10. Roc and a Hard Place

The pile of canvass and wires and gondola lay on the dusty ground in the middle of what had long ago been a potato farm. A few thin vapors of smoke drifted into the air from the pile of crashed blimp.

A flap of canvass lifted and two arms stretched out, grasping at the dry soil and pulling.

Dice, aching and sore but in one piece, crawled from the wreckage one hand at a time until one of those hands landed upon a polished leather boot.

"Well, Mr. Dice Quaid. That is your name, isn't it? That's the name Amick Hendar told me when she came to arrest me. She told me all about how you apparently stowed away aboard my ship and about how you're a deserter and how you gave her my name before you stole a shuttle and crashed on this miserable planet. Fortunately, my men and I managed to slip away before being secured."

The short, beady-eyed Koal paced holding a pistol. His three men—armed with assault rifles—walked through the wreckage. Dice pulled his head up and surveyed the motley crew, then let his face slump into the dirt again.

Koal continued, "You should really learn to turn off the homing beacon if you're going to steal a shuttle. If I hadn't found you then certainly, sooner or later, a Second Earth team would have found you."

Koal chuckled as he stroked one of his meticulously sculpted side burns.

"Of course, I imagine the end result will be the same."

"Sir!"

One of the men trotted out from the crash holding the container with the vials.

"It's intact, Sir."

Koal took the container, opened it, examined the contents, smiled, and closed it again. He turned his attention to Dice once more.

"Come along, Mr. Dice. You've caused me a whole lot of trouble and before I put you out of my misery, I want to see if we can't find some use for you."

They dragged Dice from the ground and hauled him into the waiting airship.

---

The pendulum on the grandfather clock stationed in the corner of the room swung back and forth hypnotically with a gentle tick-tock. The rest of the room was decorated in a comfortable clutter of colorful collector's dolls, Thomas Kinkade paintings, and arrangements of artificial flowers in baskets atop antique oak furniture. If not for the guns pointed at his back, Dice would have felt as if he were visiting a grandmother's home.

However, the man standing near the clock completely ruined the ambiance. He was a very big man with arms as thick as Dice's biceps and nearly no neck to speak of. His entire head was wrapped tight in bandages with the smallest eye slits.

Agatha Dwiddle walked into the room from the adjoining kitchen. A smell of roasting potatoes followed her.

"Well, look at this fine young fellow."

"He's the one who's blown our entire operation," Koal complained to Agatha. "I would have killed him myself, but I thought you should meet him."

Dice defended, "Oh, no, see, there's been a big mistake. I was just flying along and I—"

The grandmother shouted, "SHUT YOUR LYING MOUTH YOU HOOLIGAN!"

Dice did as instructed. However, he noticed a shadow in the kitchen. Someone was listening to the conversation.

Koal had some good news for her.

"I recovered the designer drug and the…oh, what was that other thing? Oh yes, that special corn seed crap."

Agatha did not appear interested in the corn seed but she quickly took the container from Koal and popped open the lid. Her eyes showed great relief as she spied the contents.

"Oh, thank goodness. I did not want to start dealing with those people again. They're so…so…messy. Not polite at all."

Dice blurted, "They just want to eat."

His words caught the attention of everyone in the room. The man with the bandages stepped forward in a threatening manner and let loose a grunt.

Agatha held a hand up, restraining her henchman.

"Now, now, Roc, don't let this hoodlum upset you."

Dice repeated, "Yeah, well, I sorta think I got this figured out. You were using Pa and his bunch to farm opium poppies and mule it down here for you, see? I'm thinking you weren't so much paying them as blackmailing them with food and supplies. Supplies Koal here was stealin' from Second Earth."

"Good heavens," Agatha offered sarcasm. "You are such a clever boy. Did you figure this all out on your own or did you have a tutor?"

Dice ignored her and continued, "But keeping all them people fed and workin' for you was gettin' expensive. So you get your chemist—"

"—my darling granddaughter, yes—"

"—to come up with this drug that takes the poppies and everything right out of the equation. You just, huh, whip up a batch in your laboratory."

"Very easy, yes dear."

Dice scratched his ear, "What I don't get, see, is that you've got this corn seed now that can feed all these people and you just don't give it to them. I mean, what's the point of that?"

Agatha did not answer the question. Instead, she leveled a counter-charge at Dice.

"Now aren't we just a little nosy-rosy? Especially for someone who has been working for that brigand Vladimir. Yes, that's right, old Agatha has sources of her own. I hear you were over at Vladimir's and he sent you on a mission of his own. So now, let's not go throwing stones when you're living in a glass house."

Dice took offense at the insinuation.

"Hey, now, hold it right there, missy. I wanted nothing to do with that Vladimir guy. What is he? A competitor of yours? Another drug runner? Well, he's holding this girl Elena hostage, you see? And if I didn't go and try and get some power cells for his Shrikes, he was gunna either kill her or marry her off to his son."

Dice heard a gasp. It did not come from anyone in the room. No, it sounded as if the eavesdropper in the kitchen had gasped. However, everyone else in the room—from Koal to Roc—were too busy becoming angry to hear.

Agatha snapped, "So Vladimir wants power cells for his Shrikes, is that it? What did he do when you gave him the cells?"

Dice shrugged.

"Well, see, that's the thing, um, when I went to get those cells, Pa's kids were already there and they made off with them. That's when they had me—"

This time Agatha did gasp.

"What? My hearing may be a little less than it used to be, sonny. Did you just say that Pa's people got their hands on Armored Shrike power cells? Is that it?"

"Um…yes."

"GOD DAMN IT!"

Roc growled.

Koal said, "I wonder, Agatha, does that mean they'll be coming for you? I doubt your boy Roc can hold off a bunch of Shrikes. Perhaps you should have given them the corn seed after all."

Agatha paced side to side for several seconds before reaching some kind of decision. She stopped and smiled.

"Roc, put this incorrigible man somewhere safe until I decide what to do with him. Oh and Roc, if he gives you any trouble…SNAP HIS NECK LIKE A CHICKEN BONE."

Roc reached over and grabbed Dice by the arm. Quaid felt as if the metal fingers of a Grapple Shrike had clamped on him. Roc hustled him out of the room with no more effort than a kid carrying a rag doll.

---

The shed they had locked him inside of was lit only by a few pencil-thin streams of light sneaking in through cracks in the metal frame. Those few streaks of light slowly faded as day turned into night.

Dice sat on a three-legged stool in the middle of the empty chamber. The tool shelves had been cleared and only a rusty old lawnmower provided any company. As the sun dropped, so did the temperature. A lonely wind made the bolts and screws holding the shed together creak and groan.

He pulled his crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and it was his good fortune to find a few matches left as well. He held the cigarette to his lips and moved to strike the light, then stopped.

"What?" Dice pulled the smoke from his lips and carried on a conversation with himself.

"Look, I'm not really out of it, am I? Oh yeah, sure, I got to the ground without a scratch and, okay, yeah, Jake and Erma saved my butt from the Blue. But hey, now, look, I'm betting I don't live to see another sunset with the way things are going around here, so I'm not really out of it so I get to have a smoke."

He jammed the cigarette between his lips and raised the match…

"Okay! Okay! Enough! Okay!"

Dice slipped the cigarette back into the pack and shoved it into his pocket with the matches.

"But listen, when I'm about ready to die then I'm having a smoke, I don't care what you say!"

He folded his arms and grunted in frustration at not being able to outrun his conscience.

Dice leaned back on the stool against one of the cold metal walls and let sleep creep in on him. He must have drifted off for all of five minutes when another creaking noise caught his ear.

Not the wind. Something new.

A grunt.

A squeak.

A metal clink.

The door to the shed eased open with a soft squeal.

A female voice: "Hello? Um…are you in here?"

Dice dropped forward on his stool and stood. A girl hovered at the entrance to the shed, back lit by a row of perimeter lights guarding the grounds of the estate.

The girl was Agatha's red headed grand daughter. She wore her hair in a tight bun and sported wire rimmed glasses all while dressed in a sheepskin jacket over a lab coat and slacks. She held something in her hand. A gun. She pointed it, sort of, at Dice as he stepped toward the doorway.

"Hold it right there, mister," she tried to appear threatening but the girl could not look threatening even if she had a bazooka.

"Okay, now, easy does it missy," Dice held his hands palm-out. "Let's not go firing that thing off accidentally."

She stiffened her lip.

"Hey. You. I'll do the order giving and telling and stuff. I overheard that you work for Vladimir. I want you to take me to his place."

Dice scratched his head.

"Um, I don't actually work for Vladimir. I'm just kinda caught up on all this."

"I want you to take me to Tommy."

"Huh? Who?"

"Tommy. Valdimir's son."

"Oh. You mean the kid with the spiked blonde hair and the nose ring?"

She nodded her head. Dice saw something glint in the moonlight: the hint of a tear on her cheek.

"Now whatddya know," Dice smiled. "You and this Tommy kid, Vlad's kid, you two got a thing going?"

"That's none of your business!"

Dice easily swiped the gun from her hand. She jumped and muttered 'oh' but her grip on the pistol had been pitifully weak. Taking the weapon from her had been as easy for Dice as scratching his own nose.

He held it by the barrel in a non-threatening manner and waved it as his frustration boiled over.

"Now listen here, missy, I've had about enough of all this. I was just trying to get myself some gas for my car, see? And then I run into Elena's dad and he gives me the boo-hoo song and dance that Vladimir took his daughter. Well, howdy-do but that just isn't my problem, you know? So I go walking off into the night but that's not good enough cause Vladimir's idiot goon thinks I'm on my way to do the right thing when I wasn't going to do the right thing at all. Understand?"

Dice's fast-talk and befuddling language threw Sheena into a daze. Dice went on rambling.

"So Vladimir tells me he's going to either kill Elena or make her marry his son, your boyfriend. But—hold the phone—he'll let her off the hook if I go get some Armor Shrike power cells, see? I do that, waste the pinhead who started all this grief, but before I can scamper off a bunch of backwoods rednecks take the power cells I wanted and they go thinking I work for Vladimir. Does that seem right to you? Does that seem like old Dicey is getting second-helpings on his share of the bad-luck pie? Does it?"

"Uh…"

"So then I come to your place hoping to snag the corn seed to give to the rednecks to get the power cells to give to Vladimir to get Elena out of there and do the whole rescue song-and-dance that I was trying to avoid in the first place. Simple enough, right? RIGHT? But noooooo, I end up in the back of Captain Koal's shuttle back on Second Earth where—now this is the funny part—half the crew wants to screw me and the other half wants to kill me."

"It, um, must've been tough for you—"

"So I get out of there in one piece with the stuff I need, drop into a Blue nest, get saved by a granny and grandpa Shrike team and end up riding a friggin' Toasty Tart blimp. I swear to you right now and right here that I will NEVER eat a goddamn Toasty Tart in my life, got it?"
"What's a Toasty Tart?"

"It ain't important, sweetheart. What's important is that old Dicey boy is done playing the lackey. Let's face it, you came here to get something from me. Oh yeah, I've heard it a dozen times this week. You do this for me, Mr. Dice, and I'll do this for you. Well, I'm doing for Dicey, got it?"

Dice cringed at saying 'Dicey', pounded a fist into his thigh, and insisted, "And I don't want to hear any one else call me 'Dicey' again. Are we clear?"

She meekly nodded.

Dice took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and gave her his attention.

"Mr. Dice, sir, um, it's really complicated. But, see, me and Tommy—"

Dice held a hand in the air and rolled his eyes.

"You and Tommy have been secretly having a love affair for a while now, but your grandma and his dad are bitter enemies fighting for the drug traffic to Second Earth. Stop me when I miss something."

She added, "Well, um we all used to work together but then things split up and since then I have to sneak to see Tommy and vice versa. We want to run off together. He, and um, me, neither of us, like this whole drug thing. I know I can make things to help people down here and he's got his dad's business sense."

Dice joked, "Not his dad's hair though. Didn't get that."

"Please, um, help me get to see Tommy and I know he'll run off with me and we can help you."

Dice eyed her.

"Help me? How exactly can you help me?"

She had no answer.

"Just like I thought. Nothing in it for Dicey—urrggg—nothing in it for old Dice except doing the right thing, right?"

She nodded, again rather meekly.

"Okay then, sweet heart. Let's go grab that corn seed stuff and the heroine stuff."

"Super 2? What do you need that drug for? I hate that my grandma makes me make that stuff."

"Yeah, well, ole' Vladimir is a drug runner, right? If we get into a pinch it might come in handy to have a bargaining chip. And believe me, little lady, we're going to get in a whole mess of pinches before this things is over."

"How do you now that?"

"Just call it a hunch."

---

Dice and Sheena crept into the quiet main building of Agatha Dwiddle's compound. It had once been a long, wide ranch home but had been turned into one part laboratory.

Sheena raised a finger to her lips to 'shhh' Dice as they inched along the main hallway. As the past one door, Dice heard snoring that could have been mistaken for a thunderstorm.

In any case, they moved forward until arriving at a closed wooden door with a heavy lock. Sheena had the key.

"The stuff you need is in here," she whispered as she eased the portal open.

The lab was a big rectangular room with wide square windows on two different walls and three rows of counters running along the center. Those counters were covered in beakers and microscopes and chemical sinks and Bunsen burners and more. Cabinets with containers of liquids and powders rested in corners. Sheena turned on two small lights.

A chaotic collection of smells drifted across the lab ranging from acidic to sweet, a stark contrast in variety compared to the bland earth tones painted on the walls and surfaces.

Shenna pointed to one counter top at the very center of the room. There rested the container Dice had take from Koal's possession. He strode over to in it big, hurried steps feeling certain that the vials would not be inside.

"Well, whatddya know?"

Dice, after getting a good look at the contents, closed the lid and walked to Sheena again.

"Everything in there?" She asked.

Dice smiled.

"Yeppers. Maybe I'm finally getting some good luck."

The two made to leave the room. The path through the open doorway was blocked.

Roc stood there, stretching his arms high into the air to chase away any of the remaining sleep he had been pulled from. He yawned, sort of, more like a low bellow. His bandages were in place all around his head and face but the muscle-bound man work blue silk pajamas and fluffy bunny rabbit slippers.

Sheena tried, "Oh, um, Roc, it's okay. We just have to—"

Roc grunted in a manner that plainly suggested he was not about to buy any story Sheena was trying to sell. Dice figured Roc was stupid, but not that stupid. Few people were that stupid.

Roc took a step into the room. Dice retreated a pace and, in the process, handed the container to Sheena.

Quaid cringed, "Ah man, this is gunna hurt."

He barely had the words out when Roc's first swing lumbered around like a wrecking ball. Dice saw it coming and raised both hands to block. The impact from the swing still sent him flying backwards. He landed on his rear end and slid a good ten feet between rows of counters.

"Roc! Stop!"

Roc ignored Sheena again. The bandaged-faced bunny-rabbit-slipper-wearing henchman pursued Dice in long strides.

Dice jumped to his feet and met Roc with a right cross.

"OOOOUCCHH!"

Dice held his knuckles—knuckles already sore from punching a Blue the other day—and stumbled backward.

Roc grabbed his shoulders and threw the man over two rows of counters. He slammed into the outer wall not far from the big window and fell to the floor. The vibration sent several beakers smashing to the ground.

"Jesus-crimminies," Dice staggered to his feet, leaning against the wall the whole time.

Roc climbed atop the center most row of counters, jumped to the one closest to Dice, then leapt down through the air like a human cruise missile straight for where Dice stood, leading with his head as if to batter his opponent.

Quaid dove out of the way. Roc's head slammed into the wall causing chunks of plaster to fall.

Maybe this guy is that stupid.

As Roc pulled his head free from the drywall, Dice glanced about for a weapon. He grabbed a computer monitor, held it above his head, then flung it at Roc.

The behemoth caught the monitor in his own hands, grunted a laugh, then threw the heavy set back at Dice, who dodged just in time. The monitor crashed into a glass cabinet containing chemicals. Beakers full of red, blue, yellow, and green liquids fell together to the floor. The mixture ignited, as volatile chemicals are apt to do.

Dice retreated around the counter. Roc jumped on top.

"What's going on in there?"

Agatha Dwiddle's voice called from somewhere down the hall.

"Sheena. Got get us transportation. I'll meet you outside."

Sheena—wide eyed and overcome with nerves—shouted a question.

"How are you going to get outside?
Roc took a step forward. He held his arms menacingly wide.

Dice looked at one of the big windows along the outer wall, gulped, and answered, Sheena, "Don't worry. Sooner or later I'm heading outside."

Roc jumped with his arms open like an Eagle swooping down with spread wings. Dice met him with a jab to the chin (ouch) and two shots to the stomach. To Dice, it felt as if he had punched a rolled carpet.

Sheena darted out the door with the container in her hands.

Roc clamped down on Dice's face, a hand on each cheek. He lifted him. Dice's legs kicked air.

Roc spun his prey around in a circle fast then faster. Dice's legs stopped flailing and, pulled by centrifugal force, stuck out behind him.

Roc let go. Dice flat spun across the room, over top a counter covered with pointy objects, and dropped to the floor.

The fire in the corner spread to a counter. Smoke billowed toward the ceiling. Pops and snaps announced the bursting of more beakers, no doubt filled with more volatile chemicals.

Roc ignored the conflagration and marched toward Dice just as that man dragged himself to his feet.

Dice took stock of his situation. No weapons in reach, a fire burning in the corner that threatened to grow into much more, and he fought a man who appeared to have no weaknesses.

No, wait, every guy has at least one weakness.

Dice kicked Roc directly between the legs, aiming hard for the one spot on every guy that was certain to produce a painful reaction.

Dice's foot made hard contact with…nothing. Not a thing. Just flesh. Apparently, the bandages on Roc's face were not the only grievous wound he had suffered.

Dice paused for a moment and, in a tone of pure pity, said, "Oh you poor bastard."

Roc, enraged at the reminder of his wound, grabbed Dice by the shoulders, picked him up, and threw him out the window. The glass shattered and Dice found himself rolling end over end across dusty ground.

He did not need to look back to know he was being pursued: he heard Roc's footsteps stomp over a layer of broken glass.

Dice ignored the cuts on his cheeks and arms, the ache in his knuckles and legs, and got to his feet and ran. Well, wobbled.

Opposite his position was another structure, it might have once been a horse barn but it appeared dilapidated. Further past waited the outer wall of the compound, probably too high to jump but Dice had no other strategy in mind other than running.

He ran alongside the old stable. Roc pursued, grunting and moaning as he jogged along.

The wall at the end of the compound appeared higher and higher the closer Dice came to it.

Then the wall disappeared.

No, it exploded inward. Chunks of concrete and dust flew inside the compound like a hurricane of destruction.

Dice stopped so fast he stumbled to the ground.

Bright beams of light cut through the cloud of debris where a chunk of wall had once stood. Two big silhouettes rolled into the compound.

Shrikes.

Armored Shrikes.

Dice heard one pilot yell to the other, "Go get em', Billy, I'm right behind ya'!"

Dice dove to his right into an open door to the old stable house just as the two war machines bore down on him. Fortunately, he stayed out of the spotlights of the metal beasts and in the shadows. Roc was not as lucky.

The lead Armored Shrike—a Grapple—moved to stomp Roc. The other raced around firing its main gun.

Dice managed to get a glimpse of one pilot. It appeared to be the guys from Pa's scavenger group. Apparently, that group had stolen the power cells with the intention of hitting Agatha's compound. Dice couldn't blame them, but he also didn't have the time to help. His first priority was to save Elena.

He dashed through the stable and out the other side, running into yet another set of headlights.

Dice raised his hands over his head in anticipation of being blown to smithereens. Instead, a car braked hard to a stop directly in front of him.

"Mr. Dice! It's me, Sheena! Get in!"

Dice raced around to the driver's seat of the old Land Rover and pushed Sheena over to the other side. He hammered the accelerator and circled around the stable, aiming for the newly formed hole the wall to use as an escape route.

"Oh no, Pa's gang is attacking grandma!"

"Does that bother you?"

The car skidded sideways to avoid one of the two attacking Shrikes. Captain Koal's men, on foot with machine guns, fired on it. Neither side appeared to have good aim.

"Well…she is my grandmother…"

Yes, your grandmother the ruthless drug kingpin.

Dice steered forward and past the Grapple. He couldn't believe what he saw. Roc was actually wrestling with the Armored Shrike.

"What the hell does that man eat for breakfast?"

Sheena did not answer.

The car with Dice, Sheena, and the container of vital vials sped out Agatha Dwiddle's compound and into the night.

---

Dice stopped the car at the base of a small, rocky hill. A new day's dawn had just started to rise above the horizon to the east.

In front of Dice waited a decision. A literal fork in the road.

He sat in a car with a full tank of gas. He also had in that car a vial that contained a special genetic corn seed. With the car, the gas, and the corn seed he could take off for some private mountain plateau and settle down for that quiet life he had hoped to find.

If he drove off to the right he could probably find that life. He could just leave the girl and drugs behind and try to forget all about them.

Then there was the road to the left. The road Sheena said led to Vladimir's compound. The road would take Dice to another life-threatening encounter with another scum ball drug lord. And why? To save a girl he had met for a few minutes way back when.

Yuji would want you to save her.

Yes, true, Yuji had fallen in love with Elena for all of one day. So yes, Dice's old friend Yuji would want the girl to be saved. But Yuji was probably far away up there on Second Earth training to be an expert Shrike pilot and spending his spare time riding the Marlene rodeo.

No, if Dice was going to do the right thing he would do it for himself, not anyone else.

"Mr. Dice, I said the way to Valdimir's place is to the left. Are you listening?"

Dice closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Nina's voice haunted, "At least it meant something. It was…it was worth it, even if it didn't last."

"You know kid," Dice said to Sheena. "Sometimes it ain't about how long you live, but how well you do it along the way, got it?"

"Um…no. What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Dice put the Rover in gear and steered to the left, "sometimes doing the right thing is its own reward."

The car sped off toward the girl Dice aimed to save.