Dark Reckoning by James Axler
Dark Reckoning by James Axler
Chapter One
The howling alarms faded into blessed silence, and the ceiling lights of the redoubt flickered into life, as bright and strong as ever. Almost immediately, the seven bodies on the floor began to stir sluggishly.
As the burning waves of pain throughout his body slowly subsided, Ryan Cawdor opened his good eye and pulled a ragged breath into his aching lungs.
“F-fireblast,” the man cursed weakly, his cramped muscles relaxing for the first time since he had entered the underground base. Never had the man encountered anything like this before. His skin had felt as if it were on fire, with flesh-eating ants digging inside his skull. A hot slug of lead in his gut would have been sweet relief compared to what he had just gone through for the pasthow long? His mind was foggy about the passage of time, the endless searing pain blurring each hour into the next. Days, months? He had no idea. A rumble shook his belly, and a sour belch rose in his throat. Ryan was starving, so it had to have been quite awhile. Those blue-shirt sec men were going to pay for this, even if it took his last drop of blood. He’d chill every one of them!
Almost without thought, Ryan ran his hands over his clothing in an old ritual. The 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol was still at his hip, the curved panga in its sheath. The ammo pouch was flat and empty, and he couldn’t locate his Steyr SSG-70 sniper rifle anywhere nearby on the nearby floor. Had he dropped it outside? That would mean that the microwaves from the Kite satellite would have melted it into a puddle of useless steel by now.
Trying to rise, Ryan fumbled and slumped onto the cool floor beside a huge metal pump of some kind. The machine beat as steady as a human heart, performing some task involved in maintaining the nuclear reactors of the military redoubt.
The rad shielding around the subterranean base was the only thing that gave the companions some small amount of protection from the searing microwaves of the orbiting Kite, and going to the very lowest level of the redoubt had helped even more. But the sensation of being burned alive had only lessened, it never stopped, and eventually increased to where the one-eyed man felt as if he were being stabbed with a thousand needles, then red-hot knives. The agony robbed him of strength until there was nothing else to do but pass out, only to awaken hours later to the continuing bombardment.
Long minutes passed with only the sound of labored breathing breaking the silence of the basement. Gathering his strength once more, Ryan tried to force himself off the floor, and this time he succeeded. Struggling to his knees, the one-eyed man tried to focus on his friends, but was having some degree of difficulty doing so. Ryan realized he had to have taken more damage from the microwaves than he originally thought. Another score to settle with the blues.
Brushing back his wild crop of long black hair, Ryan noticed how shaky his hands were, the tanned skin red and irritated as if badly sunburned. He had spent a thousand days in the deserts of Deathlands, but never got burned like this. For a fleeting moment, he worried about cancer, then dismissed the problem. There was nothing he could do about it, so he turned his attention to other more solvable matters.
Catching his breath, the Deathlands warrior soon felt better. The odd trembling stopped, and he was able to focus his vision without trouble. The rest of the companions were scattered on the floor. Although their clothes were soaked with sweat, everybody seemed okay, each breathing without trouble and starting to move feebly. The low moans and curses were music to his ears. As the Trader always said, only the living bitched. The dead never complained about anything.
Sprawled in the center of the friends was a beautiful redhead, her clothes in disarray and laying frightfully still. Krysty Wroth usually healed faster than any of the others, including Ryan. But as the rest of the companions started to sit upright, she remained unconscious.