Shadow Fortress

“Might as well set off a gren if you’re going to talk that loud,” Mildred stated, tossing away the filthy grass.

“My humble apologies,” Doc muttered in a wry apology, then continued in the same volume.

“So where is our arboreal harbor located, John Barrymore?”

“Straight up,” J.B. said, jerking a thumb at the impenetrable ceiling of the jungle. “From here, we climb.”

“Indeed,” Doc said, studying the dense weaving of vines and creepers. “How antediluvian for us.”

Standing her post, Krysty ignored the conversation, forcing herself to listen to the distant sounds of the forest, the chattering of a distant monkey, a flowing stream, birds in flight and the constant hum of the insects all around them. There were a lot of bugs in this jungle.

“I’ll take the lead and cut us a path,” Ryan stated, tightening the straps on his backpack. “Just remember to put any loose branches or leaves in your pockets. Don’t let anything fall to the ground and mark the spot.”

“Easy,” Jak Lauren grunted, wincing slightly as he accidentally put some weight on his sprained ankle.

The bus crash at the quagmire had almost chilled the lot of them, and it was just chance that a barrel of shine had fallen on his leg. Thankfully, it was empty and he only received a sprain, not a break. Mildred was a good doctor, but there wasn’t really much a person could do for a broken leg.

A true albino, Jak wore his snowy hair long, and often leaned forward so it fell across his scarred face to mask his pale red eyes from enemies and preventing them from detecting which way he was going to charge. Deception was the Cajun’s favorite weapon.

In spite of the humidity and heat, Jak was still wearing his camouflage jacket, the lapels and collar decorated with bits of razors, special hidden surprises for anybody foolish enough to grab him by the jacket. At least a dozen leaf-bladed throwing knives were hidden on his person, and a big .357 Magnum Colt Python pistol was tucked into his belt.

“How are you doing?” Mildred asked, coming closer. “Feeling okay?”

In the gloom, Jak scowled. “Fine,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Nothing but pain.”

“Crap,” Mildred replied, and rummaged about in her med kit until unearthing a plastic film container. Snapping the top, she poured out three aspirins and gave the teenager two.

“Take them,” the physician ordered in a no-nonsense tone of voice. “If we’re going to be climbing trees, you’ll need these.”

Although hating to ever appear weak, Jak was no stupe and took the pills with a swig from his canteen. “Thanks,” he said, wiping his mouth on a sleeve.

“No problem,” Mildred replied, tucking away her meager medical supplies.

Boots softly crunching on the carpeting of leaves as he walked through the crowd of adults, a boy strode to the biggest banyan tree and briefly inspected the trunk. The branches were low and thick, vines everywhere for easy climbing. To anybody but the wounded, it was an easy climb.

“Want me to do a recce?” Dean Cawdor asked, holstering his blaster to free both hands.

Almost twelve years old, Dean was already the spitting image of his father.

“I’ll go this time,” Ryan stated, and reached up to grab a branch.

Suddenly, Krysty snapped her head to the left and raised a clenched fist. Instantly, the group froze, hands poised on their assorted weapons. Long minutes passed before the sound of engines could be dimly heard, then the voices of angry men. The noises came closer, the voices soon loud enough to hear clearly over the struggling engines of several vehicles. The companions tensed as the volume grew, then in ragged stages, the sounds of the wags and sec men began fading into the distance.

“Are they gone?” Mildred whispered tersely.

“No. There are more wags to the north and east,” Krysty said, her green eyes half-closed to concentrate on the task of listening. “There’s an army combing the jungle looking for something.”

“Us,” Ryan stated, holstering his piece. Mitchum wanted them aced; Glassman wanted to capture them alive. He wasn’t about to let either event happen.

“No sounds of plants being crushed under tires,” Mildred said thoughtfully as the tiny beams of sunlight streaming across the clearing flickered from the passing of a cloud overhead. “Must be a road close by.”

“Too close,” Jak stated, keeping his .357 Magnum blaster pointed at the greenery. He was down to four rounds, and was going to make each one count before he took the last train west.

“Think it was Mitchum?” Dean asked anxiously, his young face tense and serious. They had befriended the sec man, saving him from the stew pot of cannies, but somehow that had gotten turned around and now the sec man was hell-bent for revenge.

“I do not believe so, lad,” Doc rumbled. “To the best of our knowledge, the good colonel did not have access to any motorized transport. Horses were his sole venue.”

Carefully, Doc set the selector pin on his huge hand cannon from the shotgun barrel to the .44 cylinder. The LeMat was a Civil War antique, but in the old man’s steady hands the LeMat struck like the wrath of God.

“Must be his new associate, Glassman,” Ryan said, pulling the panga from its sheath and sliding it into his belt for easier access.

“Here fast,” Jak said slowly.

“Those steam-powered PT boats of his are mighty quick,” J.B. agreed, tilting back his fedora. “He must have swung around the island and gotten fresh troops from Cascade ville, trying to catch us between him and Mitchum.”

A distant rattle of a machine gun shook the jungle, the animals going quiet, the birds screaming loudly and rustling the trees as they launched for the sky.

Frowning deeply, Krysty turned in a circle. “Gaia save us, there are Hummers everywhere.”

“Trying to flush us out,” Jak said, awkwardly shifting his stance on the crutches.

Reaching high, Ryan grabbed a branch and pulled himself off the ground. “Wait for my signal to follow,” he said from the blackness above. “Don’t do anything until I come back. If I get aced, head for the mountains. We passed a cave there you can use to hide in until things cool down.”

“Get going and find that plane,” J.B. growled irritably, balancing the shotgun in his grip.

Digging in his boots, Ryan started shimmying up the tree and soon disappeared from sight in the thick foliage. A few minutes later, a brass cartridge fell to the ground, bouncing off the branches until it hit the ground. Dean scooped it up and saw the cartridge was intact, and not a spent round ejected from his father’s blaster.

“Live,” he reported. “Dad found it.”

“Get moving,” J.B. said, and started up the tree himself, moving slower than Ryan because of the Uzi on his back. The little branches kept sticking into the weapon and slowing him.

Grabbing a vine, the Armorer tried climbing that instead of the tree and made much faster progress. The vine was thicker than a gren, and the wide leaves provided good bracing for his boots. As the vine ended, he shimmied along the branch until reaching the trunk. He stabbed a knife into the wood, drawing himself up as he kicked footholds in the rough bark with his boots.

The higher he climbed, the cooler it got and the brighter the sunlight. Soon J.B. emerged from the canopy of leaves to find himself blinking in direct sunlight. Ryan stood nearby with a boot resting in the fork of two branches, looking through the curtain of vines.

“There she is,” he said, indicating the direction with his chin.

Pulling himself onto the stout branch, J.B. could only marvel at the titanic machine sprawled in the treetops before them. It was gigantic.

More than a hundred feet long, the incredible aircraft supported two huge engines with six propellers on each wing. Vines and creepers covered the plane, only the glass of the cockpit and the tail rudder clearly visible amid the flowering creepers. It was a wonder Dean had spotted it from a mile away.

“That’s a Hercules,” Ryan said, swaying to the wind. It was a lot stronger up there and carried a strong taste of salt from the nearby ocean. “Saw a picture of one in a redoubt, pinned to the wall like a girlie poster.”

“Yeah, I know,” J.B. replied. “I spent a month living in a crashed wreck once. Good planes.”

Carefully, Ryan glanced downward. “Any chance the sec men could see us up here?”

“No way in hell,” Krysty replied, crawling into view. Then the woman paused at the sight of the huge plane. “That flew?”