to the opposite door, Ryan listened for any movement in the corridor. Hearing none, he tapped the standard code into the keypad. The door slid open and he sneaked a peek outside. Dozens of corpses wearing Navy uniforms were on the floor, each in the process of crumbling from the infusion of fresh air coming from the vents.
Ryan then turned to find the rest of his companions already in the control room. Krysty and Jak were standing guard, while Mildred and J.B. checked the clothing and blasters.
“This man…excuse me, this woman, was a lieutenant in Navy Intelligence,” Mildred said, fingering the rank insignia. “While this fellow was a corporal in the Navy SEALs and the other man was a pilot in the Navy Air Corps.”
“If this isn’t a bastard ship, then we must be at a Navy base,” Ryan stated, thoughtfully rubbing his jaw. “Or at least, damn close to a base.” That was good news. The Navy always stored tons of extra supplies in their bases. With any luck, dinner would be beef stew, not gopher surprise—surprise, it’s gopher again.
“These weapons are in fine shape,” J.B. noted, working the arming bolt on one of the M-16 assault rifles to cycle a round out the ejector port. “The springs in the clips are weak, but still functional, and aside from that these rapidfires should work without any trouble. There’s no rust at all on the brass from the dry air.”
“Dead air,” Mildred corrected him. “I suspect that in this redoubt, when the sensors don’t detect anything alive inside, the computers flood the base with inert gas to retard any corrosion or chemical decompositions.”
“Which is why the bodies were in such good shape until we activated the life support system,” Ryan guessed.
“Quite so,” Doc rumbled from the other side of the oval door. “Apparently even the conqueror worm is humbled before the iron law of science.”
“Amen to that,” Mildred said with a half smile.
Bemused, Doc grunted in reply.
“Any spare clips?” Krysty asked.
“Plenty,” J.B. replied, opening an ammo pouch on the belt. “Five, no six. Mixed rounds, solid lead, HEAT and tumblers.”
“Expecting trouble,” Jak stated, holstering his Colt Python. “Still might come. I take.”
After adding a few precious drops of homogenized gun oil to the rapidfire, J.B. passed two of the rapidfires and ammo pouches to Jak and Krysty, then gave another to Mildred. With sure hands, the three companions checked the assault rifles for themselves. The action was a little slow, and the trigger kind of stiff, but aside from that the weapons were in fine shape and ready for battle.
“Damn, barrel blocked,” Jak said, looking through the weapon at the ceiling lights. Shaking the assault rifle, he saw a slim roll of tightly wound paper fall onto the floor. Why hide cig? the albino teen wondered, then took a sniff. This wasn’t tobacco, but maryjane! Jak started to tuck the joint into a shirt pocket, but the pressure of his fingers made it crumble into loose leaves and ancient dust.
“No loss. It would have tasted awful,” Mildred said with a knowing wink. “Wine and whiskey age well. Weed does not.”
“And exactly how do you know that, madam?” Doc asked accusingly.
“Ah…I had glaucoma in high school.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Dead air, or not, we still need to do a sweep of the base to make sure that we’re alone,” Ryan stated, entering the code to open the door, as it had automatically closed behind him. He entered the corridor again. As expected, the vents had finished their task and the clouds of desiccated human flesh were gone. Now, only loose clothing and skeletons dotted the entire length of the corridor. One figure lay blocking an open doorway, a petrified doughnut in his hand with a single bite taken.
“These folks died fast,” Ryan stated, scowling at the grim sight. “Think it was some sort of plague?”
“No disease I know kills this quickly,” Mildred said, hefting the assault rifle to try to find a comfortable position. “Not even the genetically created plagues.”
“Rad leak?” Jak asked nervously.
Both Ryan and J.B. checked the rad counters clipped to their lapels.
“Clear,” J.B. announced. “Not even a trace of rad.”
Mildred bit her lip. “My guess would be that a gas of some kind did this.”
“Nerve gas took out an entire redoubt?” Doc asked, shocked. “Is that even theoretically possible, madam? I mean, with all of the automatic safeguards of a redoubt?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” J.B. added, pushing back his fedora to scratch his head.
“Well, the gas must be long gone by now, or else we’d be facedown on the floor,” Krysty stated, the rapidfire balanced in her hands. “Where next, lover?”
“Armory,” Ryan stated, heading for the stairs. “If this was done by nerve gas, that’s the most likely storage place. We better make sure that whatever leaked is completely empty.”
“Before we, too, join the choir invisible,” Doc rumbled, glancing nervously at a wall vent.
Nobody commented on that dire possibility as they followed Ryan along the corridor. The skeletons were everywhere, and the companions had to exercise care to not tromp on any of the bony hands. Every room they passed had more bones, some of them merely scattered piles, while others were lying neatly tucked into their beds, holding a clipboard or working at a comp or listening to music.
Once, very long ago, the companions had found a redoubt with eerie sounds playing over the intercom. But instead of a half-crazed survivor, it had proved to only be a music CD still trying to play reveille after a century. But this redoubt was disturbingly still. Quite literally, the quiet of a grave.
In the ward room, five sailors in pants and T-shirts were sitting around a table, a game of poker in progress. Several more were on a sofa watching a TV monitor now showing only static. One fellow wearing glasses was reading a paperback novel, while another died on the toilet, a yellow newspaper lying nearby bearing the precise date of the nuclear doomsday.
“Brass by ton,” Jak said happily, noting the countless array of sidearms worn by the skeletons. Most of the officers seemed to carrying 9 mm Glock blasters, but the guards were armed with Colt .45s, the regulation gunbelts holding a standard four spare clips. Those were the best; the Colt was a brutal little manstopper that could blow the head off a stickie at fifty yards.
Unfortunately the stairs were choked with uniforms, or rather, loose piles of bones that were still tumbling down the steps now that the last vestiges of flesh holding them in place were gone. With no choice, the companions took the elevator to the armory level. Two of the cages were full of skeletons, but the third was empty.
“This is rather unnerving,” Mildred said, watching a sec camera in the corner of the ceiling steadily move back and forth. The people were all aced, but the machines continued to function on whatever was their last setting.
“Be a lot
