the cloud. The V-stol pilot had to be insane coming here, fouling his engines. At any second, one or both could cut out, and at this altitude in the vertical mode either scenario would bring the aircraft crashing downward.

  Rourke could see the opening above him. When he looked below, lava was just starting to overflow into the fort.

  And there was Martin, reaching down to him. Perhaps there was a spark of feeling in the boy. “I’m all right, son,” Rourke shouted up, his throat catching from the dust. Rourke coughed, lightheadedness gripping him.

  Martin’s hand reached out to him. John Rourke took it.

  Martin was pulling him up, over the lip of the fuselage door, to safety.

  John Rourke looked up. “Son-“

  But then he looked past Martin’s face. Emma Shaw stood beside Martin, a .45 automatic in her right hand, the pistol aimed at Martin’s head.

  “Son-I-“

  “Fuck you,” Martin hissed, letting go of Rourke’s hand, dropping to his haunches in the tail section of the fuselage.

  Emma holstered the pistol at her right thigh. There was a second pistol in a chest holster over her left breast. “We gotta get outa here, John. Watch him. We’re on computer.” Emma Shaw ran past him.

  Rourke just knelt there. The door started to close and the sudden rush of clean air from the aircraft’s environment system made

  him at once shiver and feel faint. He looked at his son. “You all right?”

  “They’re going to kill me. Kill that bitch and fly out of here and Til give you anything you want. Anything! You like her? I’ll give you a dozen better than her and when you’re-“

  “I want Deitrich Zimmer to operate to save your mother, Martin, to get the bullet out, to restore her to us.”

  “Fine.Fine. Anything. Now kill the-“

  Rourke coughed, shook his head. “Paul might still be down there. And Doctor Rolvaag and the others. And I won’t kill Emma Shaw. But if you get Deitrich Zimmer to save your mother’s life, there’s your chance. You’re my son. I thought I’d have to kill you, someday. But I can’t. I won’t let anyone hurt you, God help me. You’re your mother’s and my flesh and blood, son.”

  Martin Zimmer, panting, breathing heavily, just stared at him beneath the yellow overhead lights.

  John Rourke leaned back against the bulkhead. The aircraft was already in motion, rising. “Emma! Paul’s down there. Some others. We’ve gotta-“

  “I’ll sweep for them until we find them, one way or the other, John. Come forward if you can,” she shouted.

  Rourke dragged himself to his feet. Without bombs, stripped of most of what consumed space, the fighter bomber’s aft section was roomy enough so that Paul and the others would fit in. And the aircraft had ample power, Rourke knew.

  He lurched forward, holding onto the copilot’s seat, unslinging his rifle, slumping into the seat beside her.

  “You all right, John?” Emma Shaw asked him, not looking at him.

  “You’re a brave woman. Thank you for saving my son.” Below them, the entire interior of the cone was almost consumed.

  Emma Shaw wore no helmet, no mask. He watched now as her tongue darted out, licked her lips. “John, if I hadn’t kept a gun at his head, he would never have helped you.”

  “He’s still my son. Nothing can change that. I finally realized that.” Rourke peered through the canopy glass, his eyes scanning the slope. The V-stol flew perhaps a hundred feet over the surface, terrain following. And, lying prone beside a lava fissure, John Rourke thought he saw something. “Can you land there? Or maybe like you did over the cone?”

  “I can’t land, but you can rope down on the cable if you’re up to it. Or just keep an eye on the computer controls and Martin and IH-“

  “No. I’ll do it.”

  Rourke dragged himself out of the seat. Emma tugged at his sleeve, offering him an oxygen mask. “Here, but slow.”

  Rourke nodded, pressed the mask over his face, inhaled shallowly, still coughed, almost choked. He took another breath, then another, pushing the mask away. Too much and he’d run the risk of passing out. He started aft.

  Rourke’s hands held to the grab straps as he stood there, the aircraft descending.

  “What the hell are we doing?”’

  �
�My friend is down there. Other people, too.”

  “We could get killed! FU give you-“

  “Shut up, Martin!” Rourke shouted, coughed, leaned heavily against the bulkhead. The vertical motion stopped. The door opened upward and inward.

  Rourke looked to the winched cable above him and near the door. The controls seemed simple enough. “Okay, Martin. You let this down, help Commander Shaw. Then we’ll all get out of here.” Martin didn’t move. “Do it!” Rourke snapped.

  Martin came to his feet. Rourke let out some of the cable, and as he looked below he could see movement. It was Paul, had to be Paul, waving up at him. Rourke closed the cable around him, fed out more of it. Emma joined them. “I’ve got it, John. Hurry, but be careful. My air intakes are nearly thirty percent clogged. Once we’re over forty-one percent, we could lose an engine at any second.”

  “I’m on my way.” And Rourke jumped into open space.

  Rourke descended toward the slope, trying to control his breathing to minimize intake of the dust and ash. New vents were opening along the slope everywhere he looked, broad rivers of lava streaming downward across the slope and toward the sea

  far beyond, ribbons of flaming light in the darkness.

  As Rourke neared the ground, he could see Paul with greater clarity, his friend’s right trouser leg cut away up the seam, the submachinegun Paul had always called a Schmiesser lashed to the outside of Paul’s leg, probably with its sling.

  Rourke’s feet touched the ground and he unhooked, released the cable, moved as rapidly as he could across the broken ground toward his friend, dropping to one knee beside Paul. Paul clasped his hand. “Martin?

  “Alive.”

  “Lost my balance during one of the quakes and my foot caught in a crack. Think I broke my knee, or pulled it badly,” Paul shouted to him over the roar of the eruption and the noise of the jets. “I was just getting started again. You all right? What about Martin’s pals?”

  “He’s all right, they’re dead, two by his hand.” As Rourke spoke, he coughed. “Where are the others?”

  “You don’t have them yet? They were on their way down the slope.”

  “We’ll get them next. Can you walk if I help?” “Yeah,” Paul nodded, coughing. “My lungs may never be the same, though.”

  John Rourke got Paul up, pulled Paul’s right arm across his shoulders, started back with him toward the cable. “You’re getting heavy,” Rourke observed, joking.

  “No, just old,” Paul grinned.

  They reached the cable, Rourke helping his friend to get the cable around him, hook it. Then Paul gave the cable a jerk and it started up, Rourke slumping down to his knees, waiting. And he looked toward the summit, but the cone was no longer there. A vast column of ash and dust obscured it, and the glow from within it was the lava, belching upward, destroying the old cone and building a fresh one.

  Rourke looked back to the V-stol; the cable was winding down toward him again. Rourke reached for it, encircled himself with it, gave a tug as he hooked on.

  Immediately, he was starting upward. He concentrated his gaze toward the downslope, searching for any sign of Rolvaag and the others. Nothing.

  When he reached the height of the V-stol, Paul had a gun on Martin, Emma reaching out for Rourke. Rourke took her hand and arm and swung inward. Tm all right.”

  “Paul’s going to ride up front. Hell know where to look.”

  “Good idea.” Rourke unhooked from the cable. Emma helping him, Paul started forward. “What happened to the helicopter?”

  “While I was out looking for Rolvaag’s graduate student, Bremen, a vent opened up under it and the chopper slipped forward into the lava.”

  “And you came back for me,” Rourke said, saying nothing else. The fuselage door closed. Rourke stared at Martin. The aircraft began to ascend. “You see what I mean, son? Like when you said I should just save you and me and kill Emma and leave the others. People don’t do that to one another.”

  “Where the hell have you been? People fuck each other every day, dad-shit. You go live on your damn mountaintop with the gods and do all this noble crap. We don’t need anachronistic fools like you anymore.”

  “You don’t understand,” Rourke tried to explain. “Honorable people keep their promises, can rely on one another; friendship is a bond, just like love, joining people in a way that circumstances can’t pull apart. A friend, a child, a wife, that’s forever, Martin. Can’t you see that? You can learn to. It’s not your fault.”

  “You want me to be the same damn good guy you always were? For what? Where’s your wealth? Where’s your power? You’re into all this emotional shit. Where’s your happiness!? Faithful to some bitch lying in a damn coma and-“

  John Rourke slapped Martin across the face. “She’s your mother, boy! Don’t talk that way, don’t you ever-“

  “Might makes right! There we agree-“

  John Rourke turned away.

  From the cockpit, he heard Paul shouting, “I see them, John!” “I can land there,” Emma called aft. “There’s a flat enough spot. I can make a vertical.” John Rourke murmured, “Thank God.”

  “God? You actually believe in God? You are a fool!” Martin taunted. “Think God’s so all powerful? Then why didn’t He stop my real father who raised me from shooting your wife, huh? Why didn’t He keep this friggin’ volcano from erupting, huh?”

  “I don’t know the answers to questions like, that, Martin. No man does. All we can do is try, try to do the best that we can.”

  “Why? For points with God when you die? Be real!”

  “No! Not for points with God,” John Rourke shouted, coughing, shaking his head. “No. You do what’s right because it is what’s right. Everything doesn’t have to profit you something, Martin. God or not-and I believe in God-but even if there wasn’t God or a heaven or a hell, what would that do to change how a man or woman should be? What’s right is right and nothing changes that. We do what’s right and honorable because that’s what it means to be a human being.”

  Martin looked away.

  Rourke felt sick to his stomach.

  The aircraft was landing vertically.

  “Touchdown!” Emma shouted.

  John Rourke liked a person who preferred the intimacy of human speech-even shouted-over a radio transmission, the fuselage door opened. In the second after, there was the shudder of contact. Paul called back, Til watch Martin!”

  “Right.”

  Emma was already walking aft, jumped down from the opening in the fuselage, Rourke behind her. Rolvaag, the pilot and the third man, who had to be Bremen, were corning toward them, the pilot leaning on Rolvaag, the third man walking, failing, getting up.

  “You help Doctor Rolvaag with the pilot,” Rourke ordered, running past Emma Shaw, toward Bremen.

  Lava flows were moving inexorably down the slope, the flows blending into one another as new vents opened, rivers of enormous width flowing downward. The gas here was less thick, and comparatively litde ash fell. Rourke reached Bremen, letting the man collapse into his arms.

  Rourke slung Bremen over his shoulder. Rourke looked back toward the V-stol. Emma was helping Rolvaag get the pilot aboard.

  Rourke walked as rapidly as he could. With the added weight of Bremen on his shoulder, running was out of the question, given the state of his lungs and the air quality.

  The ground shook. As Rourke looked back, another fissure had opened, wide, blowing lava in an enormous upjetting plume into the purple and orange blackness above.

  Rourke reached the V-stol, Emma Shaw and Rolvaag reaching out to take Bremen.

  Rourke handed Bremen up, then clambered in after him.

  There was a localized control for the fuselage door and Rourke activated it, the door gliding to. Emma started forward. Tm getting us out of here.”

  “Right,” Rourke nodded. Already, Rourke was to his knees, beside Bremen.

  “This could be a rough takeoff. We’ve got a lava flow bearing down on us,
” Emma Shaw called back.

  Rourke could hear the engines revving. “Everybody brace yourselves. Martin, get me the oxygen out of the survival kit on the bulkhead there,” and Rourke gestured toward the kit. As Rourke looked back at Bremen-the head injury didn’t appear too severe and Bremen was breathing-he suddenly realized what he’d done.

  Rourke started to his feet.

  But Martin already had the survival kit open. There was an energy pistol in it. “Fire that in here and-“

  Martin leveled the energy pistol toward John Rourke’s head. Rourke dove toward his son, shoving Rolvaag and the injured pilot Buder out of the way. The aircraft was into vertical takeoff mode. There was no stopping now without crashing.

  Rourke’s left hand closed over the pistol. Martin’s right knee smashed upward into John Rourke’s testicles.

  John Rourke flew back against the bulkhead beside the fuselage door. Martin Zimmer Rourke’s left hand punched outward, not to Rourke’s face, but toward the localized door control.

  The V-stol went into horizontal flight and Rourke was thrown back. Martin was on top of him, beating at bis head with

  the energy pistol. Rourke’s left elbow smashed upward into Martin’s chest. Rolvaag jumped onto Martin’s back.

  Martin twisted round, the energy pistol firing, blasting a hole twice the size of a basketball, in the fuselage opposite the door. The V-stol shuddered, Emma Shaw shouting, “Stop him!”

  The dual slipstream though the open fuselage door and the hole opposite it tore at Rourke’s exposed flesh.

  Martin was up, leveling the pistol toward the cockpit. “If Tm going to die, you’re all going to die, damn you!”

  John Rourke reached up from his knees. Martin kicked at him. Rourke grabbed for Martin’s foot, caught it, twisted.

  Martin sprawled back against the bulkhead, swinging the muzzle of the pistol once again toward the cockpit as Rourke, to his feet now, reached for his son. “And damn you, father!”

  The aircraft lurched.

  Martin fired.