Doomsday Warrior 15 - American Ultimatum (7 page)

“Get the hell out of here, boy,” he screamed into the ’brid’s ear, kicking it hard in the flanks as it reeled around from side to side unsure where to go. But it let Rockson take over control, and the steed tore ahead as he loosened the reins. The other three hybrids followed quickly behind. The men were all shouting and waving their hands as the bats grew more organized and began making diving raids in groups of hundreds at a time. Some of them managed to snap their jaws shut right on the ’brids’ sides or flanks, searching for blood. As the steeds galloped along terrified, bellowing out whinnying sounds of sheer terror, a number of the blood-drinking bats managed to attach to their sides, flopping around from the motion of the animals. But they hung on as their teeth drew out the red liquid from beneath the thick outer hides like syringes.

As the cloud of twisting and turning bat-bodies grew ever thicker, Rock pulled out his shotpistol and aimed it straight ahead, where a huge group of the things seemed to have turned and were coming straight at him in a squadron, as if trying to stop the whole caravan so they could feast fully. Rock pumped the shotpistol and blew dozens of them away—and on the second shot dozens more. Behind him he heard more gunshots, and then saw some of Chen’s shuriken star-knives whizzing up into the air, taking out large groups as they exploded.

Masses of bloody fangs and broken wings flew around like wet shrapnel. But even as the blood-bats fell to the gravel-strewn ground of the mountain pass by the thousands, more came in. There were just too many. There was no way to fight them.

Rock felt two of them land on the base of his neck at the same time, one on each side, and had to tighten his legs around the saddle. He reached up with both hands and ripped the things free, squeezing as hard as he could, like a man bending a Bud after drinking it down. He could hear the bones crunch and the sharp squeals of the things as he tightened and then threw them to the dirt. He could feel the blood oozing down his neck as well. The little bastards had managed to break the skin. He prayed they didn’t inject a poison. But the ’brids still were galloping faster than ever and doubtless some of the first bites would have affected them by now if the bats were poisonous.

Still, as he fired the last of his shots and reached for another quick load, Rock could see they weren’t making a dent in the attacking waves. Somehow he wouldn’t have minded dying fighting Reds, or helping Rahallah battle Colonel Killov. But to go out here, on their first night of the mission, consumed by these ugly little dudes—please God let it not be so. He glanced up quickly at the darkening sky as if someone might be up there listening. And there was. But it wasn’t the Big Guy.

And even as his eyes came down again, there was a fiery roar about fifty feet ahead of him and perhaps twenty feet up, right where an approaching flock was the thickest. Flames shot out in every direction and Rockson was totally confused for a moment, even as he watched thousands of the blood-bats burst into flame and drop from the sky like burning leaves from a forest fire, the fiery wings etching crazy patterns in the dusk. Then another mini-explosion, and another, and bats were dropping like moths that had strayed too close to the flame.

Rock suddenly realized that it wasn’t lighting bolts from the blue—but Archer. They were arrows from his crossbow, tipped with phosphorous bombs, just one of many ingenious arrowheads that the huge Freefighter—with Shecter’s lab boys’ help—had rigged up. He turned in his saddle and saw the Freefighter fitting arrow after arrow into the groove of the thing, pulling them from the quick-fire quiver he had strapped beneath the crossbow. With its instant spring-controlled reload, he could shoot the arrows out every second or two. And he was doing so with a vengeance.

Bats fell like flies. And as more and more of the flaming arrows flew and burst through the curtains of the flying blood-drinking mammal, the bonfire of wings and teeth grew. Rock saw that the blood-bats were actually setting each other on fire as well. Wings touched other wings as they soared down from the air in pain-maddened squealing circles. And others hesitated to join the fiery party.

Suddenly the flock was too concerned with survival to worry about food and they pulled back, an immense cloud of them veering off away from the attack as they saw their blood-drinking comrades turned into overdone Bat-B-Q on the ground below. Rock didn’t slow down an inch, kicking his ’brid hard, not that the animal needed much prodding. And then they were through it, out of the pass and barreling down into a meadow of purple flowers, their heads bent over like monks in prayer as the night air fell. They didn’t stop for nearly ten minutes and when they did, both men and ’brids were breathing hard, eyes wild. It had been a few terrifying minutes none of them would ever forget.

As the Freefighters dismounted to give the heaving ’brids a chance to rest, and to quiet their own pounding hearts, Rock slapped Archer hard on the back. As the near-mute took the congrats of Rockson and the other fighters, a big smile etched across his broad-bearded face. He was so happy that he could contribute to the team. Rockson looked at Chen and Sheransky and spoke with a sigh as soft as the breezes that wafted up the mountain slopes. “Thank God the blood-bats are flammable.”

“This
bunch is flammable,” Chen said, “but how about the next?”

Seven

O
nce Rockson was absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent sure that no more of the bat-things were after them, he holstered his shotpistol. They had torn ass for a good three miles in the near darkness lit only by the swirling strontium clouds high above and the pinpoints of starlight that stabbed through here and there. Rock hoped they were someplace safe—and on the charts—but there were things to do first before checking on that. Rockson inspected his mount, and the others did as well. There were a few bats still hanging on to Sheransky’s and Chen’s hybrids, but they were pulled off and disposed of with knives and under boots. The men made faces as they dealt with the bloodsuckers. There was just something about mankind and bathood that never did and never would get along. Their demonic overtoothed faces didn’t help matters any. Underneath the ’brids, on their stomachs and flanks, their riders found numerous little bite marks still oozing traces of blood. None of them looked life-threatening, but they sure as hell had to be treated. You didn’t go around oozing the red stuff in postnuke America and expect to live very long. There were numerous carnivorous creatures out in those woods which would leap out at the very scent of blood. And most of them made the blood-bats look like mosquitoes.

So the Freefighters took antibiotic salve out of their med packs and slopped it on over the little gouges, checking every square inch of the ’brids, even around their hoofs, behind their ears, and under their manes. In fact Rock found a small bat hiding in Secretariat’s thick mane, and pulled it off with repulsion. Up close the little things were even more disgusting than from a few feet away. He broke its neck with a sharp crack of his hand, and threw it in a small bag so that he could take it back to Shecter. The mad doctor was happier than a kid with a new toy when exotic species were brought back from “the outside.” Rockson had never seen this particular brand of mini-hell before, so he assumed Shecter hadn’t either.

At last everything was salved, cleaned, and sealed up and they mounted the ’brids again. Rock debated whether they should pack it in for the night now, but figuring they were still close to the flying teeth, and admitting the fact that both men’s and animals’ heart rates were up to ramming speed from all the adrenaline that had been pumped inside their veins, he thought he might as well take advantage of it. They’d get a few more miles under their belt!

In fact, the sky started clearing nicely, as if apologizing for the nasty little incident before. The green strontium clouds far overhead diminished to mere wisps and the clear sky, a trillion stars, and a bright scythe moon gave them plenty of light over the meadows and fields.

So they rode on through a landscape disconcertingly peaceful, with only the sounds of hoot owls and an occasional howl of a snar-wolf in the distance for musical accompaniment to the clip-clop of their steeds’ steps. Rockson drove them until nearly midnight, and then found a piece of high ground which looked secure. They bivouacked, giving the ’brids all the chow and water they wanted. After doing the same for themselves, the humans—except for watchful Rockson—fell fast asleep, ready to awaken at the slightest disturbance. There were none, other than in their bloody dreams.

The morning sun broke like a sun of the old days, before the nuke war. There were birds chirping, sunbeams dancing, and mountain flowers waving energetically in the morning breezes. All of them awoke with smiles. Facing death and surviving can put a man in a good mood. And after some hydroponically grown coffee, why, they were feeling positively chipper. Camp was broken, the ’brids resaddled and bridled, and within twenty minutes of rising, they were off.

They made excellent time that whole day, hitting no real obstacles and not a single thing that tried to eat, claw, or mutilate them—other than some swarms of mosquitoes and black flies, which they rode through from time to time and which lingered for minutes and then headed off. They were basically in a barren no-man’s-land for the next seventy miles or so—a place where no Freefighters lived, and the Reds rarely ventured. Rock was unable to relax even though he knew it was extremely unlikely that they’d run into any spy drones which might relay their images back to some basement Red headquarters and precipitate a whole shitload of choppers coming out after them. In the mountains and forests it was easy enough to hide. But out here in the open with no real cover for miles in any direction they would be sitting ducks. But nothing happened. Just another day’s ride.

They bivouacked again for the night, just beneath a rocky overhang of a low hill, where they were virtually invisible from above. He let the others take sentry duties, splitting it up among themselves. He needed some Z’s bad, as he had done a double shift the previous night. He fell off fast, as if tripping down a cliff, and didn’t move an exhausted muscle for seven hours. When he awoke, the morning was overcast and the air smelled foul and dead, as if after a few days of nice weather the earth was going to spit up some of the poisons that man had shoveled down her throat. The other men were in foul tempers almost immediately upon awakening, their throats raw, eyes tearing from a sulphurous smell in the air. Even the ’brids, which generally didn’t pay much attention to air pollutants, were acting sluggish and kept snorting as if trying to spit something up.

They rode through the gray day into increasingly arid terrain. Even though it was clouded up, they had to bring out the Shecter blankets again and drape themselves from the hot rays of the sun. They pulled their legs up onto their mounts and just sort of tranced out as the animals made their tired way one grinding step at a time through the prairie land. Far off to the north Rock saw several jagged atomic-crater walls on the horizon, looking like still-festering sores on the face of the Earth. When they at last saw another range of mountains in the distance, everyone’s demeanor took a turn for the better. Even the hybrids poured on the gas, wanting to reach the green-treed shade and some water, to get away from the sour smell of the dry red dirt beneath their hooves.

Thus they reached the Blackface Mountains—so named because of the almost shimmering black coating over their surfaces, the result of nearby bomb blasts. They were marked on Rock’s map as “safe.”

It was sundown, but he pushed them a little, making the strike force head up into the foothills. According to the map, the Red air force base of Mesdinsk was just over the rise. It was built on a long flat plateau nearly two miles long and a thousand feet or so wide. The ’brids didn’t like the idea of not stopping to graze on the slopes, green as they were—not after tramping through the wasteland dirt which made their hooves burn as if acid had been poured on them, which made their legs tremble beneath their powerful bodies as if they might give way. But somehow they walked on. Slowly, reluctantly, they stomped one angry leg down and then another.

They reached the summit, a good seven hundred feet up at a forty-five degree angle. Rockson had them all slow down before they got to the very top. The silhouette of a man on ’brid could be seen for miles there. Not that the Reds would be expecting anyone to be coming in from this direction. Most of the fortress cities and outpost bases weren’t even that well guarded anyway. They were a lazy bunch, these bastards, Rock mused. After a century of occupation, the Russian troops had grown bored, fat, tired, like any entrenched bureaucracy. They had experienced few attacks on their main bases, as the Freefighters preferred to concentrate on convoys or on an occasional strike against a particularly important city. Some of the out-of-the-way bases, like the airport below them, almost coexisted with the small bands of Freefighters who often lived within miles of them. Just leave us alone—we’ll leave you alone. For the moment anyway. Only the moment was now up.

The men dismounted from their steeds, tethering them to some stunted blue-barked trees just below the rise, and slid up on elbows and knees until they were looking down over the air force base. It was a long runway, designed to take intercontinental transport jets when necessary. But only a single runway ran along one side of the low barracks houses.

Rock took out his night-binocs and scanned the area. It was a typical Russian setup. They had designed the structure of these bases a century before, and that was that. No change in one hundred years. Which made it that much easier for anyone who had any designs on messing with them.

Eight MIGs were parked along a wide concrete corridor at one end of the two-mile-long runway, along with two of the MIG X7 four-seaters that Rock had prayed would be there. He let out a deep breath. So far so good. Two immense StratoBursters sat like steel whales side by side, so fuel supplies had clearly been delivered recently.