Author's Note: At last, here it is. It took me half a year to update, and I'm sorry about it, but I was going through an extremely rough time with several huge exams, work, training, and the band (sick of the studio for at least another year!). Thank you for your patience.

Thank you to all those who reviewed, especially to Grabbag Lapidary, who took a lot of time to provide comments and criticism - thank you, I really appreciate that! This one is entirely sex-free, and it's for you :-)

This chapter contains a reference to a sci-fi classic that has been referenced before. Those who can find the reference get a bowl of virtual synthiflakes, and if you can name the matching reference from previous chapters, you get a stack of virtual munce cookies to go with it. =)

A word of caution before you get started: This chapter contains some stuff that doesn't exactly fall into the political correctness category. If you are easily offended by racial slurs etc, don't read this. I don't think I have to remind you that views expressed herein don't necessarily coincide with the author's views, yada yada yada. Enjoy.

21. The Legion of the Damned

Patton briefly managed to establish a connection with Control, but atmospheric interferences were rising as a thunderstorm of enormous proportions started brewing over the wasteland. Even Dredd felt uneasy as he looked at the towering clouds, deep steely grey mixed with lighter tones, and amid that flecks of colour like bruises, unnatural hues of yellow and purple. Once we reach Death Valley we'll be safe, he tried to tell himself, but the truth was that they were not so certain of that either. They stood a good chance of avoiding the worst of it, but that was what it was, a chance.

Anderson was not making it any easier, of course. Since Dredd had successfully managed not to be alone with her, she had not really tried dissuading him, but he could see the pleading in her eyes whenever he looked at her. She was firmly convinced that they were dooming Spikes with their decision.

He preferred not to look at her.

Little Hades was growing more and more restless, pacing up and down the narrow corridor, flicking his tail this way and that and forcing everybody to dodge it. Was it the approaching storm that scared him, or was he somehow feeling what Anderson was feeling? The Coming Dark, she had told him. Yet all the same, while Dredd had come to put great trust in her abilities, there were certain limits to what he was ready to believe. She was haunted by nightmares, and that was that. Her dreams had not warned her of what was to happen at Peach Trees either, or of Gradgrind's death in the battle with the mutant clan.

Interestingly, Spikes seemed perfectly calm. Seated at the tactical table as so often with his guitar on his knees, he was plucking a tune, unconcerned with what was going on around him. His black-dyed hair had only been styled half-heartedly; it looked more messy than spiky.

After another hour, gales of wind swirled curtains of sand into the air, steadily growing stronger. Patton was pushing the Landraider as hard as it would go by now. Communications were definitely down; Patton was not trying to contact either Control or Aspen any longer. Would the Landraider's electronics suffer any damage from what was going on outside? And if so, would the engineer be able to fix it? Dredd did not know much about electronics himself, he had never been particularly talented in that field, and it had only ever managed to hold his interest vaguely.

Time crept by agonisingly slowly. Was the storm coming closer? Was the wind growing stronger still, or had it stayed the same? It seemed dark outside, darker than it should be.

The Coming Dark. All of a sudden he could not get those words out of his head anymore.

Finally Spikes stopped playing, put his guitar aside and went to look out over Patton's head. "So," he said cheerfully, "Death Valley it is. Always wanted to see that place." Turning back to Dredd, he flashed him a grin. "Hottest spot in the entire Cursed Earth, did you know? They say the heat can boil the flesh clean off your bones. Funnily, hardly anyone seems to actually have died there, despite the name."

"Possibly because nobody ever goes there," Dredd replied simply. There would not have been a need to say anything, but he half feared Anderson might mention something about her recent nightmare if he did not speak up first.

"Actually," Patton put in, "the story goes that the place is haunted by robots."

Had he really just said that? "How can a place be haunted by robots?" Dredd asked. "Robots don't... well, haunt."

Patton shrugged without turning away from the darkening desert landscape before them. "Just a story they tell you at Yale Tek, at the war machinery seminar. Apparently a lot of old war gear has been dumped in some place in Death Valley. The story goes that a bunch of robots is still half functional and bumbling about, without a purpose and slowly falling apart."

A haunting by robots. In a way, that made sense. "If you see one, be sure to take pictures."

"Funny," Spikes said at the same time as Patton laughed and nodded at the suggestion, "I've heard the more folkloristic version. The legend around here goes that spirits from the war are still haunting the valley. You know, a proper haunting. They say they march to war with each other when it goes dark every night, and in the morning they turn to fog and fade away. The Legion of the Damned, they call them."

Dredd frowned at his booted feet. He did not like this. Two stories with a fairly similar content, apart from the varying degrees of realism, and from different sources... Later on he might laugh at himself, but right now he decided that it might be prudent to be cautious. "I guess we'll have to keep our eyes open and our weapons loaded, just in case there really are rogue robots stumbling about."

The twins snickered at the concept, but Dredd saw Anderson's lips twitch. She probably was wondering whether rogue robots could kill Spikes. Dredd cursed himself for giving her ideas, but at the same time, part of him wanted to slap her. Hell knew she had some very useful talents, but he was starting to get downright sick of that nightmare nonsense!

Why was he so angry all of a sudden? Because he was on edge, that must be why. Because she had put him on edge.

By the time they reached the mountain gap through which they could enter Death Valley, the weather was much worse already. The sand in the air clouding the view had turned into an ochre kind of fog that hung over everything thickly, leaving nothing of the sheer mountain flanks but a pair of indistinct looming shadows. There was supposed to be a huge bomb crater to one side, but Dredd could not see any of it. Apparently it had thrown up the mountains to greater height while melting a steep slope into one rock wall, formed of molten slag that had frozen into strange shapes. It would have been an interesting sight, but he would have to content himself with looking at pictures.

He did not even know for certain who had fired that particular missile. The Arabs? The Chinese? Some African nation? What did it matter anymore? Back where it had come from, millions had been wiped out in retaliation. After the world had burned, what point was there in bearing grudges over single details? Compared to the damage the war had done as a whole, that crater seemed so absurdly insignificant.

Not that there weren't enough grudges in the world currently as it was, he thought as they passed through the gap, travelling half blind. There was little left of what had once been the so-called Middle East, but if one day the various Chinese city states quit quarrelling among themselves, they might be in for another chapter of nuclear wipeout. According to Hershey, maybe Mega-City One could just lean back and leave that to the Russians, though.

"It's starting to affect us," Patton said, and Dredd readily cast all political speculations aside – he was grateful he did not have to worry about foreign policy in his line of duty – and went to join the engineer in the cockpit. "Readings are getting unreliable, and the temperature sensors just went haywire."

"Should we seek shelter?" Dredd asked.

"If we can find it." Patton's bronze-skinned hand gestured towards the dense curtains of sand blowing past outside. "Not much here. I suggest we go north for a mile or so and see if there's anything."

"You decide." This was more Patton's field of expertise than Dredd's, and he trusted the engineer to make the right choice.

"There aren't too many hideouts along the west wall," Spikes provided, seated in the co-pilot's seat once again. "I suggest we try the east side. Mind you, that's just what I heard, I've never come even close to the east wall. Far's I know, nobody does really. Ain't nothing to find there."

Patton turned to look at Dredd, who simply shrugged. "Your call." Stepping over Little Hades, who had wedged himself under Patton's seat and was eyeing the sandstorm outside sceptically, he went to check on the cadets. "See? No fire falling from the sky. Back to your studies."

Muttering among themselves, the twins slouched to the tactical table and sat back down to pore over their datapads.

"We'll have to cross the basin later on then, I suppose," Patton thought aloud. When Dredd returned to the cockpit, the engineer was studying a detailed map on a display that was flickering slightly. "I actually was hoping we could cut across the ridge here," he pointed, "and come straight down to Em Cee Two."

"Wouldn't advise it," Spikes disagreed, leaning over. "Not right now anyway. That's the Tannhauser Gate. The ridge can easily be crossed there, as far as I know, but the storm's gonna hit us from the side as soon as we're halfway up, before we reach the passage. Check out the slopes south of it. They form a fucking airscoop if I ever saw one."

"Man, you do know airscoop is not the correct term here?"

"Bah!" Spikes explained. "Don't get tekky with me, Professor Smartypants! You know what I'm trying to tell you!"

"Yeah," Patton admitted, "that I do. So you say we seek cover over there? Looks like there may be some protection, judging by the formation shown here."

While they were discussing detail on the map, Dredd went over to the twins again to see if they had really started studying once more or were just pretending. One of them was revising a chapter on civil procedure, he saw, while the other was busying himself with types of contracts. Funny, he would have expected them to work on the same chapter; he and Rico had always studied the same matters at the same time. Unless... Yes, of course. If they could communicate with each other in some psychic way, as Anderson claimed, then they could divide the assessment load between them and during their exam one would dictate half of the answers to the other, just via their minds. Which explained why their test results were so extremely close together, as Hershey had informed him. Ingenious. "You do realise you're supposed to revise the lot of it? Each of you?"

The boys gazed up at him wearing equal looks of wide-eyed innocence. "We are," one of them assured him.

"The hell you are. The lot of it, both of you."

Scowling, the twins went back to their studies. If he and Rico had had that gift, Dredd mused, they might have done the same, but still, this was cheating. He could not allow it.

Something else was tugging at his attention. The Tannhauser Gate. The name sounded vaguely familiar. He knew he had heard it before, probably during one of their history lessons. It had been a crucial point in some event, he seemed to recall, in the Great Atomic War perhaps, or rather in the Germ War. Yes, the Germ War, that must be it. Had this been the route the Tex forces had used to assault Mega-City Two? Maybe Anderson remembered, but right now he did not want to talk to her. He could try Patton, but he would most likely end up having to ask Spikes, which irked him somewhat. Oh well, it could wait. Once they found shelter from the rising storm, he feared there would be plenty of time spent waiting. There would be more than enough time for questions like this then.

By the time Patton steered the Landraider into a cavern in a mountain flank, Anderson had begun to relax. Yet when the engines shuddered into silence, the sense of foreboding returned to her with the same force as before. "We should not get out," she said aloud before she could stop herself.

Dredd turned to look at her. He was wearing his full uniform, except the helmet, but the shadows by the hatch leading into the Killdozer mostly hid his features. "Why would we?" he simply asked before he left the Raider Truck.

Anderson sighed inaudibly. There it was again, that awkward distance. Was he angry about the nightmares, and that she believed them to be true? He certainly was tense, that much she could tell without delving into the upper layers of his mind, and tension lay fairly close to anger, in her experience.

"That's odd," Patton suddenly said. "Sir?" Turning, he realised Dredd had gone and shrugged. "Never mind, he'll be back."

"What's the matter?" Spikes asked. Still seated beside Patton, the punk now uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to look at something Patton was pointing out on the console. "Think that's the sensors going bananas?"

"I wonder."

Anderson hesitated. Part of her did not want to know what they were seeing, but then again, how likely was it that they had found a monster lurking in the shadow of the cave? That giant praying mantis Dredd had claimed to have seen, perhaps? For that thought she was glad, for it almost made her laugh. Who could possibly believe in a giant praying mantis? "What is it?" she demanded, joining Patton and Spikes in the cockpit.

Patton gestured at the console; Anderson could not quite tell which readouts he was indicating, unless he meant more than one display. "According to our sensors, this cave goes on for quite a bit. Like a tunnel. If the readings are correct, then I don't think that's natural."

"You mean it's some kind of settlement?"

Spikes decidedly shook his head before Patton could reply. "No. Otherwise I'd have heard of it, I think. It's in the ass part of nowhere, living conditions lousy, a long way from most resources. And if it was a hideout, then I doubt they could have afforded to delve into the rock like that. I mean, just picture the machinery you'd need. Sensors say that tunnel might let half a rad-tractor through. I think it might be some bunker from the Great War, one of those used to hide things of value." A grin appeared on his face as he said it. "Some of those things might still be around, actually."

All of a sudden Patton was grinning too. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Be careful!" Anderson blurted out. "There might be all kinds of... things out there." By convincing Spikes to stay inside the Landraider, could she prevent what she had seen in her recent nightmare? The dream had not shown her a cave, though, so maybe this was safe.

Maybe Dredd was right and she was just being paranoid. She very much hoped he was.

"Yeah," Spikes said. "Damned zombie robots. This is gonna be cool."

For lack of anything better to say, Anderson just gave him a scowl. If he had seen what she had seen in her dream, he might not find it quite so funny. "At least don't use a bike," she insisted. "You'll hardly be able to see where you're going." And it had featured prominently in that scene that had burned itself deeply into her awareness.

Spikes shrugged. "What for? If I go through fast, I'll miss the good stuff lying around for the taking."

Did this perhaps qualify as looting and she could therefore forbid it? Anderson was not sure. "I doubt there's much good stuff out there."

"You may yet be surprised," Spikes announced grandly.

Anderson bit her lower lip. Maybe she really was being paranoid, but all the same, she could not escape a strengthening sense of dark foreboding, and a feeling of helplessness as well. What could she do if nobody listened?

They spent a while in the shelter of the deep cave, the twins studying, Spikes and Patton sleeping, Dredd and Anderson both pretending to be busy most of the time while tensely watching each other. Dredd knew exactly what was bothering Anderson, but he still refused to discuss it with her. There were other things that worried him more, like getting the necessary medication to Mega-City Two before it was too late. Little Hades seemed edgy as well, he kept pacing back and forth, tail swishing, then he would lie down somewhere, only to be back on his feet a short while later. After some time he started whining, which did nothing for Dredd's patience. So when Spikes turned up again and suggested they could take a look around outside now, Dredd readily agreed.

Soon the Landraider was rolling again, slowly and carefully. Its headlights illuminated walls of rough stone, but so straight and precise that it was obvious the cavern had been cut from the viscera of the mountain by modern machinery. Dredd wondered how high the ceiling was; he could not find it on any readout. From what he could figure out, they were in a kind of tunnel, only that it was twenty metres wide in his estimation, and it went on and on.

"I think this was a military installation once," Patton broke the silence.

Dredd nodded to this. Gradgrind would doubtlessly have been able to say more, but this very much looked like the pictures and diagrams he recalled from his history lessons. There had been many such bases strewn all across the country, hidden strongholds containing all kinds of weaponry. "I'm pretty sure it was abandoned a long time ago." Right after the war, most likely. There was little left to protect out here.

"Might have served as a research base," Patton suggested. "But I agree, nobody's been here in a long time, according to my residue readings. Not even the lights are functional anymore."

Lights? Dredd squinted at the rock walls. Yes, there were the usual neon tubes, set at regular intervals, but the mechanism that had activated them once must be malfunctioning, or else they would have had to light up already.

"I think the Thunderbirds had their hangar here," Spikes suddenly said. "When the chinks landed beyond Em Cee Two to take it from behind, they were driven all across the Mojave, until they joined up with the Traitors' Legion by the Tannhauser Gate. The 85th made their last stand there, the one last stand no one remembers. The Thunderbirds were to turn the tide, but they never came. They were sabotaged in their hangars. It's said they all burned as they fell from the sky."

By now Dredd should have expected it, but the punk's knowledge in various fields still took him by surprise. "Did you read a book or what?"

Spikes snorted. "More like five. Ain't a thing in the world you won't find a book about. I once saw a treatise on nose hair styles. That was over in Hondo City, though. Those nips got great food and shiny cars, and oh, the lovely pleasure houses..." Spikes clicked his tongue in appreciation. "But once every day you're bound to be weirded out by them. Like, completely. And the music... don't get me started on the music."

Just as Dredd had expected, Spikes did get started on the inconceivable horrors of Japanese rock music then, or rather, the perverted abomination they dared to defile the glorious genre of rock with, as Spikes put it. Dredd let him talk. As long as he could rant, the punk was happy.

All of a sudden, a massive gate loomed ahead of them, gleaming dully in the Landraider's headlights. "Aw, fuckers," Spikes complained promptly.

"Not at all," Patton provided smugly before Dredd could say anything. "See the small door by the side? Iridion Beta control mechanism, if I'm not much mistaken. Things haven't changed that much really. Let's see what I can do about it." And to Dredd's surprise, he started tapping away at consoles and keyboard.

"What exactly are you doing?" Spikes asked after a pause. At least someone else who had no clue either what was going on, Dredd thought with some satisfaction. "Not blowing it up, by any chance?"

Patton laughed. "Not worth the heap of ammo I'd have to waste. Here, watch this." Outside, a smaller gate set into the larger one slowly slid upwards, creating an opening large enough for two men abreast to walk through. "See? Just a matter of finding the right frequency and prompting sequence."

"You're a genius, Jack," Spikes said, clearly impressed.

Patton chuckled. "I try. A Gamma or Delta might have made me look bad, though."

"Can we go take a look?" one of the twins called from behind Dredd immediately.

Dredd frowned into the gloom. There was complete darkness behind the door, and from the readouts he could only tell that the tunnel continued beyond it. "Full gear," he decided. They might as well pass the time exploring, but... well, they had better be careful.

Anderson really was making him nervous.

Soon the twins, guns at the ready, leapt out of the Landraider. Little Hades bounded right after them and nipped at their protective gear playfully, which made them forget all about paying close attention to their surroundings. Dredd felt the corners of his mouth wander downwards, but decided to let it slide this time. After all, he was getting out right behind them. But of course Anderson got twitchy at the boys' lack of attention. "Stay in the Landraider if you're scared," Dredd growled at her. The next moment he felt bad about venting his impatience and tension at her, but he was her commanding officer, there was no need to apologise. She was not exactly making things easier with her superstitions.

Glaring at him, Anderson climbed out right after him. She left her helmet behind as usual.

With Spikes at his shoulder, Dredd took the lead once everybody was outside. There was no sound except the gentle drone of the Landraider's engines idling and their own soft footsteps. Little Hades was very quiet for once; Dredd suspected Anderson had telepathically shushed the dinosaur. Peering through the door cautiously, one hand on his Lawgiver, he could not make out anything except darkness beyond the reach of the Landraider's headlights. How far did they go? It was hard to estimate with no points for orientation. There must be a vast hall behind this door, maybe the Thunderbirds' hidden hangar, as Spikes had suggested.

For how long had this place been desolated? When had the last human set foot in here?

"Anderson." Dredd waved her towards him. If his own senses did little good, he would have to rely on hers. "Can you feel anything in there? Anyone?"

Anderson promptly shook her blond head. Apparently she had used her unique skills to search this place before he had asked her to already. "Nothing. Not even an animal. I might miss really small animals, but there's nothing there I can feel, no living thing."

Dredd nodded. Just as he had thought. "Let's go, then."

Automatically the night sight on his visor activated as he passed through the small gate set in the larger one. The Landraider's strong cone of light seemed dim compared to the impenetrable darkness around them. "Patton, come here with the light." His voice quietly echoed in the invisible emptiness. "Let's see if you can show us anything."

Shuffling past Spikes, Patton switched on the portable floodlight from the Landraider's cargo hold, and immediately the greenish contours of the night vision faded to dim outlines of a smooth floor and a wall to the side.

"Bingo!" Spikes exclaimed promptly as the strong light outlined what looked like the stripped-down hull of a small fighter plane ahead of them. He strode ahead and promptly stumbled over a cable that lay across the dusty floor. Landing on his knees, he muttered a string of muffled curses that drew giggles from the twins. Dredd did not blame them, the punk's swearing was rather creative.

"There's more." Patton swept the cone of light across what truly was a hall that deserved to be called a hangar. Silhouettes of hull and engine parts were briefly outlined in stark relief, their shadows ghostly dancing across the expanse of the concrete floor. "Looks like there's not much left, but at least something to look at."

"What do you think?" Spikes asked. "Thunderbirds?"

"Could be. Can't tell from this distance. And I have to say, I've never been much of an aircraft expert."

Little Hades was hissing gently; he clearly was no aircraft expert either.

The sound of their boots seemed much too loud in the dark hall as they approached what they had found. Dredd could even make out the soft sound the dinosaur's smaller foot claws made on the concrete floor; it reminded him of what the Justice Department's dogs sounded like when they plodded along the hallways. His two large claws, of course, were pulled up over his feet as usual. Seeing them like this, it was hard to believe that they were not meant to slash enemies into bloody shreds, but rather for climbing and for pinning down prey. As a child, he had imagined it differently.

He had not expected a deinonychus to squawk and gurgle and fetch a ball, either.

Spikes arrived at what seemed to be a partially dismantled jet engine beside larger pieces of hull plating first, but Patton wisely kept him from touching anything. Its outer plating, removed in several places, showed numerous dents and scratches and other signs of wear.

"They replaced it," Patton said after studying it briefly. "And left the old one lying around for some reason." He clearly did not approve of things lying around. "Same with those other parts. See all the scratches and holes?"

"They were in a hurry," Spikes reminded him.

"Yes, but the ground crew..." Patton silently frowned into the darkness for a while, then shrugged. "Most likely we'll never find out."

It did not matter, Dredd decided. Within another hour or two at the most, they would be out of here again and leaving the field to military historians.

Little Hades approached the unfamiliar objects cautiously, looked to Dredd as if for advice and then lifted a leg over one concave hull piece. Dredd rolled his eyes under his helmet, but to be honest, he knew no better use for the thing either.

They found several more old tools and machine parts, and some of them even Patton could not identify. Much to Spikes's disappointment, they found nothing of value in the hangar hall – and even if they had, Dredd would have objected to Spikes just claiming it for his own; such things belonged in a museum.

Finally they reached the opposite wall. There were a number of smaller chambers off to the side, most of them empty. A metal door stood ajar, leading into another dark corridor. Dredd gestured to Anderson, and she promptly replied, "No one there." Had she read his mind? Most likely she had known what he wanted her to do.

Despite her assurances, how could he be certain that she did not poke around in his head?

This corridor was not as wide in diameter as the one they had come through, but still large enough for a small truck to roll through easily. After Dredd, taking the lead once again, had gone a few steps, suddenly there came a quiet buzz, which made him reach for his Lawgiver instinctively, then one by one the lights came on, flickering and flashing, until finally the corridor was illumined irregularly. Some of the fluorescent tubes set into the walls above head height were not functional anymore, some just glowed dimly or flickered, but at least half of them were enough to fill the corridor with a bright, cold white light not unlike that Dredd knew from the Justice Department's own workshops and hangars.

"Cool," one of the twins said. Beside them, Little Hades was hissing softly; he clearly disagreed.

"Well, that makes it easier," Patton remarked, lowering his floodlight and switching it off. "Look, they still had to write No Smoking on the walls back then."

Dredd nodded absently. Nobody would ever dream of smoking inside any building owned by the Justice Department. Of course, pretty much all employees were non-smokers, and those few who did knew better than to do it in the presence of a Judge or officer. It was better that way; smoking was a filthy habit, and moreover illegal in most public places.

One of the very few vices where Dredd was positively certain Rico had never taken a liking towards it.

They followed the course of the corridor around a bend; Dredd estimated that it was about forty metres in length. After that they passed through a padded door that opened easily when he pushed, into what apparently had been the control and administration rooms. Some desks still stood where they had been left, chairs neatly pushed back, but otherwise the offices were empty. They had been cleared out thoroughly. The air was hot and stuffy and carried a stale scent of dust; there probably had not been any ventilation in many years. Little Hades promptly sneezed violently after sniffing one of the desks, accompanied by a very undignified-looking bounce that produced a smile even from Dredd. Spikes checked some of the drawers, but the only thing he found, apart from crumpled slips of paper and dust, was a chewed-on blue pencil, which he pocketed. Since it was of practically no value, Dredd let him.

The living quarters were situated behind the offices, five rooms full of empty bunk beds and some assorted furniture and a few much smaller rooms that contained one bedstead only, bedding and mattresses all gone. Dust was collecting everywhere. Clearly this place had been abandoned and thoroughly emptied out a long time ago, with nothing but things of little use and value left behind, or things that were not worth enough to bother with transporting them away. Dredd briefly wondered why anyone would take the trouble of collecting the mattresses, but then shrugged it away. It did not matter. Maybe some desert-dwelling clan or band of muties had taken them later on, who knew? If they had ever managed to breach this base, that was.

By now the twins were getting bored. They were good at pretending, but Dredd could see their attention waver. It was the way their heads moved by fractions, the subtle changes in their mimic visible under the helmets that probably signified they were talking mentally instead of paying attention, their whole attitude that had gone from tense to far too casual – maybe not that casual to a stranger, but Dredd could tell easily enough what the matter was with those two. After all, they could best be described as his younger brothers, if not younger versions of himself.

As he gave a dusty old metal desk a rudimentary search while Little Hades erupted in sneezes once again, he wondered whether Anderson could hear the cadets' mental conversation. She had overheard them earlier on already, he knew that, but did she have to pay attention or specifically concentrate on them, or did she hear them as clearly as if they were voicing their thoughts aloud?

"There's nothing here," Spikes finally agreed, dusting off his hands.

"Let's go back," Anderson suggested, quickly enough for Dredd to know that she was still worried about that nightmare of hers. "If we're lucky, the storm's over by now."

"Probably not," Patton said, "but it must be dying down a little at least."

They returned the way they came, the twins looking a little sulky about their unsuccessful expedition. Spikes was cheerful all the same and chattered about the Great War and its legends all the way back to the dark hangar where they had started. Anderson seemed to have relaxed a little, though Dredd could not tell for certain. Not that it mattered. Their journey was almost over. They had made it this far, and they would make it the rest of the way. The lot of them, together.

One of the twins kicked a small metal part, and it clattered off into the darkness. Little Hades went bounding after it straight away. By now Dredd no longer cared; there was no danger here. They had made sure of that. "Play if you like," he said. "Just make sure you don't get lost. We should be ready to roll in twenty minutes."

"Not much to do here anyway," one of the twins remarked, shrugging.

"Yeah, let's go back," Anderson repeated.

Dredd felt tempted to waste a little time just on general principle, but it would not have been fair towards her. She had proven a very valuable crew member, and he had no call to give her a hard time just because she had this firm belief that Spikes was in mortal peril from something she could not name, no matter how annoying it was getting. "We leave in twenty," he confirmed. "Spikes, I'll be needing you in the cockpit."

"My pleasure, Judgey boy." The punk let the lamplight sweep through the empty hangar hall. "Too bad, I'd have loved a proper little souvenir. Something expensive, preferably."

Dredd merely rolled his eyes under his helmet. Was he starting to grow too soft on Spikes?

The cones of light danced ahead of them as they approached the Landraider once more, the green outlines of the helmet display's night vision strengthening and fading along with it. While Dredd headed straight back, Patton and Spikes took a slight detour, inspecting a few old engine parts once again. The twins and the deinonychus were closely behind Dredd, stopping and catching up depending on whether or not they found something to toss and chase after, and Anderson seemed to be trying to stay with everybody at once. "C'mon," Dredd told her. "You said it yourself, there's nothing here." Why was he suddenly getting this odd feeling that he would prefer everybody to get back into their armoured vehicle as fast as possible?

"Whoa," Spikes's voice resounded through the hangar. "That fucker weighs a ton!"

"What d'you want to move it for?" Patton asked, laughter audible in his voice. As long as the engineer stayed with Spikes, there most likely was nothing to worry about; Patton was a reasonable man.

So was Dredd, and all of a sudden he was starting to sound like Anderson to himself.

"How long 'til we're there?" Anderson asked, drowning out the cheerful banter behind them.

"Another day, if all goes well." Dredd shrugged; much depended on the weather conditions now. There would be a half-decent road at least. If they were lucky, it would take less. "We'll try to establish contact as soon as we're out. We should be in range soon. Let's hope we're not too late."

Already about to step through the hangar gate behind which the Landraider awaited them, he turned very suddenly and automatically yanked his Lawgiver from its holster as sirens started blaring, echoing eerily in the hangar's vastness. Red lights were flashing along the walls, at irregular intervals and with varying intensity, shadows hectically flickering over the floor. Little Hades shrieked, then snarled throatily. Dredd blinked behind his visor; the night sight was working in rhythm with the changing light, and it was a little irritating. He could not make out a threat in any direction. "Get back here!" he bellowed as Spikes and Patton did not move straight away. As long as he could not figure out what exactly had caused this alarm, he had to presume they were in danger. "What's happening?" he called to Anderson, who had drawn her weapon as well.

"I don't know, I can't feel anyone!"

Was he overreacting? Had Spikes or maybe Little Hades managed to trigger an alarm by accident? Either way, they had better get out of here before massive blast doors slammed shut or similar and they ended up trapped in here, with no one coming to their rescue any time soon.

There was a sound from the far side of the hangar, the grating of a slide door that had not been opened in a long time, and then... He had no idea what it was, but it sounded... metallic. "Counter-measures have been armed," a hollow computer voice proclaimed. "Identify yourselves!"

"Move!" Dredd snarled at the twins, who were ushering Little Hades in through the door, dodging his swishing tail. Those counter-measures might still be operational and there was no identification code he could think of that a security system dating back to the Great War would accept.

"Identification MC 1 Alpha!" Patton panted as he and Spikes came sprinting towards the Landraider. "System override 42!"

"Not recognised," the voice droned from the darkness, and Patton cursed under his breath as he stumbled against the Landraider's hull, waiting for Spikes to climb in so he could follow.

"Start her up!" Dredd ordered, at the same time motioning Anderson to get in. His visor's night sight showed him very little; whatever door had opened – if that had been the source of the sound – was out of range. Why did Spikes have to go first?

"Identify yourselves!" the voice repeated, hollowly resounding through the hangar.

"Let's hope there are no blast doors," Anderson voiced Dredd's concern. From the corner of his eye, he could see her backing away towards the door, Lawgiver still trained on whatever was out there in the darkness. With the light from the Landraider behind him, the view the helmet showed him was inconsistent, tinged with the night vision's green that increased or decreased depending on how he moved his head. He followed her through the hangar gate and took cover behind it, still glaring intently into the nearly impenetrable darkness at the other side of the hall.

"Identify yourselves! This is your final warning." There were metallic sounds, clinking, scraping, the low howl of machinery starting up.

Dredd glanced behind him to see Patton disappear into the Landraider at last, Anderson about to follow. It had been mere seconds since Spikes had gotten in, and yet everything seemed to take far too long right now. Would the door protect him from those counter measures, whatever they were? Weapons and the necessary sensors could be hidden pretty much anywhere. If he was lucky, they weren't functional anymore, but if he had learned anything during those approximately fifteen years he had been a Judge now, it was not to rely on his luck.

"Deploying counter measures." The sounds intensified, and then, without further warning, a small explosion shook the gate right beside him, making him stumble backwards. The dry bellow of a machine gun started up, accompanied by bullets whistling and clanging against the massive metal door, muzzle flashes forming a constant glow in the darkness. Dredd rushed for the safety of the Landraider, driven forward by violent punches against his back, but for now the vest held, it held, it still held, and already the Landraider's engines roared –

He leapt up after Anderson, thereby jostling her forward unintentionally, just as another bullet struck the back of his head, whipping it forward and making him stumble to one knee. One bullet hit the doorframe just before the door slid shut. Patton was turning the vehicle already, a hail of bullets pinging off its hull. Spikes, the cadets and the dinosaur were all huddled together on the floor beside the tactical table. As far as Dredd could tell, they all were unharmed.

"Shit," Spikes repeated to himself over and over. "Holy shit."

Patton raced the Landraider through the tunnel as fast as the massive vehicle would go. Anderson was starting up the weapons console; Dredd made a mental note to himself to commend her for keeping a level head later on. His first impulse was to hurry into the Killdozer to ready the heavy weaponry, but he decided against it. Using it in close quarters like this would be foolish. Instead he slid into the seat beside Patton's. He said nothing; there was nothing to say. Especially assigning blame could wait.

The sound of the bullets beating down on the hull had stopped, Dredd could not have said when exactly. Slowly the tension started draining out of his shoulders. They were not safe yet, but they had escaped immediate danger with nothing but some damage to the equipment – he would have to check the state of his helmet and vest once they were out of this hidden airbase, particularly his vest might have taken a lot of damage. Not that it mattered now, so close to the finish line. "What was that override code you used?" he asked. "42? Doesn't sound like a real code to me."

"Yeah," Patton replied, his gaze never leaving the tunnel before them. "It's not so much a code as a failsafe. For a while, while they were still developing the so-called sentient defence mechanisms, it was built into them to prompt them to use non-lethal force during the test phase. Like a stun mode. Some systems were programmed to reactivate that mode if they were left unchecked for too long, to prevent accidents. Can't really tell you much about it, not my field. Anyway, it didn't work."

"Credit for trying," Spikes put in. Apparently he had calmed down already. "Besides, it's the answer to life, the universe and everything."

Patton chuckled; he seemed as if steering the Landraider down an airbase tunnel as fast as possible to escape a security system wasn't enough to shake his composure. "Well spotted. Makes it easy to remember."

"What are you talking about?" Dredd demanded. Not that it mattered. Should he check his equipment right now?

"Inside joke with Tek," Patton replied at the same time as Spikes said, "No good explaining, you don't get pop culture references."

Dredd mentally shrugged to himself; it was of no importance. He could have pointed out that he in fact understood more pop culture references than he wanted to, but it was not a subject worth arguing about. They must be halfway out by now, if he interpreted the readouts correctly. Was this possible? Well, they had travelled very slowly on their way in. "How did this happen?" he came to a question that mattered more. Actually he had meant to seek the culprit later, but, well, maybe Spikes's comment had just annoyed him, and the answer to that particular question involved the name Spikes, most likely, but the punk was innocent until proven guilty.

"I don't know," Patton admitted. "I'll wonder about it when I have less to worry about. I might or might not have activated a transponder right under the thermo covering of the injection module control unit when I tried to reach the access cord to the outer fusion wiring override."

Well, leave it to Tek Division to answer a simple question in complete gibberish. Dredd chose not to press the issue, though, he did not want to divert Patton's attention too much. If they got out of here without suffering too much damage, it wouldn't matter at all whose fault this had been, to be honest, so no need to press the subject any further.

If. He had been wrong before; the sensor readings definitely did not highlight the end of the tunnel, but rather... something else. Dredd did not know what it was, but the end of the tunnel certainly would not prompt a proximity alert to flash across the screens. Was that a tank? It looked vaguely tank-shaped on the readouts. Or was it... Had it just stood up? "Patton," Dredd demanded, "what the fuck is that?"

"Moloch drone," Patton replied matter-of-factly. "You'll see it... right now."

Just then they came around a bend, and Dredd could see that twenty metres ahead the tunnel was blocked by a... thing. A square, looming shadow in the irregular light of the passage, it was mounted on crawlers shaped not unlike the Killdozer's. A blocky... torso sported several types of artillery weapons, and a pair of arms equipped with what looked like gripping pliers large and strong enough to tear into the Landraider's hull was raised in a pose that vaguely reminded Dredd of the giant praying mantis or whatever that creature they had encountered out in the desert had been. "Fire!" he ordered, but Anderson would not have needed the command. The Raider Truck's machine guns woke to life, the one below the cockpit targeting the crawlers while the others rained destruction down upon the drone's hull. The low howl above announced the rocket before it streaked off with a roar and slammed into the drone, outlining it in a fiery glare that made Dredd blink even under the protection his instantly darkening visor offered. Something shook the Landraider; it lurched violently. Patton had slowed down a lot, when exactly had that happened? Had they stopped? Or was the torn, smoking ruin ahead of them retreating at the same speed? No, they had stopped, and Patton was feverishly navigating through the main computer's diagnosis menu. The word rerouting appeared on the screen. The Landraider shuddered, and then it moved again.

Patton's sigh of relief was audible. "That was close."

"We were hit," Anderson stated. "Weren't we?"

"Yes. For a moment I thought it knocked some of our sensors out, but it's not that bad." They passed what had once been a dangerous war drone, its side torn open and smoking, one arm twitching on the floor beside it, and as soon as they were past it, Patton accelerated as much as he could. "Easier than I feared, but it might self-destruct now."

"You mean it'll blow itself up?" Spikes asked from behind. "Can it get blown up even more than it already is?"

"You bet. That thing's a Moloch. Not that hard to incapacitate. If you catch them in time, that is. And if you pack some punch yourself. But they have the nasty habit of blowing up and taking you with them."

Dredd felt his shoulders tense involuntarily. It was foolish; little could hurt the Landraider. Still, he had heard of those drones. He had heard that their insides were full of all kinds of nasty things that were ejected violently when they self-destructed. Gradgrind might have known how much of this was actually true. "I'll take the 'Dozer," he told Patton. Directing the heavier weapons from the Raider Truck's weapons control was more difficult than doing it from the Killdozer's large weapons control panel and mostly relied on auto-targeting.

This would have been Gradgrind's job. They really should have taken an additional Judge with military experience along on this mission, instead of the cadets. But apparently some people high up valued their mind games more highly than Judges' lives. Dredd's jaw was clenched in anger as he ducked through the hatch.

"Another one ahead, sir," Patton's voice sounded from the intercom just as Dredd activated the control screen. Hopefully he would manage to handle this correctly; they had been given a general overview on the topic of tanks and artillery at the Academy, but not nearly the full training the Judges and auxiliaries working with the Manta units received. Maybe he should have sent Patton to deal with this and steered the Landraider himself? But Patton was much better at driving a tank than he was. And after all, Dredd did know how to work the rocket launcher. By the time the drone appeared around the bend, he had selected the option to fire at the weapon signature, rather than at the heat signature, and to auto-launch as soon as there was a clean line of sight. This time the drone was torn apart before it managed to fire anything itself. As it fell, it erupted into a garish ball of fire and smoke, the sound of the explosion dully audible even inside the Landraider.

"Yep, self-destruct," Patton's voice came from the speaker beside Dredd. "Triggered too early, though. Nice shot, sir."

"I did pick up a few useful things at the Academy," Dredd replied. Pre-emptive strike targeting. Thank you, Instructor Griffin.

"Tunnel's clear until the exit," Patton reported.

"For now." Dredd did not want to take any chances right now, so he stayed where he was.

"For now," Patton agreed. "Exit's unblocked, also for now."

"Can you detect booby traps?" Next time he had better not consider Anderson paranoid. He was doing a pretty good impression of paranoia himself, he thought with a small smile that was nothing more than a twitch of his lips.

"I'm scanning wall and floor structure, yes," Patton's voice came from the intercom. "Nothing detected 'til now." At least he wasn't the only one with that suspicion, then.

"Those drones did come from somewhere," Dredd reminded him. "Did you check the weather?"

"Yes, sir," Patton confirmed, just as Dredd had expected. "Occasional strong gusts of wind, nothing to worry about."

So they could leave their temporary shelter. Good. Being trapped in here with a bunch of accidentally activated drones would not be too pleasant, to say the very least.

They encountered another drone, though that one was much smaller. It came from a niche in the wall hidden behind a sliding door that got stuck before it had opened all the way. The low, square drone had some trouble rolling out, and Anderson swiftly incapacitated it with the Raider Truck's machine guns. Dredd could hear the cadets cheering, with a squawk from Little Hades mixed in. Did the dinosaur understand what was going on? Probably no more than vaguely. He would pick up on everybody's tension and the explosions most likely unsettled him, but how should he grasp the concept of a drone?

Through the small windows above the console, Dredd could see the tunnel exit, grey, hazy evening light drawing closer. We made it, he thought, we're out!

And then the red light on the console started blinking.

Dredd reached for the intercom button. "Patton, what –"

The Landraider slowed down abruptly. "They're out there, sir. Lots of them. No idea where they came from." The engineer's voice sounded oddly calm. "Sir, I'm receiving a transmission."

"Put it through." What were they? Dredd could only see vague shapes on his screens; the tunnel mouth remained as empty as before. Drones, out there? No way. A raider clan like the Slayriders or Morgar's mutie forces, more likely. But where had they come from so suddenly, and why prey on a heavily armoured vehicle instead of on one of the dusty villages on the edge of the Mojave? This part of the desert was empty, and it had always been empty, as far as he knew.

The intercom crackled with static, whistled and hissed briefly, and then he could make out a voice, oddly distorted and flat. "Intruder, this is the Last Legion. Stand down and surrender yourself, or you will be terminated. We will not stop. We make no prisoners. We fight on forever."

Just then the schematics on the targeting screen grew clearer, depicting a line of seven drones much like the one that had first attacked them in the corridor, and behind them... were those tanks?

In the silence that filled the Landraider, Dredd could hear Spikes's voice clearly. "Well, Jack, I guess it's safe to say you were right. The Legion of the Damned really are robots."