J.B. asked.
“We appear to be rising,” she answered slowly. “Nothing serious yet, but we better let out some helium.”
“My job,” Doc said, pulling the sword from his stick. Reaching high, he stabbed the lowest weather balloon and it noisily deflated in a blubbery rush. But the Pegasus didn’t lose any height. Puzzled, Doc stabbed another, then another, and incredibly the airship began to rise.
“How’s this possible?” J.B. demanded, trying to see above the makeshift craft. Did something have a hold of them and was dragging the balloons skyward?
“Goddamn it, we’re caught in an updraft from those cross currents!” Mildred said, drawing her blaster and blowing away the largest balloon. It burst as the hot round tore through, but their speed didn’t slow.
Steadily the Pegasus streaked for the storm clouds overhead, and Ryan briefly considered dropping all of their excess weight to get above the clouds. Unfortunately, the sheet lightning filled the sky and they would be fried rising through the wild storm—if the rads and chems didn’t ace them first. But if they shot out too many balloons, they would plummet from the sky and crash on the rocks below. They had passed the ocean several minutes ago and were now moving over bare soil studded with boulders and rusty predark junk. The companions would be torn to pieces even if they survived the brutal landing.
As they rose still higher, Krysty cried out in pain, then the rest rubbed their arms and faces, skin prick-ling from the deadly proximity to the heavily polluted clouds. Just then, both of the rad counters began to wildly click ever faster.
“If we enter those clouds,” Doc warned in a stentorian tone, his eyes painfully tearing, “none of us shall ever leave it alive!”
With no other choice, Ryan drew his blaster and started firing, the spent brass kicking over the side of the basket. Fireblast, he thought, the problem with balloon wags was supposed to be keeping them afloat, not getting them to come down. Just one solution for that. The red-hot rounds from the SIG-Sauer easily punched through the tough polymer sheeting, deflating balloons far out of the sword’s reach, and the craft instantly slowed. Then it began to descend, and soon the itchy crawling feeling of radiation was fading away. Only now the island was rushing toward them with nightmare speed as the Pegasus descended out of control.
“Too fast!” Jak stated, slashing through the ropes. The heavy bags fell, and the Pegasus continued to drop.
“Shitfire, we’ve slipped out of the thermal!” Mildred warned. “Now we’re too heavy. Toss everything overboard!”
The companions slid off their backpacks and heaved them away, but the reduction in weight made no real difference. Too many of the balloons had been destroyed in their efforts to avoid the death clouds. But the airship was also still moving inland. The moonlight heralding their way, the terrain became grasslands, then a forest with a stone arch extended across the valley, connecting one mountainside to the other. A natural limestone bridge flew by.
“Get ready to jump,” Ryan ordered, climbing the ropes.
The others copied his actions, but the Pegasus swung past the bridge moving way too fast, the bottom of the plastic pallet scraping across the limestone for the briefest instant before they were past the obstruction and over the trees again.
“Fireblast!” Ryan spit, falling back into the rope basket.
Incredibly, from somewhere below an alarm bell began to ring, and blasters crackled from the dark trees as cannons roared from hidden bunkers on the shadowy mountainsides, their discharges throwing tongues of flame that illuminated the valley.
“It’s another ville!” J.B. snarled as a cannonball rushed by, buffeting them with the wind of its passing.
“Water!” Krysty shouted, pointing ahead.
There was a wide break in the stygian forest, where a calm river traversed the valley floor. Unfortunately, the river was narrow, with sharp rocks lining both shores, with more trees returning on the far bank. Their target was a slim area of flat mud between the rocks, impossible to hit at their current speed.
“That is our best chance!” Ryan shouted, slashing away the side ropes, open air directly before the man. “Wait for it…Now!”
In unison the companions dived from the pallet, and a split second later the Pegasus rammed into the trees and was torn apart by a thousand sharp branches.
Only the babbling of the shallow river disturbed the heavy silence of the muddy banks. Then swatches of light bobbed through the darkness, and armed men stepped from the rushes along the riverbank to stealthily approach the deathly still figures sprawled in the bloody mud.
THEIR BLACK PLUMES trailing across the starry sky, the four PT boats steamed across the ocean, their engines thumping loudly.
A number of dolphins swam alongside the lead petey, occasionally lifting their bottle-nose heads to give a stuttering squeal. With both of his wounds stiff and aching, Mitchum slid the longblaster off his shoulder, pulled back the heavy hammer and shot one. The creature moved sideways from the impact of the .75 miniball, human-red blood spraying from the gaping wound. The entire pack dived out of sight instantly, and as the chugging fleet left them behind, the dolphins returned to circle the dying mammal, gently nudging it with their stubby noses. Then a female gave a long howl as if in mourning as the gut-shot male rolled onto its back to expose its pale belly to the air. The rest of the pack circled their dead friend once more, then swam away, leaving the lifeless meat to the endless scavengers. But more than one of the dolphins turned to stare at the noisy dead thing that thundered over the water, watching the two-legs with intelligent eyes full of raw hatred.
“What was that?” Glassman demanded, lowering his plate of beans and dried fish.
“Some kind of baby shark,” Mitchum said, purging the longblaster before refilling it with powder, lead and cloth wad, then carefully tramping down the fresh charge with a blunt nimrod. “Who cares? Just a fish. Ain’t got no brains or human feelings.”
With a shrug, Glassman returned to his meal.
“Ahoy, the captain!” a sailor called out from an aft PT boat, a hand pointing to the sky. “Two o’clock high!”
“It’s them!” Mitchum snarled, lifting his long-blaster, but withheld firing. The weird air wag was bobbing along in the sky without a care in the world. The sec chief trembled with the urge to kill, and had to mentally force his hands to lower the flintlock.
“Well, don’t stand there gawking like virgins in a gaudy house!” Mitchum snarled, stalking along the deck. “They’re getting away! Load the .50 cals! Ready the Firebirds!” Nobody moved to obey the command. The sec chief fumed in his impotence, and bit back words he knew would only get him aced.
“Land ho!” another called in warning. “Breakers at our noon!”
A corporal backed away from the sight. “That’s Forbidden Island!”
“What?” a sec man gasped, spinning in shock.
On the horizon was a long landmass with two live volcanoes. There could be no doubt as to which island that was.
“Nuke me, it is!” Glassman shouted, throwing away his plate. “Emergency stop! Cut all engines!”
The
