James Axler - Outlander 01 - Exile to Hell

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/* /*]] */ /* /*]] */ /* /*]] */ /* /*]] */ Outland 01 "Speak now." Brigid told her story. She had been

engaged in following a line of inquiry ordered by the Magistrate Division. She had no idea the orders had

not been sanctioned by Kane's superior officer.

Golden waves shimmered across the screen. The baron said, "I'm not sentencing you to death for these

arbitrary reasons. Even if you are a Preservationist, that's not what brought you here before me."

"What did, then?"

"Knowledge," Baron Cobalt answered. "In this tortured period of humanity's existence on earth,

knowledge beyond what's needed must also bring death."

Brigid said nothing. Frozen, she only stared at the shifting pattern of light on the screen.

"The course of execution is set by expedience and custom. You will die quickly and painlessly."

As if responding to an invisible cue, the door opened. The baron said, "The sentence is to be carried out

forthwith."

Exile to Hell

1 in the Outlander series

James Axler

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON AMSTERDAM PARIS SYDNEY HAMBURG STOCKHOLM

ATHENS.- TOKYO MILAN MADRID WARSAW BUDAPEST AUCKLAND

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was

reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received

any payment for this "stripped book."

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To Melissa and Deirdre my favorite blue-eyed Celts

First edition June 1997 ISBN 0-373-63814-

in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,

including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is

forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road,

Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation

whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any

individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with are registered in the United States

Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Printed in U.S.A.

"Go, bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need

to wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

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Half-devil and half-child."

Rudyard Kipling

"Pigs, geese and cattle,

First find out that they are owned.

Then find out the whyness of it."

Charles Fort

Prologue

Once called the land of the free, in the aftermath of the Russian-American conflict in that end-of-the-

world year 2001, it became the Deathlands. A shockscape of ruined nature, a hell on earth for the few

huddled survivors. But life's raw drive made sure that enough endured, and that they carried on.

Even after a full century had passed since the skydark following the nukecaust that devastated the planet,

the population was well below the vital level. Infant-mortality rates were staggeringly high, and outside

the baronies, life in the Deathlands was cheap, brutal and short.

There were a few who thrived in this new environment. Tribes of American Indians believed the

nukecaust was the purification of ancient prophecy, and they reclaimed their ancestral lands.

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Others gained power and wealth, digging out Stockpiles, the surviving caches of tools, weapons and

predark technology laid down by the government.

And then there were the hidden ones, shadowy, their existence only hinted at during the predark years and

dismissed as hoaxes or the imaginings of conspiracy fever and paranoia.

Traces of their existence remained after skydark, but those few people who stumbled across them

assumed they were the handiwork of whitecoatsthe government scientists working on projects to

safeguard America from the very holocaust that had consumed it.

Persisting over the course of postskydark generations, strange stories, rumors, campfire tales circulated

about bizarre places buried deep in the Deathlands.

Barbarism and anarchy lasted 150 years roughly, and then another change came over the irradiated

wastelands.

The baronies united, and power spread outward from their fortified villes, a power enforced in the newly

christened Outlands, where the exiles roamed, along with the rebels and all the unwantedthe very ruin of

humanity's lifeblood. Black-armored Magistrates brought them a taste of the baron's power on punitive

expeditions.

Technology made a mysterious and surprising comeback in the villes, along with law and order. It was a

technology used to control and punish, and law and order was imposed to banish any vestige of freedom.

All for the people's own good, necessary penance for a better future. That is what Kane, born and bred a

Magistrate, had been taught at his father's knee.

Chapter One

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Wings outspread, the Deathbirds swooped out of the setting sun and plunged into the hellzone.

The cliffs on either side of the three choppers were worse than sheerthey tilted crazily above the floor of

Mesa Verde canyon, sloping inward, then outward. Crevices beneath the out-thrusting overhangs were in

deep shadow and could conceal anything, even alarm devices.

Though the Deathbirds' approach trajectory was too low for a ground-based radar sweep to find them,

Intel had indicated vid cameras and motion sensors were planted on any likely area where an aerial

incursion might be attempted.

The vanes of the Deathbirds chopped the dry air. The engines and turbines were equipped with noise

bafflers, so only the hiss of steel blades slicing through the sky was audible.

All three of the craft were sleek, compact and streamlined, painted a matte-finish, nonreflective black.

The curving forward ports were tinted in smoky hues. The metal-sheathed stub wings carried thirty-two

57 mm unguided missiles, two full pods to a wing. Multibarreled .50-caliber miniguns protruded from

chin turrets beneath the cockpits.

They flew in a delta formation, and the Deathbird occupying the forepoint of the V flooded the rock-

strewn canyon floor with infrared light, the electronic eyes of the craft reaching out to their full five-mile

limit. The signal-processing circuitry broadcast the view to monitors aboard all three aircraft.

Seated in the cockpit of the point bird, Kane gazed at the computer-generated image of the landscape on

the overhead tactical display. It was a harsh black-and-white view, all colors and shadows washed out.

Data scrolled down the side of the screen, reviewing primary areas of interest beyond his line of vision.

Each boulder, outcropping and curve in the canyon showed in detail. A red square of light suddenly

appeared on the screen, superimposed over a small, grid-enclosed area of the terrain. Simultaneously the

warning chime sounded.

"Registering an anomalous signature," Kane announced, the voice-activated microphone at his throat

transmitting his words on the scrambled frequency to the crews of the other Deathbirds. "Looks like part

of the ground ahead is made of plastic."

In the pilot's seat, Grant reached toward the fire-control console. "Locking a Shrike."

"That's a big neg," snapped Salvo's voice through the comm link. "We don't want to give Reeth

forewarning."

Kane and Grant exchanged puzzled, irritated glances. "With all due respect, sir," Kane said, trying to

smooth the tone of annoyance from his voice, "he must know we're here."

"He doesn't know that we know," Salvo replied sharply. "My order stands."

"Yes, sir." Kane's voice was neutral, but his lips were tight.

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James Axler - Outlander 01 - Exile to Hell

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