Shadow Fortress

“Nothing useful, then?” Dean asked hopefully.

“No weapons or food.”

“Damn.”

“Got it,” J.B. said, the armored door to the cockpit swung aside on creaking hinges.

There was another rush of stale air, and after it passed, Ryan and J.B. stepped into the cockpit, their faces tense with anticipation. The sunlight streamed in through the leafy-edged windows, casting odd shadows. The remains of the command crew were in the same positions, but now their clothing was starting to visibly decompose at the invasion of clean air. Ryan gave the skeletons a fast glance, while J.B. took out his compass and went to the dashboard. He flipped several switches until the needle stopped jerking.

“It was their emergency beacon,” he said, tucking away the compass. “The nuke batteries were almost drained. Another couple of months and we never would have found this plane.”

Lying on the deck, Ryan was looking under the pilot’s chair. “Seals are unbroken,” he announced, running his fingertips along the undercarriage of the pilot’s seat.

“Same here,” J.B. said, doing the same to the copilot’s chair. “We might just be in luck here.”

Both men got busy with their knives, removing service panels, and then slicing through the nest of wiring inside the seats. They knew the sequence, blue, green, red, and each man did the job carefully. Ejector seats were tricky. Ryan remembered when Finn tried to take one apart too fast and it launched straight through the top of the plane, damn near taking his head along with it for a ride. And the fiery blast of the launch nearly aced the Trader.

Soon, they had the ejector rockets disassembled and toppled the seat to extract a sturdy plastic box shaped like a lopsided arch.

The boxes were sealed airtight, but J.B. made short work of the lock. Lining the inside was some form of clear plastic wrapping that knives wouldn’t cut. But Ryan found a ring tab on the side and gently pulled it along the seam, the plastic parting sluggishly to expose a layer of gray foam. Tossing away the plastic, Ryan removed the foam cushion to finally uncover an assortment of supplies, each neatly nestled in a shaped depression in the gray foam. It was the wealth of the predark world in perfect condition.

“Good stuff?” Dean asked curiously, craning his neck to see.

“The best,” his father replied.

“This is a pilot’s survival kit,” J.B. said, grinning in triumph. “An emergency pack for a crashed pilot to grab as he ran from a burning plane, just enough supplies to keep him alive for a few weeks until a rescue team could arrive.”

“Haven’t seen one in years,” Krysty said, watching the proceedings eagerly. “They are almost always taken after the crash.”

“Not this time,” Ryan said, and began laying out the contents in a neat row.

J.B. freed the copilot’s survival kit and then started defusing the navigator’s chair. Soon the five seats were in pieces and the precious kits splayed open wide.

There were five 9 mm Heckler & Koch blasters, vials of oil, fifteen empty clips, ten boxes of ammo. Survival knives with whetstones, fishing line and hooks, dye markers, Veri pistols with colored flares, signal mirrors, water-purification tabs, gold coins, MRE packs, spools of wire, bundles of rope and med kits.

J.B. called Mildred in from outside, and the physician eagerly went through the collection of pills and capsules, throwing away most of the drugs. Even sealed in an airtight container, a lot of the chemicals would lose their potency over the long decades, and a few would turn lethal. Everything else she placed in her battered shoulder bag: bandages, bug-repellent sticks, elastic bandages, methamphetamines, barbiturates, sulfur powder, antiseptic cream—as hard as a rock but reclaimable—sunscreen, toothpaste, three hypodermic needles, sutures, surgical thread, iodine tablets and silver-based antibiotics.

After taking inventory, the companions divided the supplies, each taking what he or she needed the most. Ryan and J.B. split the 9 mm ammo, the Uzi getting the lion’s share. Ryan, Krysty and Mildred each took one of the fancy two-tone H&K blasters to replace their depleted weapons. Neither woman cared for autofires, the things had a bad tendency to jam just when you needed them the most. However, fifteen shots of maybe was better than two rounds of definite.

Since his Browning had a full clip, Dean took the Veri pistol and studied the single-shot blaster until figuring out how the 30 mm breechloader worked. The catch was very simple. Satisfied, he tucked away the blaster and filled his pockets with the flares. The stubby gun could throw a flare three hundred feet into the air, where it would detonate into brilliant colors to help searchers find a lost crew member. But the device could also fire horizontally and punch a sizzling flare straight through a man at fifty feet.

Nodding in approval, Krysty took the other Veri pistol and the rest of the signal flares.

“Be right back,” Mildred said, checking the elastic strength of the bandage. “I’m going to wrap Jak again. This will get him back on his feet.”

“Good. Give him this, too,” Ryan said, tossing her an extra H&K pistol. “No spare ammo, but it’s something.”

“Right.” She made the catch and disappeared down the ramp to the broad wing.

“Here’s your share, Doc,” J.B. said, placing a pile of food packs, soap, razor blades and other assorted small items next to the man sitting on the ramp. Amid the salvage was the last of the H&K pistols.

“Thank you,” Doc said solemnly, reluctantly lifting the blaster for examination. The LeMat was on its last reload. Nine shots and he was defenseless.

Awkwardly, Doc worked the slide of the blaster, chambering a round, and experimented dropping the clip, then inserting it again.

“Think he’ll take it?” Dean mumbled around a mouthful of cherry-nut cake, the other envelopes scattered on the floor around his boots. He had been starving, but then he was constantly starving these days.

Weighing the weapon in a palm, Doc made his decision and clicked on the safety of the sleek blaster to tuck it away in his frock coat.

Just then, Mildred rushed into view. “Great news,” she said, clambering into the airship.

“Jak can walk now?” Ryan said as a question. “Good.”

“Better than that,” she said excitedly. “Remember those cargo manifests I was looking at? Couldn’t read them at all, until Jak smeared the paper with gun oil. Damned if that didn’t bring the words out nice and clear.”

“What were they carrying?” Krysty asked, glancing at the six huge canvas lumps on their stout pallets. “Hovercrafts?”

“Weather-sensing equipment,” she said in a rush. “Balloons to carry computerized pods high into the sky to check on the pollution levels from the old nukes. See if the air was any better.”

“Stop using the nukes,” Dean said bluntly, wiping his face with a moist towelette. “Then the air would get better.”

“Amen,” Doc agreed roughly.

“Weather balloons,” Ryan repeated slowly, then stood and walked over to the first pallet. It was the triple-craziest idea he had ever heard. “Big ones?”

“Thirty feet across.”

“How many?”

“Hundreds,” Mildred said eagerly. “A year’s supply for the testing station. Don’t know the lift-to-drag ratio. So we just make it as large as possible. Always best to err on the side of power.”

“We’d need something for a basket,” Ryan said, nudging the shipping pallet with his boot. The honeycomb plastic was a good foot thick, and more than ten feet wide on each side. Designed to airdrop supplies to troops in the field, the pallets would make perfect bottoms. “These should work fine. They’re light and very strong. Just no sides.”

“We can tie extra ropes around support ropes,” Krysty said quickly. She finally realized what they were discussing. “Weave a basket around the pallet. And we can use the ropes lashing down the canvas to hold it all together. The cargo netting is plastic and should certainly be strong enough.”

“You folks firing blanks?” J.B. asked skeptically, thumbing the last round into a clip, then easing the magazine into the Uzi. He worked the bolt, chambering a round, and slung the weapon over his shoulder. “We’re going to fly to Forbidden Island?”

Standing, Doc wet a finger and held it outside. “The wind is blowing in the correct direction,” he announced. “Well done, madam. An exemplary idea! There is no way Mitchum could follow us aloft.”

“Fly the Hercules?” Dean asked, frowning. “Hot pipe, this thing will never eat clouds again. It’s completely aced.”

“We’re not going to use the plane,” Mildred told him, crossing the deck to the first canvas mound. She ran a hand over the rough expanse of material. “We’ll fly the cargo.”

“Worked once before. Why not again?” Ryan mused.

“How can we steer?” Dean asked bluntly.

“We’ll wet blankets and hold them over the side,” Krysty explained. “That’ll give us some drag, and as we slow down to the left, to drift to the left.”

“Crude and dangerous,” Doc rumbled. “Yet, alas, we don’t really have another choice.”

“Anybody want to row across fifty miles of open sea with those steam-powered PT boats hunting for us all the way?” Ryan asked brusquely.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Didn’t think so,” Ryan said, cracking the knuckles of his hand. “Okay, we start with the ropes.”

Chapter Three

Dean was surprised how easily the craft was constructed.

The sun was hovering just above the horizon by the time the balloon was ready to launch. The cargo netting barely proved adequate to contain the weather balloons as they were filled with helium from the pressurized tanks. With each balloon, another rope had been tied to the plastic pallet to keep the craft from soaring away, and the companions ceased adding balloons only when the overhead net was completely filled, the anchor ropes creaking from the strain of containing the lighter-than-air vehicle.

“These will help,” Krysty said, tying a lumpy bag to the pallet. Trousers from the dead paratroopers were tied off to make crude sacks, and then filled with broken pieces of electronic equipment from the cockpit. The counterweight would give them a hair more control over the flying craft. Not much, but every little bit helped. But the balloons didn’t descend in the slightest until six more of the heavy bags were lashed into place.

“She’s got more than enough lift,” Mildred said, beaming in pleasure at the buoyant craft. The bobbing net filled with the taut balloons nearly blocked out the stars it was so large. “We’ll ride like kings on the wind.”

“Till crash-land,” Jak added grimly, standing guard over the pile of their backpacks. They had all removed their packs to work faster, but wisely didn’t toss them into the rope basket of the flying machine until ready to launch. If a rope broke and the packs soared away with all the food and ammo, they would be good as chilled.

“She needs a name,” Dean said, studying the huge thing, then glanced at the airplane. “Did Hercules have a kid?”

Checking the anchor ropes, Doc paused to scratch his head. “Indeed, he did. Three sons, but I cannot recall any of their names.”

“Don’t need a name, long as it works,” Ryan said, zipping up his pants as he stepped from the plane. “Remember to use the washroom before we go. And throw away anything not needed. Weight is at a premium.” The craft had plenty of lift now, but not with seven people in its basket.

“Never thought we’d leave the island this way,” J.B. observed, placing a cigar in his mouth. The pilot had been carrying a pocket humidor of the best quality, and two of the cigars inside were in smokable condition. The Armorer was trying hard to quit, but sometimes the urge simply couldn’t be denied.

Reaching in a pocket, he pulled out a butane lighter and Doc rushed forward to snatch the device from his grasp.

“Are you mad, John Barrymore?” Doc whispered urgently, brandishing the lighter. “Hydrogen is extremely flammable! One spark and we’ll be blown to pieces.”

“Not filled with hydrogen,” J.B. replied curtly. “Helium.”

Doc paused in confusion. “Helium,” he repeated slowly. “The word sounds familiar, but I fear its meaning eludes me.”

Refilling the canteens from a lotus flower that bled water, Mildred gave a start and stared at the man askance, then slowly recalled that the element was discovered around 1870 by Sir somebody or other. Damn, she couldn’t recall the name. Maybe helium wasn’t in wide usage by the time Doc was trawled.

“Trust me,” Mildred said, topping off a canteen and letting the excess water flow onto the broad wing. “We’re completely safe. Helium is a noble gas, totally inert.”

“Really, madam?” Doc exhaled deeply. “In truth, I had been deeply worried about an aerial conflagration. The Army of the Potomac constantly had their observation balloons destroyed by flaming arrows from Lee’s rebels.”

“Can’t happen here,” she stated confidently, screwing on the last cap and slinging the heavy container over her back.

“How delightful to know.” Doc said, then passed back the light. “Yours, I believe.”

“Thanks,” J.B. drawled, pocketing the lighter. For some reason he no longer had an urge to smoke, the image of the airship exploding into flames filling his mind.

“We are gonna fly,” Dean said excitedly, swatting a skeeter and lifting his head to look at the darkening sky. The fiery storm clouds weren’t bad, lots of distant thunder, but very little sheet lightning. Plus, there was no smell of rotten eggs, so the chances of acid rain were zero.

“I say we wait another hour until night,” Ryan suggested, squatting on the wing. He pulled out a stick of gum from an MRE pack and started chewing. “We disappear in the darkness, then Mitchum and Glassman can search the nuke-shitting jungle for us till they chill as wrinklies.”

“Sounds good,” Jak said, walking carefully up the ramp into the plane. The predark bandage on his ankle eased most of the pain. Running was out of the question, but at least he could walk again without gritting his teeth.

“Mebbe we should leave now. The wind is right,” Krysty announced, her animated hair moving with the tangy sea breeze. “With any luck, it’ll carry us straight to the next island.”

“Mebbe,” Ryan muttered thoughtfully.

“How about the Jules Verne, or better, the Papillon,” Mildred said out of the blue. “That’s a good name. She’s not a war wag, after all, just an escape pod.”

“The Papillon,” Doc said, arching a snowy eyebrow. “And if I recall my French correctly, why should we christen it, the Butterfly, madam?”

Before Mildred could explain, from somewhere in the growing darkness came the long drawn-out howl of a hound dog. Immediately, the companions pulled blasters and waited, listening hard. His boots softly tanging on the metal deck, Jak appeared at the hatch-way, his belt partially undone, both knife and Magnum blaster at the ready.

The barking of hounds grew fainter, then came back strong until it seemed the beasts were directly under the plane. Seconds later came the roar of Hummer engines, and the voices of men.

“Look at the dogs, sir!” a man cried. “They must be in the trees!”

“Shut up, you damn fool!” a deeper voice snapped. “Now they know we’re here.”

“Open fire!” a third voice commanded, and a fusillade of blasters cut loose, the big .75-caliber mini-balls from the flintlocks peppering the tree branches and ripping the flowers apart. A stray shot punctured one of the lower balloons of the airship, and with a long blubbering hiss it began to deflate.

“Stop firing!” another man shouted angrily. “Glassman wants them alive!”

There came the sounds of grunting from below, and the companions knew that armed sec men were climbing the trees. Fast and silent, Mildred grabbed a backpack and heaved it into the rope basket. Jak joined her efforts, and when the airship was loaded, he awkwardly climbed in himself.

Standing on the wing of the great plane, Ryan felt hot blood pumping through his veins and fought to control his terrible temper. He hated to run from a fight, but if the balloons got damaged they would be trapped there. It was now or never.

Getting into the basket, he accepted the handful of canteen straps from Doc, who climbed in, closely followed by J.B. and Krysty. Holding his knife to an anchor line, Ryan whistled softly, but his son ran to the edge of a wing and drew the Veri pistol. Taking a balanced stance, Dean fired the magnesium charge straight down. The flare hissed away, and seconds later there came a blinding flash of light from below, followed by numerous screams. Dean fired twice more, changing the angle of the shots, and there came a large explosion, bitter smoke fumes rising into the trees. He had to have hit a Hummer.

Turning, the boy started for the balloon when a sec man appeared amid the gently waving leaves of a nearby banyan tree. Blaster in hand, the soldier paused for a moment, startled at the sight of the bizarre floating craft, and that split second of indecision was all Ryan needed to ace the man with the SIG-Sauer blaster. The sleek weapon gently coughed twice, and the sec man’s eyes disappeared, instantly becoming bloody holes. The lifeless corpse released the branch and plummeted into the foliage below.

“Black dust, it’s Jimbo!” a voice cried.

A second replied, “Screw Glassman! Let’s ace the fuckers!”

Suddenly, a .50 cal burped into life, the bottom of the plane rattling with incoming rounds, the skeletons in the jumpseats shaking apart as if dancing. Holes were punched through the wing, the flowers exploding into tiny sprays of juice and petals. Dean remained motionless until the barrage stopped, then he raced to the airship. He barely got a leg over the ropes when another sec man swung into view on a vine and landed on the wing of the plane. Jak jerked his arm forward, and the invader staggered backward, blood gushing around the knife jutting out of his throat. As the man dragged the flintlock pistol from his belt, Ryan fired his SIG-Sauer once more, the 9 mm slug spinning the man off the wing. His scream lasted for brief seconds, then abruptly stopped.

More rounds peppered the hull of the craft, and another balloon was punctured as the companions rapidly cut through the anchor lines. Another face appeared in the leaves, and Doc had no choice but to trigger the LeMat. The massive blaster thundered flame at the invader, the soft-lead miniball blowing away half of his face. But even as the mutilated corpse fell, two more men swung out of the trees holding on to vines. Both landed on the wing of the plane and dropped flat, opening firing with their flint-lock pistols. One sec man fired at the Hercules, while the other turned his attention to the waving balloon and basket. A miniball hummed past Ryan as he returned fire with the barking H&K, but the smoky discharge from the black-powder weapons effectively masked the position of the prone invaders.

From the jungle below, the crackling of the flames steadily became louder, and it was soon apparent that the trees were on fire. Extending his arm as far as he could reach, Ryan managed to slash another anchor rope. The other ropes would have to be cut by whoever was near them. The companions were packed like sardines in the little basket, and it was difficult to move.

Their rifles spent, the sec men pulled pistols and fired again. While they hastily reloaded, the companions shot blindly into the smoke, eliminating both. But with the wing directly beneath them, the companions were unable to shoot at the sec men until they peeked into view from the trees. Sniper fire erupted from the shadows, but most of it was concentrated on the Hercules. The darkness worked both ways, and it was obvious that the ville sec men thought the companions were hidden in the plane.

Tongues of flame lanced from the treetops, the miniballs peppering the hull of the huge aircraft and punching straight through, the stressed aluminum no match for the heavy wads of rolled lead. Unexpectedly, an explosion shook the Hercules.

“By the Three Kennedys, that was a helium tank!” Doc thundered, firing the LeMat again. A sec man fell from the trees, hitting another and they both dropped out of sight. A voice cried from below, sounding more surprised than in pain. “The gas may be inert, but those pressurized tanks burst apart like a bomb when hit!”

“How many left!” Ryan demanded, tracking the muzzle-flashes in the trees and firing back just slightly above. Almost every time he was rewarded with a scream.

But the sec men were learning that trick and starting to fire back at the people in the rope basket. J.B. grunted as a miniball hummed by so close he felt the heat of the lead. An inch to the left would have aced him on the spot.

“Too damn many!” Mildred spit, working the slide to clear a jam. “If a chain reaction starts, with the helium tanks damaging each other, the wave of shrapnel will tear the Herc apart, and us along with it!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean told her, slashing through the last anchor rope with his bowie knife. Instantly, the balloon began to drift leisurely across the wing as it followed the gentle evening breeze, heading straight for the sec men in the trees.

“Too heavy!” Jak started to saw at the tough plastic ropes holding the weighted bags. The loss of the two weather balloons may have grounded the airship before its maiden flight. The first bag dropped away and nothing happened.

More sec men appeared in the foliage, firing their handcannons in a cacophony of blasts, a stray round nicking one of the plastic ropes holding the overhead netting in place. Swinging up the Uzi, J.B. cut loose with the subgun in a stuttering spray and emptied nearly a full clip into the trees, wounded sec men slumping over branches, the dead falling away like overripe fruit.

Screams filled the night, black smoke was pouring from the ground fire and flintlocks threw hot lead everywhere. Holstering her piece, Krysty went to slash the next weighted bag, but it snapped before her blade could touch the plastic rope. Instantly, the balloon and its crew bobbed straight into the air, their velocity increasing with every second.

“Hot pipe,” Dean whispered, watching the wreckage of the Hercules and the jungle dwindle below them.

As the strange craft cleared the trees, the evening wind took hold and they swung away from the crashed plane and over the treetops. Continuing to shoot, Ryan could see the sec men swarm over the smoking Hercules, several managing to climb on top to send a unified volley toward the escaping airship. Another balloon in the net noisily deflated. Their craft slowed its ascent, and Mildred frantically dropped one of the few remaining bags in response.

“Not enough,” Krysty said with a frown, holstering her blaster. Drawing the Veri pistol, she took careful aim and sent a blinding flare directly into the open cargo door of the Hercules. It ricocheted off the metal floor and disappeared into the cargo hold. Moments later, the interior of the plane became violently illuminated with the hellish red light from the sizzling magnesium charge. The woman sent in a blue flare, then a yellow, in an effort to set off the huge stacks of old ammo. Even a small explosion could damage the helium tanks and stop the sec men from shooting at them. She had no idea if guncotton lost its ginger over the decades the way black powder did, but the C-4 plastique sealed safe inside the airtight warheads of the big 40 mm Bofor rounds should be strong as ever. Hopefully.

Shifting position, Dean joined her and the two sent more incandescent flares into the ship before Ryan stopped them.

“Save it,” he directed sternly. “May need these to get out of here.”

“Flares?” Krysty demanded as she tucked away the stubby blaster. Then comprehension filled her face. “Right. Hadn’t considered that.”

The blasterfire from the sec men became sporadic as the airship rose high into the night, and then without warning a gout of flame belched from the open hatchway of the Hercules as the entire vessel shook. Then the hull split open lengthwise as the craft disappeared in a blinding thunderclap. The concussion of the staggering blast savagely rocking the balloon, causing Jak to lose his grip on the ropes and fall to the pallet, grabbing his bad ankle.