James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark

“Get us in, J.B.” Ryan said.

“No problem,” the Armorer replied. He dug around in the capacious side pockets of his pants and took out two wads of homemade C-4 plastique, a blasting cap, some scraps of electrical wire and a hand-twist, mechanically powered detonator. He bracketed the card-lock with flattened gobs of C-4, linked the charges, then fused them. “Out of the hall,” he ordered the others as he unrolled the detonator’s wire and backed into an open doorway.

J.B. twisted the handle, and the corridor rocked with a mighty boom and a bright white flash. Though a section of the overhead lights was extinguished by the blast, when Ryan looked out from cover, he could see the massive door no longer had a lock and that it had slid back on its hidden floor tracks, thrown away from the jamb by a good foot and a half.

Then an alarm started to wail, and red lights concealed in die ceiling began to flash on and off.

“Fireblasted sec system!” Ryan snarled. “Ears or no ears, that’s going to bring stickles down on us.”

It was a shame they had to hurry because the redoubt armory was like an unguarded candy store. Nearly all of the century-old complexes they’d jumped to had been stripped bare as the redoubts’ former occupants had evacuated the place or had been looted by people who had broken into the upper levels. Usually nothing of value remained.

This one had never been touched.

“Look at all the ammo!” Mildred breathed. “Unopened factory cans of 9 mm and 5.56 mm.”

“Grenades,” Doc said. He used a scrap of rag he found to wipe the protective layer of grease from a flip-top antipersonnel device. “High explosive,” he announced, reading the weapon’s color code.

“Ryan,” J.B. said, “there’s reloads for caseless G-12 assault rifles. The air-sealed packs look in good shape.”

“I got LAWs over here,” Ryan said. “Check all the gun crates, J.B. If there’s caseless ammo, there might also be G-12s. We could use the additional firepower.”

The Armorer poked around for a few seconds, removing box lids, then said, “There’s an open crate with three G-12s inside. They looked unfired.”

“Take them,” Ryan said. “Their reloading units weigh about two pounds each. Take two dozen, six for each of us to carry out.”

Weight was always a problem for them and, as much as supply, limited their traveling arsenal. When you had to lug all your armament on your back, you had to be selective: being slow in Deathlands was just as dangerous as being undergunned.

KRYSTY HUNG SUSPENDED in blackness, ensnared by sticky webs of the lingering jump nightmare. She couldn’t move so much as a fingertip. The prolonged, futile struggle to break free had drained her spirit’s strength. The dream was in complete control of all she thought and felt. Like a spider’s victim, first paralyzed by a toxic bite, then wrapped head to foot in wet silk, she believed that she had been seeded with alien life,

dozens of baby monsters that would soon hatch in her belly and eat their way out of her.

Then, from what seemed to be hundreds of miles away, at the furthest, dimmest limits of her perception, a man spoke. His tone was quick, decisive, commanding.

And familiar.

The sound of her lover’s voice was a lifeline, pulling her back toward his world.

Their world.

The wraps of psychic silk loosened slightly, and Krysty could feel the hard floor under her legs, the wall at her back. The insistent pull of gravity reconnected her to the source of all her mutie powers, Gaia, the Earth Mother. She called on that feminine force, drawing it into herself. Her strength returned in a rush. She used it to drag herself from the clinging vestiges of the dream.

Krysty opened her eyes.

At first she couldn’t figure out where she was, but she sensed a rapid upward movement and the presence of her comrades close at hand. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the light of the single, caged bulb beside her. Beneath the light unit, a motor hummed and heavily greased cables slid around a spinning flywheel. Encircling gray walls slipped past. She blinked up at a rectangular shaft made of reinforced concrete, realizing she was on the roof of an elevator. Then the movement stopped and an electronic tone sounded. With a whoosh, the doors below jerked open.