Climbing into the Angel, Sandra Tregart looked to the west just as something fiery rose like an atomic dawn above the jagged lava peaks. The writhing column hovered in the air for a moment, then faded away.
“That was an explosion,” Brian said from the front of the biplane. Both of the teen’s hands were on the propeller, poised to give it a starting shove.
“Yes, but who aced who is the question,” Tregart huffed, slipping into the cockpit.
Brian removed his hands from the propeller. “I could check, my lady.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll know soon enough.” She set the choke and throttle. The wind was kicking up again, and her bandaged leg was throbbing like a cannie drum. Not a good night to fly. But there wasn’t a sign of the tox chem clouds overhead. Visibility would be at a max.
Good hunting weather. There had been a lot of that lately, she knew. According to her father, it seemed to take longer and longer for the death clouds to return from the days when he was a small boy. Mebbe the world was finally healing itself from the aftereffects of the Nuke War. The world was taking back the sky, but then, so was she.
Checking the box at her side, Sandra counted a full complement of twelve skybombs, six Molotovs and six pipebombs, the stubby fuses jutting and ready to go. If she missed with one, the shrapnel in the other would do the job.
Standing near the biplane, a husky sec man held the rope attached to the chocks in his hands. “Is this flight wise, mistress?” René asked. “Even with the moonlight, it will be too dangerous for you to land in the desert. The ground is too soft. You’ll never get airborne again.”
Sandra stared at the man. Since when did he suddenly know so much about flying? She shook her head. No, calm down, she urged herself. René wasn’t an enemy Flying was merely the dream of everybody, even these pitiful half-men.
“There are a few flattop mesas that I can use in an emergency,” she explained, sliding on her sunglasses. Then, irritably, she yanked them off. Damn! Her vision would either be blurred from the wind, or everything would be tinted too dark to see. Some fragging choice!
“If you say so, mistress,” René conceded, his hands worrying the thick rope.
“Just keep the new slaves sewing,” she ordered, checking her hidden derringers. “I want those Demons ready to go in ten days.”
“Ten!” Brian gasped.
His jaw dropping, René started to speak, but stopped, licking his lips in the effort to try to frame the question.
“Yes, you will receive a plane,” Sandra said. “With Karl aced, you and Carter shall be the first of my new breed of sec men. Wingmen!”
“To fly,” René whispered, his eyes taking on a dreamy quality.
“Check the feed,” she said impatiently.
René snapped to attention and went to the rapid-fire attached to the front of the biplane and examined the belt of ammo. Even when the others got Sky wags, she knew that only the Angel would carry a rapid-fire. There were two more in the supply tent, but she carried the firing pins to the lightweight blasters in a pouch on her gunbelt. Ammo was scare, so every round was reserved for her. Someday though…Ah, someday when she ruled a dozen villes…a hundred!
Her leg started to throb again, and Sandra rubbed it through the bandage and loose pants. Those coldhearts in the black wag had fired at her as if ammo grew on trees, so she had wisely taken some additional precautions for this flight. Wooden slats now lined the sides and bottom of the cockpit to serve as crude armor. To offset the additional weight, Sandra had ordered the rear seat removed, which would make the biplane light in the rear, and more difficult to do fast turns. But she felt it was more than worth the sacrifice. Once airborne, Sandra would be invulnerable. Unstoppable!
“Everything is ready, mistress,” René reported, stepping clear of the wings.
She nodded and fed the engine some fuel. “Contact!”
“Contact!” Brian repeated, shoving with all of his strength. The wooden blades spun loosely for a tick, then the starter engaged and the motor roared into life.
“Baron! Wait! Baron!” someone shouted over the purr of the predark engine.
Scowling at the ground, the woman saw one of the servants from the blockhouse rush toward the machine, then stop in obvious fear. The norm was holding a heavy object wrapped in fine silk.
“What is that?” Sandra demanded, glaring at the servant. “More trib from another baron?”
“It is a gift from your father!” He practically gushed, sidling closer, and flinching every time the engine backfired or coughed.
“A gift? Open it,” the woman commanded, setting the brake and leaning over the side for a better view.
Nodding agreement, the servant lovingly unfolded the thin silk to reveal a squat pair of predark longeyes, the kind called binocs.
“Excellent, mistress!” René said in delight. “Those will be a great help on your flight!”
Going still, Sandra kept her face expressionless. Yes, the binocs would be a tremendous help. However, as a child she had explored every inch of the ville, including her parents’ bedroom and private cabinet. The lock had proved impossible to pick, but cuddling with her mother Tregart had stolen the key and gotten inside anyway. There had been a lot of blasters inside, along with a pair of binocs. Mebbe that exact pair. They certainly looked the same.
Her eyes narrowed. Except that the binocs in the cabinet had been useless. The glass at both ends was still intact, but there was something broken inside. She remembered that the view had been distorted and blurred. Those binocs were utterly useless. And there certainly wasn’t another pair in the ville. Now why would her loving father send her a pair of drek binocs?
“Yes, a magnificent gift,” she said in a voice of stone. “But I cannot see the peaks with these spinning propellers in the way. Would you check the rim of the crater for me?”
“Me?” the servant gasped.
“Please.” She smiled coldly.
“Yes! At once, Baron!” Rushing away from the shaking biplane, the servant raised the binocs and pressed them to his face.
He frowned. “Baron, I must be doing something wrong because I can’t see anything through these—” Then he started to shake all over, and lowered the heavy binocs. Steel shafts jutted from both of his eyes, blood mixing with a clear ichor to trickle like crimson tears down his cheeks. The servant turned to her, his mouth moving in gibberish. He settled to the ground, still holding the deadly binocs as death arrived.
“Black dust!” Brian snarled, drawing his blaster and looking around the airfield.
“A booby?” René cried in shock, almost dropping the rope. “You were sent a booby by your own father, the baron?”
“He may be my father,” Sandra snarled, “but he is no longer my baron, remember? The old fool gave the throne to me.”
“But still…” René started, unsure of what to say next.
Softly in the distance, thunder rumbled from the mountains to the far east. Slowly, Sandra turned to face Brian. The teen still had the blaster in his grip, and was looking for anything coming this way. The decision to use him was made in a heartbeat. “Brian!”
He turned and saluted. “Yes, Baron?”
“Go back to the ville and give my father the news of my death,” she instructed. “Be sure to cry a lot. And then when they are not looking, chill him.”
“The baron!”
“The former baron. I rule now.”
Stupefied, the teen gazed at the blaster in his hand as if he had never seen one before, then he gently tucked the weapon into the holster at his side. As Brian lifted his head to look at the woman, she could see a new hard light in his eyes. She knew in that moment that he was no longer destined to join the ranks of her eunuchs, but to become the sec chief of Thunder ville.
“It shall be done, my lady,” he whispered.
“Then get moving!” Sandra yelled, then added, “Captain Brian Stone!”
Swelling with pride, the sec man crisply saluted, then turned to run for the gate on the far side of the airfield.
“Chocks!” Sandra yelled, releasing the brake again.
“Chocks!” René shouted, yanking on the rope. As the wooden wedges came free, the Angel started forward with a lurch, rapidly building speed and power until it was fairly skimming along the smooth rock floor of the ancient crater. Sandra would settle things in the ville upon her return, but first there were some outlanders to chill.
The woman thrilled to the almost sexual build of tension as she clicked off the safety on the big predark rapid-fire. Yes, first a little fun before she took care of ville biz. Blind Norad, she was going to enjoy this.
THE BIPLANE ROSE over the rim of the blast crater and moved about in a sweeping arc through the starry sky before slowly angling toward the foothills.
“Here she comes,” Ryan said, kicking the BMW motorcycle into life. The bike shook slightly as the engine revved with power. Undoing his gunbelt, the man passed the SiG-Sauer to Mildred.
“Move fast, lover,” Krysty urged.
“That is the plan,” Ryan quipped, checking the Steyr SSG-70 longblaster across his shirt. The bolt-action was hanging in front of the man, and he worked the bolt to chamber a round.
As the buzz in the sky grew louder, Krysty and Mildred quickly joined the rest of the companions in the black Hummer safely out of view in front of the rocky escarpment. Only a few yards away, the smashed wag was still burning, the dancing flames making the rocks and corpses appear to move with nightmarish life.
Staying high, the Sky wag swept past the combat zone, then circled around to come in lower.
Shifting his combat boots on the ground, Ryan felt the urge to grab the Steyr to try to ace the bitch right now. But unless she was a total fool, she would have some sort of protection this time, a predark flak jacket or sheet iron. Hell, they weren’t even sure that Mildred hit flesh that last time in the desert. For all Ryan knew the triple-damn thing was blasterproof, and stepping into view would only get his fragging head blown off.
“Softly, softly, catchee mutie,” the Deathlands warrior whispered under his breath, butchering one of Doc’s fav phrases.
Swooping in from the east, the Angel swept past the fiery wreckage of the wag, and for a split second, Ryan saw the profile of the woman in the moonlight.
Then, shoving back the kickstand, Ryan revved the engine and darted forward. The buzz of the Sky wag filled the air and he knew there was no way she could hear the subdued murmur of the Beamer. So he clicked on the headlight, the brilliant beam stabbing across the irregular ground of the foothills like a plasma beam.
Instantly the buzz of the Sky wag swelled and Tregart slipped sideways from the racing motorcycle. As he crested a hillock, the two machines ran parallel to each other for a breathless instant, and the drivers faced each other. Grabbing the Steyr, Ryan awkwardly lifted the longblaster and fired sideways at the Sky wag. The pilot jerked and suddenly the winged machine was dropping behind.
Had he actually hit Tregart? Then something fell from the sky to impact in his wake and erupt into a strident fireblast. If he had shot her, she was still alive.
Trying to work the bolt again, Ryan found the weapon jammed. The biplane flashed past him and started to circle around for another pass. Then from the starry heavens above, there came the loud chatter of a rapid-fire, and the ground to his left churned from the barrage of lead. Abandoning the effort, Ryan grabbed the handlebars tight as he streaked down the other side of the hillock, now concentrating fully on his driving.