Pandora’s
Redoubt: Book Summary
The book begins with the group running through a redoubt
heading as quickly as they can to the gateway. Hot on their heels, literally, is
a lava flow. They close the door and hope for the best that they will be able to
jump out before the lava hits.
When they come to the gateway is simmering with heat and they
can smell the lava. Some of the lava made it into the gateway and was cooling
with them. They leave the gateway and find the control chamber. The exit is
blocked by wood paneling and they find that it is very thin and not booby
trapped.
The hallway past is filled with broken lights and they find a
couple of corpses who look like they killed each other about five weeks
previous. They spend some time exploring before they decide to head up to the
top level. They spot a man above
them and he fires. They return fire but it appears to have no effect at all.
Instead the man drops a pair of grenades.
Once the grenades detonate they go back and see that it was a
booby trap, that the man had been dead for a long time.
Their firing caused him to drop the explosives that had been strapped to
his hands. They spot a tattoo on his arm and the other bodies they’ve
seen have had the same tattoos.
The group continues to explore the redoubt and find a large
number of dead. Each one has the Tattoo. Inside
one of the rooms they find a young girl that had only minutes before took her
own life with a handgun instead of starving to death. They speculate at what her
purpose in the redoubt might have been.
After leaving the girl they head up and find a huge motor
pool. It was obvious that the
tattooed men had been stripping the other vehicles to create a monstrous war
wag. It was fully functional and
fully armed and even had stores of ammo and equipment inside.
When they get the door open Hellhounds, bioengineered mutant dogs leap
out and attack them. The group manages to kill a pair of the dogs but the rest
scatter into the motor pool. Knowing
how dangerous it would be to stay out, they cram themselves into the APC that
they dub the Leviathan and drive it down a long narrow tunnel they are certain
leads out of the redoubt.
The door is locked and Krysty volunteers to leave the APC to
open it. Another dog attacks but is quickly dispatched.
Outside the redoubt they find a nuke blasted landscape. JB
determines that they are in Ohio, in the lakebed of Salt Fork Lake. When they
leave they spot more of the Hellhounds racing out of the redoubt and quickly
disappear as they blend into the surroundings.
The group uses the IR and thermal scopes to find them and they wound one
of the dogs but before they can finish it the other escapes. At the same time
they pick up a contact on their Radar.
The contact turns out to be a automated robot tank called the
Ranger. It takes the Leviathan as a threat and fires upon it, using its main
weapon which is a high powered laser. The
robot tank chases them and Doc tries to stop it by firing a LAW rocket at it but
he misses. JB comes up with an
idea, and they take out the lenses of the laser with an AP round. Even with its
main weapon damaged the Ranger continues to pursue them.
They head into a blast crater hoping that the ambient
radiation will force the Ranger to give up as it would be damaged.
The ploy works and the tank gives up its pursuit.
The computer controlled vehicle heads out in order to find someplace that
it can repair its damaged lenses.
Seventy miles east of their position is the Novaville barony.
Lady Ward Amanda Coultier is taking a bath and is being attended to by
her servants as she talks to her brother Richard.
She is planning some sort of attack.
Ryan and his companions enter the small city they spotted.
The ruins are choked with vines and they see no sign of human or animal
habitation. They spot the
Ranger tank and instead of trying to take it out with their weapons, they
instead drop a ruined building on it by blowing out the foundation.
They head out the APC and are attacked by the plant
surrounding them. Krysty is taken
away and they chase it in the APC following the sounds of her firing. She is
taken into an old furniture store. The
others smash into the store with the APC and are forced to go on foot in order
to go after the woman. They take the empty fuel cans with them to keep the vines
at bay. The plant is clearly intelligent and tries to stop them using the shells
of humans, thinking that they won’t fire on their own kind. When that
doesn’t work it uses insects. They
eventually find Krysty and free her and make their way back to the APC.
As they make their break, a huge creature comes out of the sewers. It
appears to be the central body for the plants.
They take it out by dropping blood coated explosives.
Amanda Ward stops at a gas station where she knows of a huge
underground tank still containing fuel.
The bikers, the sons of the knife use the same stop for the fuel as well.
She is planning to head to the ville with the vines to try and negotiate
with the ‘beast’ or the Ranger. She is willing to marry the commander if it
means getting access to the predark goods the city contains.
She is attacked by the bikers.
Ryan and the others arrive at the same time Amanda is being
attacked. But at the time they
don’t know it. They have to get
transmission fluid from the trucks inside the ruins for the Leviathan and while
JB works on that, Dean and Ryan head out together to recce the ruins.
They come across Amanda being raped and Ryan decides to leave her but
Dean is angered and opens the fight. Ryan has to act and they quickly kill the
attackers and rescue Amanda. They make the connection with the attackers to the
corpses they found in the redoubt when they spot the tattoos on them.
Amanda introduces herself to them. Neither father nor son really care what she says or does to
get their attention. But they do offer to let her drive her bike behind them
when they head out. As they talk she reveals she was heading to the vine-covered
city, which is known to them as the Wheel to negotiate with the tank commander.
When she sees the Leviathan she freaks until the others are able to make
her use common sense.
The ruins are filled with the bikers, and they decide to
attack the group and get revenge for killing their brethren. They throw
everything they have against the leviathan and Ryan’s crew but are unable to
destroy it or kill his people. Despite their best efforts they are defeated and
are forced to retreat, having suffered incredible losses.
Once things seem clear they manage to salvage two bikes as
well as more weapons from the dead bikers.
Dean is trying out some boots when Amanda ambushes them using some sort
of gas. They are all knocked out by
the attack.
The ranger wasn’t destroyed when the building collapsed on
it. It sends out its repair drones
and they scour the ruins for parts to repair it.
When the companions awaken they find that they are in an
immaculately clean dungeon and find that everything they had in their
possession, with the exception of their clothing, has been taken from them. They
meet a fellow prisoner, a man named Shard. When they talk about escaping he refuses to listen to them.
Putting two and two together, they figure that the ville might actually
be an old prison.
A Eunic brings in a convicted thief and forces them to watch
as he tortures the man. They have
no choice but to watch as the man works his hideous skills.
Amanda and her brother Richard talk about her capture and the
prisoners, how Ryan and Dean were not interested in her advances.
It is also clear that Richard has un-natural feelings towards his sister
and they both have to wait until the passing of their father before they can
give into the carnal feelings and become man and wife.
Once the torture is complete JB goes through the vomit and
finds a lock pick he took the time to swallow before they were captured.
They make short work of the locks and bring the prisoner, Shard with
them. He leads them to the armory
and Ryan fakes an injury, pretending to know one of the guards.
It works and they kill both guards.
They enter the armory and get what weapons they can use and boobie trap
the room.
The group makes their way through the prison; killing many
guards and even a number of sec men trainee’s that were in full plate armor.
They go past a boobied escape tunnel and find the leviathan.
When they reach it they succumb to the same sleep gas that Amanda used to
stop them earlier.
One of the sec men Lieutenants goes to see the Wards and
informs them about the escape. The Wards want everyone they can get their hands
on interrogated in order to find Ryan and his people. The one sec man who failed in his duty is to be stripped of
rank and privilege and sent to work with the slaves. Amanda gives the Lieutenant until nightfall to find the
escapees.
When Ryan’s people come to, they discover that they are
inside a cave. All their wounds have been treated, their clothing washed and
mended, and their weapons and gear have been returned to them, cleaned as well.
They meet their rescuers and find out that they are the leaders of the
resistance and also discover that they are deep in the mines below the ville.
The leaders want their assistance in overthrowing and killing of the Wards.
The sec men go around the ville, kicking in doors and such,
and they also randomly kill slaves in order to try and get the location of Ryan
and his people.
The resistance leaders bring maps that show the exact layout
of the prison. Ryan and JB study
the maps and figure that the Wards must have their best weapons with them where
they sleep. They must have turned the main armory into their private chambers as
well.
Amanda and Richard talk about the escaped prisoners and
decide that promoting on of the sec men would be in order.
It appears that Amanda isn’t quite as interested in the carnal intimacy
that Richard is. Richard tells her that they are almost out of the sleep gas.
They are both afraid of an attack. Amanda orders that one slave be killed
an hour until the escaped prisoners are found and brought to them.
Ryan decides to up the schedule and prepare to go after the
Wards right away. Lisa, one of the slave leaders, gives Ryan a vial of the sleep
gas antidote.
While the guards are searching, slaves in three different
areas announce that they found Ryan and the guards are led off to the imposters.
The Wards get wind of this when the chief sec man tells them
what happened. They think that Ryan and his people are trying to get to the fuel
dump and in order to protect it they split their forces accordingly.
As they threatened to do, Richard randomly kills one of the slaves. The
deed complete, they send out the Chief of security.
While heading through the ville, the companions stumble upon
Shard who’s being tortured by a man in order to find out how to start the
Leviathan. The torturer doesn’t believe that Shard doesn’t know.
The man refuses to break under the tender care of the torturer. The
companions kill the would be baron and free Shard from his shackles.
The then find out from him the true location of the Leviathan.
Outside the ville a sentry watches as the Ranger approaches
the prison. He is amazed that it
easily shrugs its way thought all the outer defenses.
He fires 3 flares, something that has never happened before in the
history of the ville. Just after this the Ranger destroys his guard shack and
kills him.
After Shard gives them the location, they partake in the
sleep gas antidote and go to the tower. When
they enter, they see slaves taking off the last tire from the Leviathan.
Eugene, the torturer, tries to force them to put down their weapons by
getting JB with his whip. It doesn’t work the way he expected and they first
blow off his hand then kill him. The
slaves and dogs go to defend their master and are promptly dispatched as well.
Seeing that the situation is getting more and more hopeless
by the second, the Wards release the gas into the compound.
Both Slave and Sec men alike succumb to the gas.
The Ranger continues to plow its way into the ville, brushing
off attack after attack from the sec men, and killing whenever it can, running
down people and not slowing for anything. One attack with cannons actually tips
it on its side but it quickly rights itself and continues.
Once they finally get enough tires back on the vehicle they
enter it, only to discover that the Wards had already re-decorated it.
The removed component isn’t a problem for them and JB is able to get
the Leviathan started. Wasting no more time they head out.
Amanda is with Richard and she tells him that they have to
make a run for it. The defenses have been breached and they have lost the ville.
Richard doesn’t want to leave their father. She tells him that she killed him years before, after giving
him a son. It is clear that they
are not brother and sister but are actually mother and son. He goes insane with
rage and kills her. As a final act
he opens the gas containers and leaves them permanently in the open position.
Using Shards directions they blow their way through an old
blocked tunnel. The Ranger is still
hard on their heels and is determined to stop them. They cross a river and make
it to an old bridge. Despite the condition of the bridge, it takes their weight
but find them trapped in a dead end.
Shard grabs the satchel of explosives and climbs on top of
the Ranger. He ignores the drones attacking him and sets off the satchel, dying
in the process but severely damaging the vehicle. The companions finish the tank by blowing away part of the
supports on the bridge below it, causing it to fall to its destruction.
The ville is in ruins and a group of sub human muties enters
it and begins to strip the dead and still living of their flesh, knowing that
they will have enough food to last the hard winter months that are coming.
End of Pandora’s Redoubt