5: A Treasure to Rule a World
Imperial Valley was an hour's drive southwest of Low Rock, just like Minoru said. The reason people called it Imperial Valley was of a scout ship from the Ruthenian Empire. Crashed onto the surface of the planet about 100 years ago, almost no survivors. All that's left of the crew now is three Sclavs, a little old, but they're still loyal to the Empire, and in classic Ruthenian pride and gall they claimed the whole planet for themselves. They're largely restricted to Imperial Valley, making their base of operations out of their crashed ship. Now they just harass whoever travels into the Valley, demanding tribute for safe passage. Maybe out of pity, or maybe out of sheer apathy, nobody's bothered to take these guys out yet. I kinda pitied them too, to be honest. Living out there all alone, nobody else around, feeling like the universe's against you.
I rode there on my bike, and followed Minoru's notes. There was supposedly a whole complex of underground bunkers or a military base or something, conveniently close to the crash site of that Ruthenian scout ship. When I entered the Valley I didn't expect to see a battlefield, but that's what I saw. Vehicle wrecks, craters the size of a person, there were even some skeletons lying around. Aside from the wind it was deathly silent. This whole place was a relic of the old Unification Wars fought mostly on Corneria, but it spilled onto the other planets in the system. The Coalition of Cornerian States vs. the Alliance of Corneria. In the end, the Coalition won and Corneria became as it is now. The wreckage around Imperial Valley was roughly evenly split between Coalition and Alliance forces.
As I drove over a ridgeline I did indeed spot a dilapidated military base, long-abandoned, surrounded by AFV wrecks. The base itself was blasted to bits, most of the buildings leveled. Craters peppered the fucking place, I thought I'd trip into one. After riding up to the gate, which was rammed open by a tank, I parked my ride and waltzed into the place. Nothing. Not a soul. No animals, either. I was about as silent as the wrecks lying around, but I was in the open, so I guess it balanced out or something. There was still a faint smell of burning diesel, carbon scoring from plasma fire, and cooked flesh. Scorched, smashed concrete sprinkled with a fine layer of sand crunched beneath my leather boots, and the desert sun's punishing heat licked against my panting tongue.
There was a sound, though. Distant. Barely audible. I walked in its general direction, and as I got closer and it got louder, I could discern what it was. Voices, a conversation. Yep, it was people. Who, though? As I rounded the corner of this barracks I guess it was, I found the source: a whole group of mercs. I mean, they looked like mercs. It was… a bit surreal though. A lot of them had rides that were basically tuners from Nippon and Ainu. They were all armed, I'd say six of them. God… can't believe I forgot what they look like. I think there was a Venomian, a Fichinan, a few Cornerians, and… I think there was an alien among them? I'd say it was so long ago, but I remember so many other things from that long ago, this slipping from my mind is kind of surprising. Anyway, I walked up to them in mid-conversation.
"…And he cut me off and I was like 'Ugh!'" one of them said. "That was based. Just based." The others chuckled. Then, they noticed my presence, and the heat on me. They put their guards, and their blasters, up and trained them on me.
"Who're you, stranger?" another asked.
"I'm just a scav," I said, putting my hands up. "Watcha doin' here?"
"Nothing you need to worry about," said the Venomian.
"You don't look like a scavenger," said one of them, hopping off of his seat on the hood of one of the tuners. I stepped back a bit while he stepped forward. He looked young, very young. I knew his type. Upper middle class. Grew up in a big house, daddy bought a lotta toys for him and threw them at him to keep him quiet. Dressed slick, doin' his best to look cool or something. I'll have to say, the look wasn't bad. How he carried himself though… it didn't sit well with me. "What're you really doing here, bud?"
"I ain't your bud," I said quickly. "I'm just here looking for salvage."
"Well you can quit looking," said the Fichinan. "Place has been picked clean for decades. Not much else you'll find."
"I beg to differ," I answered. One of them chuckled.
"Keep on dreaming little man," that one said. She crossed her arms, speaking with an Ulimaroan accent. "We've been here for hours, nothing of value's around."
"Well, you probably weren't looking," I replied. "After all, none of you seem like scavs."
"Yeah, we're more… civilized," said another one of them. I dunno… their faces all kind of blended together.
"What're you looking for, exactly?" said the one from the tuner. He then let out a stifled chuckle. "Beryllium?!" He then laughed loudly, shortly followed by his comrades. I just shook my head, shrugged my shoulders, and walked away. The group meanwhile returned to themselves and their conversation, whatever it was about.
"The fuck are those people?" I asked myself. I continued onwards, their commotion fading as I removed myself from their presence. Eventually I reached the central command post in, well, the center of the damn place. The doors were blown open, so I stepped inside. Skeletons littered the place, all showing signs of meeting violent ends, plasma scoring on their bones. Most were seemingly tossed and toppled over by scavengers of the past, picked clean of their valuables, mostly weapons and body armor. All that was left on them were tattered uniforms around a hundred years old. Going back to the notes, the entrance to the underground portion of the facility was via the elevator off of the lobby of the headquarters, so there I went. And of course the elevator itself was five-hundred feet down, the cables snapped long ago. And of course the bottom was where I needed to be. And of course the staircase was blocked by tons and tons of rubble. And of course I climbed.
Lights were already installed, which I thought strange. I looked down the shaft, and what a long way down it was. Using a rope and harness, I climbed down the elevator shaft. I think there's a technical term for it… belaying? I think it's that. Anyway, I climbed down. I thought a few times down the trip I thought I'd fall and go splat, the end of Wolf O'Donnell, he slammed to the ground in an elevator shaft. Ouch. Fortunately, that wasn't my fate, and in I'd say half an hour, I managed to reach the bottom, where more lights were present, illuminating the halls, revealing more skeletons. Lovely. However, these ones were still in possession of the gear they fell with. I guess only the most intrepid of scavengers would dare venture down here.
After traversing the partially-illuminated hallways, choking with dust and debris, I heard a slight noise, a jostling of sorts. I followed the sound to its source, and I saw a rather portly figure rummaging through some sort of container, a crate. His back was turned to me as he was crouched down, a floodlight illuminating both him and the crate he was searching. The man, a pig, was way too focused on whatever he was doing to notice me sneak up on him. Decided to put him in a sleeper, nothing deadly, so that I could be on my way. I was almost on him when I heard a blaster charge up.
"Put 'em up, kid," said a voice. So I reached for the sky, slowly. I turned my head to find… motherfucking Paweł "Paul" Chmielnicki, grinning wide, those pearly white fangs of his shining in what little light there was down there, his eyes shielded by those jet-black, blocky sunglasses of his. Still had on the clothes I last saw him wear, and still had that hand-canon of a blaster. The AJM 9. Select-fire. 50 rounds in a mag. Can blow away any fool in a single burst. And it was trained straight at my head. Then, Paul laughed. He lowered the blaster.
"Shit…" I uttered breathlessly.
"Don't sweat it, kid," said Paul. "If I really wanted you dead, we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation.
"Gotcha," I said. Then, I looked at the pig, who stood up and eyed me something fierce. "Who's Pig-Man here?"
"Richard," said the pig. "Richard Dengar."
"Most people call him 'Pigma,'" said Paul.
"The fuck they do that for?" I asked.
"I dunno," answered Paul with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "I got a better question for you, though. What're you doin' here?"
"Sightseeing," I answered dishonestly, suspecting that they too were after the treasure of Rashid al-Mansur. Neither of them believed me for a second, and their faces showed it. They looked at me, then to each other, then back to me.
"Riiiiight…" said Pigma incredulously.
"Kid, we don't wanna compete with you," said Paul. "So just get outta here. Besides… something offed all of these guys." Paul looked around, gesturing to the scattering of skeletons. "And it wasn't a bunch of soldiers a century ago." He was on the money right there: none of these soldiers exhibited combat damage: blaster marks, stab wounds. No, they seemed to have died of other unnatural causes.
"Poison gas, most likely," said Pigma, voicing a conclusion that I was reaching myself.
"Now, who would wanna gas everyone here and leave everything in this place untouched?" asked Paul. The thought kinda sent a shiver down my spine, but that wasn't gonna deter me from getting my paws on the treasure. No doubt al-Mansur's shit was so valuable he'd kill to keep it out of anyone's reach. Maybe greed got the better of these soldiers' commander, and he offed everyone to make sure nobody would have it, since he couldn't in the end.
"This Rashid fella sure wanted his treasure…" said Pigma off-handedly." Damn. They were after the treasure too.
"I don't care what you say to try and throw me off my game," I declared. "But I'm finding al-Mansur's treasure. Whether you like it or not." Pigma's face contorted into one of frustration. He found a shotgun lying beside the crate he was searching and racked the pump-action.
"Boy, you better scram fast," he said through his teeth. "Else I'll cheese you."
"Easy, Pigma," said Paul, waving off the pig with a hand gesture. "Kid's got heart, spunk. Give him a chance, and he may surprise you."
"Paul, what the fuck's gotten into you? Just lemme deal with the brat and-"
"Nobody's dealing with him. I'm not interested in shooting a kid in the face."
"I'm no kid!" I barked. Paul didn't flinch a bit.
"Kid…" he started. That got me fuming. "Calm down." He stared silently at me, not moving at all.
"Fuck you, Paul Whatever-your-last-name-is." I drew on him, but like a lightning bolt, he struck first. I don't know how, but by the time I was sliding my blaster out of my holster, he shot at me. My right hand felt like molten lead was poured into the palm, and I staggered back, gripping the wrist as I looked at it. My hand was fine, but my blaster had a large, molten hot hole in the middle of it. When I looked up, his monster of a blaster pistol was trained right on my head.
"Calm. Down."
Originally I bore my teeth at him as I scowled, but I closed my mouth, sighing.
"That's better," he said. "Now… leave, or help us and get rich doing it."
"Woah, woah, Paul," started Pigma who had his shotgun still trained at me. "You can't be serious."
"Oh, but I am. Kid's got stones trying to take me down."
Pigma looked at dumbfoundedly, then lowered his shotgun. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Whatever, he's your responsibility though."
"Yep," said Paul. "So… what's it gonna be?"
I stood still for some time, thinking things through. I rode a long while to get here, and I came here to get rich. No way I was just gonna walk away.
"Fine," I said, basically grinning and bearing it. "I'll work with you two."
"Alright, that's good," said Paul. "Now… Pigma and I already disabled most of the security systems: turrets, mines, stuff like that. All we need to do is poke around."
"No shit?"
"Woah, gimme some credit," said Pigma. "Computers are my thing: all I needed was a local access point and-" Pigma stopped himself. "Actually I don't wanna bore you with the details, so let's just say I worked some hacker magic."
"Oh, uh, okay," I said, shrugging my shoulders. Didn't care much for computers, or really know my way around them. Still don't. Paul was busy walking off down a corridor, a flashlight attached to his jacket illuminating the way.
"Come on, you two," he said with his voice bouncing off the wall.
The three of us walked down a dilapidated hallway, littered with dust, files, and the occasional corpse. "So, did you two see those guys on the surface?" I asked. "The ones with those cars and shit."
"Yeah," replied Paul. "Low-level mercs, Huns." Now, when Paul says "Hun" in this context, it's short for "hired gun." Basically any thug with a blaster that you can get cheap, the ones I steamroll over when I do jobs, those guys. You know the type.
"What're they doin' here?" I questioned.
"Dunno," answered Pigma. "They've been here for a few hours. This place must be their hangout spot or something."
"Hmm…" I uttered, thinking a bit.
"Oh," continued Paul. "And sorry about your blaster. I'll give you one of mine, if you want." He stopped, and Pigma and I stopped in suit. Paul turned to face me, offered me his backup, a Universal. I grabbed it, tossed my totaled piece, and replaced it. We went back to our walking.
As we continued down the hall we approached a solid pair of metal doors, with a sign saying "CONTROL ROOM" above them. Several soldiers had assembled sandbags not too far in front of the pair of doors, but they were hunched over the ad-hoc fortifications, their faded uniforms hanging lazily off of the withered bones of the canines. There was a faint stench of mold hanging in the dusty air. Paul and Pigma stepped around the minor obstacles, and pushed open the doors, with me not far behind them.
"Well, the notes said there'd be some sort of control room blocking access to the rest of the facility," noted Paul. "Yep, this seems like the place. Consoles, screens, corpses dressed in officers' uniforms. Wait…" Paul walked over to a chair and console located centrally in the room, on an elevated platform. He moved to get a look at the corpse's front. "Al-Mansur. This one's wearing the right uniform, all right, name says so here. Also looks like the right height, build, wearing the right medals. God… all this vintage Alliance gear, could be worth a fortune on any market. That reminds me, none of you get any fancy ideas. We're not here to loot hundred-year-old corpses."
I walked up to Paul's side, and he was right. On the right breast of the tan khaki uniform was "AL-MANSUR" emblazoned in faded black letters. The corpse, that of some sort of jackal, along with the regular general's uniform, had on a faded tan peaked cap with several stars on it. There was a blaster in his right hand, and a photograph in his left. I took a closer look at it, avoiding touching al-Mansur. I saw a family. I saw him, a lady, and a little girl. They looked happy, smiling and shit. They were at a beach. I stepped away, grumbling. Then, I remembered my notes. Well, Minoru's notes.
The keys of al-Mansur open the doors to the splendor of the Mighty One. Two crossed keys were depicted next to this phrase.
Power! Don't forget the power! Cartoony lightning bolts were scribbled all around these sentences.
Automated defenses, hack the system to shut them down. A drawing of an automated turret was right above this sentence.
Ruthenians? There was a doodle of a Sclavic soldier next to this word.
Splendor, yeah. All that shiny gold would give off quite the glow in the desert sun. Power though? Maybe the power for the facility? Automated defenses are down, Pigma took care of that. And Ruthenians? Probably talking about the survivors of that crashed scout ship.
"Maybe we should find the power to this place first?" I asked aloud.
"Good idea," said Paul. "Pigma: go with the kid. I'll stay here and see what's here to find."
"Aww, why I gotta go with this clown?"
"'Cause I said so." Paul glared at us from behind his sunglasses.
I looked at Pigma, and he looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders, not objecting to the seven foot tall dragon in the room.
"Fuck, alright," said Pigma dejectedly. "C'mon kid." He gestured with his hand for me to follow him, carrying the shotgun he had with one hand over his shoulder. I sighed and did what he wanted, walking behind him as we trailed out back into the hallway.
"I'm no kid," I said frustratedly as the two of us trudged down the dust-choked passageway, which still had the distinct stench of hundred-year-old corpses. Our flashlights illuminated the way forward.
"Alright, you're no kid," replied Pigma annoyed. "Let's just find the generator or something so we can all get rich, alright? That's what you're here for after all, huh?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"Alright. Me too. So come on… when I was hacking the system here I downloaded the basic layout to this facility. The generator room should be on this level. Around… here…"
We rounded a corner, and down the hall, past several deactivated laser turrets, was a set of steel double doors with the words "GENERATOR ROOM" in big bold letters across it.
"Ah, here we are," said Pigma. He opened the doors and we walked through them into the room. Fusion generators. Four of them. My guess: two primary and two backups. The primaries looked burned out, but the backups seemed just fine. Eyeballed it only though, so at the time I didn't know if they were in working order or not. Pigma walked up to one terminal and jammed in some sort of… thing, I dunno what it was. Through the power of science or tech or something like that, there was power in the terminal. Then, he went to work. It took some time, a few minutes, but after that, Pigma restarted the backup generators. "Let there be light," he said. Power ran through the place's wires now. Lights and the ventilation system kicked in, wiping the stink away in a few minutes.
"Nice, let's get back," I said.
"Absolutely, my furry friend," Pigma commented. So, we walked back. "Hey, you got potential, Wolf," he continued. "You should really think about running with us. You could make a lotta money, earn a lotta respect and fame that way."
"No thanks," I quickly responded. "I prefer going on my own."
"Ah, the lone wolf approach? Pun somewhat intended. But that ain't gonna get you real far, you know. You'll need someone to watch your back and shit. We'll be that for ya."
"I dunno."
In that time, honestly, he was starting to put doubts in my mind about how my life was going. What I was doing with it. What I wasn't doing. I was in a hole, just bouncing around from place to place, doing nothing important for pennies. Just fucking working my ass off, getting shot trying to survive day-to-day. The fuck kinda life is that? Hm….
I put those thoughts aside when we reached the control room, to the sight of Paul listening to a holographic message left by al-Mansur.
"If you're smart, you'll do exactly that," said al-Mansur's hologram. "Just turn around, leave, and don't tell anyone about this. This place must be buried and forgotten. The war is lost. And I'm not about to kill billions of people for a lost cause. I've already activated the nerve gas. It should be evenly dispersed across the interior of the facility in a few minutes. Sabira, my wife. Saima, my daughter. I'm sorry I can't be home… and may God forgive me." The message ended, with a prompt asking Paul if he wanted to replay it. He selected the "No" option.
"Paul?" asked Pigma.
Paul said nothing. Pigma and I just stood there like mute fools waiting for Paul to say something. Anything.
"Paul, what's up?" I asked, trying to pry an answer out of the big guy.
"Loot some bodies," said Paul. "Then we're getting out of here."
"What the fuck?" I blurted out.
"Paulie, what gives?" asked Pigma.
"This isn't up for discussion," replied Paul affirmatively. "We're leaving."
"Why?!" I yelled.
"Because this military base has 40 IPBMs each with a payload of 8 thermonuclear warheads and each of those with a blast yield of about 210 PJ. That is the treasure we've been looking for."
Silence fell again, this time longer.
"Oh," I uttered.
"Yeah," said Paul. "'Oh.' And get this: al-Mansur showed me the target coordinates of each missile, and they all correspond with a major population center on Corneria. Algonquin City, Glynndin, Edo, Ica, Kenigsberg. Name a city on Corneria. Any city. It'd probably get hit by a warhead. I did a little mental math in my head, and if these things were to get launched right now and nobody did anything to stop them, these bombs would kill at least 2 billion people." Paul let out a long, worried breath. He walked a short length to the center of the room, and looked up to the monitors plastered in the front of the room, showing a view of the security feeds, with most of the screens having live feed of the missiles.
"Fuck…" I said breathlessly, walking to Paul's side, while Pigma flanking the opposite side.
"Wonder if anyone else knows this," said Pigma.
"Probably not," replied Paul. "This is one of those black ops things from way back in the Unification War. When the war was coming to an end and it was clear the Alliance was losing, they were getting desperate, concocting insane plan after plan in a bid to win the war, or at least force the Coalition into a cease fire. This was one of those secret plans. Shuttle Quechua warheads to another planet to strike back on Corneria after the war was lost there, as a sort of vengeance attack. But, al-Mansur had a change of heart. Apparently he didn't want to nuke billions of people for a hopeless cause, so he gassed everyone and himself in this facility as it was attacked by Coalition forces. They never found out about the hidden missiles before leaving this place in the sand."
"And now we do," I said.
"Yep," said Paul. "God…"
At that point in time, I heard a sound I never want to hear behind my back. The cocking of a blaster and its distinct whirr.
"God works in mysterious ways, does He not?" said a voice with a thick Ruthenian accent. "Make no sudden movements! Put your hands up, and face us… slowly." The three of us complied, keeping our hands away from our heat. We turned, and lo and behold, three Ruthenians faced us, their Ruthenian-designed blasters pointing at our heads. All three of them were wearing worn Ruthenian military clothing, faded, dusty, patchy with additions from other clothing. They looked disheveled, rugged, scarred. I wouldn't wanna tussle with them, but too late for that now.
The leader of the three, an officer, started speaking to Paul in Ruthenian. Didn't understand, but thankfully Paul wanted to keep the conversation in Cornerian.
"Sorry," he started, "but I prefer that we speak in Cornerian." The Ruthenian officer grumbled.
"Very well," said the officer. "I will indulge these… beings, for now."
Oh brother, I thought.
"Come, krajan," continued the officer. "Come stand with us."
"I've already got prior engagements, I'm afraid."
"Hah, with these creatures?"
"I work with them."
"You would prefer the company of beings such as these, over your own people?"
"To be quite honest, I'm leery of people who point blasters at me for no particular reason."
"We are here to bring the light of civilization to this wayward system. We have sacrificed so much, for so long. And we are so close. So close… to bringing all Lylatians into the care of the Empire, of the Tsar."
"Listen, I'm not going to get philosophical or political with you, droog. But what's here… its power… nobody should have it."
"I beg to differ. 40 IPBMs with nuclear payloads? Quite a tool to persuade a solar system to join you."
"What if we say no?" asked Pigma.
The officer was silent, while the one to his left, a rather young – er, well, relatively young-looking – sniper, grinned widely and maniacally. I picked up on it quick.
"So you're just gonna fucking blow up billions of people you crazy piece of shit?" I cried out.
"Much is sacrificed for progress."
"Progress my ass, you just wanna take over the Lylat System!"
"Alas, it seems you cannot be made to see reason…"
"Wait!" said Paul suddenly. I turned my head. "Droog… you wouldn't unceremoniously shuffle me into the same league as these… these people, would you?"
"Ah, of course not," said the officer. "It is only natural that one of our own would see things our way. Come, my friend."
What the fuck, I thought to myself. Goddamn. My mind was frantically searching for some way to get us outta this sticky situation, and my eyes darted every which way around the room. Couldn't find an answer though, even as Paul himself walked to the officer's side. He lowered his arms before taking a spot to the officer's right.
"Can you not see the righteousness of our cause?" said the officer.
"I think I'm gonna throw up," uttered Pigma.
"Me too," I blurted out, sorta sick at the whole situation.
Luckily, Paul lied. He fucking lied, which was totally amazing. As soon as the three goons had their eyes off of him, Paul fucking chopped the officer's neck like nothing, stunning the guy and giving him a coughing fit. Then, he kicked the lady Ruthenian soldier in the face, knocking her the fuck out, while he shoved the officer in the direction of the psycho sniper, who got distracted. This allowed Paul to punch the sniper in the face a few times causing him to go down too. Then, Paul pounced on the officer, putting the guy in a headlock.
"Pigma!" he yelled. "Gimme a hand! Wolf! The launch keys are on al-Mansur, around his neck! Grab 'em and run! Just run!"
I rushed to al-Mansur's corpse, finding the keys on a chain around his neck. I ripped them off, saying "Sorry, dude" before looking back to Paul and Pigma. The officer mustered his strength to kick Pigma in the gut, taking the wind outta the fatso, while he flapped his wings and flew up, slamming Paul into the fucking ceiling, which forced him to let go. That was my "Oh crap" moment and I ran like the wind.
Going down another hallway I slammed open a set of double doors, and appeared in a large missile silo. Was at the very tippy-top of it, staring down at a relatively untouched IPBM just sitting there minding its own business.
"Fuck me, that's a nuke," I said.
"Oh yeah," said an unfamiliar voice from behind me. I swear, I was really getting caught off guard that day. I tried to turn around, but was whacked in the back of the head, forcing me to fall to the floor. I blacked out for a few moments to find… a guy. This guy, about as tall as me, big-eyed. Furry. Somewhat adorable. He held a wrench in one hand. Vaguely cat-like, light-brown fur with even darker brown lines crisscrossing him. He had on some sort of one-piece suit with a harness and some other gear on him, as well as goggles. He was climbing on the missile, apparently using his wrench to pry open the thing to get to the warheads.
"The fuck are you? And the fuck are you doing?" I demanded.
"I'm complicated," he said. "And I'm just shopping. See, I've got a grocery list…" He tore open one of the panels with his wrench, and looked inside. Instantly, it seemed he became a mix of confused and concerned. "Hey, you know what this thing is?" he asked.
"Yeah, it's a fucking nuke!"
"No it isn't," he replied. "There's no nukes in this missile."
"Uh…. What?"
"No. Nukes. The warheads are gone!"
I head a yell, and Paul and the officer rushed to the railing, with Paul attempting to push the officer over the edge. Dunno how'd that help, the dude has wings.
"Wolf, when you're finished sightseeing can you maybe help me with this!" said Paul.
"Paul, there's no warheads in this missile," I said, leaning on the railing and gesturing to it with a thumb. The two of them stopped struggling.
"What?!" said the officer, outraged. Pigma rushed onto the scene.
"There's… no nuclear warheads?" asked Paul. Pigma was stymied, even as the other two Ruthenians snuck up on him. The officer put his hand up to stop them, which they did almost immediately.
"No nukes?" asked Pigma.
"No nukes," said the cat guy on the missile. Without warning, the silo's blast doors above us opened up, revealing several reptilian-like aliens with unique armors I've not really seen before. They also had some unique appearances: their mouths were sorta like hinges or something, like divided into two separate pairs of jaws, if that makes any sense. They spoke gruffily and had plasma weapons.
"Commander!" yelled one of them. "This missile lacks warheads as well!"
"Blast!" said their commander.
"Ain't no blastin' here!" I shouted.
"Bah…" said the hingehead alien to me, dismissing me with a hand wave.
"Hey!" said Paul, catching the attention of the hingeheads. "How many missiles have you checked?!"
"Damn near all of them!" yelled one of the hingeheads. "None have their warheads! We have but one more left unchecked!"
"Who the Hell took the warheads out of 39 missiles…"
"Fuck if I know," said Pigma. I looked at the Ruthenian officer and his troops, who conversed among themselves. They seemed rather downtrodden by the sudden turn of events.
"C'mon Pigma, Wolf," said Paul. "Let's head topside, follow those guys." His head gestured to a service ladder leading to the surface. The three of us, followed by the Ruthenians, climbed up and into the shining desert sun. The cat guy just jumped through the open blast doors and climbed out that way, like a fucking maniac. We all did a speed walk over to the last silo, and I bothered to look at the other ones. All of 'em opened, save for one. And so, those aliens started prying open the blast doors: they had a ship with a tractor beam-like device doing all the work for them. When they got it open one of them scanned the thing.
"Okay…" said that hingehead alien. "Let's see… We got a warhead everybody!"
Almost instantly, we all clamored to the half-open blast doors of the silo. Murmuring could be heard from the three Ruthenians, minus Paul, who was totally silent. The cat guy popped his head through the small space between Paul and me.
"Oh shit…" said the hingehead. "This warhead's armed."
"Wait, what?" I asked, clueless.
"It's armed," said the alien again. "And… it's rigged to blow."
"You have got to be kidding me," said Paul exasperatedly. "Pigma, scan the damn thing, make sure we aren't being screwed with."
Pigma took out his scanner and examined the warhead. Suddenly, his eyeballs got a whole lot bigger. "Oh shit, they ain't lying."
"Oh, that's great," said the cat guy. "When's it supposed to blow up?"
"It was rigged…" started the hingehead. "About… 30 hours ago? Uh-oh, it's supposed to blow up in 2 minutes."
"2… minutes?" I asked, shuddering. Almost instantly, the hingeheads scrambled to their ship, while the cat-guy, manipulating some sort of device on his wrist, vanished. Meanwhile, those Ruthenians made a mad dash for... somewhere.
"Run, you fucking idiot!" yelled out Pigma, who was stomping behind Paul, who was running like the goddamn wind. I sped off after them.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck!" I cried out. No joke, I was running like there was no tomorrow, I have never ran so hard in my life towards my bike. I sped right past those mercs with the cars I met earlier, I think they were in a circle conversing or some shit, they didn't really pay attention to me and I to them. I rushed onto my bike, and I could've sworn that took me a minute. I swear to you, I was 90% of the way to shitting my pants as I rode my bike hard and fast. Hopefully I'd be fast enough to get outta the blast radius in time, whatever the blast radius of the fucking thing was. 20 more seconds passed before I realized that I was still in Imperial Valley, and I was probably gonna die. Then, a saving grace: those hingehead aliens in their ship grabbed me with some sort of tractor beam, bike and all, and whisked me away.
Fool I was, I looked back at the base, which in the few moments that passed since I was first picked up now looked like a small clutter of buildings. Then, the flash. I averted my gaze, but the white light was already burned into my retinas, and no matter how hard I closed my eyes it was there to stay for a few minutes. My sunglasses didn't do shit. Then, the shockwave hit me like a freight train, followed by the sound, which basically blew out my eardrums. I yelped out in pain and fear, and when I looked back, the mushroom cloud billowed into the atmosphere, lit up like a neon sign.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck," I uttered repeatedly, even as the ship safely parked itself outside of the blast radius, hovering a short height above a wide-open mountain summit far from Imperial Valley. My heart was in my throat, but on the outside I was cool as can be, letting out a long breath as I dismounted my bike and walked to the summit's ridge to check out the blast. The cloud stretched high up, for miles, into the sky, ominously dominating the local landscape.
"Now that was a blast," said Paul as he appeared by my side. He walked up behind me, his heavy footsteps crunching the dirt and dust beneath his boots.
"Wow," said Pigma, totally unamused by the terrible pun Paul made.
"Heh, good one," said the cat guy, whose ears flopped in the atomic breeze.
"Well, this sucks," said one of the hingehead aliens, probably the leader. He had the distinctive armor of his species beneath a long-flowing duster coat.
"Thanks for the rescue, Kai," said Paul.
"Don't mention it," said Kai the alien. "Also don't mention this day either, I'm walking away from this planet with empty pockets and I feel very bitter."
"At least you're walking away with your life," said Paul.
"Hmm," uttered Kai. "Anyway, I'm dropping those three Ruthenians off at their Empire's consulate on Corneria, then fucking leaving this goddamn system."
"Ah," replied Paul. "Here… for your troubles." As I glanced over to what Paul was doing, I saw him hand off something shiny to Kai, who quickly stuffed it away on his person. Kai nodded.
"Pleasure," answered Kai. Then, he turned to Pigma, the cat guy, and myself. "Gentlemen." He left us, going back inside his ship. It flew away, and in time disappeared as it left the planet's atmosphere.
"Umm…" began the cat alien, "I… I dunno. I just… I think I'll go too."
"What were you here for anyway?" inquired Pigma.
"The goddamn nukes, of course," said the cat alien. "My people could've used those warheads."
"For what?" asked Paul.
"For what they were intended," answered the cat alien. "But I guess now they're in the wind. Just like me…" He shrugged his shoulders before typing in something on the device on his wrist, no doubt a teleporter. He zipped out of view to parts unknown.
"Cat aliens with nukes," I commented. "What a 'verse."
"Yep," added Paul. "What a wonderful 'verse."
"Hey, what happened to those car guys?" I asked.
"Kai said he couldn't pick 'em all up," explained Pigma. "So he just left 'em."
"Damn, they're fucking dead then," I observed.
"Oh, yep," replied Pigma.
"Well Pigma," started Paul, "I guess we need to explain this mess to Jim."
"'We'? You mean 'you.'"
"Oh, you're pulling the tagalong card on me again?"
"Yep, after all, you were in charge."
"Pigma, there's only two of us, there's not much diffusing of responsibility possible here."
"You'd be surprised. Anyway, I think James will understand."
"Doubt it, but I am nevertheless inspired by your optimism." Paul's voice sounded really sarcastic, and I didn't blame him. Fucking treasure went up in smoke.
I grumbled to myself as I mounted my bike.
"Oh, and Wolf?" Paul began.
"Huh?" I uttered as I looked back to him. He then threw to me a Medilla-45 automatic ballistic pistol, an officer's weapon. Alliance-issue. I caught it, curiously examining the museum piece.
"It's highly collectible, so you could easily sell the thing for a pretty penny. A grand, minimum." I nodded as a nonverbal way of saying thanks, and he nodded back. "Ride safe, Wolf."
So, I rode. Rode away from Imperial Valley, from the crater of murdered hope and phoney treasure, of forgotten graves and the last gasp of a hopeless cause, of a man's stance against madness and vengeance.
I rode away the same as I rode in, which isn't much to be honest with you. But… let's look at it this way. At least I got to ride away.