Chapter 11: Alien Dreams
"Holy Hell!" swore Cohaagen when Lori came into his office. "What happened to your face?"
Lori knew she was badly bruised, but she had managed to stop most of the bleeding from her cuts. "I had Hauser. I goddamn had him! Then that Melina bitch showed up and machine gunned my entire assault team. I barely escaped with my life! Who knows where the hell they are now?"
Cohaagen grinned. "Richter has them both penned in the Last Resort along with Kuato himself. At least, that's what Richter says. So I told him to turn off their air."
"Oh crap! Do you have that on remote camera?"
"I was just bringing it in when you walked in." He turned back to his monitor and continued keying in commands.
The monitor began an alarm warble.
"Shit! Someone's in the cavern!" Cohaagen aborted his commands and keyed in a different set. The monitor flickered and brought up a long-shot of a man and woman crossing the long bridge. "That's Hauser and Melina! Damn Richter! Is there anything he can't screw up? Come on!"
He pressed the button which alerted his personal guard, and ran for the door.
It was cold on the bridge. As they hurried across, Quaid pointed downwards. "The entire core of Mars is ice," he told Melina. "The reactor melts the ice and releases the oxygen."
"Enough for people to breathe?"
"Enough for the whole planet!"
They crossed the bridge quickly, but Quaid hesitated when they got inside the electro-magnetic generation chamber. He pressed forward between the giant circular housings, but inwardly he quailed at the memory of the ambush which had taken place here in his dream. Now, the chamber was empty as a tomb. On the other side, the lift platform beckoned.
"Come on, Melina!"
Quaid charged across the opening with Melina close behind him. They leapt aboard the platform, and Quaid toggled the lever. The platform began to rise.
A sonic grenade landed with a clatter between them.
"Look out! Jump!"
They leapt back down to the permacrete, as the sonic blast crashed harmlessly above them. Melina pushed the button to return the platform to them.
A second grenade, which they hadn't seen, went off beside them, sweeping them aside like a massive, invisible hand.
Quaid raised his head to see guardsmen charging them and Cohaagen behind them shouting, "Alive! Take Hauser alive!"
As Quaid struggled to rise, one of the guardsmen seized his wrist and yanked him to his feet. This gave Quaid enough momentum to shove a forearm into the man's throat and knock him backwards. Then he backhanded another guardsman.
Melina was lying motionless on the floor. Quaid spotted her just as another guardsmen dove underneath him, flipping him in a somersault. He landed in a kneeling position, shouldered the thighs of the next guardsman, kicked another one in the shin, and leapt up to send a right jab into the next man's nose. The man fell back, gushing blood.
A powerful fist blindsided Quaid, knocking him sideways. Then he was spun around and punched in the gut. Quaid managed to straighten and backpedal away, blocking punches as he retreated.
"Melina! Wake up!"
He glimpsed the lift platform approaching ground level just behind the guardsmen. So he ran forward and drop kicked a pair of them in their chests. They both staggered backwards and fell underneath the platform. At the last second, they realized their peril and screamed as the platform came down on them, crushing bones and spewing out a small tsunami of crimson blood.
Quaid was flat on his back on the permacrete, and a guardsman took the opportunity to stomp on his chest. Quaid grabbed the man's ankle and twisted. As the man toppled, his ankle pulled Quaid back up to his feet.
Quaid ran at the guardsmen again and jumped. They ducked, and he hurdled over them to land on the platform, and he toggled the up switch. The platform again began to rise.
A guardsman leaped onto the platform, but Quaid clobbered him with a haymaker. The second man met the same fate.
More guardsmen were clambering up either side of the platform. Quaid ran to one end and stomped on fingers until they all disappeared. He turned to run to the other end, but two guardsmen had already gained their feet and were coming at him. A third guardsman was climbing up behind them.
Quaid blocked a right hook by one of them and counter punched him in the stomach. But his partner smashed a ringing blow into Quaid's ear. When Quaid retaliated by stomping the second man's foot, the first man head butted Quaid. The third man reached over and smashed Quaid's face. Quaid dropped to one knee, but luckily found a guardsman's knee right in front of his face, so he hooked it with his arm and jumped up, spinning the man over backwards. The off-balanced guardsman screamed as he rolled off the platform.
A muscular shoulder lunged into Quaid sending him staggering backwards. He stumbled and nearly fell off the platform too. One of the guardsmen stepped up and kicked him hard in the face. The blow knocked Quaid over the edge.
He grabbed the under-edge support and then spotted a support rod which ran the width of the platform. He reached for it and, as fast as he could, Quaid began hand-over-handing it along the bar over to the other end. He swung his feet backwards and then forwards, swinging himself back up onto the platform.
The two remaining guardsmen were looking over the other end. "Where the hell is he? Do you see him?"
Before they spotted him, Quaid charged them and dropped kicked them both in the butt. They screamed all the way down.
Quaid clambered back up to his feet and looked over the edge of the platform down at the fallen guardsmen.
Cohaagen was bending over one of the splattered bodies. Behind him, Melina got to her feet and aimed her assault rifle. She must have said something because suddenly he whipped around to face her. She machinegunned him.
Good, thought Quaid. He looked up to see he was nearing the top. Cohaagen was dead; his men were dead or scattered, and now absolutely nothing stood between Quaid and the controls to start the reactor. The people of Mars were about to get their first lungfuls of free air.