Mysterious Cairo (20 page)

Indeed, large chunks of unidentifiable vegetation bounced off the cockpit window. Corey hazarded a glance to her right, in time to see that half of the wing shear off in a spray of sparks.

At last, the plane lurched to a halt, and everything was quiet except for the soft crackling noises of several small fires on the Tri-Motor's fuselage. "I don't
believe
it! We're alive! Daremo, you did it!" Corey shouted. "Hey, is everyone okay back there?"

"No wounds here. We are both unharmed," Marcel called back.

"Indeed, the only one who is bleeding is the metal monster," Kayla added, regaining some of her old spunk.

"The plane is bleeding?" Daremo looked at Corey. They both stared at each other for about three seconds, mouthing her words, trying to divine their meaning. Suddenly, both pairs of eyes went wide with comprehension and fear.

"Fuel leak!" both shouted together.

Corey turned around to the passenger cabin. "Fuel leak! Everybody out! Quick!"

Since many areas of the plane were driven into the ground, only one door could still be opened. Marcel tried in vain to open it.

"What's wrong?" Daremo came over to see what was keeping the evacuation.

"Yon door is stuck," Marcel replied.

Daremo clicked his tongue in annoyance. "The flak must have wedged it shut."

"But you're supposed to be stronger than a normal man," Corey shot back, panic edging into her voice.

"The very land works against me, dost thou not remember? All of my cybernetics have failed me," the Hospitaller explained grimly.

Daremo's mind raced.
Who was the next strongest?
Kayla. The ninja turned to the barbarian. "Kayla, we are trapped in the belly of this iron beast. We will all burn with the fire of many fireballs unless we can get this door open."

That was all Kayla needed to hear. With a loud cry, interspersed with Ayslish swear words and curses directed at the plane, she threw herself at the door. The barbarian's great strength and momentum tore the door off its hinges.

As the four Knights leaped out the doorway, the plane's fuel caught fire and exploded with a bright flash and a tremendous roar. The fiery hot air slammed into their necks and backs while they were in mid-air, the force of the explosion hurling the Knights dozens of feet across the field, at last bringing them to rest face down in the furrowed dirt.

Corey spat out a mouthful of soil. It had a bitter, rotten taste, a taste that seemed familiar but she could not place it. She noticed a smooth white patch of something sticking out of the ground. She brushed away the dirt, and gasped at the grisly human skull which stared back at her with all living eyes. Suddenly a pair of vine-covered skeletal arms shot from the dirt and seized the newswoman by the shoulders, as more figures erupted from the ground around her.

"Gospog!" she screamed, as she managed to unholster her sidearm and pump four rounds into the grinning skull. The creature loosed it grip and Corey leapt to her feet, only to find that her friends had made the exact same discovery, and were fighting for their lives against a shambling horde of dozens of the blasphemies.

"A gospog field," she yelled as she squeezed off two more shots at an advancing abomination, then began reloading her pistol. "Of
all places,
we had to land in a
gospog field!"

"This is wonderful!" Kayla shouted as she swung her broadsword and clove four gospog in half at the waist. "This is the sort of danger I can strike back against!"

"Oh, yes, truly wonderful," Daremo mumbled as he swung his katana at a pair of the undead horrors. Marcel, who was back to back with the ninja, wielded a .45 automatic in one hand, and his power sword, no longer electronic but still keeping a sharp edge, in the other.

Eventually, the four friends established a defensive circle. Though they were making remarkable progress, the Knights were clearly outnumbered, and growing weaker.

"Well, barring a miracle, I can't see how we're gonna get out of this one," Corey announced as she fired her last bullet, which hit her target, but failed to slow it down. The horror grabbed Corey's throat and began to squeeze with its cold dead hands. As the newswoman struggled, the stench of rotting vegetation and corpses washed over her. Through her blurring vision, she could see that Daremo was being overwhelmed by four gospog. "Oh, God, this is it," she thought to herself as the cold fingers tightened around her throat.

A pair of loud booms filled the air, and Corey felt her assailant's hands loosen as the back of the gospog's head exploded. The creature's face showed what appeared to be surprise as it collapsed to the ground. Four more loud booms and Daremo was free, and back in the fight.

Corey looked beyond the dead gospog, and drew in her breath. Standing on a small mound was a man clad in a black suit, with a black wide-brimmed hat. He wore a voluminous black cloak, which billowed heroically behind him. In each black-gloved hand, the stranger held a smoking .45 automatic. "This way!" he boomed in a commanding voice.

The four Knights, with renewed hope and vigor at seeing help, redoubled their attacks and broke out of the gospog encirclement, racing for the hill. The black-clad stranger kept calmly firing his automatics at the hordes of gospog.

As the four friends closed range, they noticed that the man's eyes were covered with a black mask, and that his suit was a double-breasted style out of the 1930's. "Follow me," he ordered, "I have a waiting roadster." Without seeing if his words were heeded, he turned with a flourish of his cape, and headed down the hill, where a large automobile was parked.

"Who ... who are you?" Corey asked.

"The name's Major Havoc," the ebon-clad stranger said as he calmly shot two straggling gospog, clearing a path to the roadster. "I believe I am supposed to meet you somewhere in this area."

"But how did thou know'st we wouldst be here?" Marcel asked as the five climbed into the car. Major Havoc took the driver seat, Corey sat next to him, while the other three took the back seat.

Major Havoc started the car and gunned the engine, throwing up a plume of sand, soil, and grit as the roadster roared off. "I was supposed to meet you four at a runway close by. I saw the ack-ack bursts and the plane going down, so I deduced that the plane was yours."

Introductions were made all around, and the four briefed Havoc on the ham radio message. "Hmmm. Yeah, Mobius is a real nut case, but he's a brilliant nut case. No doubt he's got something big up his cowl. Y'know something? It just occurred to me. If I saw where you landed, others may have, too."

"What sort of 'others'," Daremo asked warily.

The rear window sprouted a bullet hole, and the rear view mirror shattered, raining small bits of glass on Corey.

"Goddam!"
she screamed as she lowered her head. At her feet she noticed a leather valise.

"Like shocktroopers," Havoc replied calmly. "I hate those guys."

Marcel looked out the rear window and saw two trucks filled with bare-chested soldiers wielding sub-machineguns. More bullets slammed into the heavy roadster's body, sending up sparks and bits of metal.

"Kinda thought you folks wouldn't have the right weapons for this realm," Havoc said as he gestured at the valise. "I brought some weapons for you to use. Miss Jones, if you would do the honors?"

Corey pulled out two Thompson submachineguns and two .45 automatics. Daremo and Marcel took the "tommy-guns," but Kayla refused to have anything to do with them. "I do not use wheelocks," she murmured as she strung her bow and placed some arrows on the seat next to her. Corey helped herself to a .45 pistol.

The Storm Knights returned fire as Havoc drove evasively. Several minutes passed, and the Nile shocktroopers were still hot on their tail and closing distance.

"This is getting us nowhere," Havoc snapped. "Time for some decisive action. Here. Take the wheel." Without seeing if Corey had done so, Havoc opened his door, grabbed hold of the frame, and did an acrobatic flip onto the roof of the roadster.

"Jeez! Are you
crazy!?!?"
Corey screamed as she slid into the driver's seat and took the wheel. One wheel left the road, but she yanked the car back on track.

Daremo craned his neck out the window, and saw Havoc, both feet planted firmly on the roadster's roof, his black cape swirling about him, blazing away at the first truck with his twin .45s. What could be seen of Havoc's face showed a cool grim confidence. Daremo looked at the first truck and saw it hit by Havoc's slugs. The truck careened off the road, flipped over several times, and exploded.

"Now
that's
the way to do it!" Havoc shouted down at the foursome. Unfortunately, his words distracted Corey, who, not looking where she was driving, steered the car into a large pothole. The car shook violently, lost its muffler, and sent Havoc sliding down the rear of the vehicle. At the last second, Havoc grabbed hold of the rear window frame and held on for dear life, as sharp bits of the shattered rear windshield cut through his gloves and made his hands bleed.

The driver of the second truck of shocktroopers, seeing Havoc's predicament, floored the accelerator in order to catch up to the roadster and crush the hero between the two vehicles. The driver's comrades set up a hail of withering automatic fire, in an effort to keep Havoc's friends from coming to his aid.

"I think I understand this land a little better," Kayla announced to Daremo and Marcel as all three ducked for cover from the hail of bullets. "One succeeds at things if one does them in a manner worthy to be sung of by the bards. Shooting those noisy wheelocks is not enough. You have to do this!" Kayla sprung out the window, snarling like a tigress, and landed on the hood of the shocktrooper's truck, the latter's bumper just touching Havoc's shoes.

"Now
she's
got it!" Corey yelled. She cursed silently as she struggled to keep the roaring vehicle on the road.

Seeing a pretty woman clad in a short leather outfit come leaping out of a car's rear window is enough to give pause to the most experienced shocktrooper, and Kayla used the lag time well. Pulling out a fistful of metal filings, the barbarian made a series of gestures and spoke words of arcane power. Upon saying the final word, she threw the filings into the air. The metal changed and grew into the shape of steel shrapnel, and flew at a very high velocity through the windshield and into the front cab of the truck.

Without seeing how well her spell worked, Kayla turned around and leaped back into the car, grabbing Havoc by the scruff of the neck as she passed over him, and dragging him inside to safety. The shocktrooper truck, its remaining windows now obscured by a large amount of red liquid, swerved violently off the road, throwing the other shocktroopers out, and exploded in a massive yellow fire burst.

"Don't slow down!
There may be more of them! Maintain speed!" Havoc barked at Corey as he crawled into the front seat.

"Were the two of you
nuts!?"
Corey snapped. "What were you trying to prove up there?"

"It is the way we
do
things around here," Havoc replied, reloading his guns. "Risks, coincidences and drama are the marks of my land." He laughed and indicated his clothing, "especially coincidences." Apparently, it was a "private joke," for no one else laughed. He turned to a grinning Kayla. "Good job back there. What took you so long?"

"I think I am going to like this place," Daremo observed.

A few minutes later, the road became a boulevard that ran through central Cairo. "Okay, you can slow down now," Havoc said. "We're in Cairo." He noticed that the telephone poles were still going by quickly, and he turned to Corey. "I said you can slow down now."

Corey's face was white with fear. "I'm trying! I'm trying! The stupid brake doesn't work and the accelerator is stuck!"

"One of those shots must have severed the brake line," Daremo offered.

"Release thy foot from the accelerator," Marcel suggested.

Corey shook her head frantically. "I tried that! The blasted thing won't move up, only further down!"

"I do not
like
these metal machines!" Kayla spat. "Every time I get into one, people throw fiery iron at it, or it falls out of the sky, or it cannot be stopped!
Pfagh!
Give me a griffin any day!"

Pedestrians and merchants scattered for safety as the roadster, going a healthy ninety, roared down Sebek Boulevard.

"If she tries to make a turn, the car will most certainly flip over, and perhaps even explode," Daremo observed. "Things in this realm seem to love to explode."

"Maybe if I can just ride this boulevard right through Cairo, we can ditch into a sand dune," Corey suggested, her knuckles getting white as she gripped the steering wheel for dear life. "The road looks pretty straight, and barring any further problems ."

"Not a chance," Havoc said, "there's —"

On the road ahead, a railroad crossing gate lowered and red lights flashed, warning of an oncoming train.

"Oh, crap, just what we needed!" Corey groaned.

"Speed up," Havoc ordered.

Corey did a double take.
"What!?"