LITMIR.BIZ

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confidently, patting the chassis as if it were a well-trained horse. “I heard that these things are rad proof, bomb proof and were built to drive though nerve gas and napalm. I think she’ll do fine against sand.”

      “Only one way to find out,” J.B. said, shifting into gear. “You folks ready back there?” There came an answering chorus of assent. “Okay, here we go!”

      Letting the engine idle for a few moments to warm the seals, J.B. slowly eased the UCV forward. Behind them, the rope wrapped around the top cryo unit grew taut, stretching straight to a hoist on the front of a wrecked Hummer. Moving at a crawl, J.B. straightened the vehicle slightly as the unit began to be dragged out of the war wag, pushing the other two units ahead of it. As they got close, Ryan unplugged one freezer, Krysty did the other, and the units were pulled out of the wag to crash onto the floor of the garage. Instantly, the control panels started strobing brightly, and there came the telltale sound of hissing.

      Reaching out, Ryan and Krysty grabbed the handles on the aft doors and slammed them shut.

      Watching in the rearview mirror, J.B. needed no further prompting to stomp on the gas. Shoving aside a wrecked Hummer, the man drove directly to the nearest louvered door. Switching on the second engine, J.B. lowered the fork until it was scraping along the floor, throwing off bright sparks. It slid neatly under the door, and J.B. flipped another switch. Nothing happened for a moment, then the fork began to rise to the sound of crunching metal. In squealing protest, the garage doors were pushed upward, the louvered steel bending and folding like an accordion, until ripping free from the guides in the cinder-block wall with a crash. Instantly, the storm flooded the truck garage and the windshield darkened to a blue color.

      “How do?” Jak asked, sitting upright.

      “Not me,” J.B. replied, throwing switches. “The damn wag did that by itself!”

      “The windshield is polarized,” Mildred explained, unable to take her eyes off the three cryogenic freezers. “It’s a chem reaction, nothing mechanical involved.” One of the units had fallen sideways, the aced hellhound spilling onto the floor. But the other two freezers were still right-side up, the control panels blinking wildly, the vents issuing white clouds.

      As the vehicle trundled into the sandstorm, she lost sight of the units and felt something tug inside her chest as if they were emotionally attached to each other. Men or monsters, the occupants were from her time period, and she felt a strange connection to them that she could not really explain. Just a touch of homesickness, that’s all, she rationalized, turning away. Nothing more.

      In sympathy, Doc patted her knee. “I also miss my home,” he whispered, the words meant only for her.

      Mildred took his hand and gave it a squeeze in understanding and thanks.

      Outside the wag, the companions could see the storm raging, but there was only a faint whisper of the sand hitting the roof hatch. The rope was taut, but apparently the seal was not hard anymore. But no grit or salt was coming inside, and that was good enough for now. Once they reached a redoubt, Ryan and J.B. could weld the lock into place, sealing the hatch airtight once more.

      J.B. turned on the wipers, then tried the headlights, but if they worked, the beams were not strong enough to penetrate the clouds of dirty sand. “Dark night!” the man cursed. “This sure as hell is one nuke storm of a—”

      “Dark night?” Jak supplied.

      The two men exchanged glances and broke into laughter as the trundling vehicle moved past a dune and was hit by the full force of the maelstrom. The wag began to slide sideways from the sheer force of the wind, but the eight huge tires dug in hard, throwing tall arches of sand into the air. With a lurch, the vehicle gained a purchase and began lumbering along once more.

      “Keep the radar working,” Ryan suggested, pulling out the SIG-Sauer to start the cleaning process again. “If a droid comes this way, that’ll give us enough of a warning to get away.”

      “No prob,” Jak answered, and flicked a switch. Born and raised in the backwoods of the bayou, the teen hadn’t known much about tech until traveling with the companions. Now he was an old hand at such things. The radar swept around on the luminescent screen, showing nothing dense enough to register.

      “National Guard bases are always near a city, so there should be something nearby,” Krysty said, looking over the ruins. Aside from the garage, the rest of the complex was only broken walls, open to the acid rain and wind. “We came from the south, and there is only desert to the west, so do we go north or east?”

      “Nor’east,” Ryan decided. It was just like using a blaster that you were unfamiliar with. Never try for any sharpshooting the first time, just go for the heart. That way, if you’re too low and you hit the belly, or too high and hit the face, either way, the other guy is eating dirt.

      “Fair enough,” J.B. said, shifting gear and giving the engines more juice. They obediently revved with power.

      “Hummers, armed troops, sec hunter droids,” Krysty said, her hair coiling around her face. “I wonder if those were safeguarding the occupants of the three cases or escorting them somewhere special to be safely disposed.”

      “Like the National Guard base?” Ryan asked, suddenly alert.

      “Could be.”

      Nobody had an answer to that, so the companions began to tend to the mundane aspects of travel, first cleaning their weapons, then preparing a meal of MRE packs. Impervious to the storm, the UCV rolled through the tempest, rising and falling like a ship at sea, the brutal winds hammering against the armored wag far into the long dark night.

      AS THE UCV CRESTED THE HORIZON, it passed the mandatory safety zone. The two cryogenic units in the National Guard base activated, the lids smoothly rising as thick clouds of swirling mist rose into view. The slumbering occupants took their first breath as they sluggishly began to awaken.

      Chapter Five

      Once past the wreckage in the snowy mountain pass, the convoy of war wags moved swiftly through an array of jagged tors, the irregular spears of cooled lava brutal reminders of a nuke-volcano.

      As the traders left the region and headed south, crystal shards rose from the ground like a forest of mirrors, so War Wag One took the lead, the armored prow creating a trail for the smaller war wags by simply smashing through the delicate formations to the never-ending sound of shattering glass.

      In the control room of War Wag One, the crew stayed alert for any further dangers. They were approaching difficult territory. No convoy had gotten past the Hermit on the Hill, only individuals who crept past in the thick of the night. And even then, some of them didn’t escape from the high-explosive death of the crazy wrinklie.

      Inside the cramped control room, Jake was at the wheel dodging obstructions with consummate skill, Quinn watched the radar and Jimmy listened intensely to the Ear, a patched set of headphones attached to a dish microphone mounted on the roof. When the conditions were right, the Ear could listen in on conversations more than a thousand yards away, although it usually was only good for a couple of hundred yards, and even less if there was a lot of ambient noise, like a waterfall.

      Over by the periscope, Jessica watched the horizon for anything suspicious while Roberto sat in the command chair, checking over some predark maps and keeping weight off his bad leg. The cold was making it ache more than he wanted to admit, but keeping off his feet helped.

      Softly, the radio crackled with static as the tires rumbled over the loose shale covering the ground like oily dinner plates. Down the hallway leading to the engine room, gunners were alert at the .50-caliber machine guns, hands on triggers. The evening guards were asleep in their bunks, somebody was singing in the shower, and Matilda was in the galley frying onions and something spicy for the evening meal, the delicious aroma mixing with the tang of ozone from the humming comps and the smell of diesel exhaust from the engines.

      “Mmm, smells like rattlesnake surprise,” a crewman said, sniffing happily. Nobody made a comment.

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