Outlanders 35 Cerberus Storm by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The first rays of the morning sun slanted over the Crazy Woman's gunwales. Kane drew a deep breath of the frigid air into his lungs. There was something exhilarating about the post-daybreak chill, about watching dawn arrive and drive away the streamers of damp mist hanging among the trees.

Kane had only half slept the night before, tossing about on the hard floor, clutching at a blanket, his nerves jangling" His dreams were full of fragmented images of naked women turning into ferocious, spitting cats. He awoke at three-thirty, shivering, despite the thermal controls of his shadow suit, the chill of the earth and the nearby river worked through him, settling into every one of his old wounds. His right wrist ached abominably, as if the panther he had glimpsed the night before had sunk its fangs into the marrow. The bones had been fractured a few years before by exposure to an infrasound wand, and the bullet fired by the Colt Cobra, even deflected by his Bren Ten had aggravated the injury. He had gotten off lucky, although the auto- pistol was damaged beyond repair.

Still, Kane always enjoyed getting away from the vanadium-sheathed confines of the Cerberus redoubt" He took keen pleasure in exploring new lands, which made him an exception among the redoubt's residents"

Most of the people who lived in Cerberus acted in the capacity of support personnel. They worked rotating shifts, eight hours a day, seven days a week. For the most part, their work was the routine maintenance and monitoring of the installation's environmental systems, the satellite data feed and the security network"

Everyone was given at least a superficial understanding of all the redoubt's systems so they could pinch-hit in times of emergency. Kane and Grant were exempt from this cross training inasmuch as they served as the enforcement arm of Cerberus and undertook far and away the lion's share of the risks. On their downtime between missions they made sure all the ordnance in the armory was in good condition and occasionally tuned up the vehicles in the depot.

Time within the huge tri-level installation was measured by the controlled dimming and brightening of lights to simulate sunrise and sunset" Since most of the people there were either ville bred or had lived in artificial environments for many years, they didn't mind the electronic changeover from dawn to dusk. Rarely had any of them strayed more than a few miles from the redoubt's mountain plateau, even the émigrés from the Manitius Moon colony"

With the fall of the baronies and the rising threat of the overlords, most of the émigrés had shown a disinclination to wander too far from the Cerberus redoubt But more the crowded it became, the less satisfied Kane felt to stay there for any length of time. The pull of adventure" of exploring the remote places, grew stronger with every passing day. Despite the sense of danger, he also experienced a profound sense of peace while in the wild regions.

Only the steady chugging

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