Read Online Doomsday Warrior 13 - American Paradise by Ryder Stacy - Free Book Online

Father-of-mine is less sure of you. Look—” She pointed to the lava flowing red on the far mountain. “He will see you good,” Leilani encouraged and pulled him onward, even higher. Rock hoped she knew the path very well, for he could hardly see to walk.
    They then came to an area with huge totemlike poles; the mossy terrain here was scarred with huge truck-tire gouges.
    “This was sacred, beautiful,” she said, “but now much destruction.”
    They moved on to a flagstoned area, and Rock stumbled on a copper cable. He found that it issued from the ground itself and ran to a circular, raised area of concrete. There he found more torn cables. It was just like in Murf’s sketch. Something big had been in the center of those clipped cables!
    “This is where Gnaa—you call crystal—stood,” she lamented.
    Rockson examined the cables. Where had the power come from? The ground— Of course! Geothermal source.
    “Where’s the blockhouse, Leilani?”
    “Over there.” She pointed higher. He saw a square shape silhouetted against the stars. “I’ll look at it next.”
    “Wait, Rockson,” she pleaded. “Show me the kiss again, and I tell you something important.”
    “I’m willing to be bribed,” he said, “for information.” He kissed her long and hard.
    “Well?”
    She smiled, “I can tell you where the Gnaa went!”
    “Where?”
    “Far—over there.” She pointed at the sea. “I have a feeling for crystal.” She stood, her hair streaming in the wind, her bare feet secure on the pumice. “It calls to me from that direction.”
    Rockson carefully noted where she pointed. To the west, down the atoll’s reef. “Another island?”
    “I feel yes,” she said, hesitantly. “It—the Gnaa—misses me.”
    “This blockhouse—” Rock said again, “I must go in it and see what I can learn from any writings from the past inside. It could help me understand the Gnaa and its power.”
    She nodded. “That is place of your race—not mine,” she said. “You go alone. That place taboo even for me. I wait.”

Eight
    R ockson climbed toward the rectangular blockhouse. At first it was easy, as there was a gouged path made by many booted feet. He soon came to many rows of warrior graves marked with long staffs of hardwood carved into elongated likenesses of nature gods. These noble natives had fallen fighting the well-armed KGB soldiers. Then he came upon a rusting military half-track. Rock brushed the volcanic ash off its door and found what he expected, the red skull and crossed swords emblem of Killov! The vehicle was standing half on its side, its track twisted off. He pulled the door open. There was a skeleton inside, wearing rotting military garb. The uniform was black, high collar—definitely KGB.
    Where does Killov get his volunteers, Rock wondered. Why do they follow a man such as he? Perhaps the promise of glory . . . No: power . . . that’s his recruitment bait.
    A worm inched out of a round eye socket and fell onto the boney fingers, found a bit of flesh and began to eat it.
    With disgust, Rockson slammed the door on the dead man and made the last part of the climb.
    The blockhouse was windowless, its walls pitted and eroded by over a century’s weathering. It was covered with vines. He had to grope around two sides until he found an open door.
    Killov’s men had been in there! The door had been blown off by a grenade or shell. Rock feared that they had taken what he so needed to find—a record of what the crystal weapon was and how it worked.
    He entered, found a Soviet chem-flash on the floor and tried the switch. It worked. Rock shined the beam around, over rusting file cabinets, old smashed desks, collapsed shelving and smashed, ancient, radio equipment.
    He pulled a few file drawers open—nothing but rotted fragments of paper, disintegrating at his touch. His heart sank until he spotted the video screen in the corner. At first he thought it was a TV. Then he realized it was an old-style