But he didn't come “right now.” He looked at the radio and then took his wrench out of his boot and slashed the radio to bits. Of course, he'd be shooting this thing to pieces in just minutes, but caution was always best.
Zzt grabbed the cable ladder rungs and started up. He looked up. It was not a short climb. The Mark 32 cut off the windstream quite a bit but it was still a strong blast. He paused, made sure his mask wouldn't blow off, and climbed up the ladder.
Chapter 3
Jonnie lay on the cross-members of the canister storage area of the drone, gripped in a nightmare. He was in the cage again, a collar around his throat, and a demon was crushing in the back of his skull. He kept trying to tell the demon he would shoot it if it didn't stop, but he couldn't get the words out.
He wrestled himself up from the nightmare. The roar of the huge drone engines beat against his head. He realized where he was. It wasn't the collar: it was the neck lanyard of the revolver; the heavy weapon was hanging down between the beams. He painfully retrieved it. There was a small amount of light in here and he swung the cylinder open.
Just one shot left.
He reached to his belt to see whether he had reloads. He didn't. The blast gun was lost.
Before he passed out he had opened the first aid kit and tied a wound pad over his head and under the face mask straps. That was all he remembered after he had shot the flashlight out of Zzt’s hand. He could see it gleaming still, bent over a cross-member. No, that wasn't a flashlight. It was about four feet away and it seemed forty. What was it?
A mechanic's mirror. So that was how Zzt observed him.
What had awakened him? How long had he been out? Seconds? Minutes? The back of his head felt like it had been staved in, soft to the touch. Fractured skull? Or was it just swelling and blood-matted hair?
He heard something clatter. Noise around the plane had awakened him.
With a sudden feeling of urgency he made the effort and retrieved the mirror. He slid along the crossbeam and put the mirror to the hole.
It was Zzt.
His first impulse was to dart out and use this one last bullet. Then he saw the ladder end. And the ore basket going up. They were refueling the
Mark 32!
The sudden thought of what they could do with the Mark 32 back at the compound shocked him fully alert. He knew what he must do. Just now-wait!
That was the hard part. He kept drifting off into a murky black sea of unconsciousness. He could hold on for a while but the wave would drown him again.
Zzt was on the radio. No, he was smashing the radio with the wrench.
Jonnie gathered himself up, tensing to dive out through the hole. He watched carefully with the mirror. Zzt went over to the ladder. He started up. He stopped with just his legs visible below the door.
In a wave of pain, Jonnie got out of the canister loading slot. There was a safety line on the floor plates. He grabbed it and gave it a tug. It was secured to his plane. In his condition he did not want to lapse unconscious and fall out that door. He rapidly swung the safety wire around his waist and secured it with a hasty loop.
Zzt's legs were gone.
Jonnie checked the revolver to make sure the one shot was going to come up under the firing pin when he cocked it.
He swung himself onto the ladder. It was blowing outward from the drone.
The bottom end was fastened inside the door but he was now out over empty space, protected from the windstream by the tail of his battle plane. He went up several steps.
Jonnie had a clear view of the Mark 32. The cockpit lights were on; the door was being held open by Nup's foot. Zzt was a third of the way up to the plane.
For a moment Jonnie thought he was too late. He thought Nup had hoisted the fuel cartridges out of sight. But no. Nup had the caps off the fuel receptacles and was examining them. For numbers? And he had the whole ore basket in his lap!
Zzt was howling at Nup, something about opening the door wider and steadying the cable. Zzt climbed further. The ladder was protected by the angle of the Mark 32 but there was still a tearing wind. It was ripping Zzt's jacket. He roared again something about opening the door, the words lost in the roar of the drone and the scream of the wind.
Jonnie cocked the revolver. The face mask protected his eyes. He could have shot either Zzt or Nup. He didn't. He carefully allowed for wind and elevation. The already high muzzle velocity of a Smith and Wesson .457 magnum was increased by blasting caps in its cartridges. He must be very careful. Only one shot.
Nup kicked the door further open, the ore basket in plain view on his lap. Then Nup saw Jonnie and yelled and pointed, and Zzt looked back down.
Jonnie fired!
He tried to duck back inside an instant after the shot. He was not quite fast enough.
Enough fuel and ammunition for twenty battles not only went up, it also flashed down into the open fuel and ammunition receptacles!
The roar and almost instantaneous concussion hit Jonnie like a sledge hammer. He went outward over black space.
The safety line held and snapped him back inside the door.
In that confused instant, as though it were a still picture, he saw Zzt on fire just starting to fly out into space. He saw the whole Mark 32 leap in an exploding ball high in the air.
Jonnie hit the floor plates just inside the open slots so he wouldn't slide back.
The concussion had been too much for his head and he was passing out again.
An idiot phrase passed through his mind just before a deeper darkness blanketed his senses. “Old Staffor was wrong. I’m not too smart. I just cost myself the only target search beams can pick up.”
The drone was not rolling now that it had been relieved of its unstabilizing weight.
The body on the icy floor just inside the door did not move.
The lethal cargo soared onward toward Scotland and the rest of the world, its goal the final obliteration of the remainder of the human race, the ones it had missed a thousand or more years ago.
Chapter 4
The small boy sped on feet of fire through the underground passages of the dungeons of the castle. He was soaked with the rain that fell outside. His bonnet was askew. His eyes were glowing with the urgency of a message he had carried for a two-mile sprint through the dawn twilight.
He identified a room ahead and tore into it, shouting: “Prince Dunneldeen!
Prince Dunneldeen! Wake up! Wake up!”
Dunneldeen had just settled down in his own room, in his own plaid blanket for a nice comfortable snooze, his first in quite some time.
The small boy was wrestling with excited hands to light a candle dip with a ratchet flint device.
So it was “Prince” Dunneldeen now.
They only called him that on feast days or when somebody wanted a favor. His uncle, Chief of Clanfearghus, was the last of the Stewarts and entitled to be called King, but he never made anything of it.
The light was burning now. It shone upon the sparsely furnished stonewalled room. It showed the rain-drenched, excited black-eyed boy, Bittie MacLeod.
“Your squire Dwight, your squire Dwight ha' sent a message, who he say is most urgent!”
Ah, this was different. Dunneldeen got up and reached for his clothes. “Squire” Dwight. Probably Dwight had used that because “copilot” would be an unknown word to this child.
“Your gillies are afoot asaddling a mount. Your squire ha' said 'twas most urgent!”