"She's right, Dr. Clemons. Security at the Vehicle Assembly Building isn't so tight these days. I placed the explosives in the Shuttle over two weeks ago using your security badge. It wasn't easy to get that from you. You should sleep more. Of course the plan was for the shuttle to explode once you two had assembled the probe and gone back onboard the Shuttle."
"How did the bomb know when to explode? That's impossible," I said, still trying to keep him talking. Tabitha tried to edge slowly sideways toward him.
"Hold still, Colonel or I'll shoot you now," he said calmly. "Planting the explosive and setting it to start the timer after a seven-minute gee loading was easy. Just a simple accelerometer and some simple timing circuitry, nothing fancy required. Your unplanned EVA delayed the flight plan by nearly four hours, hence you were still in the middle of the EVA when the timer set off the explosives."
"Johnny, why are you doing this? The Chinese could shift the balance of global power using this technology. What about your family? Do you want them to grow up communists?" Tabitha said. Johnny laughed at her.
"Screw 'em all! I'm going to live the rest of my life on a beach surrounded by naked women. I've been waiting for one more big score, and this is it, baby! Who cares about the politics of the rest of the world? Let 'em get their own island." He touched his ear as if someone was talking to him. He held up his left wrist and said, "Okay, move out!" The three men left for the north clearing, each of them carrying probe components. Johnny shot the battery pack powering the Van der Graaf generators. It spewed acid on the ground as the generators wound down. The Clemons Dumbbells started whining loudly and at about the pitch of a referee's whistle. I could see occasional flashes of light coming from the interior of the damaged, ECC number one. I guessed that we had about six minutes, maybe less.
Johnny looked at the generator that we had brought up the hill. He fired a couple rounds into it. Fuel drained from the tank. I guess we should have been glad that it didn't explode. I looked to my left at Tabitha. She seemed calm. I shifted my weight so that my right leg was slightly in back. I knew if I made a move it would have to be like a sprinter out of the starting blocks and I wanted my strongest leg in back to push off with.
"I can't have you flying off and telling anybody about this, can I? It was nice meeting you two." He turned and raised the pistol toward Tabitha. I rushed him. I was one step further away from him than I needed to be. He fired a shot just as my right hand slammed into his right wrist. I gripped his wrist tightly and yanked his arm forward under my left armpit. Then I completed the move with a Jackie Chan style arm crawl. I quickly grabbed his arm with my left hand just above the elbow on the nerve center and pressure point there, and pulled him further toward me. I held his hand tightly under my left armpit as I let go of his wrist with my right hand, and then proceeded to karate chop (knife hand strike) Johnny Cache on the right side of his neck. His hand went limp from the blow to the neck and the gun fell to the ground. With my right hand, I pushed up on his chin and tried to sweep his feet with my right leg. The intent was to throw him to the ground, but Johnny Cache was obviously a pro and was having none of that.
Johnny grabbed my flight suit by the right shoulder and rolled his weight backward. He threw his legs out from under him as he twisted to his left. We both hit the ground hard staring each other eye to eye and on our sides. The next few seconds were a flurry of grabs, counter grabs, attempted leg wraps, and punches. Each of us was trying to get an advantage over the other as we grappled and rolled on the sand. I was able to get his left hand barred for a split second, which allowed me to get a punch into the side of his head and roll on top. Johnny rolled his head minimizing the damage. He must have allowed me to bar his left hand as a ruse, because I felt a searing pain on my right side. Then I saw a shiny glint from the corner of my eye—Johnny Cache had a knife!
I lunged as hard as I could forward and over his head. Judo-rolling to my feet, I faced Johnny, ready for his attack. He got to his feet a little slower and more cautiously. He smiled insanely as if he were enjoying this.
"Not bad, Doc. At least I'll have some fun out of killing you, after all!" he said.
I felt my right side with my left hand. I was bleeding but not bad. The wound was a slice not a puncture. It was nothing fifty or so stitches, some antibiotic ointment, and a few bandages wouldn't fix. I readied myself for a knife attack. Although Bob had never taught me how to dodge bullets, he had taught me seventeen different ways to defend against a knife. Ten of them are very painful to the attacker. The other seven are passive. I planned to use one of the painful techniques.
Johnny and I circled each other cautiously. This allowed me to survey the area. Tabitha was on the ground motionless. I thought she was still breathing, but it was hard to tell. Johnny's crew had already disappeared from the clearing and were on the way to their helicopter. It was just Johnny Cache and me.
Johnny held the knife hilt forward in his right hand. The blade pointed back toward his elbow. Obviously, Johnny had some military self-defense training in his life. I was guessing Special Forces. He shifted to a left side forward fighting stance with his fists high and his elbows out Muay Thai kickboxing style. I always loved to fight people using this style's fighting stance. The high elbows leaves the ribs wide open for a roundhouse kick. Of course, real Muay Thai fighters train from childhood getting kicked in the ribs. Their ribs are broken many times throughout their lives. As they are repeatedly broken, they get calcified and harder. Johnny looked American. I didn't believe he was a real Muay Thai fighter.
Johnny and I made several feints at each other attempting to bait the other into a bad move. Like I said, Johnny was a real pro. I decided that it was now or never. I kicked him low at the knee with my right leg. He picked up his knee and let his calf take the blow. Without setting my kick down I rechambered it and side kicked him just below the belly button. He moved backwards from the force of the kick so I kept coming at him. I sat down the side kick into a spin side kick followed by an inner crescent kick that was aimed for the hand with the knife in it.
I missed the knife! As I sat the kick down I knew that I had better get out of the way. Johnny lunged toward me with a left jab then a spin backfist, which was really a spin knife jab. I backed up as best I could. The knife blade whizzed by my face two inches in front of my eyes. Had I been two or three inches closer, the knife would've buried hilt deep into my temple and that would've been that.
The reality of the knife strike shook me slightly. I backed off a bit more and composed myself. I tested the waters with a couple of very quick jabs and knee high front kicks. Johnny slapped them away with ease and sliced at me a time or two. I picked up my left foot to feint a kick. Johnny didn't buy it. But when I faked a punch with my right I could have sold him swampland in the Everglades to go with it. He stepped in to slice at me thinking that I was going to commit to the right punch. I was trying an old tournament trick—called a dash punch—that I had used successfully a thousand times. I pulled back the punch and slipped to the left. Then, I hammer fisted his right wrist with my left hand as hard as I could and the knife fell free. I followed by rotating my body into a front stance to get the full force of my body weight into a right palm heel strike to the bridge of his nose. Grabbing the back of his hair with both hands, I yanked him forward, slamming his chest into my right knee and then threw him past me to the right as I stepped through and turned back to a right side fighting stance. I kicked the knife as far away from us as I could.
Johnny rolled to his feet. I could see he was pulling something from his left boot so I didn't give him time to finish standing. I tackled him, expecting a full fifteen-yard penalty for clipping. The only whistle that blew was the constant screeching of the soon to explode ECC.
The thing was getting so close to exploding now that the randomly collapsing electromagnetic fields were creating shock waves in the air around the device. The shockwaves in turn were causing luminescence all around the ECC. Micro supernova expl
osions were taking place every second.
Johnny and I rolled into the ECC as I was grabbing for his hand. We had all four hands on the small handgun and were kneeing each other and I attempted to head butt him twice with very little success. His nose was bleeding profusely where I had just broken it with the palm heel strike; I didn't care for getting his blood all over me, but, it couldn't be helped. We rolled back and forth and the gun went off twice. I managed somehow to roll on top of him and force his hand against the ECC into the region where the sonoluminescence was occurring.
I was lucky. One of the microscopic supernova explosions sparked just inside his hand. It looked as if someone had set off a firecracker underneath his skin and the gun fell into the gaping hole in the ECC. We rolled up staring each other down. Johnny shook his bloody hand and snarled at me.
"That's gotta' hurt, Johnny," I taunted him. Then I saw motion out of the corner of my left eye. Johnny made a dash for the motion and I followed.
Tabitha had been playing 'possum. She bear crawled as fast as I had ever seen her move for the first gun that Johnny had dropped. Unfortunately, she didn't make it. Johnny stomped on her hand with his left foot and kicked her hard in the chest with his right. Tabitha's ribs were bruised already and were probably broken now from Johnny's kick. I was on top of Johnny before he could kick at her twice. He would pay for that!
He turned to me as he swept the gun away from Tabitha with his right foot and turned the momentum of the sweeping motion into a left-leg spinning side kick. I blocked the kick with my stomach. Had I been wearing a mouthpiece I could have spat it on him. I heaved out twice as I backed up, blocking at his follow-up punches. He got me good on the side of the head with one of them and I saw stars for a second.
"Turtle up!" Bob would have yelled at me. Therefore, I did. If you are ever being attacked too quickly to defend against, cover up as best you can and take it. Try to get inside to cut off the full force of the attack. Bruce Lee was always fond of saying that there are three regions of fighting. One is within a few inches where you're grappling with your opponent. The second is at kicking and boxing range from your opponent. Everybody trains for these two distances. The third distance is in between one and two where most people don't know how to attack. This is why Bruce Lee developed the famous Six-Inch Punch.
I realized that I had to get inside region three if I was going to survive. So, I turtled up and crowded him. This cut off his kicks. He countered by throwing hook punches to my ribs and head. I bobbed and weaved, and ducked and covered until I could catch my breath. The spin sidekick to the stomach had taken some of my wind. With all of the astronaut training over the past six months, I hadn't done as many abdominal exercises as I usually do, so my stomach wasn't as hard as it should have been.
Most fights don't last long because they are typically -antisymmetric—the better fighter usually whups the lesser one quickly—but Johnny and I were very evenly matched, except that I had already had a pretty rough day. I was getting tired and something had to give. So, I shoved Johnny back and pushed him harder by following with a thrust front kick, stomping him in the bladder thus pushing him as far away from me as I could manage. His knees buckled for an instant but I needed to recover for that instant and couldn't continue to press.
"This has been fun, Doc," he said, as he wiped blood from his nose with his sleeve. He held up his wrist. "Will one of you guys get over here and shoot this bastard for me!" he yelled into it.
"What's the matter, Johnny? Can't beat an old man by yourself?" I taunted him while trying not to give away that I was very tired.
Johnny moved around to keep himself between the handgun and Tabitha who was trying to stand, obviously in serious pain. I saw a flicker of motion through the trees at the edge of the clearing and knew I didn't have much time before Johnny's backup would be drawing a bead on me. I circled counterclockwise toward Tabitha, trying to keep Johnny between me and his crew.
"Enough of this!" I screamed at Johnny as I rushed him with a left leg jump bicycle roundhouse kick that caught Johnny square on the jaw turning his head.
"You are going down, Johnny fucking Cache!" I was enraged. Left leg outer crescent kick, right leg round house, spin left outer crescent kick, right leg tornado roundhouse kick, backfist, reverse punch, "Kia!" I yelled.
Johnny dodged and parried, and slipped and blocked. He was on the defensive. I had to keep pressing while the adrenaline was flowing because I knew that when I came down from this rush I would be physically wasted.
I had to use the adrenaline. I had to get angry! He blew up the Shuttle and killed all those people! Our friends! He shot Tabitha! I blocked every punch Johnny attempted and I managed to slip by each kick.
Forget that "Luke never succumb to the Dark Side crap," if someone is trying to kill you, get angry, get pissed, get evil. Do whatever you have to do in order to stay alive. You can get philosophical about it afterwards, if you survive that is. The Dark Side was coursing through me like water through a sieve. Son of a bitch, HE WAS GOING DOWN!
I followed an uppercut with a jab. Johnny ducked the jab so I turned it over into a hook punch and caught him right on the jaw. His eyes rolled white for a split second, which was all I needed. I jumped and switched feet in the air bringing my back leg into a roundhouse kick that landed in his left ribcage solid enough to break bricks. He heaved. I heard a crack! Then I heard several whizzing sounds whip past me followed by cracks. I realized the cracks were from a rifle.
Johnny punched at me with his right, so I slipped left and caught his wrist with my right hand and pushed through his elbow with my left palm heel. His elbow snapped into two pieces like a stick. Skin, pulled muscles, and torn cartilage were all that held his ulna and radius forearm bones to his upper arm bone. Johnny let out a scream.
Then a searing hot pain ripped through my right shoulder. I had been shot. I grabbed Johnny by the hair and pulled his body to mine, his back to my chest. Bullets slammed into Johnny forcing us to the ground. One of the bullets pierced his neck and entered my chest just below and to the left of my right nipple and we fell to the ground, Johnny twitching slightly and bleeding profusely on top of me.
I could hear return fire and some scrambling around me, but the firefight lasted only a few seconds. I wheezed and coughed a few times as if I had to clear my throat of mucous drainage from a bad sinus infection. I turned my head toward the probe and could see the pulses of light getting much more frequent and the screeching sound was so high it was almost inaudible and the flashes of light were ranging in color from white hot to near blue. It was actually quite beautiful, in a deadly kind of way.
We had to get out of there soon I knew, but at the moment nothing mattered. I was simply observing everything around me. I was dazed. Seconds passed and a helicopter shadowed the sun briefly. I could see sparks flying from the tail and the fixed wing portion of it. As each shot was fired I could hear Tabitha cursing violently. Then Johnny rolled off me to my left.
Tabitha's silhouette was above me. She helped me up. It was all I could do to rise to my feet. I coughed several violent coughs. I covered my mouth and when I looked back down at my hand it was covered with blood. Johnny jerked twice and rolled over. Tabitha reacted instantly and emptied the rest of the clip into his head.
"That's for Ray." She pulled the trigger. "That's for Terrence." She fired the weapon again. "And that's for Tracy and Malcom you piece of shit!" She fired the last four rounds into his face, or what was left of it. She screamed curses at him and then kicked him in the side and then screamed at him again. Then she turned her attention to me as she nonchalantly tossed the empty pistol to the ground.
Tabitha unzipped my flight suit and pulled it down to my waist. I was still dazed, nearly catatonic, and my chest was a wet blood-soaked deep red. Tabitha looked at both my chest and my back, then she unzipped her flight suit.
I noticed that in the clothes that Tabitha had been given there must have been a T-shirt. Why didn't I get a T-shirt,
I thought? My mind could only seem to focus on unimportant and trivial things. Then she took off her T-shirt and was standing topless in front of me and I tried to focus on that. She ripped the shirt into two halves and rolled one of the halves into a tight wad. She poked her finger into the half of the T-shirt she had rolled up and then into the hole in my chest. The pain snapped me out of my catatonia for just a second or two.
"Ouch! Shit, that hurts," I cursed.
"Hold still, damnit. You're bleeding like a stuck pig and I think one of your lungs is punctured." She placed my hand on the bandage, causing a squishing sound, and my hand began to feel even wetter than when I coughed. "Hold this and press down hard."
She scrambled over to the now defunct generator and rummaged around for the duct tape. She wiggled and pulled her flight suit back over her shoulders, her breasts jiggling lightly in the sunlight as she zipped it most of the way up. I'll always remember that sight for the rest of my life, but at the time in my weakened state I was nearly numb to it, nearly.
Tabitha made a cross of duct tape over the makeshift bandage, then stepped behind me.
"Eyow shit! That hurts," I cursed in a loud gurgling whisper and cursed again as she repeated the process to the exit wound on my back, the pain bringing me a little closer to normal consciousness.
"Hold your arms up."
I did. She wrapped the duct tape over the bandages and around my torso several times. Then she wrapped my right shoulder with it. When she was done with my shoulder she taped the knife wound across my right oblique abdominal muscles together. Then she wrapped several times around her right thigh where Johnny had shot her earlier.
"Sorry I couldn't stop him earlier, Tabitha. But aren't you glad I asked for the duct tape? I told you that you could never have too much of it." I gurgled again and looked at her leg.
"Stow it! We have to get out of here now!" Colonel Ames ordered.
We helped each other down the hill and to the Jump Jet. Once we fell flat on our faces and I was thrown into some sort of wheezing frenzy. I gurgled a few times and felt like I was going to drown. Tabitha dragged me to my feet and forced me to keep moving.
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