Doomsday Warrior 14 - American Death Orbit (22 page)

Killov was yet alive. Wounded, but still going strong, too tough for even death to take down unless it could get a firm grip on him.

He wriggled into every shadow each time he felt it darken, grow cold. And stayed just a step ahead of death’s ephemeral grasp. He hadn’t had time to get to one of the escape capsules. And good thing, for when the Eiffel Tower had hit the Wheel, the capsules had all been immolated even as the Hub broke free, roaring off like errant campfire marshmallows into space.

But Killov had had time to throw his helmet on and grab two atmosphere chutes and strap them on. Perhaps that hadn’t been thinking too clearly. He was far too high. A hundred miles up. And too fast. What was orbit speed? Eighteen thousand miles per hour?

Suddenly one of the scavenger ships came right out of the shadows and brushed by his bent girder hiding place, sending him careening off sideways from the wash like an ant being shot out of a blender.

Killov struggled to maintain consciousness as he felt himself turning around and around. The force had sent him straight down and the Earth (which just hours before as it had revolved in its holographic representation had seemed so lush and ready for the pickings) now looked like something evil. It was something out to kill him. For surely he would die, either through burning up, or through slamming himself into it, filling a new crater with red puddles that would splatter for hundreds of yards.

He was dropping faster, entering the earth’s upper atmosphere for sure—he could feel the sudden roughness and a different pressure around him. He soared down at the huge blue and white ball below, falling faster by the second. Killov spread his arms and legs out to try to create more surface area, more resistance. And he found that he could fly out at different angles by these motions. Maybe he could sort of skip on the atmosphere like a flat rock on water! So he spread out flat, like a flying squirrel trying to create as much drag as possible. And it worked, but the heat along his stomach felt like it was frying him. He let out a few sharp screams and then turned sideways, arching his back, making his descent into more of a curve. And it seemed to work. He speeded up a little more and came up, the intense heat pressure was lessened on his chest and stomach.

Thank the dark god he had taken the dead Führer’s special advance model suit. It was far superior to the others, with extra coatings of nickel and titanium for cosmic and solar ray protection. It seemed to be working well with the earth’s friction also.

But suddenly, even as he could see the clouds far below him like candy mountains approaching, it started heating up again—real
hot,
so it felt like he was catching on fire. He could taste the funny smell of plastic just before it burns, and he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He reached up to his chest and pulled the chutes. And instantly felt like he had been jolted by a hangman’s noose as they popped up behind him snapping his body up and to the side with incredible violence. One of the chutes suddenly ripped free of its nylon cords and billowed off flapping wildly. But the second one held, enough of the initial jolt absorbed by the first. He spun wildly, screaming as he realized his feet—or at least his magnet boots—were afire. But the fire went out.

Slowly, he floated down over North Africa, swinging back and forth cursing as he dropped, vowing vengeance. Killov had heard Rockson’s clear voice on the radio. Rockson should have killed him up there. That was the Doomsday Warrior’s biggest, his final mistake. Rockson had done all this. He had taken out the Wheel but not Killov. And he would pay. By Stalin’s moldering face, would he pay. Killov would devote the rest of his life, all his cunning, to tracking the rebel down. Forget the Russian Empire, or assassinating Premier Vassily. Those could all wait. There was nothing for him now except to kill Ted Rockson. The man had cost him too much.

And he dropped, falling slowly with the big orange parachute above him like a flame over a dark shadow. Dropped down through the clouds which parted as if they didn’t want to be touched by the poisoned flesh, the diseased mind. Dropped down toward the mountains and deserts that were North Africa.

Thirty

D
own on the Earth, or rather down on the Cheops Pyramid’s summit, a priest of Amun named Aka-ta-Kal was bowing down and worshipping the sunset. He beseeched the heavens to send him its blessings. Beseeched the sun-god for a sign of his priest power, of his worthiness to lead the sacred cult of Amun—the cult that had survived for five thousand years, secretly at times, from before the beginning to this end-time of man.

This was not the first time that Aka-ta-Kal had asked for a blessing, but it seemed that the gods were answering him now. For there was thunder in the clear sky, and as he looked up into the purple advance of night, the priest saw huge dark objects hurtling towards earth—trailing fire.

“By the sacred words of Amun, a SIGN, I am receiving a sign at last. Oh thank you, Amun!”

The sky was filled with streaking stars, stars falling end over end, sending concussions rolling across the parched deserts of Egypt.

Then the priest saw something he had never even heard of before. The falling stars were
hitting
the sands, slamming down all around the pyramid, sending up boiling flames and dust.

It was
terrifying
—surely this was the rage of Amun! Perhaps some ritual sacrifice had been too poor, perhaps some ritual had been done improperly. Perhaps it was he who had made the mistakes that were now bringing the wrath of the gods down upon his kingdom.

But no—the falling stars stopped coming, and the dust and smoke that rose in columns from the holes they created out in the desert were blowing away from the pyramid. Perhaps this was merely a display of god-power.

The white-robed priest bowed down with his forehead to the cold Cheops stones and begged for mercy, and, if possible, for some gift, some token for his faithful service to Amun. And then, as the shadows of the night crept across the palm trees and desert dunes, something else fluttered down from the sky—something orange.

And attached to that orange blossom from heaven were strings. And attached to that set of sky-string was a messenger of the gods—or, perhaps, the god Amun, himself.

The figure with smoking boots on its feet hit the very top of the pyramid, right in front of Aka-ta-Kal on the topmost platform, and the god-man let out a yell and tumbled towards him, shouting out god words.

The priest was staring right into the eyes of the sky-being, hard, dark eyes sunken into a gaunt death-face.

“Amun
— It is your worshipful servant, Aka-ta-Kal! You have come to give me your blessing, is this not so?”

The god from the sky, presently in the form of a man with smoking boots, said something in a language that the priest hadn’t heard spoken for years. English.

So that
was
a sacred language after all! No wonder the rulers of Egypt had once all spoken English!

He could hardly catch the meaning of the words the gaunt man-god screamed out the first time. But the man-god repeated his words over, and the priest finally understood what he was yelling: “DRUGS! I WANT DRUGS! GIVE ME SOME DRUGS!”

“At once, your godliness,” the priest said, bowing before “Amun’s” hot sky-boots worshipfully. “I will get you drugs.”

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