Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Far Beyond the World
Part XXIV - X Marks the Spot
New Chicago, six months ago...
As the Defense Directorate Building rocked badly from thermax bomb strikes, Dr. Elias Huer burst from the front entrance, followed by a crowd of Directorate Officers. Debris littered the wide marble steps as he and the others rushed down them, while chunks of the Building started raining down in all directions!
"Take cover! Watch out!" Huer shouted to the others, glancing upwards as he raced down the stairs.
He weaved wildly and a white chunk of thermocrete masonry a meter wide missed him by centimeters and burst apart on the steps behind him, sending pieces the size of his fist whirling in all directions. One struck Huer in the back between the shoulder-blades and he staggered hard, stumbled and went down on one knee and a hand, gasping in pain. He raised his head and stared in horror as a squadron of Marauders soared overtop his block, their blaster canons spitting blue beams into the buildings on either side of the square surrounding the Directorate. Explosions roared and one of the structures groaned, it had taken too much punishment, and as the four enemy fighters looped away it began to collapse.
"No..." gasped Huer as he staggered up onto his feet again, but there was nothing he could do.
Cracks spread down the length of the ivory-walled building, Elias realized with horror it was the Food Directorate. It rocked and buckled, then with a roar it imploded, falling into itself, windows shattering up-and-down it's levels, it dropped in a rush and a huge cloud of whirling dust rushed out from it, hiding the last of the collapse.
This--This is the end! Huer swallowed as the nimbus blasted across him, plastering the clothing to his body and covering him in a layer of grit. He had shut his eyes just in time.
The cloud dissipated slowly and he brushed the dust from his face, blinked hard in the gray twilight settling over the Inner City, and to his wretched dismay he saw another building toppling over in the near distance, while Marauder-after-Marauder soared this way and that, blasting at anything that moved, and many things that didn't, while explosive shells continued to rain down on the metropolis.
Elias screwed up his courage and with a deep breath he set off again down the steps, weaving around chunks of debris and doing his best to ignore the twisted figures of his former Officers that lay here and there, none of them alive, clearly.
It is only by sheer luck that I am still breathing and able-bodied, he scowled as he reached the street and began to search for a transport tram that was still working. I must not waste my good fortune. Perhaps something can be done to turn the tide against the Draconians, though I know not what...
The headlights of the fourth tram he checked lit-up as he laid his hand on it, and with desperate hands he pulled the bloodied corpse off it's hood, then tugged open the driver-side door and slid in.
"Take me to the south-side of New Chicago, to the Energy Directorate Building!" he demanded of the traffic AI which controlled all the trams, but he received no response.
He pushed the request button but the indicator light stayed dead, so he reluctantly grasped the controls, "I guess I will have to do this manually. Oh, dear."
With a hum of it's engine, the tram rose up half a meter on it's soft-glowing repulsors, then shot away from the curb, clipping the bumper of another burned-out tram as it did so. Huer fought with the controls and the tram shifted this way and that, he grit his teeth and forced himself to focus and the two-man transport finally evened out on the street and he was able to accelerate up to cruising speed.
"Been close to a decade since I've done this," the Doctor mumbled to himself as he shot around a bend, "but you never forget, it's like riding a bike, as Buck would say."
A Marauder blurred overhead and laid into a building on his right with it's blasters, then it was gone and Huer threw the tram to the left, dodging like crazy as rocky debris thundered down onto the road beside him! He fought with the controls madly, rocketed up and over the opposite curb, plowing through a lamp post as he flew, then he yanked the controls back to the right and narrowly missed plowing into the opposite building.
He was hurtling down the sidewalk now, thankful that no pedestrians were on it so that he didn't have to worry about running them over, then he realized that the bombing had stopped, no longer did explosive impacts shake the city.
Thank goodness for small favors, he breathed, but his eyes went wide as he suddenly caught hold of the reason for the invader's bombing respite, as the hulking rust-colored shape of a Draconian hover-tank drove into view, dead-ahead.
"By the stars!" he yanked the controls hard as the tank's triple-barrelled canon rotated to bear upon him.
The tram whipped off the sidewalk and the tank fired, sending a powerful purple tri-beam flying for him, it missed the back of his transport by inches and struck the front of a building, blasting a ten-foot hole in it's masonry. Huer slammed the accelerator to the floor and the tram rocketed up to maximum speed, as purple bolts slammed over-and-over into the street behind it! He curved toward the tank, he had no choice, and a beam lashed right overhead, he ducked low as the roof was blasted off the top of his vehicle, leaving the hood and trunk blazing with flame, then he was weaving past the tank and sent the tram hurtling down a side street, the canon pivoted after him and blew apart a line of clothing boutiques, detonating their windows and turning their innards into broiling fire-clouds! Debris rained down on Huer's tram, he cried out as two shards of glass buried themselves in his right shoulder, but he held onto the controls and kept the pedal mashed to the floor, and the tram fled down the street and tore around the next turn, even as the hover-tank hummed after it a block back, hot on it's trail.
Huer was looking back-and-forth desperately for a way out, like an alleyway or a parking tunnel, when the tank burst back into view behind him on the new street. He dodged madly to the left, putting a line of refuse collectors between him and the jagged war machine, it's canon roared and two of them DETONATED, sending their burning hulks bowling over into the rest, Huer's tram whisked left-and-right as parts and casings rained down on the street all around him, a repulsor engine block SLAMMED down onto his blazing hood, crushing the front of the tram down onto the road, and then vehicle was flipping up-and-over into the air, it was upside-down and the unbelted Doctor was thrown free!
A wordless scream sounding from his peeled-back lips, Dr. Huer flew end-over-end across the street, the thermocrete surface blurring by a meter beneath him, he twisted round in mid-air and then went through the window of a restaurant, it's emergency glass chunking around him as he plunged through, saving his life. He deflected off a table and crashed down into booth, rolled out of it and went face-first on the carpeted floor.
Got..got to..get up...
Breathing like a steam engine of old, Elias staggered up onto all fours, then used a fallen chair to lever himself back onto his feet, and with a blood-stained face he stared back out through the shattered window he'd been tossed through, just as the hover-tank rumbled up to stop before it.
Will they never let up?! his inner mind shouted in frustration.
The canon swivelled around and he was already running as fast as his aching legs would carry him. He shouldered his way through the swinging kitchen door, ran past the line of motionless preparation Ambuquads, then sprang for the exit door that loomed, it was luckily already half-open.
Back in the restaurant the hover-tank fired it's canon and the entire place went up like a Roman candle!
Huer dived into the back alley, landed on one knee, then reached back and slammed the door shut, sprang up and lept with everything he had as the door was BLASTED off it's tracks by a rushing wave of flame, Elias was hit by the shockwave as the masonry cracked and ruptured, he staggered but did not fall and managed to keep on going, as spurts of flame blasted free of the wall on his left. He ducked under one, vaulted another, one licked his shoulder and he cried out in agony, but finally managed to get out of the alley and raced gasping across the street to the next one, and--PHWOOOM! a purple beam lashed out and struck the building on his right, Elias was tossed like a rag-doll up against the alley wall, flipped over a low railing and plummeted down into a recessed set of stairs, rolled down them as debris crashed down all around him and the opposite building thundered down in collapse. He fell into the basement of the structure and then masonry and thermal bricks avalanched down the wall and into the recess, completely burying it, Huer's head struck the hard floor, stars exploded before his eyes, then everything went dark and...
...and...
......nothingness...
To be continued...