Читать книгу Time Castaways - James Axler - Страница 9

As the robotic arm started dragging the struggling J.B. out of the ready room, the companions saw a hulking machine of some kind filling the outside corridor.

There was a domed head and a cylindrical body with treads on the bottom like an army tank. More important, the machine possessed six arms, each of them brandishing spinning buzzsaws, pinchers or pneumatic hammers. The terrible sight fueled them with cold adrenaline. This wasn’t a sec hunter droid, but it was clearly built for the same purpose—to ruthlessly chill invaders.

As Ryan scrambled from behind the heavy door, Doc assumed a firing stance and grimly triggered the LeMat. The weapon boomed and the huge .44 miniball of the Civil War handcannon slammed into the joint of the pinchers, cracking the seal, and amber hydraulic fluid gushed out like opening a vein. As the pressure dropped, J.B. forced the pinchers apart and wiggled free to drop flat and get out of the way of the others. Quickly withdrawing the damaged limb, the robot extended two more arms, each tipped with a spinning buzzsaw.

Now unencumbered by the presence of their friend, the rest of the companions cut loose with a fusillade of destruction, the volley of rounds hammering the big machine. Scrambling to his feet, J.B. swung around the Uzi and raked the droid with a long spray of 9 mm Parabellum rounds.

Stabbing out with a ferruled arm, the droid sent a buzzsaw straight toward the closest companion. Jerking aside, Jak felt a tug on his hair and saw some loose strands float away.

Raking the big droid with their combined weaponry, the companions pulled back to gain valuable combat room. However, the machine was too large to get through the hatchway, and all it could do was reach out with ferruled limbs, the buzzsaw jabbing for their faces and hands. Unlike a sec hunter, there were no visible eyes on this droid. Aiming for the silvery dome on top, Ryan pumped several 9 mm rounds into the shiny head of the machine. The hollowpoint rounds ricocheted off the shiny material, but the dome bent and the droid began to wildly jerk, the metal arms flailing uncontrollably.

Focusing all of their blasters on the head, the companions mercilessly hammered the droid until it began to turn randomly, the armored treads going in different directions. Suddenly smoke began to rise from the joints, fat electrical sparks crawled over the machine, and then it went stock-still, a low hum rapidly building in volume and in power.

Biting back a curse, Ryan and Krysty both rushed for the door and together slammed it shut. They only turned the locking wheel an inch before there came a deafening explosion from the other side. The entire ready room shook, the locker doors flopping open, miscellaneous items tumbling to the riveted floor as a crimson snowstorm of rust sprinkled down from the ceiling.

Waiting a few minutes for the reverberations to die away, Ryan gingerly probed the wheel to find it extremely warm, but not too hot to touch. Pausing to reload his blaster, he boldly cracked open the circular door once more and looked outside.

There was a smoky dent in the steel corridor, the walls bulging outward slightly. However there was no sign of the droid, only a scattering of partially melted machine parts littering the floor.

“Wh-what a piece of drek,” J.B. panted, swinging the Uzi behind his back to reclaim the scattergun. “A sec droid would have been much tougher to chill.” Taking spare cartridges from the shoulder strap, he worked the pump and fed them into the weapon.

“True enough,” Ryan countered, squinting his good eye to try to see into the shadows beyond the nimbus of the road flare. “But we better stay on triple red. If this thing had caught us in the open, we’d have bought the farm for sure.”

Just then, the road flare sputtered and died.

Cursing under his breath, Ryan pulled out his last flare and scraped it across the rough wall until the tip sparked. The flare gushed into smoky flame.

“I just hope this is some sort of a redoubt and not a predark warship,” Krysty stated, thumbing fresh rounds into her blaster. “Those were actually designed to be a maze of corridors, ladders and passageways to confuse any potential invaders.”

“Quite so, dear lady,” Doc muttered. “There is little chance of us successfully finding the egress in an unfamiliar locale through pitch darkness.”

“Finding what?” Jak asked, arching an eyebrow.

Doc smiled tolerantly as if addressing a student. “The exit.”

The teen nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Well, we wouldn’t be in absolute darkness,” Mildred retorted, releasing her butane lighter and tucking it into a pocket. “Not quite, anyway.”

Rummaging in her med kit, the woman unearthed a battered flashlight and pumped the handle of the survivalist tool until the batteries were recharged, then she pressed the switch. A weak beam issued from the ancient device, and she played it around the war-torn corridor, making sure there were no still functioning pieces of the war machine.

With his blaster at the ready, Ryan eased into the corridor, listening closely for any creaks or groans from the floor. The dented metal seemed stable, but he had been fooled before. And even a short fall onto steel could ace him just as sure as lead in the head from a blaster.

Past the blast zone, the metal corridor was covered with pale filaments that he soon recognized as roots. They covered the ceiling, and hung thick on the walls, extending out of sight in either direction. Scowling, the man glanced at the wall opposite the ready room. In every redoubt, that was always the location of a wall map showing new personnel where everything was to be found. The lack of a map, or any sign that a map had once been there, was proof positive to him that this was not a redoubt.

“Okay, anybody got an idea which way we should try?” Ryan asked, looking in one direction, then the other. Both went on for a hundred paces to end at an intersection with a ladder.

“Left,” Jak stated confidently, jerking his Colt in that direction.

“Now, how do you know that?” Mildred asked curiously, warily hefting her ZKR.

Stoically, the albino teen shrugged. “Roots thinner to the right, thicker to the left. So that way out.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” Doc said appreciatively.

Having heard the quote many times before, Jak merely smiled in reply.

“You do know that Holmes never actually said that, don’t you?” Mildred asked. “Not in the books, anyway. Only the movies.”

“I am literate, madam,” Doc replied with a sniff.

Ignoring the banter, the companions sidled carefully around the blaster crater, and Ryan took the lead. Heading to the left, the companions found a lot of closed hatches along the walls. If there had been time, they would have eagerly done a fast recon for anything useful. But right now, getting outside was the goal.

Spying some lumps on the floor up ahead, Ryan slowed his advance, but soon he saw they were only a couple of crumbling skeletons covered with roots, the tendrils entwined among the loose bones and moldy strips of clothing. A gold ring glistened on the finger bones of a hand no longer attached to anything, and silver dots shone from the loose teeth inside a lopsided skull.

“This might tell us something,” Mildred said, kneeling to inspect the plastic ID badge still pinned to a piece of uniform lying on a skeleton. Reverently, she lifted the rectangle from the morass of plant roots and human remains. “It seems that we are inside a U.S. Navy ship after all, the—” she bent and angled the badge to try to catch the light better “—the…USS Grover Harrington.”

“Indeed, and who was that, madam?” Doc asked, craning his neck for a better look. “Some politician, perhaps?”

Placing the badge down, the physician stood. “Never heard of the guy. He must have been an admiral.”

“Don’t care who, what is?” Jak asked pragmatically.

“Sorry, again I have no idea,” the woman replied honestly, wiping off her hands. “This could be anything from an aircraft carrier to a missile frigate.”

“Well, at least we know it’s a boat,” Ryan said, easing his stance slightly. “Which means up is the way out.”

Reaching the intersection, Ryan paused at the sight of a wide breach on the metal floor. The hole didn’t appear to have been caused by an explosion as the edges were feathered with corrosion, not bent and twisted from the force of a detonation. That was when he heard the slow drip of water from above. A split second later, a drop plummeted past the man, directly through the hole and into the darkness below.

Kneeling slightly, Ryan lowered the flare into the darkness and froze at the sight of another robotic droid, apparently the same model as the one they had just aced. However, this one was in even worse shape, the dome already cracked, several of the rusty arms lying on the deck nearby, and a broken tread was hanging limply off the gears.

“Not much of a danger there,” J.B. said with a touch of satisfaction in his voice.

“Not unless we trip over it,” Krysty agreed.

“What are those boxes behind it?” Mildred asked curiously, angling the beam of her flashlight.

The weak beam did little to alleviate the murky interior, but slowly their sight grew accustomed to the darkness. Lining the rust-streaked walls in orderly rows were stacks of plastic storage boxes, faded numbers stenciled along the sides to identify the contents.

“Those are full of MRE food packs!” Ryan exclaimed. “And those others contain ballistic vests!”

“I see some Hummers and an LAV in the back!” J.B. called, grinning widely. “And the boxes over here are full of boots, field surgery kits, radios…there’s even one marked for freaking LAW rocket launchers.”

“Excelsior!” Doc whooped in triumph. “We have hit the motherload of supplies.”

“This much ordnance must have been en route to a military outpost when the world ended,” Mildred guessed, chewing a lip. “Perhaps even a redoubt.”

“Quite true, madam.”

“Maybe,” Ryan muttered, in taciturn agreement. This was turning into one of the richest jumps they had ever made. But the man automatically distrusted anything this easy. If something looked too good to be true, it almost invariably was.

“Looks good, but how reach?” Jak said with a frown, estimating the distance to the floor below. “That fifty-foot drop. How reach?”

“We can’t,” Krysty stated flatly, shifting her attention to the flare. It was already half consumed. “But once we get outside, we can come back with torches and rope. Even if there are no villes in the area, we can easily make those ourselves.”

Starting to agree, Ryan paused as there came a soft thumping. Fireblast, that sounded like a hydraulic pump. It seemed that some small part of the warship was still in working condition.

Something moved in the shadows. Ryan scowled as another droid rolled into the light.

This new machine was perfect, not a speck of rust or a scratch on the chassis. Even worse, instead of buzzsaws and hammers, this model sported a tribarrel Gatling gun in lieu of a left arm, the enclosed Niagara-style ammunition belt going into a wide hopper attached to the back of the droid.

Grunting at the sight, Ryan froze as the domed head instantly swiveled upward at the small noise to look directly at him, the Gatling swiveling, giving off a hydraulic sigh as it copied the gesture.

Lurching into action, Ryan threw his arms wide to push the other companions out of the way. They cleared the hole and a split second later, a chattering maelstrom erupted out of the opening. The noisy column of hot lead hammered along the riveted ceiling, blowing off the layers of corrosion, a barrage of ricochets musically zinging away in every direction. Mildred cried out and Jak grunted loudly as they both were hit by the misshapen slugs.

Yanking a pipe bomb from his bag, J.B. started to light the fuse, but then paused. They were sitting over a cargo hold packed with military ordnance. One bomb could easily start a chain reaction of detonations that would remove this ship, and the companions, from the face of the Earth. They couldn’t even shoot back without risking a damn explosion!

Suddenly the blasterfire ceased, and there was a series of hard clicks, then silence, almost as if the machine had run out of ammo.

Scowling in disbelief, Ryan took a spent brass from his pocket and flipped it toward the hole. As it hit the rusty edge, there immediately came a fiery response. He nodded in grim satisfaction. Yeah, thought so. Pretending to be out of brass was an old trick to try to lure an enemy into sneaking a peek so that you could blow off his or her head. The droid was well-programmed in military tactics. He would remember that when they returned.

Silently motioning the others to follow, Ryan crawled away from the jagged opening until they were at the base of the ladder.

“That damn machine was playing possum!” Krysty said angrily. At the soft words there came a short burst from the hole, but it soon stopped.

“Which probably means it can’t come after us,” J.B. stated, removing his fedora to smooth down his hair before jamming it back into position. “This droid didn’t activate until there was an explosion. This is the reserve force. It’s not going to leave that cargo bay under any circumstances.”

“Then we should be safe until trying to enter,” Doc rumbled, using a thumb to ease down the hammer on the LeMat.

“Unless there are others,” Ryan countered, grabbing the lowest rung of the old ladder. He shook it hard, and when nothing fell off, the man stood and holstered the SIG-Sauer. “But that’s tomorrow’s problem. We’ll find some way to take out that droid later.”

“If ship still here,” Jak added dourly, pressing a handkerchief to the bloody score along his neck. The teen couldn’t see the damage, but knew that it was only a flesh wound.

“And if those boxes aren’t empty,” Mildred rejoined, tying off a field dressing on her forearm. An inch higher and the ricochet would have taken off her elbow.

“Paranoid,” Doc sniffed in disdain.

“Cynic,” the physician corrected, finishing the bandage.

Seeing the others were ready, Ryan started to climb up the ladder, holding the flare so that it stuck out to the side. It was pretty low by now, and he had no intention of stopping for anything until they reached daylight.

After twenty feet or so, they reached the next deck. Rising from the access hole, they checked for any more droids, then proceeded directly to the next ladder. Having done some exploring in other predark warships, the companions found this familiar territory.

As they ascended, the roots became thicker. Soon, more of the predark crew was discovered, the tendrils deeply embedded into the moldy remains. Mildred fought off the urge to rip out the plants, while Krysty found the sight comforting. People ate plants to live, and when they died, the plants consumed them in return. It was the circle of life.

Five decks later the first of the leaves appeared, diamond-shaped and dark green with a thin blue stripe. Obviously a mutie, but the smell was that of ordinary kudzu. Both Ryan and J.B. checked the rad counters clipped to their lapels, but there was no discernible background radiation.

Reaching a remarkably clean level, the companions quickly passed by the security office, the pile of spent brass and skeletons on the deck proclaiming a major firefight. There was even some wreckage from a couple of the droids. However, there was no way of telling if the fight had been the crew repelling hostile invaders, or staging a mutiny. Or even worse, a rebellion by the machines. J.B. fought back a sigh as they climbed higher. There was probably a wealth of weaponry inside the office, but time was short and—

With a wild sputter, the last flare died.

Pumping the handle of her flashlight, Mildred passed the device up to Ryan, and he tucked it into his shirt pocket. The beam was very weak, but a lot better than trying to climb while holding a candle. Now, their speed increased, and as the reek of the flare dissipated, they began to detect the smell of freshwater, along with the dulcet aroma of flowers.

At the next level, Ryan saw there were no more ladders, and allowed himself a smile as a cool breeze came from the darkness to the right. However as he advanced, the flashlight revealed that the passageway was blocked solid with plant life, the walls festooned with orchids of every color imaginable. The place resembled a rainforest more than the inside of a battleship.

Drawing the panga, he hacked and slashed a crude path through the foliage until finding an open hatchway. Sheathing the blade, Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer and stepped over the jamb to emerge into bright sunlight. Blinking against the harsh glare, he braced for an attack.

Nothing happened. The deck was covered with a thick carpet of moss, and flowery vines hung from above.

Ryan could only vaguely detect a railing, marking this as an observation balcony. Then he changed that to a battle station at the sight of a large lump of rusty machine parts that could have been a machine-gun nest, or perhaps even a Vulcan minicannon, but there was no way of telling anymore. There was a bird nest perched on top of the debris, and a small pine tree grew out sideways, the trunk molded into a twisted spiral by the gentle ocean wind.

Stretching in front of the man was a large body of blue water, low waves cresting onto a wide pebble beach. Hills rose to a rocky plateau, and then abruptly jutted upward into snowcapped mountains. A thick fog moved stealthily along the lowlands, masking any signs of civilization.

Stepping into view, Krysty blinked at the sunlight, keeping a tight grip on her blaster. “That looks like the ocean,” she said hesitantly. “But there’s no smell of salt. Could this be some sort of an inland sea?”

“Makes sense,” Ryan replied tersely. “Or at least a bastard big lake.”

“Some of them are as big as an ocean,” Krysty commented, walking over to the railing and looking down. It was an easy hundred feet from the balcony to the choppy surface of the water. She scanned the shoreline for the remains of a dockyard, but there was nothing in sight. Now she understood why the vessel had never been looted. From stem to stern, keel to radar mast, the dense foliage completely covered the ship. She could not tell the size, or shape, of the vessel, much less where it stopped and the land began. To anybody passing, the ship would simply seem another irregular foothill, just one lost among a dozen others.

With the scattergun leading the way, J.B. came next, followed closely by Mildred, then Jak and Doc. The companions moved with practiced ease, each keeping a safe distance from the others to not offer an enemy a group target. There were a lot of ways to get aced, and stupidity was the most common.

“Looks like Oregon,” Mildred said, closing her jacket. The damp air was cold, almost enough to make her breath fog. That was when she noticed the play of colors from above and looked skyward. “Good Lord, that’s an aurora borealis!” she cried in delight. “John, are we near the North Pole?”

“Could be Canada,” Jak stated coolly. “Been before.”

“Or Iceland, or even Siberia,” J.B. said with a frown, remembering the time they had jumped to Russia.

“Nonsense, dear lady, it is much too warm for either of those icy locales,” Doc replied, turning up his collar. But then he paused. “However, since we have found deserts in Japan, and swamps in Nevada, we could be anywhere.”

“Well, I can’t take a reading through these clouds,” J.B. said. “But we’ll find out where this is, sooner or later.”

“This is a magnificent view, though,” Doc commented, looking over the oceanic vista. There seemed to be some small islands far ahead, but he could not be sure at this range.

“Hell of fall, too,” Jak retorted, glancing over the railing into the waves so very far below. It had to be an easy fifty feet, maybe more.

“We’re not going to jump, that’s for damn sure,” J.B. stated. “Any sign of stairs or another ladder?”

But before any of the companions could start a search, a strident roar of blasterfire annihilated the curtain of vegetation hanging over the exit. Lightning-fast, the companions took cover behind the pile of corroded machinery and leveled their blasters at the smoking hatchway.

“By the Three Kennedys, the dastardly machine did come after us!” Doc bellowed, thumbing back the hammer of the LeMat.

“No room to maneuver here,” Ryan snarled. “Gotta shut that door. Cover me!”

As the companions sent a hail of lead into the hatchway, Ryan charged around the debris and crossed the balcony in under a heartbeat, to throw himself flat against the vine-covered wall. From inside the corridor, he clearly heard the rumble of armored treads over the constant ricochets of the incoming barrage. Holstering his blaster, Ryan grabbed the old portal and shoved hard. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result, then saw that the hinges were hopelessly choked with rust and tiny vines.

Shoving two fingers into his mouth, Ryan sharply whistled and made a motion at the open hatchway. Nodding in understanding, J.B. pulled a pipe bomb out of his munitions bag and tossed it over. Making the catch, Ryan pulled out a butane lighter, bit the bomb fuse in two, and started the nubbin burning.

Knowing what to do next, the rest of the companions pulled out their spare blasters and sent a double fusillade of hot lead into the open doorway. Raising a splayed hand, Ryan silently counted down from five, and as he dropped the last finger, the others instantly stopped firing. He tossed the pipe bomb into the corridor, getting only a very brief glance inside as the explosive charge clattered along the floor to stop in the middle of the four hulking guardians jammed into the narrow corridor. Nuking hell, he thought, the cargo droid had to have called in reinforcements!

Jerking out of the hatchway, Ryan barely got behind steel when the pipe bomb violently detonated, the concussion shaking the vessel for yards.

“There’s four of them!” Ryan bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Startled at the news, J.B. grimaced as he pulled out a gren, flipped off the arming lever, pulled the pin and whipped the bomb forward in a sideways pitch. The military sphere hit the door and bounced inside to erupt into a searing light, and writhing tongues of chemical fire bellowed out from the hatchway, the volcanic heat wave withering the vines for yards as hundreds of leaves turned brown and fell away to expose the bare hull underneath.

“Okay, the thermite will hold them for a few minutes,” J.B. stated. “But that was my only gren.”

“Move with a purpose, people,” Ryan commanded, heading for the bow. The foothills were only a short distance from the ship, and once on land, the companions could easily disappear among the boulders and trees. Even if the machines followed, their treads would become hopelessly mired in the soft ground, making them easy pickings.

However, there was no clear way off the balcony, the stairs or access ladder, which were hidden under multiple layers of moss, flowering vines and bird droppings. Risking a step off the balcony, Ryan saw his boot punch straight through a leafy canopy to reveal only open space. He tried again with the same results.

Holstering their spare blasters, the companions pulled out blades and wildly slashed at the plants. But there only seemed to be more vines underneath, layer after layer, in an endless procession. Going to the railing, Ryan looked down at the choppy water of the lake and tried to guess the distance. Roughly fifty feet.

Unexpectedly, a sizzling beam of light stabbed through the wall alongside the roaring conflagration. Steadily the power beam drew a line in the ancient metal, rising up from the deck about twelve feet, and then slowly starting to move sideways.

Caught reloading the ZKR, Mildred almost dropped a handful of brass at the horrible sight. Sweet Jesus, the robotic sons of bitches were cutting themselves a new exit around the thermite! A hundred possibilities flashed through her mind like riffling playing cards, and she chose the most logical. The prime rule with every machine in existence was that electrical circuits did not like water. Therefore, her decision was made.

“Follow me,” Mildred shouted, jumping over the railing to hurtle toward the choppy water of the lake. Without pause, the other companions were right behind the bold physician.

Plummeting through the chilly air, the fall seemed to take the companions forever, as if the universe had slowed to aid the escape. But they knew better and hugged their belongings tightly, trying to brace for the coming impact, which was going to be bad.

A cataclysm of pain engulfed the companions as they plunged into the turgid lake, the biting cold almost stealing the breath from their lungs. The agony was unbelievable. It was as if every inch of their bodies was being stabbed with tiny knives.

As expected, their clothing resisted for only a few seconds, then quickly soaked through, a fresh wave of cold reaching their vulnerable skin as their weight increased tenfold.

Half expecting to hit the bottom and shatter their legs, the companions rode the wave of torment, preparing for even worse.

An unknown length of time passed and incredibly their descent began to slow, and the companions started to sluggishly rise. Fueled by a fierce determination to live, the companions forced their limbs to move, desperately swimming for the surface, the ancient scuba mantra of “always follow the bubbles” keeping them going in the right direction.

Erupting through the waves, the gasping companions greedily drank in the bitterly cold air, then shivered in renewed torment as a chill invaded their aching lungs, sapping away even more of their failing strength. But that was of no real concern. They had survived. Now it was only a dozen yards or so until they were safe on shore.

Swimming in steady strokes, Ryan quickly glanced around to see if everybody was present and accounted for when a large metallic object violently smacked into the choppy water, the armed guardian promptly disappearing below the lolling waves.