Doomsday Warrior 07 - American Defiance

FREEDOM’S FIGHT

America lies in ruins, the victim of a Russian thermonuclear first strike. Invaded and occupied by the Soviets, the U.S. has become a slave state repeatedly raped and plundered by its Red overlords.

But there are those who refuse to knuckle under to Russia’s rule . . . those who will fight for freedom . . . and die for freedom. Led by Ted Rockson, the ultimate soldier of survival, these FreeFighters have vowed to drive the hated Russians into the sea. And with the vicious KGB and Russian Army locked in a power struggle, Rockson and his FreeFighters are about to strike.

The first blow against the Red conquerers will be in the very heart of their American empire: Washington, D.C. In a perilous trek across a shattered nation, Rockson leads the FreeFighters in a daring raid that will signal the bloody start of the
second
War of Independence!

DOOMSDAY
WARRIOR

BARRICADE OF DEATH

The whole Russian fort was coming to life and there was only one chance to escape. Gripping the long wooden pole in his hands, Rockson ran toward the sixteen-foot-high barbed wire fence and without breaking stride planted the pole in the dirt. With every ounce of strength he kicked off with his piston legs and climbed up in the air in a perfect arc.

A spotlight suddenly caught Rockson dead on, and a stream of Red slugs headed toward him like a swarm of man-eating locusts. The top of the fence was coming and Rock made it over—barely. The very upper strands of barbed wire ripped across his right calf, slicing open a three-inch-long gash that oozed a stream of blood. Then he was arcing down to the ground, curling as he made contact, rolling over and over into the blackness where the circle of searchlights ended.

This particular bunch of Reds wasn’t going to get the Doomsday Warrior. Not tonight.

ZEBRA BOOKS

are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.

475 Park Avenue South

New York, N.Y. 10016

ISBN: 0-8217-1745-6

Copyright © 1986 by Ryder Stacy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First printing: January 1986

Printed in the United States of America

One

I
t was the ugliest damned thing Ted Rockson had ever seen—the head of a lion-like creature with immense saber-toothed fangs erupting from its jaws like ivory tusks. Its feline head was set atop a ten-foot-long lizard body, iridescent green, rippling with waves of color along its length all the way down to the thick black tail, a nasty-looking spike, that hung limply on the ground behind it. It was as if three or four different killer beasts had been sewn together into one, and the result was not very appealing—or friendly.

It stared at Rockson absolutely motionless, like a cat watching a mouse, frozen in time, in space, its every mode of perception focused on the human prey. Its black, saucer-sized eyes were like mirrors, black holes from the darkest ends of the galaxy. And within them the Doomsday Warrior could see his own image, as if reflected from another dimension. A lizard tongue, dark red and thick as a man’s wrist, darted in and out of the saber-toothed jaws, as if tasting Rockson’s scent on the air. And evidently it liked what it tasted, for it rested back on its haunches, preparing for what the Doomsday Warrior could see was an imminent attack. Nothing on earth coils up like a spring unless it’s about to uncoil again right into something else’s face.

Without turning his chiseled, sun-hardened face, Rockson whispered out of the corner of his mouth to the extraordinarily beautiful woman, long red hair flowing to her waist and a Liberator semi-auto in her hands, who stood several yards behind him.

“Move real slow, Sugar Pie. This thing’s looking dinner right in the eye and I don’t think it’s going to want to go home empty-handed.”

“Let me take a shot at it,” Rona Wallender, Rock’s fellow Freefighter from Century City, said, sliding almost imperceptibly to the side out of the direct striking range of the thing. She wore only cut-off shorts and a T-shirt in the hot noon air of the low Colorado Rockies. Her tan legs rippled with muscles, and her bare arms peeking out from under the thin white T-shirt were equally strong. She gripped a modified Liberator hunting rifle with tight hands.

“No!” Rock said softly, moving one foot at a time ever so slowly to the opposite side. He moved with trained fighting instincts that had been honed down over the years so that now he was a pure fighting machine, a survivor in a world where death lay behind every bush, every tree, where the prettiest flower could be filled with poison waiting to explode out, where the sky, the water, the very ground beneath one’s feet were all part of the endless battlefield of America 2089
A.D.
So far, Ted Rockson, aka the Doomsday Warrior, had withstood all that this cruel world could hurl at him. But he knew deep in his heart that someday something would come at him that would be too big or that would move too fast—and he would be but a memory of those who knew him, perhaps a footnote in the history books of postwar U.S.—if there were ever such things again.

But Rock didn’t feel like taking a trillion-year snooze in the soil today. Whatever got him was going to have to try hard, real hard. He kept his eyes directly on the creature’s own burning saucers, waiting, looking for the sudden flicker that meant attack. But the creature, whatever the hell it was, was in no great hurry. Its hunting instincts had taken over, and it stood frozen, its forward right leg raised up, its feline head pointing like a hunting dog straight at Rock. The immense reptilian eyes darted back and forth between the two possible victims as the tongue sampled the scent of each of them. It was apparently trying to decide just which one would be the tastier, flicking the nearly three-foot-long tongue out in a blur of motion ten times a second. The thing at last made up its mind and sprang into the air, uncoiling those tree-trunk-sized legs, and headed straight toward Rockson’s throat, the saber-toothed jaws opening as wide as a steam shovel to sever the head in one swift bite.

Rock sensed the mutation’s attack a split second before it came and dove sideways, flying through the hot humid air and landing flat on his stomach several yards away. The predator’s lion jaws snapped shut on the spot where the Doomsday Warrior had been standing but it got only a mouthful of air. It came down hard on its thick lizard legs, sending a flurry of dust up from the ground. As tough as it was, and at nearly two thousand pounds, with a reptilian hide two inches thick and jaws that could snap a steel bar in two, it was for its size perhaps the most vicious creature that had ever roamed the planet earth—it was also one of the dumbest. Its brain was not much larger than a plum, but then it had never had to do much beyond snapping its teeth around whatever was handy—and gobble it down, fur, bones, tail and all. And at killing it had never failed, having taken on whatever got in its path—from elk to buffalo to twisted, armored monstrosities that man had never lay eyes on. And it had won every match. Until now.

It snapped a few more times at the substanceless air, its black eyes tightly shut—part of its adaptive physiology—protecting them from horns or teeth and claws of its intended victim. Then it opened its eyes again, and saw, as dumb as it was, that it was not actually eating anything. The immense jaws opened with a howl of furious hunger, the saber teeth standing out from its red thick lips, pointing at each other like razor swords at attention. The chair-sized head swiveled around quickly until the black orbs found the victim, several feet away, scampering along the ground to escape. But the thing knew there was no escape—not from
it.
It knew its power. It knew that all it had faced had died. All. Some had escaped for a moment, or several moments. They had hidden, climbed trees, and fought back. But all had ended their miserable animal lives in its ripping jaws and stomach—dissolved by digestive fluids powerful enough to melt metal. It was the most murderous killing machine that the dark side of Mother Nature had ever created—green scales shimmering with sparks of reflected sunshine, huge reptilian claws extended far out, curved daggers nearly a foot long; jaws apart like the very gates of hell; rows of icepick teeth extending deep into its throat. It leapt again.

Rockson had landed hard when he dove out of the way of the first attack, his shoulder slamming down onto a jagged stone and nearly dislocating it. But the pain didn’t distract him—it was just a reminder of things to come if he didn’t act fast. Rock knew—from bloody experience—that tenths of a second meant everything out here. He let the fall take him over the rock, curling into a ball and rolling along the ground for a few yards. While still in motion, just a blur of bronzed skin and olive fatigues, the Doomsday Warrior reached around with his good arm—the other was numbing up from the blow—and whipped out his .12-gauge rapid-fire shotgun pistol. It was Rockson’s equalizer circa 2089
A.D.

Magna/steel shot, coated with teflon, blasted out in an X-pattern at the speed of a jet. Anything it hit within twenty feet would know it—Russian, snar-lizard, mutant—or this pretty little critter in front of him. That is, if he could
get
it. For he had barely pulled the 14-inch-long chambered pistol out in his left hand, brought his roll to a stop, and begun to turn when he felt the energy of the thing almost upon him. There wasn’t time to complete his spin and fire. With split-second reflexes Rockson, relying on his tai chi training, breathed out in an explosive burst of air and let his body go instantaneously limp. He dropped like a stone as the creature flew just overhead, its body blocking out the sky for a second, its right hind claw just nipping Rock’s already-throbbing shoulder and digging an inch-deep ditch in the skin, which instantly bloomed into blood. For something the size of a barn door, the monstrosity was amazingly fast. The thought flashed through the Doomsday Warrior’s mind, as he slammed down onto the hard dirt, that if this was a whole new species . . . every goddamned other species was doomed.