Shadow Fortress

“There she is,” he said, indicating the direction with his chin.

Pulling himself onto the stout branch, J.B. could only marvel at the titanic machine sprawled in the treetops before them. It was gigantic.

More than a hundred feet long, the incredible aircraft supported two huge engines with six propellers on each wing. Vines and creepers covered the plane, only the glass of the cockpit and the tail rudder clearly visible amid the flowering creepers. It was a wonder Dean had spotted it from a mile away.

“That’s a Hercules,” Ryan said, swaying to the wind. It was a lot stronger up there and carried a strong taste of salt from the nearby ocean. “Saw a picture of one in a redoubt, pinned to the wall like a girlie poster.”

“Yeah, I know,” J.B. replied. “I spent a month living in a crashed wreck once. Good planes.”

Carefully, Ryan glanced downward. “Any chance the sec men could see us up here?”

“No way in hell,” Krysty replied, crawling into view. Then the woman paused at the sight of the huge plane. “That flew?”

“Like an angel,” Mildred said, pulling herself along a vine and stepping onto a branch. “The Hercules C-130.”

In a short while, the rest of the companions arrived, Jak and Doc last, the elderly man assisting the wounded teenager to a fork in the trunk. The Cajun gave the old man a nod in thanks and settled his aching back against the trunk of the tree.

“No way this thing flew,” Dean stated flatly. “No way.”

“Big mother,” Jak agreed, massaging his throbbing ankle.

Careful of his footing, Ryan walked along the branch and experimentally rested a boot on the tip of a wing. It didn’t move, so he put on more and more weight until he was standing fully on the leafy metal. Nothing moved. He chanced a jump, and the leaves shook a little, but the plane remained firmly in place. There was no way anybody could have moved such a colossal machine into the treetops to make a hidden ville. The aircraft had to have crashed here during a storm, and the branches grew around the trapped plane over the decades, trapping it forever.

Moving to a more secure position, Ryan brushed away the vines to see a smooth expanse of green metal. There was no sign of rust. He rapped it with a knuckle and heard nothing. Too solid to echo. Good enough. If it hadn’t fallen in a hundred years, there was no reason it should this day.

“Okay, it’s safe,” Ryan said to the others over a shoulder. “She’s solid as a rock, moored in place by over a dozen trees. Couldn’t move the damn thing if we wanted.”

Curiously, the rest of the companions started warily closer, with Jak staying behind to guard their flanks. The aspirins had helped ease his pain, but not a lot.

“Yeah, this should be okay for a temp shelter,”

J.B. said, adjusting his glasses to glance at the fiery storm clouds overhead. The metal hull would protect them from any acid rain. If they had to stay somewhere until Jak healed, this was as good a place as any.

“Certainly be a triple-bad bitch to attack,” Krysty agreed, placing one boot carefully ahead of the other as she crossed the wing.

His long hair blowing in the steady wind, Ryan scowled at the pronouncement. Proceeding very slowly with a hand hovering near his blaster, the man surveyed what he could of the downed behemoth. There was no sign of anybody using it as a home. The cockpit windows weren’t broken, the side hatch was still in place and the aft cargo hatch appeared to be sealed shut. He relaxed with the knowledge that they were the first to discover the predark wreckage.

Warily, the Deathlands warrior eased along the network of branches between the wing and the front of the plane to reach the cockpit windows. A layer of dust covered the plastic, and he used a handful of leaves to brush the transparent material clean. The sun was at the wrong angle to illuminate the interior, so Ryan cupped hands around his face to try to see inside. After a few minutes, his eye became adjusted to the darkness. The pilot and copilot were still strapped in their chairs, their skeleton hands on their throats. Their uniforms were mixed; the pilot was Air Force, the copilot Army, the navigator Navy. There were blasters in flap-covered holsters at their sides, and he thought there was another skeleton slumped over a radio set just aft of the cockpit, but it was too dark to tell. But the major factor was the complete lack of vines, spiderwebs or even cobwebs inside the vehicle. The hull hadn’t been breached over the long decades.

“Hull is still intact,” Ryan stated to the others. “There are skeletons inside.”

“How are the seats?” J.B. asked.

“Never been touched.”

“Dark night, our first good luck in weeks.” J.B. sighed.

Careful of his balance, the man traversed the tangled vines to reach the side door and ran a finger along the seam. There was a light coating of moss and some windblown seed pods, but nothing serious. J.B. started pulling out tools from his munitions bag and got to work releasing the ancient catch.

“No structural damage in sight. Doesn’t look like it hit bad enough to chill the crew,” Krysty commented. “So why didn’t they leave?”

It was a good question and Ryan quickly checked the rad counter on his lapel, but saw only the usual background count. There had been “clean” nukes used in the war that didn’t leave lingering rads. Maybe that was what happened here. An airburst caught the plane and threw it into the trees with the crew already dead from the rad burst.

Or perhaps whatever the soldiers were carrying as cargo had burst open on the rough landing and chilled the crew instantly.

Spinning, Ryan started to shout a warning when J.B. stepped away from the aircraft. The Deathlands warrior could only watch as the door dropped open and out billowed a dry metallic wind tasting of ancient death.

Chapter Two

Dust rose in tiny clouds around his shuffling boots and sweat dripped off his haggard face, but Cal Mitchum forced himself onward, raw hatred fueling his every step.

Using his longblaster as a crutch, the chief sec man continued along the jungle trail, pieces of predark asphalt appearing now and then from under the layer of windblown dirt. For some unknown reason, the jungle stopped at the side of the roadway, only the tiniest of creepers daring to grow across the old road. Perhaps it was some ancient science that held off the plants, or maybe it was simply that there was no nourishment in the soil atop the hard black macadam. He had no idea. The world was full of unanswerable questions, and a man would go futz-brained if he tried to solve them all. Mitchum found a simplified view of life was sufficient for him: stand by your baron, keep your word, treat your sec men like children and get revenge in any way possible.

Ryan had betrayed the chief sec man and shot him in the shoulder and thigh, leaving him for dead after Mitchum warned Ryan of the arrival of Glassman. The son of a bitch had said they were flesh wounds and would convince the baron of his story of the companions jumping him. But Mitchum didn’t believe a word of that bullshit. Ryan had tried to ace him to cover his escape, and simply fucked it up. The outlander would pay for that, if Mitchum had to walk every trail to every ville in the Thousand Islands. He would find the one-eyed bastard, cut out his beating heart and make him eat it raw.

Every step was torture, but Mitchum kept moving. His almond skin was turning light gray from the accumulated dust, and his bandaged shoulder stung from the sweat seeping into the wound. His thigh throbbed like the pounding surf. But pain could be controlled. He’d suffered worse defending his ville, and still been alive to watch the crucifixion of the attackers. Pain made you strong.

An odd motion in a bush made Mitchum jerk alert, and he drew a flintlock pistol from his belt with lightning speed. Pushing the weapon across his chest, he cocked back the hammer and leveled the blaster ready to fire when two hands rose above the greenery and waved in surrender.

“Don’t shoot!” a man’s voice called, and out stepped a young sec man in unfamiliar garb. “Damn, you’re fast with a blaster, sir.”

The stranger was in ragged clothes made from beaten hemp fibers. He had a spear in his hand, a bow and arrow strapped to his back and a flintlock pistol tucked into his rope belt.

“Who the fuck are you, boy?” Mitchum growled, the gaping maw of the .75 black powder weapon never wavering from the stranger’s stomach. He normally went for a chest shot, but in his weakened condition, Mitchum wasn’t sure he could ride the recoil of the hog-leg enough to keep the miniball on target. Best to aim for the belt buckle and let the lead hit the other man in the face. Anything above the waist was a clean hit. Afterwards he could cut the kid’s throat and steal his ammo.

The youth started to answer when the sound of engines filled the air and Mitchum dropped the long-blaster to painfully draw and cock the other flintlock pistol. Adrenaline pounded in his veins, giving the exhausted sec man the needed strength to stand and watch the convoy of Hummers appear around a curve in the road. The wags were badly dented and streaked with dirt, the grilles filled with clumps of vegetation. But long .30-cal machine guns rested on fancy supports, the back seats filled with armed sec men. And more importantly, Captain Glassman was in the front wag, his hands on the windshield to keep standing. His light brown hair was pushed off his grim face, exposing the flares of gray at his temples. Liver spots dotted his hands, and he was unshaved.

“Full stop,” Henry Glassman yelled, and the convoy braked to a ragged halt.

The thin commander of the lord baron’s navy was dressed in loose gray clothing and sandals, the standard wide leather belt around his middle serving as a tool belt and holster for his flintlock and an even bigger predark revolver. A machete hung handle down in a shoulder holster. The navvies, as his sec men liked to be called, were heavily tattooed, displaying their ranks on their faces, and dressed in a similar way, making them easy to spot among the others in the wags. Old and young men, their crude homemade uniforms were identical to that worn by the man in the bushes.

As the engines were turned off to save juice, Captain Glassman looked over Mitchum and could readily tell the bad news. The big sec man was battered and bruised, his crew of twenty armed riders nowhere in sight. Glassman could guess what happened; Ryan and the others had ambushed the patrol and aced the riders with only Mitchum surviving—probably from sheer stubbornness. The sec man was stronger than an armored tank, nearly unkillable. Everybody in his ville was terrified of the man, and most considered him a mutie of some sort. But nobody had ever dared to say that aloud.

“This idiot yours?” Mitchum sneered, gesturing at the youngster still standing in the bushes.

“A scout,” Glassman answered. “We sent out a dozen. Private, get your ass in the wags. Campbell!”

“Yes, sir?” the sergeant rumbled from behind the wheel of the first wag. Campbell had a smiling face and laughing eyes. He always seemed amused, even as he sliced off a tongue or testicle. His face was a mask of tattoos, showing his rise, fall and subsequent rise again in the navy of Lord Baron Kinnison, ruler of the Thousand Islands. Unlike any of the others, Campbell was armed with a sleek bolt-action long-blaster, and a bandolier of long brass shells was slung across his chest. He was both the top kick for the captain and his executioner should the officer fail to recover the outlanders.

“When we get back, give this feeb ten lashes with the whip for this failure,” Glassman ordered, climbing from the Hummer.

“Done,” Campbell said and smiled pleasantly.

“B-but, sir!” the private said, fighting his way out of the thorny plants to stand on the roadway. “I was sent to find Colonel Mitchum, and I did!”

Checking his blaster, Glassman snorted in disdain. “Seems more like he found you. And now it’s ten lashes with a whip soaked in salt water. Any more objections, and I’ll make it twenty.”

Silently, the sec man stumbled toward the rear of the convoy to be as far away from the sergeant as possible.

Leaving the rest of the troops behind, Glassman walked over to Mitchum and softly said, “Okay, tell me.”

“They live,” the man replied simply, easing down the hammers of both his blasters. “Caught us in a boobie and fried my men alive.”

Glassman scowled. Alive was all he cared about. Kinnison was going to exchange his family for the outlanders, but only if they were still breathing. Briefly, he considered chilling Mitchum right there, then realized that was stupe.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find them,” the captain said, patting the man on his good shoulder. “Do you have anything that was worn by one of the outlanders, or better, has their blood on it?”

“You got dogs?” Mitchum asked suspiciously, glancing at the wags.

“Something close enough.”

There was only one other possibility. “Hunters!” the sec chief gasped, backing away a step. “Are you mad?”

“No Hunters,” Glassman snapped. “The local baron had one that he claimed was tame as a gaudy slut. Even did tricks, and such. Shot it dead in its cage. There is no such thing as a tame Hunter. They just act whipped until that door is open, and then rip off your head.”

“Smart move,” Mitchum said, sagging a little as his thigh trembled with weakness. For a moment, he gazed at the wags longingly, then stood tall once more.

The captain tucked his thumbs into his wide belt. “We’ve got a dozen hunting dogs trained to track escaped slaves. You give us anything with their smell, and those beasts will track them through fire and water.”

“Lots of bloody clothing at the wreckage,” Mitch-um said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Most of it is burned, but mebbe something is still usable.”

“Good,” the captain said, turning to the wags. “Corporal Yantar! Take a squad and check over the wreckage of a wag down the road. I want anything stained with human blood. Anything at all. If these dogs are any damn good, they should be able to track the scents of a dozen slaves with no trouble.”

The corporal grinned, displaying badly stained teeth. “We’ll have those outies in chains by nightfall! I’d bet my life on it!”

“Accepted,” Mitchum grunted. “Find them by darkness, or we leave you staked out for muties.”

Going pale, Yantar scrambled from the Hummer to join the sec men walking past the officers and headed for the wreckage.

“Better get in a wag, Mitchum,” Glassman ordered. “Have the healer check those wounds. Should put some shine on them, and a little in you to ease the pain.”

“I’ll walk,” Mitchum replied stiffly. “Can’t show weakness in front of my men.”

“They aren’t your sec men,” Glassman stated coldly. “All of your troops are chilled. These are my navvies, and some of the local baron’s grunts. They obey only me. Now, get in the bastard wag. You’re the only person alive who has seen the faces of the outlanders, and I may need that in case they try to slip through us to steal a boat. I’m gonna keep you alive at any cost, so get in or get dragged in like a chained slave. I don’t care. Your choice.”

“How about we try this instead, ya skinny fuck. Tell them I’m your new chief,” Mitchum growled softly, “or I blow you in half.”

There was a jab into his gut, and Glassman looked down to see a blaster pressed against his stomach, the hammer pulled back and ready to fire. The barrel was warm, but it sent a chill down his back. Unfortunately, Glassman was blocking the view so there was no way the sec men in front, or behind, could see he was in danger.

“Decide fast,” Mitchum ordered, touching him up a little with the barrel. “Share the command or die. Your choice.”

Glassman could feel sweat forming on his face, but kept his voice level and forced out a soft chuckle. “Black dust, I’m impressed. Always need men good as you. But the lord baron wants the outlanders alive. Agree to that, and you’re my new top kick.”

The blaster moved forward an inch. “No.”

“Then do it, gimp,” Glassman spit, pressing his body against the blaster, forcing a surprised Mitchum to back up. “Shoot me and watch my men take you apart as I drop.”

Temporarily outmaneuvered, Mitchum clenched his teeth, fighting the pain of his wounds and the burning desire to seek revenge. Few men would face down a weapon to their guts. Glassman had to be a fanatic, or Kinnison had a hold on him more frightening than death.

“I get to ace Ryan, you get the rest,” he offered hatefully.

“Agreed,” Glassman stated, then bellowed over a shoulder. “Sergeant Campbell!”

“Sir?” came the prompt reply.

“Mitchum here will be assuming your duties as my second in command. You’re the new top gunner.”

Looking around the dirty windshield, Campbell stared at the two men talking down the road. Something was going on, but since he had no idea what it was, he’d best just obey orders for the present.

“Yes, sir!” Campbell shouted, stepping into the rear of the vehicle to take a position at the big machine gun.

“Satisfied?” Glassman asked, staring the man in the face.

“For the moment,” Mitchum said, jabbing the sailor with the muzzle of his flintlock one more time, then holstering the piece. “But remember, I took you face-to-face, while surrounded by your stinking troops, and I can do it again whenever I please.”

“Mebbe,” Glassman muttered.

“Try me anytime,” the wounded man growled, shuffling for the lead Hummer, then bitterly added, “sir.”

“Count on it,” Glassman whispered, but only the ocean breeze heard the words.

AS THE LONG EXHALATION of stale air ceased flowing from the inside of the plane, the companions stopped holding their breaths and took a tentative sniff. The interior of the craft still reeked faintly of rotten flesh, kerosene and dust, but the smell was quickly fading as the fresh clean air of the jungle poured into the ancient cargo bay.

His blaster leading the way, Ryan walked inside and waited for his vision to adjust to the dim recesses of the giant aircraft. J.B. and the others were right behind him, with Doc staying at the open hatch and Jak remaining in the tree.

The scant light coming in through the open hatch-way of the C-130 was barely sufficient to see anything, so Krysty and Dean lit candles, while Mildred dug a small flashlight from her med kit. Pumping the handle a few times to charge the ancient batteries, she flicked its switch and out came a strong white beam that soon faded to a soft yellow. The hundred-year-old device was slowly dying, and there was no way the physician could ever replace it. But the weak light filled the cargo bay of the aircraft, outshining the dancing flames of the tallow candles.

The ceiling was twenty or so feet above them, and heavily padded with some sort of insulation material. Pieces of ventilation conduits, wiring and fuel pipes showed here and there for maintenance. Directly in front of Ryan was a row of seats filled with the bones of dead crew members. To his left, a door was set into a metal wall that led to the front ammo bunkers and the washroom. Alongside that was a short flight of stairs going to a veined door with multiple hinges, the access to the cockpit. J.B. went straight up the steps and checked the door.

“Give me a sec, it’s locked,” he announced, pulling tools out of his bag.

Moving deeper into the behemoth, Ryan saw the main body of the aircraft extended for yards and yards, with huge canvas lumps filling the central passageway, the mounds of cargo resting on thick pallets and firmly lashed into place by a dozen ropes and chains. The distant rear of the craft was lost in shadows. Dean headed that way along the left wall, and soon came back along the right.

“Nothing else but these things,” the boy said, nudging a pallet with his boot. “No more bones or doors.”

“Careful opening those,” Krysty warned, lifting her candle high to follow the path of some power cables. “The gov often booby-trapped important cargo.”

“Gotcha,” Dean said, moving away from the canvas mound. He made a mental note to ask J.B. to start teaching him about traps and locks. It was an important skill these days.

At the open hatch, Doc stomped on the deck, crushing something with a lot of legs under his boot. “Be-gone, Visigoth!” he snorted, and kicked the dead millipede onto the wing. As it landed on the leaves, the vines twitched and a flower bent over it to close its rainbow petals about the pulped insect and start eating.

“A sylvan glade, indeed,” Doc muttered, holstering his LeMat.

Going to the wall seats, Ryan inspected the desiccated skeleton of paratroopers still strapped in place. Their uniforms were only rags now, the fresh air making them crumble apart. Each man and woman was armed with an M-16 carbine and a side arm. But all of the weapons were so heavily rusted salvage was impossible. Only the plastic stocks of M-16s and the rubber grips of the handblasters were still in pristine condition. The rest of the steel had been corroded by acid, eaten clean through in spots. The weapons had been fired just before the plane crashed, the cordite exhaust gas mixing with the moisture in the atmosphere to make carbolic acid that destroyed the weapons slowly. He checked the clips and found them full of lumpy green brass and loose lead rounds. Placing the rapidfire aside, he tried the automatic blasters and found they were in the same condition. Had to have been a hell of a firefight somewhere. He studied the sheets of insulation lining the hull and saw no signs of bullet holes. Perhaps the troopers had seized the craft by force to escape the nukestorm. He would never know, but it seemed a logical guess.

Inspecting the collection of uniformed bones, Krysty discovered that one of the officers was a woman with a large military chron on her wrist. Krysty removed the timepiece and wound the stem to see if it worked. The watch started ticking without pause and continued steadily. Thank Gaia! She removed her own wrist chron smashed in the bus crash and slid on the new chron. It fit fine, and hopefully was a lot tougher than her old model.

“How are the blasters?” she asked, adjusting the strap on the mechanism.

“Pure junk,” Ryan stated, shoving the rusted lump of metal that had once been a 10 mm Colt back into its dusty holster.

“I see something,” Mildred said, retrieving a briefcase from under the wall seats. A handcuff dangled from its steel handle, but there was no way of knowing which of the dead soldiers it had once been attached to. Setting her flashlight on an empty seat, Mildred tried to open the case but it was firmly locked. However, her belt knife swiftly cut through the leather flap holding the carrying case closed. Inside were hundreds of papers bearing government seals, but the printing was so faded with age it was impossible to read in the dim light.

“Probably just a duty roster,” Krysty said, holding her candle dangerously close to the yellowed paper.

“Most likely,” Mildred agreed, watching some of the faxes crumble into dust at her touch. “I’ll take these outside and see if I can read them there.”

As the woman left, Krysty started going through the remnants of the uniforms, and Ryan went to the base of the stairs. “How’s it coming?” he asked, his voice echoing slightly in the confines of the great vessel.

“Almost through,” J.B. answered, both hands busy with lock picks.

Stepping out of the forward hold, Dean glanced at the two men working on the door to the cockpit. “How’s it coming?” he asked.

Ryan allowed himself a brief smile. Like father, like son. “Almost through,” he said.

“Well, I checked the front blasters,” the boy said. “See if we could salvage anything. But they’re rusted solid, the barrels full with bird nests. Lots of 40 mm and 20 mm ammo shells in the ammo bunkers, but the brass is covered with corrosion.”

Mildred walked back in and tossed the briefcase back under the seats. “Krysty was right, just a cargo manifest.”