James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark
James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark
Prologue
There was no escape from the nightmare of Death lands after the nuclear holocaust in 2001. Ryan Cawdor understood that, take it or leave it, this was Ms world. He never forgot that no court of law, no army of deliverance, no rescue squad would be there to put things to right-ever.
What population was left existed without laws or moral guidance, other than to obey the savage rules of survival. Nature lay waste, ruined, contaminated, the tragic price humanity paid for the blind worship of science. And there was hardly a steeper price than the kind of severe genetic scrambling that created those mutated humans who were monstrous in body and mind.
Life always meant peril in the Death lands, but the mutants seemed to symbolize the unconscious dread of the disintegration of the species. So they were often targeted for summary execution by the norms, and those mutants who were able and of a like mind energetically returned the favor.
Through this world Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists roamed, with predark wags if a lucky find provided scarce fuel. But even with the wags travel was
a high risk enterprise, and increasingly the mat-trans units in the redoubts offered the best option for a change of scene or quick exit from a hotspot.
Built before skydark, the redoubts and their mat-trans gateways had endured the nuke barrage because they were entirely self-contained, blast-proofed and powered by their own nuclear reactors.
In the course of dozens of locational jumps with the units, they had come across only a very few people who had discovered the secret of the gateways.
All that was about to change.
And not for the better.
Chapter One
A whisper of chill, stale air crept along the mat-trans chamber’s armaglass walls, and with it came a whiff of something sharp and electric. As the raised metallic floor plates began to glow brighter, Ryan Cawdor scanned the faces of his five friends.
Only Krysty returned his gaze, her green eyes steady. Though she held her head high and her long-limbed, statuesque body defiantly erect, he could tell mat deep down she was anxious about the jump: her prehensile, mutant red hair had drawn close to her nape, retracting in response to danger.
The woman’s anxiety was understandable. The danger was very real, and close enough to taste.
Mildred Wyeth sat beside Krysty with her eyes shut and her head bowed. The multiple beaded plaits of Mildred’s hair swayed slightly as she clenched her hands into fists at her sides, her stocky form tensed as if to absorb a body blow. Whip-lean Jak Lauren stared blankly off in the middle distance; though the expression in his ruby-colored eyes was unreadable, the tendons of his jaws flexed like steel cables under the waxy white of his scarred cheeks. J. B. Dix gripped the brim of his beloved fedora with both hands, twisting it down
to seat it more firmly on his head. Behind the Armorer’s round, steel-rimmed spectacles, Ryan caught the glimmer of a sardonic smile. What was that old predark saying? When the crapfall really got heavy, it was time to screw on your hat.
Ryan turned to Doc Tanner last. The old man’s eyes were tightly closed, his lips moving as he muttered softly to himself. He repeated a short phrase over and over. Under the present circumstances, on the verge of molecular disassembly, any whisper might have been taken for a prayer. Though the phrase Doc was repeating sounded vaguely like a plea for mercy or salvation, it wasn’t
The one-eyed man recognized the strange words. Doc, a fountainhead of obscure, dated and often arcane knowledge, had taught Ryan the phrase and its meaning.
Morituri te salutamus.
As Doc had explained, the words were in Latin- one of many human languages long dead before the nuke shit hit the fan. Morituri te salutamus was a Roman gladiator’s oath to his emperor before entering mortal combat, which signified submission and allegiance to a higher power and an acceptance of one’s own fate.
“We who are about to die salute you.”