Time Castaways (20 page)

Just then, the megaton cargo of ammunition began snapping in a nonstop discharge.

“Ahoy, the engine room,” Doc shouted into the speaking tube. “We’ve got cookoff! Give me everything you’ve got, my friend.”

There was no reply from the other end of the tube, but a few moments later, the steam engine took on a more powerful tone, and the boat began to noticeably move faster.

“What’s a cookoff?” Liana asked, clearly confused. Then she suddenly understood. The word had to mean exactly what it said. Theo had told her that the cargo bay of the carrier was full of live brass and grens, tons of the stuff, and now the metal hull was alive with a lightning bolt, hotter than the forge of any blacksmith, which obviously meant that at any second…

In a deafening explosion that brightened the night, the aircraft carrier violently detonated, spraying out a
lambent halo of debris as it lifted from the shore in a thunderous column of smoke and roiling flame.

Dropping to the deck, the companions stayed as low as possible as a hail of shrapnel hammered the wooden hull like machine-gun rounds. Several times some metal object punched through the gunwale to slam into the deck, quivering and radiating waves of heat.

Holding on to the wheel for dear life, Doc glanced backward through the maelstrom to see the aircraft carrier fall back onto the shore in a triphammer crash that visibly shook the nearby foothills, starting an avalanche. Shattering into several large sections, the multilevel chunks of wreckage tumbled loosely across the landscape, smashing aside pine trees, and leaving behind a smoking contrail of buckled doors, twisted ladders, cookware, rifles, cables, tables and a host of severely smashed sec droids.

“Hallelujah,” Doc muttered, maintaining his death-grip on the wheel and forcing the boat to stay on course. With every passing tick of the clock, the companions got farther away from the crash site until it thankfully dropped below the horizon.

“All clear,” Doc shouted, swaying to the motion of the rough waves.

Prying themselves off the littered deck, the battered companions painfully rose to inspect the damage to their stolen boat. The Warhammer had a dozen splintery holes in the gunwale and deck of various sizes, but the hull still seemed intact and relatively seaworthy.

Unexpectedly, an aced squid bobbed to the surface of the lake, tentacles flopping listlessly. Next came an
assortment of various fish, then hundreds of them. In short order, the surface of the lake was packed solid with a sargasso of aced aquatic life of every description: fish, turtles, snakes, crabs, beavers, seals and a few things with multiple heads for which nobody had a name.

“After that, do you think the gateway is still working?” Krysty joked, trying not to smile. Every inch of her animated hair throbbed, and her stomach felt as though she had been rammed by a speeding Hummer.

“Not a chance,” Ryan stated. “That ship is triple aced.”

“Good.”

Coming up the stairs, J.B. anxiously looked over the companions. “Everybody okay?” he asked, straightening his glasses, only to yank them off and dry the wet lenses on a handkerchief.

“We’re fine, John,” Mildred replied, massaging the back of her neck. “Although, I feel like I’ve spent a year inside a cement mixer.”

“Okay, the break is over, back to work!” Ryan commanded, slapping his hands to get their attention. “J.B., join Doc in the wheelhouse and make sure we stay on the shortest course to Michigan. I’ll be down in the engine room chopping wood. Liana, rustle up some hot food. The rest of you check the hull for any leaks. We’ve got a bastard long trip to Michigan, and there’s no more land from here onward.”

“Easy pie,” Jak stated confidently, then frowned and turned with a hand tight on the butt of his blaster.

Softly in the distance, there came the muffled sounds of war drums.

Chapter Eighteen

Watching the craggy shoreline for any sign of the jacked steamboat, the barons and sec men heard the staggering array of explosions long before the longboats crested a rocky escarpment and saw that Green Mountain was gone.

In its place, thick gray smoke covered the shore like a wool blanket, and huge pieces of what looked like machinery were strewed around amid crushed trees and churned dirt, the irregular slabs of metal oddly steaming in the cool night air.

“By the lost gods, look at all that steel!” a sec man cried, pausing in his rowing. “There must be…be…” But the man had no word greater than pounds in his mind.

“All of it!” a sec woman shouted. “That is all of the fragging steel on the whole fragging world!”

“Metal! Unlimited metal!” a drummer whispered, lowering his stick, unable to believe the incredible sight.

Then the excited teenager recoiled in horror as a wave washed a score of limp fish onto the pebbled beach. The shore was covered with the shiny corpses, thousands of fish of every possible description lay on
the shore for as far as could be seen in the moonlight. Several foxes and bears had already come out of the woods to start feasting on the incredible bounty. There was even a flapjack dangling from a broken tree branch, dipping a translucent limb down to the beach to snag creatures and haul them back into the recess of some dark arboreal lair.

Hesitantly, a sec woman started to reach for a fat salmon, but then quickly pulled her hand back. Strange deaths were always trouble. Tons of hot metal and waves of aced fish. Had the sea been nuked? Were they all now going to die of the Red Cough from rad poisoning?

“Baron, how is this possible?” a corporal asked, licking dry lips, the lucky talisman of dried human tongue clutched tight in a gloved hand.

“Them,” Baron Wainwright answered, her hand white on the prow of the longboat. “I don’t know how, much less why, but this was done by the outlanders. I can feel it in my bones.”

“And there they are,” Baron Griffin announced, pointing toward the south.

Quickly, everybody turned. On the horizon, a thin trickle of smoke rose into the silvery light of the moon. Then it faded and was gone.

“My steamboat…” Wainwright began plaintively, then abruptly changed her tone into a strident roar. “Drummer! Give me ramming speed!”

As the musicians promptly started beating out a new tempo, a monstrous shape broke the water between the armada and their quarry, the mound of mottled flesh
and tentacles soon rising high enough to actually blot out the light of the moon.

“Dark night, a kraken,” a sergeant gasped, dropping an oar to fumble for his new longblaster.

“Flee! Swim for your lives!” a sec man yelled, and dived out of the longboat to frantically head for the shore.

Standing in the prow, Baron Griffin leveled his blaster and waited until the traitor reached dry land before firing. The .38 Ruger hollowpoint round plowed into the back of the man’s head, blowing his face across the weedy grass. Already aced, the body took a single step before collapsing, red blood pumping from the ghastly wound to pool around the twitching corpse before stopping.

Not a single drop of blood ever touched the water, but the noise echoed across the lake. Greedily feasting upon the multitude of aced fish, the kraken slowly turned toward the familiar sound and gazed stupidly for a moment at the flotilla of longboats. Then in growing comprehension, the gigantic mutie started toward the hated two-legs, howling loudly as it pushed the lake out of the way.

Instantly, every sec man began wildly shooting.

“Stop firing, you feebs!” Baron Wainwright commanded, rummaging inside a sack hanging from her belt. “Do nothing! Don’t even breathe!”

As the ragged barrage slowed to a halt, Wainwright pulled a small gourd from the sack, and yanked out the cork with her teeth to pour the oily contents directly into the lake. For a long minute, nothing happened, and the
kraken was almost upon them when the mutie incredibly slowed, then turned to quickly return to the deep waters.

The sec men from Northpoint ville cheered, while the ones from Anchor merely stared, dumbfounded. How was this possible?

“That was the blood of a dead kraken,” Wainwright said proudly, corking the gourd once more. “We chilled one several days ago, and I saved the blood for just such an emergency. It’s the only thing on the world that makes them flee.”

“Got any more?” Griffin asked hopefully.

She smiled without humor. “Plenty.”

“Enough to get us across the sea?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Dust, too?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent,” the baron growled, hope renewed in his heart. “All right, you heard my cousin! We want ramming speed!”

“Follow the outlanders!” Wainwright shouted, brandishing the gourd. “To the end of the world, and beyond!”

With a will, the tired sec men returned to their arduous task, grimly intent upon making the outlanders pay for their misery with the only coin of the realm.

HIGH OVERHEAD, polluted clouds formed a solid roof across the world, rumbling sheet lightning flashing across the churning banks of orange and purple fumes in a never-ending barrage.

Baiting one of the upholstery needles from her med kit with a rancid piece of beef left over from an old MRE pack, Mildred found the atmospheric display oddly comforting. The closer the companions got to the mainland, the more the weather was returning to normal. The sky looked like hell, but it was familiar, and it had been well over a day since they last saw any fog, much less the aurora borealis.

Artfully casting out the makeshift fishing pole, Mildred immediately started pulling in the line by hand, jerking it occasionally to try to give the meat on the hook a semblance of life. So far, none of the companions had any luck fishing, and they were starting to get dangerously low on food. Liana had been unable to summon any snakes this far from land, and Jak had already cleaned out the bilge of rats, yielding far fewer than would have been expected on a craft this size. In another couple of days, the companions would not have anything to eat.

“Well, madam?” Doc shouted from the wheelhouse, both hands draped casually over the wheel.

“Still coming!” Mildred replied, casting again.

“Indeed. The bastards can probably hear our engine, the same way we do their drums!” Doc yelled back, checking the compass to keep them on course. “Most certainly, they can have no compass or sextant as a navigational aid.”

“They’re just following the smoke,” J.B. stated, sitting cross-legged on the deck and tinkering with something inside his munitions bag.

Reeling in the soggy line, Mildred involuntarily
glanced at the thick column of black exhaust rising from the chimney and seeming to go all the way to the tumultuous sky. This far out on the open water, the smoke stood out like the finger of God, pointing straight down at the huffing boat.

Just then, something moved below the water, causing a low swell that rocked the boat slightly.

“Is that a kraken?” Mildred whispered, reaching for her blaster.

Rising, Liana took a look at the wake of bubbles. “No, just an elephant,” she replied, sitting.

Everybody exchanged glances at the strange pronouncement, but since Liana did not seem concerned in the least, the companions returned to their tasks. Weapons and food were always a prime concern.

“Well, I want to know how they’re keeping pace,” Krysty demanded, trying her own luck over the side with a spear lashed to another spear to double the reach. “Gaia, we’ve got a bastard steam engine and they’re always just over the horizon!”

“Agreed. They should have passed out from exhaustion after the first day or so,” Mildred replied, casting once more and jiggling the line. For three long days, the Warhammer had steadily chugged across the vast expanse of the lake without sighting land or another vessel. It almost seemed as if the little craft was alone in the world, and the companions were the very last people alive. Then the wind would shift a little, and there came the muffled sound of those timing drums again. Forever just on the edge of disillusionment, but as unchanging as the beat of a human heart.

“Liana, do the barons have any more engines?” J.B. asked, holding up a U.S. Army chem fuse to visually check for any corrosion. “Or maybe some sort of a trained mutie that can pull a longboat, the way a horse does a cart?”

“No, those all died in the Black Fog long before I was born,” Liana replied, fingering her flute. “These days, the barons use a white powder. Craz stuff. They give it to the slaves when they’re out chopping through the winter ice. It makes them trip strong, and they can’t feel any pain anymore. They don’t sleep, or even want to eat, or nothing. They just work away, laughing.”

“Laughing?” Mildred demanded with a scowl, pulling in the line by hand to inspect the hook. The untouched beef was still there. “You sure about that?”

Blowing a single clear note on the flute, Liana nodded in reply. “Oh, yes, I’ve seen a slave accidentally chop off his own leg and keep on breaking ice, still singing a happy work song until he toppled over.”

“That sounds like some form of PCP,” the physician guessed. “Probably mixed with jolt or wolfweed.”

Having no answer for that, Liana merely shrugged and went back to playing her instrument, concentrating on calling in snakes to the baited hooks on the fishing lines. However, there was no answering tug inside her mind, aside from a faint sensation coming from the direction of Krysty. Liana glanced that way to see the redhead looking back. The two woman shared a secret smile, then went back to their work.

Angrily casting again, Mildred tried to recall the lessons she’d learned at summer camp to make the
wind carry her line farther away from the boat than she could possibly throw. Wonder of wonders, it actually worked, and the baited hook hit with a plop, then sank out of sight. Wonderful, we’re being chased by a small army of murdering lunatics cranked on animal tranquilizers, Mildred raged internally, moving the pole back and forth. In her time, Angel Dust had been the scourge of the civilized world. That was, until the arrival of crack, and then crystal meth. Often, it seemed to the physician that humanity had always been trying to destroy itself in some manner or other, with skydark merely being the inevitable, and terrible, success.

Stomping sounds from the stairwell heralded Ryan’s arrival from belowdecks. Dripping sweat, the one-eyed man was stripped to his shorts and combat boots, a rag holding back his long curly hair. Taking a bucket from a niche, he filled it from over the side and poured the contents over his head, sluicing his body clean.

“Hi, lover, how’s the fuel?” Krysty asked with a smile.

Without replying, Ryan smashed the bucket over a raised knee and tucked the pieces under his arm before wearily stomping back down the stairs. A few moments later, Jak appeared holding an ax. Wordlessly, the half-naked teenager hacked apart the door to the stairwell, then made a bundle of the slats and returned to the engine room.

“My guess would be that we are out, dear lady,” Doc said loudly from the wheelhouse, looking at where the speaking tube had been only a few hours ago. That had been the first thing deemed as unnecessary, and taken
to burn in the firebox of the engine. “How far do we have yet to travel, John Barrymore?”

J.B. took out the minisextant and scanned the stormy clouds until getting a brief glimpse of the sun. Quickly, he did a few mental calculations, then checked a plastic map of North America. “According to this, we’re already fifty miles inland,” he snarled. “So I have no idea where we are at the moment.”

“Unless this is—” She stopped talking at the sight of Liana sitting bolt upright then spinning around to stare at the front of the boat.

“Trouble?” J.B. asked, reaching for the Uzi machine pistol. “Did the barons somehow get ahead of us?”

“No, it’s snakes,” Liana cried happily. “I can feel them in my mind. Hundreds and hundreds of snakes.”

“Food.” Mildred sighed in obvious relief.

“Better,” Liana stated, rushing to the gunwale and leaning dangerously over the side. “These snakes hate the water. Any type of water.”

That took a full second to process. “They’re on dry land?” Mildred asked softly, the words pregnant with hope.

“And there it is!” Krysty shouted, squinting into the distance. Far ahead of the boat was a rising swell of green that rapidly extended along the horizon as snowcapped mountains gradually began to ascend toward the heavens. Then the ruins of a metropolis came into focus, a ragged array of windowless skyscrapers and crumbling office buildings, and some kind of a dome.

This city was in just about the worst state of anything Krysty had ever seen. Most of the masonry had crum
bled back into the soil from which it came, leaving only the bare metal skeleton jutting like the bones of a decaying corpse.

“Yeah, we’re not gonna find anything useful there,” J.B. announced glumly, adjusting his glasses. “Aside from rust and dust and a zillion cockroaches.”

Stashing away her fishing tackle, Mildred grunted at that. In high school she had been taught that the common roach was as resistant to hard radiation as any living creature could be without mutating. Her teacher had theorized that after a nuclear war the lone survivor on the planet would most likely be the lowly roach. And he hadn’t been half wrong.