James Axler – Starfall

Judging from the brush and the loose rock in front of the entranceway, it had never been opened. Ryan experienced the familiar excitement thrilling through him when he thought about what might be on the other side of the huge door.

“Been inside?” he asked.

Donovan shook his head. “Only redoubts I’ve ever seen were blown open or wrecked during a quake. Looted so long ago nothing worth anything was left behind.”

Ryan stepped toward the door, wary for any traps that might have been left behind. The Totality Concept staff sometimes left wicked traps behind; other times it was frus­trated looters. Satisfied nothing was there, he flipped open the cover on the keypad.

“Keypad’s active,” Donovan said, “but nobody’s ever found a way in.”

Ryan punched the proper key sequence. The keypad lights went from red to amber to green. An instant later, the door slid sideways.

“Son of a bitch!” Donovan exclaimed. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“Got lucky.” He adjusted the lantern he carried, turning up the illumination. Taking the SIG-Sauer blaster in his free hand, he walked into the redoubt.

Donovan followed him.

THE REDOUBT WAS small compared to many of those Ryan had seen. There were two rooms. One held a mat-trans unit with bright blue armaglass sporting dark green diagonal stripes.

“Is that a gateway?” Donovan asked, pointing at the mat-trans unit.

“What do you know about them?” Ryan asked.

“Read about them in some of the materials at the Foun­dation. Supposed to transport something or someone from one place to another by a light beam bouncing off a satellite or something. Does it?”

Ryan only gave the man a small smile.

The second room held more promise, turning out to be a small but complete armory. He played the lantern light over the weapons, grinning as he realized J.B. was going to have the time of his life.

“Fuck me!” Donovan exploded, holding his own lantern up and moving closer.

“Ready to go into the pirate-chilling business?” Ryan asked.

“LOVER.”

Ryan turned his head tiredly and gazed at Krysty. She was huddled under her blankets, her skin as pale as death. “Yeah.”

“I don’t remember you coming to bed last night. Mebbe I missed it.”

“Didn’t get there,” Ryan said. He squatted near her, drinking coffee sub from a ceramic mug Donovan had given him.

“What’s going on? I thought I heard power tools ear­lier.”

“You did,” Ryan assured her. “We’ve been busy.” He gestured out toward the six boats he and J.B. had worked on with volunteers from the dam builders. They’d mounted a .50-caliber machine gun from the redoubt on each boat. The arsenal still contained another six, as well as rifles and handblasters that were being passed out to the Heimdall Foundation people. Ryan had easily let the weapons go, after restocking their own ammo needs, because the com­panions couldn’t take them.

He had, however, locked the redoubt door behind them. The mat-trans unit still offered a back door out of the area—after Krysty was taken care of properly.

Krysty forced herself up to one elbow and surveyed the dock. “What’s going on, lover?”

Ryan told her about the agreement to help recover the satellite section from the pirates.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” Krysty objected, her face going crimson as her hair. “You’re trying to take on too much weight to take care of me.”

“Has to be done to close the deal.”

“That’s not much of a deal, lover.”

Ryan turned his single eye on the beautiful redhead. “I’d make a deal with the devil himself if I had to.”

RYAN RODE WITH Donovan in the lead powerboat, feeling the engines throb through the entire craft and the slap of the river against the hull. Eight other men occupied the boat with them, all of them armed and scanning the river. The early morning sun rose to their right, burning through the thin layer of fog that lay over the water and reduced visi­bility.

“Reports we’ve had lately are that Barbarossa has put up a campsite here.” Donovan laid a forefinger on the handmade map he held.

The map was well made, and seemed to cover the river’s current course, more or less. In the powerboats, the trip back to the river from the cistern took only a couple hours.