12. The Beginning of the End
Tommy Zhukov rode the lead horse with his lover, Sheena, riding behind, with one arm loosely holding the valuable storage container with the special corn seed and designer drug inside. Her other arm held tight around Tommy's waist in a loving embrace. Elena steered the second horse with Dice riding behind, his hand anxiously clutched to her waist as if holding on for dear life.
Dice had faced down more than his share of Blue all while keeping his fear in check, had fought bands of armed men with courage, and had struggled to survive on the wasteland of Earth while maintaining his sense of humor. Yet riding on a horse gave him a terrible fright. He kept his eyes closed half the time.
The foursome's escape from Vladimir's estate to the hidden fuel depot took about an hour of riding time, mostly through dark, cramped canyons and hidden woodland paths. Dice realized that the well-concealed paths not only allowed the two kids to avoid the hunting eyes of Blue during their secret rendezvous', but had also made it much more difficult for anyone to follow them to learn of the affair. Dice wondered if their love would last if the thrill of sneaking around were lost.
Regardless, the journey finally reached its end. The cloud of dust that had surrounded the galloping horses dissipated as the steeds came to a halt. As the yellow and brown haze cleared, Dice saw what he had been looking for since this whole thing had begun: a gas station.
A set of fuel pumps sat under a small roof with a hybrid garage and office building nearby, all part of the remains of a service station from man's old world. That station rested atop a patch of cracked and torn concrete. An access road led away, no doubt toward the remains of some leftover highway.
Dice cast his eyes around the area. He saw the remains of a toppled chain link fence around an old cistern adorned with a blue and white Russian oil company logo. He also saw a scorched, jack-knifed fuel truck at the trim of the concrete lot not far from one of the rocky slopes that surrounded the isolated depot. Over the years, boulders from those slopes had avalanched down into the lot, making it seem as if giants played a game of marbles there.
On one side of the station not far from the solitary garage bay door were the remains of several stripped automobiles. Scavengers had made good work of the vehicles' innards, leaving behind nothing but frames that gave Dice the impression of bones picked clean by vultures.
One look at those cars and Dice knew--he knew--that Pa's scavengers had been at the depot at some point. Dice suddenly felt vulnerable, despite how isolated and alone the depot felt.
"Hey, kiddies, let's get this show--"
Tommy and Sheena both--in unison--gave Dice a 'shhh'.
The boy with the spiked hair explained: "I told you, the Blue know about this place, too. They've got a nest somewhere north of here."
Dice nodded his head. It made sense that there would be a Blue nest nearby not only because such was Dice's fortunes, but also because a full cistern of gasoline should not still be so readily available after so many years. Only the presence of Blue could scare away the type of large-scale salvage operation that would be required to carry off all that precious liquid gold. No doubt even Pa's expert scavengers would balk at the idea of being turned into Blue balls, even over so much fuel.
Little drops at a time? Sure. But to bring in a heavy truck and spend a couple of hours draining the tank? No thank you.
Tommy and Elena guided the horses forward at a slow trot. The rays of a late afternoon sun cast the shadows of the surrounding stone peaks and sharp hills across the gas station. A lonely wind kicked a swirl of dust and a distant bird--probably a vulture but maybe something else--called in a harsh squawk.
Dice got the distinct feeling that everything seemed too quiet.
In a hushed voice he encouraged, "Let's get moving. I get my gas, you get me to my car, we say so long. Right?"
The others did not answer. He took that as a 'yes'.
The two horses and their four riders eased under the cover of the gas pump island.
Dice--gas container in hand and a rifle slung over his shoulder--slowly, cautiously, slipped from the horse, worried that the beast might just give him a kick. When safely on the ground, Dice let loose a sigh of relief.
Tommy and Sheena dismounted as well; the latter held the important storage container that carried the vial of enhanced corn seed as well as the designer drug.
"My father has come here over the years to get some supplies," Elena informed. "That is how he knew this place would have gas for you."
"Uh-huh," Dice agreed. "Of course, he didn't say anything to me about a Blue nest lurking around. Hey, wait, um, why would your father need supplies from here? I thought he was kinda like living off the land and whatnot."
"We have taken metal for melting into pots, clothes, that sort of thing. My father has been cultivating a new life off the land."
Dice spoke before thinking: "He-he, he's been cultivating more than that."
Elena sobbed, placed a hand over her eyes, and darted off. She pushed open the gas station door and bolted inside.
Dice slapped a hand over his eyes.
Good work, Dice. Proud?He sighed again and followed her inside.
The interior was damp and smelled of animal piss. The office area he entered stretched to the rear of the building with a few grimy windows placed here and there. A dull glow fought through the muck on those windows to provide small patches of light but most of the place remained dark. That was okay, because there wasn't much to see.
Dead fluorescent light fixtures hung from a metal and concrete ceiling. Some rather persistent green and red vines pushed in from the roof through cracks in the aging ceiling. Dice figured if he had managed to survive on this rock of a planet for so long, certainly some weeds could.
A busted filing cabinet, a pile of wood that had once been a table, an empty and smashed water cooler, and two intact metal desks were all that remained of the garage office's furnishings.
Grease stains on the gray cement floor reminded that this had once been a place where mechanics and technicians had worked. A large and broken observation window looked in on the garage area next to an open door. It was even darker in the repair bay than the office but Dice could see right off that no vehicles waited in there.
Dice put down his gas container and approached Elena who stood near one of the side windows sobbing.
"Awe, gee, now honey I didn't mean nothing by that."
Dice walked up behind her. His mouth opened. His head tilted. His eyes widened, then tightened, then looked to the ceiling. Yet, he still could not think of words to say. So he stumbled a little more.
"Now I, um, am just sure that, well, your dad just did what he had to do to, you know, survive and all. Hey, we all do what we gotta do to get by, right?"
"My father is a good man. We herd goats and live off the land. We are not drug runners!"
"If it means anything to you, missy, just about everyone shares a little guilt in all this. Vladimir sells the stuff, so does Agatha Dwiddle, and those scavenger of Pa's been growing and running poppies, too. On top of all that, you got those folks up on Second Earth that are buying all the shit. Guess they're getting what they want."
Elena blabbered, "My father…my…father. MY FATHER!"
She stopped blabbering and put a finger against the window.
"Now, calm down…"
"My father is right there!"
"Huh?"
Dice leaned forward and peered through the dingy window. He saw a line people moving through one of the surrounding foothills along a rocky path. Actually, he saw people and goats.
"Well, whatddya know, how'd he get here?"
Elena growled, "He must have figured that if you went to get me that sooner or later I'd bring you here for that gas you wanted. Well, now I get a chance to go give him a piece of my mind. I'm going to--"
Something caught the girl's eye. Her mouth hung open in a gasp.
Dice followed her gaze once more.
Jordan--Elena's father--and his group brought more than goats to the gas station. They were armed; armed with heavy machine guns. Much more than the shotguns Dice knew the group carried for hunting.
Elena barked, "Guns! Now he's toting guns?"
Dice could see those weapons to be of a military nature.
"Oh, now howabout that," he scratched his head as he tried to wrap his brain around this one. "I'll betchya your dad went and grabbed them guns off those mercenaries who tried to rough you folks up a while back."
Elena, still in disbelief, absently nodded, "We found their cabin in the mountains destroyed by Blue. But my father told us to pass it by. He said they were from a different world to which we didn't belong."
Dice chuckled but not kindly.
"Oh now see here, missy, that's the thing about all this. Sooner or later the world comes and finds you."
Elena summoned her courage, rolled her tiny hands into fists, and stomped toward the front door. Dice followed a moment later.
"Well this is good," he said as he followed her to the front. "Now you can go on back with your daddy and work things out. Why, I bet that'll be a nice family meal over mutton."
Dice and Elena joined Tommy and Sheena at the front near the gas pumps. Jordan and his group of nomads reached the bottom of the foothills, close enough to wave but too far to speak.
Dice heard the jingle of the goat bells. He heard the whir of Shrikes. He heard the--
Shrikes?As they walked out the front door, their attention was focused toward Elena's dad's group over to their left. The sound of moving Shrikes came from the right.
Two beat up old Shrikes came from that direction. One--a grapple--sprouted small puffs of smoke from recently inflicted wounds, another--an old Heavy Duty--dripped something that was either hydraulic fluid or lubricant. Dice did not have the time to discern much more, for the armed Shrike raised its weapon and fired. Poorly aimed shots ricocheted off the gas station walls.
Jordan and the people of his group retreated to the cover of boulders and cliffs along the side of the hill they had just descended. The goats just stood there in a group looking like the dumb, direction-less animals they were.
The Grapple Shrike rolled forward toward the station. The driver shouted: "This here place is belonging to Pa! Everything here is all ours!"
Dice grabbed Elena and pushed her back inside the garage. Tommy and Sheena followed. The horses they had been holding trotted off to get out of the crossfire.
Quaid slammed the door shut behind them, although he realized that it would not take long for the Grapple to punch through the walls of the building.
BLAM.
The building shook and dust fell from the ceiling. Dice heard the wheeled Grapple retreat.
"You stay away from my Elena!"
The shout came from Jordan.
"What happened?" Elena shouted as her eyes darted back and forth in confusion.
Dice told her: "Hehe, I think your dad just hit that Grapple with a grenade from one of those assault rifles he took from the dead mercenaries."
Instead of being relieved at her father's well-timed shot, the realization that her dad had just fired a grenade launcher in anger pushed Elena further toward the brink of total collapse.
Sheena, equally as dumbfounded, leaned in Tommy's grasp and wondered, "What is going on? I thought Pa's people were attacking my grandmother?"
Dice scratched his chin.
"Well, yeah and all. Guess they got chased off or something. Their rides look a little beat up and all. Maybe they came here to use the service lift in the garage to fix the Shrikes up. I dunno. Honestly, I think that bunch is just so stupid they don't know what they're doing."
"Um, Mr. Dice," Tommy hesitantly broke in. "If they're out there to the right, couldn't we just slip out the back and go over to the hills where Elena's dad is?"
"Hey, good thinking kiddo. You lead the way."
Sheena smiled at her man, gave him a peck on the kiss and then Tommy strode off in big confident steps to the back door. He opened it.
A shiny new Heavy Duty Shrike and two Jeeps--one with a mounted gattling gun--hurried toward the garage from the open plains back there. A burst of fire from the gattling gun slammed into the rear wall of the garage. Tommy slammed the door and collapsed to the ground.
Dice mumbled, "I thought so."
While Sheena hurried to her now-shaken boyfriend, Elena asked Dice, "how'd you know someone was out there?"
Dice thought back to everything he had gone through in the last few days.
"It just sorta figured."
Sheena peeked out the window and exclaimed, "That's Captain Koal in the Shrike, his men in one Jeep and--"
Dice finished, "--and Agatha Dwiddle with Rock and the gattling gun. Right?"
She nodded and said, "They probably chased Pa's mechs this way after Koal got his out of his ship."
Elena, her mind hard at work, shared, "Pa? I knew that name sounded familiar. My father had a falling out with a Pa years ago. We've had some run-ins with them."
"Of course, shit-yeah," Dice summarized. "When Agatha and Valdimir had a falling out, so did their drug couriers. Oops," he glanced at Elena and her wide, frightened eyes. "Let's call them, well, goat-herders, right?"
Tommy tried to catch up.
"So…so this Pa guy and Elena's dad don't like each other?"
"Right."
"So, they're probably going to start shooting at each other?"
"Right. That is, hehe, if they don't get a clear shot at us."
Sheena said, "And my grandmother was just fighting with Pa's gang, so she might just start shooting at Pa's boys, too."
Dice shared, "And Elena's dad, too."
"What?" came a collective chorus.
"Aw, c'mon you kids, grow up. She don't need Pa's people anymore cause she wants this here genetic drug thingy and she'll kill us to get it."
Dice pointed at the carrying case Sheena had brought into the garage when they had been chased in by the fire of the Shrikes.
He went on, "And if she kills off Vladimir's mules--I mean, goat herders--then that puts Vlad out of business. Can you say monopoly on the drug business? As for Koal, that little weasel will do whatever he can to stay in Agatha's good graces now that he's stuck planet side. Besides, he's got a couple of henchmen and a shrike. He can do a lot of damage. Hehe, to us all."
"So wait one second," Elena held a finger in the air and tried to connect the dots; her mouth hung open as if searching for the breath with which to speak.
Dice interrupted, "No, no, don't bother, missy. We don't have time for a summary. Just think of this way: everyone out there would just love to blast us for all sorts of reasons and, by the way, everyone out there would also just love to blast each other."
Elena snapped her mouth shut.
Tommy, who had wandered over near the front door, asked, "Mr. Dice, how do you figure my father fits into all this?"
Dice shrugged, "I dunno. He's mad at Elena's dad for screwing up the poppy--I mean, the goat herding operation and stuff. He don't like Agatha at all and that means he don't like Pa's group at all, either. He sure as hell don't like me, either and--yeppers--he'd like to get his hand on this designer drug, too. Oh yeah, he hates the idea of you making hay with Agatha's grand daughter, too. Why do you ask?"
Tommy pointed out one of the dirty front windows.
"Cause he just pulled up in a couple of SUVs. I think his men brought a rocket launcher, too."
Dice hurried to the front and saw for himself.
Vladimir and a half-dozen of his goons parked near the access road and took cover behind their cars.
"Mr. Dice! You are not so clever! You double-crossed me! We had a bargain! No one betrays me!"
A shout from the hills: "Leave my daughter alone, Valdimir! Or I'll kill you!"
Elena nearly fainted at the sound of her father threatening violence.
"Sheena, honey, yoo-hoo," the old woman's voice came from the rear. "Why don't you come on out here, honey. I miss you. Oh, do you have the Super 2 with you? Bring that out too, deary. Come on and I'll make you all a pan of brownies."
Dice heard the distinct sound of the gattling gun swiveling on its mount, no doubt to get a better shot at the rear door. Dice figured old Agatha was done playing games and that she calculated the designer drug to be worth more than her grand daughter.
The sound of approaching vehicles echoed through the rock-encircled bowl-like clearing where the drama unfolded.
Dice managed to catch a glimpse of a small truck joining the two damaged Shrikes. He saw Pa himself and a few more of his scavengers take up position by those war machines.
The old fellow hollered, "Hey Dennis! I know you're in there! Now you git on out here or I'm gunna have my boy Billy smash down dem walls with this big old machine!"
Vladimir's voice countered, "You will be doing no such thing you! My son is in there and he will be coming out of there this instant!"
"I just want the Super 2, Sheena, honey. Just hand it over before I have Roc BLAST YOU TO SMITHEREENS!"
"No! My precious Elena is in there! If anyone shoots at that building they will be shot at by me!"
The competing shouts stopped. Dice figured the folks out there had said all they felt like saying. Soon bullets would do the talking.
Tommy noticed the same and observed, "Got kind of quiet out there."
"Yeah, kiddo, well it seems…it seems…"
Dice's words drifted away as something caught his eye. It was one of the windows that grabbed his attention. That window vibrated, just a little.
He held still and closed his eyes.
Yeppers, that's a tremor in the ground. Guess who's joining the party, kiddos.
Dice sighed.
So this is how it ends…
He knew he was a strong man who could handle most folks in a straight up fight. He also knew that while he certainly was not smart, he had been clever enough to survive all these years on an Earth over run by Blue.
Despite all that strength and experience, the events of the last few days had tossed him around as if he were a drowning man caught in the surf.
And so this is it.
He had survived all the drop operations during all those years as a soldier and Armor Shrike pilot. He had survived in his isolated cabin in his own little corner of an Earth overrun by Blue. He had survived driving Yuji and Marlene across half of dead Russia.
All so that it could end—what—in a gas station?
How did it come to this?
He tried to shake his head in disgust but he spotted movement from outside the window. Someone had darted between a big rock and an overturned, burned out truck. Probably someone trying to get a better sniping spot. Maybe one of Vladimir's guys. Possibly someone from Elena's dad's group.
The feeling of being a caged rat flowed over Dice. Strangely enough, as much as it bothered him to know that the and surely approached, it bothered him more to know that he was not alone in that cage.
Quaid glanced about the garage.
Vladimir's boy--Tommywith the spiked blonde hair and the nose ring--was peeking out one of the side windows trying to get a handle on exactly what they were up against.
You don't want to know kid.
Tommy's forbidden girlfriend Sheena-- the red headed woman in the lab coat--alternated looks between Tommy and the rear window.
More of 'em out there, too, honey.
As for Elena, she showed her superior brainpower by taking cover behind one of the metal desks.
Dice hoped that a bullet from one of the humans got her. She didn't deserve to be wrapped into a meat dumpling when the Blue got there. Hell, he didn't deserve that either.
Hope the damn things choke on me.
Still, Elena had been through so much. It was only—what?—less than a couple of weeks ago when she had thought Yuji was going to ride off into the sunset with her. In that time she had not only had her heart broken, she had been kidnapped and shot at and learned that her father was not exactly who he had always claimed to be.
The poor girl had had enough misery.
More movement from outside. Dice crouched down behind the window pane, steadied his rifle, and looked.
He breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't a sniper or a Blue. Just one of Jordan's goats walking around. The bell around its neck jingled and jangled as it trotted across the soon-to-erupt battlefield.
Lamb chops…mmm…Still, in between the mound of jagged red rock to the left, the overturned tanker truck in the middle and the scattered boulders in front there had to be a good dozen men: men taking orders from Elena's father, others taking orders from Vladimir.
On the other side by the fenced off motor pool area and junkyard there might have been another dozen waiting to do Pa's bidding. That group included those two beat-up old Shrikes.
Dice was not sure if they were going to start shooting at him first or each other. He know which he would prefer…but he figured they would—
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The first volley of bullets smashed windows, chipped away chunks of wall, and sent all of the occupants to the floor with their hands over their heads.
The rat-tat-tat of the machine gun continued for several seconds. The rounds whizzed overhead.
Elena screamed. Dice wasn't sure, but he thought he might have, too.
Man, I hope none of these ladies heard that.
Then came a very heavy thump. The bullet that caused that sound was no ordinary round. It was an explosive shell from an Armor Shrike.
That explosive shell did just that—exploded—against the rear of the building. The wall there shook and one of the cross beams holding the not-so-stable roof in place slipped to the floor. A cloud of dust billowed through the station.
Dice crawled to the rear. The bullets—from both sides and out front—stopped.
For the moment.
Dice managed to open the rear door just barely enough to look to the back of the garage.
Back there was little more than wasteland and the rotting corpses of cars and trucks left over from the days when the garage had been part of a larger fuel depot.
There was, of course, an Armor Shrike back there. It was one of the new Heavy Duty types. It looked very lethal. Captain Koal sat in the cockpit. That man was pretty much pissed off at Dice, a fact reaffirmed as his voice echoed from the vehicle's loudspeakers: "Dice! Come out of there now! I owe you!"
The competing shouts for Dice's head began again.
Vladimir: "Dice! You come out here!"
And…
Pa: "No! He's ours! He double crossed us!"
Quaid crawled away from the back door and moved toward the front. As he did, a new sound broke the silence.
He recognized the sound.
Now what?
It was the sound, of course, of an air ship. A Second Earth Air Ship.
He heard the retro jets fire and then the soft crunch of springs as the landing gear touched ground. That, of course, was followed by the sound of a ramp opening then the gentle whir of the wheels of another Armor Shrike.
Dice dared a look through the front windows.
It was a kind of Armor Shrike he had never seen before. Two big appendages above its head, like razors. Or edges. Two of them.
You might even say it had double edges.
A voice boomed from that Armor Shrike as well.
"Attention groundlings. This is Amick Hendar of Second Earth. The criminal Dice Quaid is to be handed over to me this instant or I shall take him by force."
Dice placed a hand over his eyes.
"Who is that?" Tommy asked.
"Who's that? That, kid, is what it sounds like when your past catches up to you."
"W-wait a sec," Sheena stuttered. "What are we going to do?"
Dice sighed. He hated being the bearer of bad news.
"Well, missy, I'm hoping we take a few bullets pretty soon."
Elena, from behind the desk, was aghast.
"Hoping we take bullets? Why would you hope that?"
"Um, hehe, uh, well you see, do you feel that little hint of a vibration in the floor? Listen real close and maybe you can feel it. I've been feeling it for a few minutes now."
Sheena guessed: "The-the Blue are coming? Why? Why?"
"Oh now Missy, you're a real brainiac, aren't you? You gotta know the Blue just love an all-you-can-eat set up like this. Ahh well, I hope none of you were countin' on living forever cause the long and the short of it is that we've all had our last meals."
Dice carefully, cautiously stood up again in a corner near the front of the room while the rest of his trapped brethren sat with shocked faces. They all figured death was coming. Death from explosive shells, death from bullets, or death from Blue.
Take your pick, kiddies.
Dice ran a hand over his head. He was sweating. No big surprises there.
He glanced down to his feet and there it was, the centerpiece of all his problems; the focus of all his misery ever since he had dropped Yuji and Marlene at the forest rim not far from Baikonur.
His empty five gallon gas container.
How did I get here again? Oh yeah, I remember now…
I dropped Yuji and Marlene off, ran out of gas, stumbled upon a goat, met up with Elena's father, got kidnapped by Vladimir's boys, was sent to get power cells, held at gunpoint by Pa's group, spied on Agatha Dwiddle, caught Koal's shuttle to Second Earth, had sex with two women up there including Amick, crash landed in a Blue nest, got saved by two old folks, flew a blimp, got shot down, squared off with Roc (is that guy even human?), and ended up here with Romeo and Juliet and the girl whose heart Yuji broke.
Dice leaned against the wall. It vibrated. The Blue were getting closer. He figured the folks outside--Pa, Jordan, Vladimir, Agatha, Koal, Amick--were all too busy being mad at him--Dice--to notice that hordes of blood thirsty monsters were going to be upon them soon.
Such, Dice thought, is the human condition.
Quaid felt something in his pocket. He reached in and pulled out a badly crumpled pack of smokes: the remains of the pack he had found on Koal's shuttle. The pack he had promised not to take a smoke from because the big guy upstairs supposedly was getting him 'out of this.'
He confidently pulled out one of the cigarettes and fumbled for matches. As he did, he felt a pang of guilt.
Dice glanced at the ceiling and complained, "The way I see it, you never really got me out of it, did you? So I'm going to have a smoke."
He ignored the confused stares coming from the others huddled in the room.
A large explosion coming from just outside the garage knocked Dice to the ground and sent the match spiraling away into a dark shadow.
Screams. Gun blasts.
And the roar of Blue.
Well this is it, Dice thought. Time to make that last stand…