Chapter 24

The chemical shell detonated just inside the doorway to the main building. Fire spread out, causing a chain reaction of explosions as grenades detonated. The entire front of the building disintegrated, making the rest of the building collapse in upon itself.

Jessica Saunders held the other children tighter as the shockwave blasted the Centaur she was leaning up against off its tires. She screamed as it was sent up into the air, flipping end over end. She looked up and saw Jackalot still holding onto the machine gun turret, thumbs still pressed down on the firing studs.

The Centaur slammed into the ground fifty metres away, crushing the top of the vehicle, killing Jackalot instantly. It lifted up again and rolled through the air.

Reaper heard a crunching noise behind him and he looked over this shoulder to see the Centaur rolling through the air, coming his way. He sprinted faster. Catching up to the kid, he wrapped his arms around him and dived to the ground. As he dived, he rolled in the air so that he would hit the ground first.

They both hit the ground. Skidding along on his back, Reaper opened his eyes, to see the Centaur rolling through the air, just inches away from them. He closed his eyes again and heard a series of crunches as the Centaur hit the ground behind them and rolled along the dirt.

Reaper puffed as he held the crying child against his chest. "It's ok," he whispered. He ran a hand through the little boy's hair. "It's ok." A moment later he let his head hit the ground and he sighed in relief.

"Get Jessica and the kids to a safe place. Then radio in for pickup." said Reaper, leaning up against the tank. "I'm going after Simms." Or what ever his fucking name is. He thought as he loaded another magazine into his new M4. He attached the grenade launcher and fixed on a new scope. He reached into a compartment and pulled out a few extra shells and put them into his chest pouch of his vest.

Lice looked over at Shadow, Sarah and Smoking Toaster. They all returned the look. "How exactly are you going to do that?" asked Sarah.

"He said he was going to the nearest city. That's where I'm going." said Reaper, walking over to the M90 Centaur. He pulled open the glove box and pulled out a map. He unfolded it and played it out over the bullet-ridden bonnet. Ok, I'm here, he thought pointing at a patch of desert. He looked for the nearest city and found one 200 kilometres to the east. . The name AZOTH was written across it..."Fuck." he whispered, too far.

"Lice, is it possible to get the fuel from that wreck?" he asked pointing at the destroyed Centaur, without looking at it.

"Possibly," said Lice slowly eyeing Reaper. Reaper just stared at him and Lice sighed. "I'll get on it." He left and walked over to the destroyed Centaur.

Twenty minutes later Reaper jumped into the driver's seat of the M90 Centaur and started her up. He revved it and at roared to life. Lice jumped into the passenger seat, Smoking Toaster jumped up onto the turret. "What the fuck are you guys doing?" asked Reaper looking over at Lice.

"You need me for this," said Lice simply. "And we both might need him." he jerked a thumb up at Toaster.

"What about the others?" asked Reaper.

"Shadow will take care of them." said Lice strapping into the seat.

Reaper nodded and gunned the engine. They shot off the mark and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Shadow leaned up against the last Centaur and sighed, thinking. It had been about 25-30 minutes since Reaper Lice and Toaster had left and he was fresh out of ideas as of how to get out to a safe area.

He heard a shift of gravel next to him and he looked up to see Sarah staring up at him. "Whacha thinkin?" she asked softly.

"Nothing." whispered Shadow. He motioned for her to come closer and he held her tight. Leaning in he kissed her lightly on the lips, then kissed her on the forehead. Without letting her go, he whispered quietly, "Sorry about before."

Sarah lifted up her head and looked at him "About what?" she asked.

"About dropping you." said Shadow with a frown.

Sarah laughed softly and punched him in the chest. Hard.

Shadow leaned up against the side of the Centaur and breathed deeply. "What the..."

"Consider us even." said Sarah with a slight smile.

Shadow laughed painfully and smiled. "Even." he said. Then he leaned in and kissed her again. He looked up and found Jessica Saunders standing a few metres away. When he let go of Sarah and smiled she stepped closer.

"Just wondering," she asked softly, "When are we getting out of here? And if so, how?"

He thought for a moment and then replied. "I'm still trying to figure that out. If you have any ideas, feel free to share." Then he pointed toward the tank. "There should be some food and water in the tank if you're hungry."

He reached into the Centaur and pulled out a chunky black radio. "Stormbreaker, this is Shadow, come in. Repeat, this is Shadow, come in." he said into it. He took off his thumb and all he got was static.

After a moment, a voice came through. "This is Stormbreaker, what's going on down there? Where's the Reaper?"

Shadow pressed down the button again. "Reaper's headed toward the nearest city at best speed. Listen, we need pick up down here right now, we have civilians that we need to evacuate. I'm sending you our location."

"Roger that, Dilligaf is on her way down now. She should be there with in the hour."

"Roger that, we'll be here." said Shadow and he put the radio on the passenger seat.

"It's going to rain soon." sighed Lice as he sat back in his seat.

Reaper looked up at the sky and saw dark heavy rain clouds moving their way. He sighed and looked back at the road.

"Think there'll be hail?" asked Toaster on the turret.

Lice looked back up at the clouds. "Probably, but it doesn't look like it."

Reaper just sighed again and turned on the CD player. Classic Metal music started playing through the speakers, helping him think of how to end this. He reached for the Centaurs personal radio and turned down the music. "Jameson, you there?" he said into it. All he got was static so he tried again. "Jameson, this is Reaper. You there?"

"This is Jameson. Whatcha need Reaper?" asked Jameson's voice over the COM.

"I have a feeling that this thing should go out with a bit of a bang." said Reaper, looking over at Lice with a small smile. "You got any ideas?"

There was a minute of silence of the COM until Jameson's voice came back. "As a matter of fact I do, one of our allied ships, the... hang on a moment." There was the sound of tapping on a console and Jameson's' voice whispered out. "Got you, you little fuck." then he spoke normally again. "Sorry about that. One of our allied ships, the Hammer of Dawn, dropped off a little care package directly from HQ. Clubber T thought it might help. It's a Nova bomb." When Reaper didn't reply he continued. "Basically a missile with enough explosive power that it could destroy a planet. They call it the Nova bomb because once it blows, the planet looks like an exploding star."

Reaper looked over at Lice to see his eyebrows had shot up. Slowly, very slowly, Lice nodded and Reaper grinned. "I'm sending you a set of co-ordinates. When I get back up there I'll tell you when to fire it."

Reaper set down the radio and let out a low whistle. He turned up the CD player, and Heavy Metal music blasted through the speakers.

"So whats you plan to get rid of Simms?" asked Lice over the music.

Reaper just shrugged. "I don't know," he looked over at Lice with a smile over his face. "I was just thinking of winging it."

The landing gear of the Pegasus dropship touched down on the dirt. The engines thrust hit the ground and dust and debris scattered all over the place. The doors folded out and before the even came close to the ground Shadow jumped up and helped the others on. Once they were all on, he helped the children buckle up and dropped back out to attach the last Centaur. Once it was nicely fixed in place he jumped back in and hit the button to raise the doors. He turned around and found Dilligaf looking around the troop bay from the cockpit door.

"Where's Reaper?" asked Dilligaf. "Where's everybody else?" Her eyes locked on Shadow and he stopped.

He blinked and stepped over to an empty seat. "Reaper, Lice and Toaster have gone to Azoth. Flying Pencil and Jackalot are dead." he said calmly. After a moment, he noticed that Dilligaf hadn't moved. "We better get the fuck out of here, before the Rachnie, or anything worse gets here."

Dilligaf nodded and walked back into the cockpit and took the controls. She looked up and stared at the forward view screen, and stared in the direction of Azoth. She saw the large rain clouds in the distance. She shook her head and concentrated on the controls and a moment later the thrusters fired and the dropship lifted off, into the air.

"PLASMA MORTAR!" screamed Toaster.

Reaper hit the gas and the Centaur screamed through the pounding rain. A moment later he heard and explosion behind them. He looked at the rear view camera and saw steam rising up from where the plasma had hit the water on the road. Underneath the steam he saw a cracked glassy surface. Fucking bugs, he thought as he veered around the burnt out shell of another Centaur.

"Any idea where it came from?" asked Lice, looking around.

"None," said Toaster.

"Oh well, if it fires again, get a location so we can deal with it." said Lice, sitting back in his seat.

"Roger." whispered Toaster.

There was silence between them only interrupted by the occasional thunderclap. The only thing Reaper could think of was how he was going to kill Simms. First of all, thought Reaper as he smashed the Centaur through a warrior bug's carcass, we have to find out his real name. So then we can put it on his death certificate.

Lice looked over at him and interrupted his thoughts, "Just so you should know, you have to live through this and get back to the Stormbreaker." he said.

Reaper looked back at him, a quizzical look on his face. "Yeah, why's that?"

"Two reasons. First of all because of Gemma." said Lice.

Reapers eye brows shot up and he nodded. Fair enough. He thought. "And the other reason?"

"Second is..." he took a breath. "What Gemma is carrying."

Reaper raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding. "What she's carrying?" he asked slowly.

Lice just smiled and nodded.

Reaper looked back at the road, still thinking. Then it hit him. "Nooooooooo," he said softly. "Really?"

Lice just laughed. "Yeah, she told me about an hour or so before we left the Stormbreaker."

Shit thought Reaper with a slight smile. Gemma's pregnant. I'm going to be a father.

All of a sudden, Reaper hit the brakes and the Centaur skidded to a halt, water spraying everywhere. Reaper jumped out of the Centaur and sprinted over to a semi-destroyed building. Lice jumped out after him, "Stay there." he screamed beck over at Toaster who was about to jump off the turret.

Lice sprinted up to the building to find Reaper, his hands up against a pole, his head bowed, throwing up. Reaper breathed and spat out to the side. After a moment, he righted himself up and walked over to a nearby wall. "You alright man?" asked Lice.

Reaper spat in his direction and let his head hit the wall. He closed his eyes and breathed again. "When the fuck were you planning on telling me this?" he asked.

Lice suppressed a laugh. "Right after she told me, but I didn't get the chance."

Reaper just chuckled and started to walk toward the Centaur. When he was about to walk passed Lice he punched him in the gut. Lice doubled over, breathing heavily. Reaper just patted him on the back. "Thanks man." he said guiding Lice back over to the Centaur.

Toaster saw them walking back towards him and raised an eyebrow. "Don't even ask." said Reaper helping Lice to his seat.

Lice just chuckled painfully.

"JESUS CHRIST! RUN!" screamed Lice. Looking behind him, he saw a hoard of Rachnie fighter bugs launch themselves over the top of a crumbling building.

They had ditched the Centaur because that had run out of road to drive on. In front of the Centaur was a massive pile of concrete and rock with walls so steep that nothing could climb it.

Lice fired wildly behind him with his M4, holding it one handed. With his other hand he pulled out an incendiary grenade. He pulled the pin out with his teeth, and side armed it as had as he could over the roof of the building. The grenade exploded, sending flames everywhere. The sound of the Rachnie screaming as they burned to death made Lice's spine shiver.

"What do you think set them off?" puffed Reaper in front of him, he pushed Smoking Toaster ahead and kept running.

"Don't know, don't care" said Lice, keeping low. "Let's just get to a nice quite and safe place where we can hide from these..." he fired off another round and caught another Bug in the leg, making it stumble over, causing a chain reaction of stumbling Bugs. "...PRICKS"

The next few moments happened quickly. Lice looked ahead just in time to see a flash across the sky. Next, a bolt of lightning flashed down and hit a wet metal pole, just as Smoking Toaster grabbed onto it to push himself into another direction. Electricity flashed through the pole and lanced through Smoking Toasters body.

Toaster screamed as hard as he could, unable to let go of the electrified pole as over 50000 volts of electricity flashed through his body, frying everything. The voltage hit the grenades clipped to his belt as well as the weapon in his hands. The resulting explosions ripped everything around him apart, making his body into small chunks of scorched and smoking meat.

Lice and Reaper both stopped running and breathed, the look of horror all over their faces. "Fucking hell," breathed Reaper as he knelt down, his head between his legs. Standing up he walked over to a wall and started punching it. Hard. The metal fist smashed into the wall, making small pieces of concrete it the ground. After a moment, he looked up and saw a large hole in the wall, where he had been punching it.

"Let's go." said Lice, softly. "We have to find Simms. We have to find him and kill him before he does anymore harm."

Reaper looked over his shoulder at Lice and breathed slowly. "Right." he growled turning around and looking down the path Toaster was about to go down before he died. "Let's get the fuck out of this fucking rain."