Draining the glass in a few swallows, Silas sat on his bed and kicked off his velvet slippers. The room was nicely warm, the heavy curtains blocking any noise of the troops on patrol outside. It had been a long and fruitful day of work. The master computer system for the Kite seemed to be working fine today, but the real test would come tomorrow when they tested the focusing mechanism. Having the ultimate weapon meant nothing unless it could be used with surgical skill. Clubs were for cavemen, and he was a scientist.

Snuggling under the covers, Silas fought against the drug coursing through his veins, formulas and mathematical equations filling his mind. But finally, he relaxed and let hated sleep claim him once again. Almost immediately, sweat formed on his brow, and his eyelids began to flutter.

Groaning and mumbling in the delirium, the man couldn't hear the cover come off the air-conditioning vent in the wall. It was maneuvered inside the shaft, and a figure slowly emerged from the wall, lowering himself to the floor, the bare feet making not a sound. The invader waited until his vision became adjusted to the dark, then drew a length of rope from around his waist. Holding an end in each hand, he crept toward the snoring man.

Standing above the sleeper, the slave watched the rise and fall of the madman's chest, savoring this moment of revenge. Then he bent over to slide the garrote around the unprotected throat of the man who had tortured to death so many people in the name of his holy science.

"Victory or death," he said through clenched teeth. "And it's death for you, whitecoat!"

A muffled cough sounded and the room flashed with light. The slave stumbled backward, bleeding from the chest. He hit the wall and dropped the garrote, drawing a blaster. Again the cough sounded, the muzzle-flash of the silenced weapon strobing the darkness as the soft-nosed rounds punched the slave to the ground with sledgehammer force.

Brilliant lights flooded the room, and Major William Sheffield walked over to the dying slave, the unfired blaster still in the unfortunate wretch's hands.

Coolly, Sheffield shot the skinny man once in each eye, cracking open the skull. A trickle of brains flowed down the wall and onto the floor.

"Secure the room," the major ordered, and a platoon of sec men poured in from the hallway to swarm around Silas, forming a living wall of protection.

A sec man exited the closet with a silenced pistol, an electronic device of some kind strapped to his face.

"It was amazing," the guard said, sliding off the visor. "I could actually see in the dark. Everything was colored green, but I could truly see."

"Yes, you did well," Sheffield said, swinging his weapon at the guard. "Pity you let the slave get so close to the commander."

"Sir?" the guard asked, frightened.

Sheffield shot the man in the heart, the .45-caliber round from the U.S. Army Colt automatic driving him into the closet.

Crossing the room, he shot the man again to make sure of the job, then strode over to the mumbling scientist.

"Dr. Jamaisvous?" he said loudly, shaking the man. There was no response. Impatiently, he slapped the old man hard. Nothing, but more mumbling.

"Okay, we handle this ourselves," Sheffield stated to the troops. "Sound the call, but do it quietly. We know the slaves have been planning something for a while. I thought it was a mass escape, but it looks like they might plan on killing us first."

Cradling an AK-47 longblaster, a corporal wearing a bulletproof vest snorted. "Bad choice, sir. They might have had a chance in hell of running away."

INSIDE THE MAIN OFFICE for the power plant, the chief engineer for the complex stopped eating a sandwich when he heard an odd banging noise. Grabbing some gloves, he quickly stepped onto the main floor of the plant to see if there was something wrong with the cranky steam generators again. The damn things were always overheating, losing pressure or blowing a valve.

Clearly highlighted in the red glow of the main furnace, the engineer gasped at the sight of three sec men lying on the ground, slaves beating them with coal shovels. Then one slave turned the edge of the shovel on a cringing guard and decapitated the man on the spot, the head rolling away, leaving a crimson trail.

"Motherfuckers!" the engineer shouted, and grabbed his blaster, but a shovel from behind smashed his arm. His dropped weapon skittered away under a lathe.

Clutching the broken arm, the engineer tried to make it back to the office, but halfway there he saw slaves standing in the doorway, the men and women armed with the AK-47 blasters from the arms locker.

"As if you scum know how to operate a blaster," he said with a sneer, backing away. But fear filled his belly, and bitter vomit rose in his throat.

In reply, the slaves clicked off the safeties and worked the bolts, chambering rounds.

"No, stop. I can help you!" he pleaded, tears running down his chubby cheeks. "I know what's going on here. I can protect you from the Kite!"

"Liar," a slave snarled, and fired once, hitting him in the left knee.

The pain was excruciating, and the engineer dropped to the floor, clutching the ghastly wound, a shard of white bone visible in the flesh. "No, please! Let me live! I beg you!"

"As you let the children live?" another spit. "And the women after you used them?"

"Please..."

"Yes, we should let him live," a tall woman said unexpectedly. "Let him stay alive all the way to the furnace!"

The slaves crowded around the engineer and bodily hauled him away. Though weak from blood loss, the terrified engineer fought like a wild animal, kicking and biting, until beaten partially senseless by the wooden stocks of the blasters.

Weeping uncontrollably, the engineer was shoved into the second furnace and the grille slammed shut. There came the telltale whoosing sound of building pressure, and he screamed for salvation. Then the searing flames engulfed the man, and he keened hideously. Unconcerned, the slaves walked away, leaving him to enjoy his last few moments alone with his precious machines.

SILENTLY MOUTHING CURSES, a sec man toppled off the roof of the power plant, his face dark purple, a length of knotted rope wound around his constricted throat.

Screaming, a sec man stumbled out of the officers' lav, his pants dragging around his ankles and blood pouring from his ass, the feather shaft of an arrow protruding from between his plump cheeks.

The door to the dining hall was thrown open and slaves poured out, carrying weapons and ammo belts. Inside, a dozen sec man lay sprawled on the linen-covered tables, black tongues sticking out of their foaming mouths, the beer mugs dripping a bluish liquid on the freshly scrubbed floor.

Shouting orders, armed sec men piled out of the barracks, and the night came alive with blasterfire as they were cut down in the street by hidden snipers.

Suddenly, sirens blared and lights clicked on, filling the complex with blinding illumination. But the tactic failed miserably. Instead of startling the slaves and making them run away in fear, it gave them heart. They used the visibility to shoot down additional sec men, men seized their longblasters to kill more of the blue shirts. "Victory or death!" a woman yelled, waving a bloody longblaster. The rally cry was repeated by a hundred people in rags, brandishing weapons of every possible description.

IN A THUNDEROUS crash, the side of the main warehouse broke apart and an Abrams M-1 tank rolled out of the building, crashing under its massive armored treads several Hummers that had been commandeered by slaves.

Oddly, nobody fired a weapon at the tank, and the commander began to laugh as the gunner tracked the machine guns of the military juggernaut after the slaves scattering throughout the complex.

As the Abrams rumbled past the barracks, a glass window shattered and a slave leaped upon the machine, clinging to the thick barrel of the 120 mm cannon like a monkey. More laughter sounded from within the Abrams, and then a series of metallic clanks announced the main gun was being loaded. Light poured from the barrel, and the slave released the handle of the gren in his hand and threw it down the barrel. The men inside cursed in shock. Releasing the cannon, the slave fell to the soil and tried to run, but the military tank loomed above him like a wall of death. He darted to the left, the right, but not fast enough. The treads caught his leg, and he was pulled underneath the massive machine shrieking and wailing until his head was mashed flat.

Then the gren detonated, flame shooting from the cannon and out every port and hatch. Steam rising from its vents, the Abrams stood motionless in the street, the smell of death pouring from the broken vehicle.

With the destruction of the Army tank, the fighting became pandemic in the ville. Shots rang out constantly, screams coming from every building. The fighting went hand-to-hand at the armory, as each side straggled to reclaim the precious cache of ammo. Triumphantly, the sec men gained control of the building, ruthlessly shooting the slaves crawling in through the broken windows and shimmying out the fireplace flue.

Then a horn sounded a single clear note, and the slaves raced away from the structure. Weapons at the ready, the sec men stuffed grens into their pockets and waited for the next assault when the floor below erupted in a strident blast. The entire building lifted into the air, the tunnels below the foundation clearly visible for a split second before the tons of masonry plummeted earthward in a grisly rain.

That was the turning point of the battle. Now the slaves openly challenged the sec men, blaster for blaster, man for man, and the blues were decimated every time they tried to make a stand. Soon the sec men were ducking for cover, then retreating to strategic locations, and finally running for their lives before the relentless advance of the ragged horde.

"RETREAT TO THE BUNKER!" cried the sec chief, launching a flare into the nighttime sky. The incandescent charge soared upward and detonated in a pyrotechnic display visible from everywhere in the complex.

A shot hit him in the chest, the blow to his vest only making him grunt. Then a tracer round took him in the throat, and the man toppled off the roof of the Hummer, launching a second flare with his last ounce of strength. The charge went wild, rocketing down a street, glancing off the side of a building and streaking into the night to explode among the trees. Few saw the heroic act, even fewer the second flare. But the first signal had been spotted, and the wounded blue shirts obeyed the desperate command, fleeing toward the concrete block located in an open field.

The bunker was a stout concrete building, its original purpose lost forever in time. But the windows were sealed with iron plate, the walls reinforced with multiple layers of bricks, the domed roof smooth concrete over riveted sheets of cold iron.

"Hurry!" a corporal shouted, standing in the doorway, one hand on the portal, the other gripping the jamb. Sec men stood behind him, firing their blasters in controlled bursts at the bloodthirsty throng racing across the field. Dozens of sec men poured into the building, plunging deeper into the structure to make room for their brethren guards so close on their heels.

Carrying a flamethrower, a sec chief appeared from within the bunker. "That's everybody. Close the door."

"We have a man out there!" the door guard dared to respond.

The sec chief squinted into the chaos. A single sec men was running toward the bunker only a few yards ahead of the slave army. Arms pumping, legs flashing, the blue shirt raced pell-mell across the field, leading the way for the howling killers, a herald announcing the holocaust.

"Fuck him! This is a direct order. Close the door, Corporal."

Confused, the sec man jerked his head at the running blue shirt so close to the bunker, and the slaves so close behind. With a grave expression, he began to push the heavy door closed, the opening narrowing by the heartbeat.

"Wait," the runner wheezed. "Please, wait!"

The armored door closed with a boom, the heavy locks sliding noisily across the array of iron bands.

Stumbling to a halt, the sec man stood in the middle of the field staring dumbfounded at the bunker. "Damn you," he panted. "Damn you all to hell."

A longblaster shot took the man in the shoulder, spinning him, blood spraying from the impact. Now facing the triumphant slaves, the blue shirt made no effort to run or draw the weapon at his hip. There seemed to be no point to the act. Howling in victory, the slaves swarmed over the standing man, and he disappeared within the mob.

Reaching the bunker, the slaves fired their blasters at the door and walls, the 7.62 mm rounds chipping the bricks but nothing more.

"Find some explosives!" shouted a big woman, a pistol in one hand and a bloody piece of scalp in the other. "Let's blast our way in!"

A scrawny man stood before the door as if defying it with his mere presence. "I say we break it down and catch the bastards alive!" he shouted. "Then we crucify the lot of them! Who's with me?"

The slaves cheered their approval. A bracing girder used for supporting the dish was found, and ten of the largest slaves grabbed hold and charged at the iron door. The end of the steel girder flattened as it hit, and the door shook dangerously on its hinges.

"Again!" screamed the leader, and the girder slammed against the iron portal, making it rattle loosely.

"It's coming free!" a woman shouted. "We're almost in!"

A tiny slot opened in the door and several blasters fired. Two slaves toppled over with ghastly head wounds. But more rushed boldly to take their place, and one man shoved an AK-47 into the port and emptied the clip, twisting the barrel about in a circle, trying to chill everybody on the other side. Screams of pain told of some degree of success.

The girder crashed against the door once more, and suddenly clear moonlight washed over the battlefield.

Startled, the slaves paused in the attack, some of them plainly frightened. Above the complex, the ever present storm clouds were thinning away to nothingness and twinkling stars could be seen overhead, the fat moon a silvery orb to rule the sky.

"Beautiful," a woman cried.

A man recoiled in fear. "Ain't natural. No clouds in the sky? Ain't natural, I tell ya!"

The leader of the slaves started to reply when he heard a low-key humming and realized there was a surge of power going through the high-tension lines feeding the dish, the accumulators audibly charging. His heart pounding, the slave had no idea what to do. Was this an attack? Were the blues electrifying the door?

Just then a man screamed, clawing wildly at his face; Then another did the same, and another. Caterwauling people fell off the roofs of buildings, untriggered rifles exploded, loose ammo crackling like popcorn and Hummers burst into fireballs.

A FEW MINUTES LATER, the battered door to the bunker was forced open by sec men who immediately retreated, covering their mouths and noses and trying not to gag. The portal was closed posthaste, the edges sealed with rags and anything that could be shoved into the jamb to keep out the horrible stink.

The blue shirts knew they would have to wait a few hours for the stench to dissipate. But there was no rush. The rebellion was over. Everything within a mile of the bunker was now stone dead.

INSIDE THE MAIN LAB of the complex, Silas Jamaisvous stood at a control panel, an empty syringe of adrenaline sticking out of his arm.

Woozy, he pulled down the switch operating the bus bar disconnecting the main relay assembly from the power grid.

"It worked," he whispered in delight. "It really worked!"

"Yes, it did," Sheffield said from the corner of the lab. "And we really need to talk about that."

Chapter Eight.

Ryan awoke, still hearing the thunder of the waterfall.

"Son of a mutie bitch," he muttered. "We survived after all."

Struggling to his hands and knees, the man realized half of his face was cold and the other side painfully hot. He been lying facedown in the mud with the sun baking his blind side.

Painfully sitting upright, Ryan felt like the loser in an ax fight. He remembered going over the waterfall and not much after that. Sluggishly, the one-eyed man felt for his SIG-Sauer. He was amazed to find it still there. Trembling fingers jacked the slide, and he holstered the useless blaster. It was coated with mud. Firing a round now might make the weapon explode.

Drawing the curved panga, he stood and surveyed the landscape. They were in a shining sea of smooth water, tiny tufts of brown grass dotting the surface, and farther out was the occasional dead tree draped with moss and green with mold. The smell of salt was strong. The water was about a foot deep, the ground underneath the soft muck of decaying plants. It was a swamp formed from the runoff of the ocean river. To the east rose a high cliff, a waterfall cascading from the top, filling the air with a fine mist and a beautiful rainbow.

The Deathlands warrior frowned. Cliffs behind, swamp ahead, not much choice of direction to take.

Wiping the salt mud off his face, Ryan counted off the rest of the companions and was relieved to find everybody present. They were lying limply about, but no limbs jutted at odd angles, and no pools of blood were visible. Krysty lay near him, with one cowboy boot missing, her fur coat looking like it had drowned itself. A few yards away, Mildred was draped over a piece of the raft. The unconscious physician still gripped her med kit.

The smaller raft was intact. One of the logs was broken in two, but the canvas still retained the supplies within. But the cargo raft was destroyed, boxes and timbers strewed everywhere for hundreds of yards.

Nobody dead, one raft still whole. With this little damage, Ryan realized it couldn't have been a proper waterfall with a straight drop. It had to have been merely a steep incline, and they were flushed onto this muddy field like so much shit. Vaguely, Ryan had disjointed memories of swimming, fighting to reach the surface, people shouting. After that, it was blank. One raft lost. Could have been worse, a lot worse.

"Krysty?" he asked, sloshing closer to the woman.

"I'm alive, lover," she replied, struggling into a crouch. "Just barely, but still pulling air."

Finding the other boot, Ryan gave it to her, then helped the woman to stand. "It's a miracle we survived," he stated.

"Thank Gaia." Krysty coughed and tried to wipe the clinging muck off her sodden clothes.

Resembling a corpse escaping the grave, Mildred arose from the watery mud. "Anybody hurt?" the physician asked wearily, feeling her own arms and chest for broken bones.

"We're okay," Ryan replied. "Battered, but no serious damage."

"Good." Mildred hawked and spit to clear her mouth. "Looks like we're in a runoff swamp," she said. "Better than a rad pit, I suppose."

Quickly, Ryan checked his lapel and saw no readings from the miniature Geiger counter. "Clean," he reported, then actually smiled as he noted the disheveled appearance of his friends, dark mud covering them like camou armor. "Well, sort of anyway," he added.

Favoring his right leg, Doc struggled to stand, the black-powder charges from the LeMat dribbling out of the holster and down his leg like black blood.

"How inconvenient," he rumbled in annoyance, then addressed the others. "By any chance, does anybody see my stick?"

"Over here," Dean cried, and splashed across the water. By a rotting tree, he plunged his hands into the silt and pulled the ebony swordstick free.