Dredd VS Death Page 10

  Dredd had intended to rendezvous at Nixon Pen with the local Judge units already at the scene there and then take command of the operation to restore order in the prison. At the moment, with roads blocked off and most of the available reinforcements tied up in dealing with the Death cult attacks, he was going to be the first unit to reach the place. He needed more Judges, and he needed them now. He activated his helmet radio.

  "Giant - Dredd. Where are you?"

  "About twenty minutes behind you," came the reply, "with four h-wagons' worth of riot squad units and a couple of heavy weapons teams. There's another ten wagons of the same taking off now, about another ten minutes behind me. We'll rendezvous with you at Nixon Pen, and-"

  "No time," growled Dredd. "These Death cult creeps are trying to bust out the Dark Judges. The whole city's at risk now."

  Dredd could see Nixon Pen through the h-wagon's cockpit window; a dark, forbidding-looking tower standing starkly against the illuminated backdrop of the city's spectacular skyline. Part of the building was burning, and even from this distance Dredd felt a sense of the chaos that had suddenly enveloped the place. Grud only knows how bad it was inside.

  He signalled for the h-wagon pilot to begin his approach. "I'm going in on my own right now," he told Giant. "I'll meet you inside."

  Two minutes later, the h-wagon touched down briefly on an emergency landing platform on the side of the prison building, then at Dredd's signal took off almost immediately afterwards. There were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of escaped and dangerous perps on the loose inside the prison, and Dredd had no intention of leaving an h-wagon sitting there on the landing pad for any of them to try to seize and make their aerial escape in.

  Dredd was left standing alone on the landing pad, with the door into the main prison levels in front of him. He deactivated its coded locking mechanism with his override card, drew his Lawgiver and stepped into hell.

  EIGHT

  The Hi-Ex shot caught the vampire in the midsection, blowing it and the one next to it apart in the same single, bloody blast. The third creature leapt over their smoking remains, fangs bared in anger.

  "Hungry, creep?" Dredd asked it. "So chew on this!"

  He fed his Kevlar-reinforced fist into the creature's mouth, feeling its fangs break against the armoured material of his Judge glove. Two Lawgiver shots into its chest gave it something more to howl about. Dredd knew the shots wouldn't kill it, but they would keep it distracted for a few more seconds - and a few more seconds was all he needed.

  Grabbing it by the shoulders, he hurled it backwards, smashing its head into the cell door opposite and then, before the creature could recover, he propelled it in the other direction across the narrow corridor, throwing it through the broken doors there and into the elevator shaft that dropped through fifty levels of this section of the iso-block building.

  The vampire fell, uselessly flailing its limbs and howling in equally useless fury. Dredd didn't know if the fall would kill it - as he had been finding out ever since the battle at the Bathory med-repository, these creeps took a lot of killing - but he was fairly sure he wouldn't be seeing that particular example again in a hurry.

  He continued on, following the route down to the next level. Power to the elevators and grav-tubes was gone, possibly as a built-in security measure when the alarms had first gone off, possibly as a result of damage done to the building's power supply either by the impact of the crash or sabotage by the rioting prisoners. Either way, the only way down through the building was on foot.

  Dredd was heading for level 10, where the elevator entrance to the Tomb level was located. So far, he'd managed to fight his way down through twenty-six, with another twelve still to go. His combat responses had fallen into a pattern on the way down through those twenty-six levels.

  Vampires got Standard Execution rounds to the head, or Hi-Ex or Incendiary shot special deliveries. Any armed perps he came across - and there were thousands of them at loose within the prison - and who were dumb enough to get in his way got the Standard Execution treatment, no more questions asked. Everyone else got a single warning and, if that didn't work, they got a brief but efficient first-hand demonstration of Dredd's unarmed combat ability and renowned daystick head-busting skills.

  It was a crude but effective system, designed to get him to where he wanted to go with the minimum of delay and using the minimum of ammunition. Even so, in the twenty-six levels he'd covered so far, he'd still managed to go through four whole Lawgiver magazines, and his supply of Hi-Ex and Incendiary shells was now at a premium.

  At the moment, nothing else mattered other than getting to that express elevator to the Tomb, and Dredd was forced to press on, going against his every instinct by ignoring all the other law-breaking going on in the prison around him. If the Dark Judges escaped, the chaos happening now in Nixon Pen would be as naught compared to what could result across the entirety of Mega-City One.

  Giant would be touching down with his riot squad reinforcements soon enough. Dredd had been in constant radio communication with him, giving him updates on his progress so far. Thanks to Dredd, when Giant and his squads stormed into the place, they would already know where the worst trouble spots were, and where to apply the most force to swiftly bring order back to the prison.

  He found the stairs from the level below and was down them in seconds, applying his daystick to the two shiv-armed escaped perps who stepped out of the shadows halfway down, demanding that he first pay the "entrance toll" to the next level. Dredd left them where they fell, unconscious and bleeding.

  "Giant - Dredd. Two more for you, level 22, bottom of Stair B. Attempted Assault on a Judge: five years apiece onto their sentences, on top of the general counts for Rioting and Attempted Iso-Cube Escape."

  Level 22. Twelve more levels to go.

  Level 19.

  Turning a corner, he ran into a mob of fifty or more escaped perps, all of them armed with a variety of makeshift weapons, all of them doing their best to slaughter each other. Freed from their cubes, and with no sign of any living Judge-Wardens, the prisoners had so far been at liberty to pursue their own violent agendas. Many of them, like the fifty creeps here, were using the opportunity to reignite some ancient gang feuds.

  Dredd didn't have time to deal with a distraction like this. A precious Hi-Ex shot into the ceiling stopped the fighting and grabbed their attention. Two more Standard Execution rounds into the heart of a perp - probably one of the gang leaders - who tried to fire a stolen scatter gun at him grabbed their attention even further.

  Fifty pairs of hostile eyes regarded him with sullen hatred, fifty hands grasped the handles of makeshift clubs or shivs, fifty minds imagined how good it would feel to bring those clubs down hard on that helmet or bury those shivs hilt-deep into that chest. Dredd coolly stared down every one of them, daring any of them to make their move. Not one did.

  "Lay down your weapons and return to your cubes," Dredd commanded, bringing his full, natural authority to bear in what could almost have been a textbook moment straight out of his own Comportment. "Wait there - and don't even think about leaving them again. Judges will be here soon enough to deal with all of you."

  "Drokk that!" shouted some big creep who had stripped off to the waist, his filed teeth and scar-crossed skin marking him out as a former bite-fighter. It was time for the classic equation. "There's one of him, and-"

  He never got to finish it. Dredd's Lawgiver sounded once and the perp hit the floor, a Standard Execution round drilled through the centre of his forehead.

  The other creeps took the hint. By the time Dredd reached the end of the corridor, there wasn't one of them left in sight.

  Level 16.

  "Giant - Dredd. Make sure someone picks up the four creeps in the Level 16 med-bay. Life sentences all round - murder of a Med-Judge. Any problems finding them, just look for the four perps with my Lawgiver slugs in each of their kneecaps."

  Level 15. He was getting close now, and running in
to more vampires along the way. Some of them were sluggish and bloated from feeding on the plentiful supply of unwilling blood donors they had found in the iso-cubes around them. Some of them weren't, but sluggish or still hungry, they all went the same way.

  By the time he found the way down to the next level, he had taken care of another eight vampires, at the cost of most of another Lawgiver mag and an extra minute's delay. It was time Dredd knew he didn't have to spare.

  "Gruddamnit, what's keeping them up there?" cursed Mayer, frustrated at her attempts to raise anyone on her console radio. "Why isn't there anyone there to tell us what's happening?"

  "Yessss. Do it now."

  The sound came from behind her. It was Burchill's voice, but at the same time it wasn't. Mayer spun round, seeing Burchill standing right in front of the no-go line and staring in what she could only describe as mesmerised adoration at the things imprisoned on the other side of it.

  Being chosen for Tomb duty meant that she was no shrinking violet, and was more than capable of taking the kind of swift and cold-blooded decisions necessary for keeping the four most dangerous beings in Mega-City One safely under lock and key. She didn't hesitate, snatching for the Lawgiver stored in the specially built holster under her console desk. She had seen Burchill's combat scores, and knew that she was both quicker on the draw and a better shot.

  She shot him four times, just as he drew his own Lawgiver, hitting him three times in the stomach and once in the chest. Each time she hit him, his body jerked weirdly, as if it was suspended on strings.

  Also like a puppet on strings, it refused to fall down, no matter how hard it was struck.

  Burchill continued moving as the bullets pummelled into him, drawing his own Lawgiver with a horrible, awkward slowness, a gruesome rictus grin fixed on his face which only seemed to grow wider as each bullet tore through him.

  Finally he raised it to face her and returned fire, even as Mayer's fifth shot hit him in the throat in what should have been an instantly lethal wound. His own shot took her through a lung. She dropped to the floor, coughing blood.

  She heard his weird, shuffling footsteps coming towards her across the room, heard the blood from the four or five fatal wounds she had inflicted on him pumping out of him and splashing onto the ground. She stretched out to reach for her Lawgiver, almost managing it before his boot came down hard on her fingers, breaking them all.

  She sobbed in pain as he reached down to grab her under the arms, dragging her roughly across the room. She tried to struggle, but could not. She tried to call out, maybe hoping desperately to be able to reason with whatever remnant of Burchill remained in the thing which had hold of her now, but all that emerged was a choked and bloody cough.

  She groaned again as he took even firmer hold of her, lifting her bodily up with a strength which he simply shouldn't have had. She saw where they were now, right at the edge of the no-go line, saw the four things in the crystalline containment cubes looking at her as their possessed servant displayed her to them, almost as some kind of offering. She felt herself being lifted up higher, suspended high above Burchill's head - and suddenly she knew what was about to happen to her.

  He threw her. She suddenly found her voice again and screamed, although the sound was abruptly cut off a moment later amidst the hissing chatter of the sentry lasers as her hurled body sailed across the no-go line and was instantly cut apart in the bright tangle of laser fire.

  The alarms had started going off as soon as the hidden sensors in the room had registered the sound of Lawgiver shots. A whole chorus of further, more strident ones went off now, as Burchill's body jerked round to open fire at the two control consoles, riddling them with rapid-fire Standard Execution rounds. Hi-Ex rounds unerringly found both the sentry gun sensors and then the hidden guns themselves.

  Now that it was safe to do so, Burchill stepped forward to stand before his masters and do the final things necessary to release them. The alarms kept ringing, both in the Tomb and in the prison above, but Burchill knew that there was no one left up there to hear them.

  Level 12. Almost there now.

  The bloodsuckers had been through this level like an impossibly virulent plague, and many of the corridors were choked with the corpses of their victims. Dredd heard screams from an open iso-cube door ahead. Approaching it at a run, he glimpsed in and saw a prisoner being attacked by one of the vampire creatures, the vampire pinning down its victim and biting bloody chunks out of his neck and shoulders.

  Dredd raised his Lawgiver and shot the creature through the back of the skull as he ran past, never even breaking stride. The victim was still, weakened by shock and blood loss, and looked in a bad way. Dredd didn't know who he was or what his crimes were, but even as an iso-block inmate he was due the same cold, dispassionate mercy accorded to every citizen of Mega-City One.

  "Giant - Dredd. Vamp victim in urgent need of med-treatment, Cube 47, Level 12. If he's still alive when you get to him, put him into med-unit quarantine until we find out what effects there might be from a bite from these things. Same goes with any other vamp victims you find."

  Sharkey couldn't drokkin' believe it! Him and his crew were down on Level 10 somewhere, heading downwards all the time. They'd lost a couple of guys along the way - Long Louie had got shivved in the riot they'd had to blast their way through up in Level 33 and good ol' Marv had been jumped by one of those bloodsucker freaks somewhere in the 20s, and, boy, was Sharkey not in a hurry to run into any more of those freaks - but they were still in pretty good shape and on course to reach one of the lower level exits outta the Pen.

  They had just shot their way through a security point down here - two Judge-Wardens had tried to stop them, but Sharkey and a few scatter gun blasts had nixed that idea - when Sharkey caught sight of him on one of the vid-monitor screens.

  Dredd! Right here in the Pen, running along a corridor somewhere.

  Sharkey glanced at the monitor reading. Level 11, Sub-section 4A, it said. Sharkey grinned. That was only one level above them, and, better still and judging by the direction he was heading towards the level exit drop-tube, Dredd was heading straight this way.

  Sharkey wasn't big on all that Holy Church of Grud prayer-mumbling stuff, but he decided there and then that someone up there must like him. First of all they get him sprung from his cube, and now they obligingly drop Dredd right into his lap, and if that wasn't just too sweet, then Sharkey didn't know what was.

  Of course, he'd added to his Judge-fragger score a couple more times today, but all the ones he'd killed had been Judge-Wardens, and Sharkey didn't really think they rated that much higher than those other kinds of phoney Judges who drove the med-wagons and handed out the parking tickets.

  But Dredd... Well, he was the biggest, baddest Judge of them all, wasn't he? So fragging him would make Sharkey the biggest, baddest Judge-killer of them all, wouldn't it, and then there wouldn't be anyone laughing behind his back at him no more, would there?

  Besides, Sharkey reminded himself sourly, thinking of that paper lung in his chest and the pain it caused him every time he breathed, him and Dredd had some history together, and he still owed the lawman some payback, didn't he?

  He picked up his scatter gun and checked its load. Plenty of shells left, more than enough to take care of business, even with a tricky drokker like Dredd.

  "Gonna be a change of plan, boys," he told his crew. "Got some unfinished business to settle up before I get us out of here."

  Burchill's hands moved over the small control console, their movements stiff and awkward. The four shadowy beings in the crystalline containment cubes focussed their powers more heavily upon him, redoubling their efforts to remain in control of his mind and body. The material their prisons were composed of blocked virtually all their powers, and the vassal's body had sustained too much damage to allow them to keep it alive for very much longer. Time was running short, but they were too close now to even think of the possibility of failure.

  "Re
lease us!" hissed the voices in Burchill's head, forcing his body to carry out the Dark Judges' bidding.

  He hit the final command key and a robot arm unfolded from its cradle in the chamber roof, smoothly snaking down towards the four crystals held in their heavy mechanical restraints. The restraining grips holding the crystal cubes in place were built into the deepest foundations of the iso-block building, and were designed to survive even a major earthquake. Nothing had been left to chance that might allow the creatures held here to be accidentally released, but it had always been hoped that sometime in the future a means might be found to destroy the Dark Judges' disembodied spirits once and for all. With that in mind, there had to be a way of opening up the virtually indestructible crystals to get to the things contained inside them, since the crystals protected the Dark Judges from harm just as much as they protected the city from their escape. The holding chamber's designers had no doubt imagined the deliberately engineered release of the creatures taking place under carefully controlled conditions, with a large number of Psi-Judges on hand to keep them under psychic control. What was happening now was probably beyond their worst nightmares.

  A lance of stellar-hot laser energy shot out from the las-drill attachment on the end of the robot arm, cutting into the ultra-dense material of the nearest crystal's surface with a piercing sonic shriek. In just over a minute, its work was done and it was already moving on to the next crystal in line as a thin stream of what looked like greasy smoke poured out of the tiny, centimetre-wide hole that had been las-drilled through the wall of the crystal.

  As the other three Dark Judge spirits writhed in impatience, the smoke from the first crystal coalesced in mid-air, slowly reforming itself into the familiar visage of the greatest enemy Mega-City One had ever faced.