Doomsday Warrior 15 - American Ultimatum (11 page)

“Bow to Amun, swear to Amun,” Killov bellowed out over his throat mike. “Swear your devotion, your allegiance, your willingness to die in his crushing army. Swear!”

“We swear our lives to Amun,” the masses screamed out as one. Screamed out again and again, and bowed and prayed that he would not smite them. Killov smiled the frozen smile of a skull beneath his golden crown, and he smoothed his red-splattered finery. All the while, the three huge rocks spun just above him like the crushing fists of the ancient gods.

Eleven

A
merica was a checkerboard of ugliness and beauty in ever-changing proportions from the air. Rock and his strike team flew across country in the MIG X7 trying to cloud-hop, so as to avoid radar detection. The Freefighters stared out the window in fascination as their great and wounded land whizzed below them. In some places there were just miles of seared black land, sometimes the color of charcoal, filled with craters. Vast wastelands of rad-death.

Because of N-Day, it was all dead, nothing growing even after more than a century.

Yet in other spots, America was beautiful, lush, filled with soothing greens and blues, the colors of the living earth, not of the dead one. The men’s pupils alternately opened and closed as they passed over the different areas. Clearly the planet Earth was trying to heal itself, was trying to grow back in the many spots that had been nuked, burned, raped, mutilated. But it was just as clearly a tough job. Man had been an expert with death and mega-poison. His atomic weapons had killed not just other men and animal life, but the very flesh of the earth itself. Many of the wounds they would see would take a long time to heal—if ever.

“I just never get over it—what we did to the earth, to the Mother Earth,” Rock said to no one in particular. “How could they be so fucking stupid?”

“The bad ones got control,” Chen replied softly. “Just as they’re trying to do again now. That’s why we’re even up here flying to the very ends of the earth. To stop it from happening again.”

“Still, that’s just a fact—it’s not really an explanation,” Rockson went on, grinding his teeth together. “What is it about man, about men? Do they have a fatal flaw that commands them to destroy—or was it just chance that the demented sons-of-bitches got control of everything?”

“A little of both, I think,” Chen said even more softly now, so that both Sheransky and even Archer, who appeared to be listening intently, had to strain to hear the conversation. “The destructive bastards always try to get control. Men who lead are aggressive. That aggressiveness can drive them to the point of—madness, a lust for sheer destruction. And yet there are also more extreme men within that category of destroyers. There’s men like Colonel Killov, for example. And then there’s men like yourself, a leader, a preserver. Yet I know you kill, but you would stop fighting tomorrow and give up all your power, give up your rank in a second if the enemy were to cease his assault.”

“You got that right, pal,” Rock replied, wincing. “Give it all up. Then the whole bunch of us could just head out from that futuristic basement we call home and start some homesteads out there in the great radioactive outdoors. Be just like the old days. Pioneers, trying to reseed the country, make her whole again.”

“I can just see Rona with the reins of a plow around her shoulders out there in the fields,” Chen commented wryly. “As you and her start your little farm! What exactly were you planning on growing?” The Chinese went on, unable to resist needling him.

“Avocados and pineapples,” the Doomsday Warrior exclaimed, as if it were obvious. “They’re in short supply at C.C!”

“Meee liiikeee beee farmmmerr,” Archer snarled out as the three of them laughed, a little surprised that he had understood the conversation. Rockson could never quite tell just how much the oversized near-mute really took in through those big ears of his. But he was definitely getting the feeling as he spent more time fighting alongside him that Archer was far more intelligent than his primitive speech, and sometimes equally primitive actions, let on. Who could figure it out. Maybe his IQ rose and fell depending on the time of the moon.

“It’s the same in Russia,” Sheransky said as he pulled his blond head away from the cockpit window, though he was fascinated by the jigsaw of death and life below. “Many of the common people—they don’t want to fight. Don’t even wish to occupy America, or any other land for that matter. They have no desire for an empire, just for their own little piece of the earth to grow food in. They want to own a small home, to have a family, children. It is the politicians who want only to further their own ends, who use the power to hurt others. I tell you, the common man—he is the same the world over. If we could just get rid of the damn bastards who run the show—maybe things would work themselves out all right. You know, like—burn all the kings and emperors and commissars and presidents. Then the rest of us could live in peace.”

They were all silent after the little speech. In their hearts they believed it was doubtless true. But such an event seemed, to say the least, unlikely. Still, deep inside, they looked down on the wounded earth that had given birth to all races and all living things, and they felt like crying.

They flew on through the early morning as streaks of light undulated above them in crazy patterns. The Aurora Borealis had grown dramatically in size and coloration as a result of the Nuke War. And in the century plus since, it hadn’t diminished, but grown ever brighter, sometimes nearly lighting up the daylight sky as if with magnetic fire. It was a little frightening being up amidst the streaking rainbows of radiation. But though they felt an electric charge around their bodies, sometimes making the hair on their heads and arms begin to stand up when they went through a thick curtain of the stuff, it didn’t seem to be doing anything bad either to the jet or them. But they sure as hell could feel something going through their flesh.

It was seven in the morning—and as far as Rock could tell from the onboard computerized mapping and direction system, they were somewhere over Tennessee—when the colors of the sky started turning a decidedly nastier color. The brighter colors of morning turned dark, deep brown, a blackish green, the colors of a diseased corpse. The weather-tracking functions of the jet’s computer lit up, and warnings flashed across the screen.

“Something’s up, Rock,” Sheransky said as he read the Russian warnings that were coming in fast and heavy now. “Big storm coming up. It says we should get down, that the jet is not equipped to deal with—” Even as he was uttering the words of warning the jet was suddenly shaken around like a leaf in a rapids. They were all over the place, spinning, twisting, rising, and falling hundreds of feet in a second. Rockson felt the craft go completely out of control, and tried to pour on more power to straighten her out, like a jockey kicking a skittish mount.

Suddenly the skies all around them turned utter black. Lightning was cracking, streaking everywhere in spiderwebs of white-hot fire. The men were too scared to utter a word, but held on tight to the sides of their seats as the jet went wild. It was as if they were in the jaws of a white shark and he was just ripping away, trying to get a good mouthful. Clouds the size of mountains formed out of nowhere and rippled with blue fire on every side, as if they were alive with electricity. In the lightning flashes Rock could see tornadoes dropping down out of the great storm clouds, snaking down to the earth below, wide funnels of black air which began sucking up whatever they could rip from the land.

Hoping to outrun the storm, Rockson poured on even more power as warning lights on the other side of the console snapped on, telling him he was approaching the danger point of the X7’s power output.

“You’d better go slow with that,” Sheransky shouted nervously as he saw the warning lights blinking. “It reads danger zone.”

“I know what the hell it reads,” Rock snapped back. It was clear in any language what was going on. The jet was going to come apart pretty soon, ripped open like a sardine can at the seams. He made a sudden decision, praying it was the right one, and slammed the controls forward, hitting the POWER OFF switch. There was a sudden eerie sense of motionless for a second as the g-force almost ceased. They could all hear the thunderous roars of the mega-storm outside and around them. And then the jet dropped straight down. Without power, it just pointed its spearlike nosecone toward the earth and hurtled down.

“Shhiiiiiitttt!”
Archer bellowed out as they were all suddenly looking straight down at the cratered, lightning-illuminated ground. He clearly didn’t like dropping like a stone from 65,000 feet. Not that the rest of them were too happy about the idea either, thinking that the storm had somehow caused a burnout in the jet.

“Rock—the power, the power,” Sheransky stuttered out.

“I’m letting her drop,” Rockson barked back. “It’s our only chance. The electrical discharges were shorting her out. She just wasn’t responding.” He didn’t add that he hoped he could get the engine turned back on again before they were mashed into steel sandwich spread on the hard earth below. But at least it pulled them out of the center of the raging storm. Even as lightning streaked wildly around them, as if trying to track them down and let them have it with a good 50,000,000-volt jolt that would incinerate the craft, they dropped right out of the clouds and down into the quiet dark air below that Rockson had hoped for. Even there though, the sky was filled with sheets of rain and hail.

Rock watched the altimeter and the ground too. He knew he had to time it all perfectly. There wouldn’t be a second chance one way or another. The sheer speed and drop angle made it hard for the delta-wing aircraft to grab hold of the air. Still, they tried. Even within the steel frame of the jet, they could all hear the howling, angry winds outside like a million ghosts all knock-knock-knocking on their flexing door.

The ground was clearly coming up too fast. They could see trees and a road here and there. Could see them all too clearly. Rockson saw the warning light of imminent impact blinking faster and faster as the altimeter read out 3,000, 2,000, 1,000— There was no more time.

He slammed the POWER ON switches, waited two seconds, and when the engine whinnied into life, poured on everything the jet had. They could literally hear the craft creaking and making all kinds of awful bending sounds as its very molecular components were tested to their limits. A roar of fire poured out of the thruster of the MIG, and suddenly the g’s were back in full force. The jet’s nose swung up, straightening out as Rock pulled back as far as he could on the controls. He swore a pine tree’s top just below them was going to take them out, but the jet just skimmed its needles, sending the top branches of the pine tree exploding off in flames. Then they were moving horizontally again. And they were alive, for the moment.

Rockson eased back on the controls, and the X7 climbed a few thousand feet until they were safely above the looming mountain passes. The storm was still roaring out its anger above, but the worst of the blow was much higher up, above ten thousand feet. Down here they only had to contend with driving sheets of rain that would have drowned the Ark.

“Good flying, Rock,” Chen muttered from behind Rockson.

“Arrccchhheeer llooovvve Rrroooccckksssoonnnn,”
Archer croaked out from his seat. Which made them all laugh, breaking the incredible tension of the last several minutes.

To Rockson’s amazement, a tail wind from the storm aided their progress for a thousand miles, saving precious fuel. The mass-ratio computer reported that they would indeed make it to Africa, if they followed its “suggested” flight path.

They reached the long, curving shoreline of the Atlantic in just another twenty minutes without anything coming out to intercept them. Then the MIG left the land mass of America and they were out over the water. All eyes turned back to get a final glimpse of their home. All of them couldn’t help but wonder if they’d ever see it again. They tried to shut up the dark voice inside that said “no.”

Rock continued flying low, just yards above the ocean, creating a foaming furrow in the black liquid behind them. Fish, porpoises, whales floating near the surface looked up in fear, wondering if the sky was falling as the flaming thunder-thing passed overhead.

Twelve

T
hey flew across the great oceanic divide separating America from the other continents. Flew and flew, and flew some more. It was hard to believe there was this much water on earth, let alone in just one part of it. Sheransky got a game of cards going with Chen and Archer in the backseat, straining around in his co-pilot’s chair to do so. Rock kept a firm eye on the console readouts and the curved violet-tinted windshield which almost matched the off-color of the smooth sea. Archer, tiring of the card game, fell asleep quickly, snoring loudly with his head back against the steel wall. Chen, who claimed he had never played Old Maid before, beat Sheransky game after game, until he’d lost every Century City dollar that he ever had or would have.

Rockson just let his mind sort of go into an all-systems-on, relaxed-but-ready kind of trance. He kept his hands firmly on the controls. He wouldn’t even think of throwing her on automatic pilot and getting some shut-eye. Not for an instant. He just didn’t trust machines when it came right down to it. Not more than himself and his mutant’s sixth sense. No way, Jose. He’d stay awake all the way to Africa, then probably collapse as soon as he touched down. It was an eight-hour journey even in the high-speed MIG.

They were at about the two-thirds point according to the instrumentation panel when Rockson saw a warning that there were numerous large objects at sea level. He decided to go higher a few feet for safety, aiming the high-resolution video camera beneath one wing down at the water.

It was amazing—fish of all sizes and shapes floating on the surface all over the place. Many were quite large, twenty, even thirty feet long. They glowed, and it appeared that many, if not most, of them weren’t moving. They were dead—and glowed as if floating in a radioactive sludge.