James Axler – Judas Strike

Silver flashed in the moonlight as Doc lunged forward, spearing the man through the heart with his sword. The sec men jerked at the strike, then went still. Placing a boot on his chest, Doc yanked the blade out and wiped it clean on the dead man’s shirt.

Following Jak across the grounds, the friends easily found the latrine just past the horse corral. The small wooden hut was surrounded by weeds, and placed strategically behind the tall pile of cut wood so that nobody could see who was entering or leaving.

Footsteps on the gravel made everybody pause, and they waited for discovery as the horses were released from the stable, and a dozen troopers rode off.

“Looking for us,” Krysty guessed. “Better hurry.”

Going to opposite ends of the woodpile, Ryan and Jak kept silent watch for more sec men while Mildred used her flashlight to illuminate the padlock on the door. Removing some tools from his munitions bag, J.B. got busy with picks and probes, the lock yielding in under a minute.

“Piece of junk,” he commented, sliding the chain through the loops and placing it gently in the weeds. “Could have kicked it open except for the noise.”

Easing open the old splintery door, Ryan found there was no floor, only a knotted rope hanging into the darkness. Fireblast, it was the cannie ville all over again. Hopefully, this time there wouldn’t be an ambush waiting for them.

Reaching into a pocket, Ryan pulled out a gren and made sure the pin was firmly in place, the tape tight around the priming handle. Going to the hole, he dropped the gren down the hole and listened. Three seconds later there was a thump of it landing, and then silence, no reaction to its arrival.

“It’s clear,” he announced, starting down the rope.

After a couple of yards, Ryan dropped the last few feet and landed with his blaster out, sweeping for targets. He was in a brick tunnel that extended into the distance in both directions. There was a diffuse light coming from bulbs inside wire cages along the ceiling. The electricity was probably coming from nuke batteries buried in the walls, and even those predark powerhouses were slowly dying over the long centuries.

The gren had rolled a few feet down the tunnel, and he reclaimed the explosive charge, double-checking to make sure the pin and handle were in place. Just then, the rope jiggled and Dean dropped to the concrete floor, blaster in one hand, bowie knife in the other.

“We’re alone,” Ryan said, tugging the rope three times to signal it was okay for the others to come down.

Soon, the companions were gathered together, and Jak put his lighter to the rope, the old hemp slowly igniting and starting to burn upward out of sight.

“Wet rope top with canteen,” he said, pocketing the lighter. “So no burn latrine.”

“Well, it’ll certainly slow down any pursuit,” Mildred said, watching the fire crackling up the access way. It was concrete pipe with rusty holes along the side where iron rungs had been set for easy access. Only rust stains marked where they had once been inserted into the resilient material.

“Indeed, madam, that is, until they find another rope,” Doc rumbled anxiously. “My dear Ryan, I really cannot voice my sincere wish to vacate this untoward locale quite strenuously enough.”

“Yeah, we’ve got to blow this pesthole,” Ryan agreed, stabbing his knife through the wire cage to break the bulb and plunge that section of the tunnel into darkness. Give the baron something else to worry about if he made it down here.

“Which way leads to the sea?” he asked, sheathing the blade.

Tilting back his fedora, J.B. checked his pocket compass. “That way goes inland, toward the jungle,” he said, pointing. “The other heads to the ocean.”

Could be a wag hidden in the trees, or a boat on the beach. A boat was what they needed, so they might as well head for the water.

“I’m on point,” Ryan said, switching to the Steyr. “J.B. covers the rear. Three-foot spread.”

Walking on the toes of their boots to try to hold down the echoes, the companions soon saw a flickering silvery light from ahead and rushed forward to find the end of the brick tunnel blocked by a wall of falling water. Doc tested the depths with his sword and pronounced it safe. Shielding his blaster with his body, Ryan dashed through and found himself on the sandy shore of a small lagoon. A waterfall rushing from overhead completely masked the entrance of the tunnel, where the freshwater fed into a small pool filled with tropical fish. The shore was edged with tall mango trees festooned with fishing nets laced with green leaves. In the background he could hear the gentle sounds of waves cresting on the sand. But it was impossible to see anything on the other side of the disguising barrier. Thayer had done a good job here. Then Ryan noticed something large and covered with canvas moored on the nearby beach. There was their boat.