by Ryder Stacy
Rockson moved up the circular outside stairs of the steel and aluminum tower three steps at a time with the speed of a cat. His neck still hurt like the blazes.
At the fourth floor, he suddenly came upon a seated guard who looked up startled. But Rockson didn’t hesitate, continuing forward with his motion, spinning his right leg up and across the low table in front of the German. The heel of his boot caught the Nazi’s neck smashing it backward, crushing the man’s larynx and vocal cords. The German fell to the floor, gasping for air, his face instantly growing red as an apple. Rockson turned and flew up the stairs.
He hesitated just before the tenth floor, edging around the wall of the entrance room. Just as he expected. Three of them—and these more alert looking than the others. Probably Von Reislings’s personal S.S. unit. The nice thing about being in a hurry is not having to make plans, Rockson thought.
He stood up and walked briskly across the floor with a big smile on his face.
“Jawohl comrades, mein kampf est der Führer’s.”
The troopers were so taken aback by the fool and his pidgin English that they forgot who and what they were for just a second or two. Enough time for Rockson to walk the thirty feet separating them. As he rushed toward them, they snapped out of their daze and reached for their submachine guns.
But a second or two is the difference between life or death in 2089 A.D. Rockson moved like a streak of lightning, diving right into the midst of them. As he landed, his right foot came up under the groin of the man in front of him, while his fists made contact with two faces. The men dropped to the ground stunned, as the Doomsday Warrior turned in a flash and shot out a kick to the stomach of the fourth who was just raising his sub in a sharp arc. The gun exploded as he fell backward vomiting. Rockson pulled himself out of the way, spinning backward in the opposite direction. The shrieking hail of .9 mm slugs bit into the wall across the room and raced up the side, catching the fifth guard, slicing him right up the center. From his balls up his stomach and chest to the top of his head. A sludge of his innards slopped out like a bloody tidal wave onto the carpeted floor.
He rushed past the sprawled Nazis and through the door they had been guarding. There she was, lying naked on the bed, covered by only the thinnest of silk sheets. Her large breasts were revealed as she sat up, her face grim, expecting the worst. Then she saw his face by the light reflecting in from the outer room.
“Rock—it’s you, oh God.”
She leaped from the bed, letting the sheet fall from her and ran to him wrapping her arms around him, pressing her breasts, her hips, her legs against his live body.
“Oh Rock, I felt your presence from the moment you arrived here and I ‘sent-out’ like you taught me—but I never received anything back. And when I saw you below, moving the bodies days ago, I saw you look at me, yet you didn’t seem to recognize me, and . . .”
She seemed about to burst into tears as she held the man she loved as tightly as a python around a rabbit. The toughest woman in C.C., a fighter who could take on the best of them, her heart melted in the safety and strength of Rockson’s arms.
“I know, Rona,” Rock said, pulling his head around so they were face to face. “I had a case of amnesia. Complete and total—from the blast. It wasn’t until the local bully in my barracks tried to do me in tonight—the bastard hit me with a goddamned hammer—that I came out of it. I suppose I owe him a favor in a way. Well maybe I did him one . . . Anyway, we’ve got to get the hell out of here. Some of the other slave workers are with me, they’re guarding the front entrance.”
“Slaves who will fight? I’ve never seen that before,” Rona said. She rushed back to her closet and slipped into a Nazi work uniform: khaki pants and shirt, and olive-green multi-pocketed commando jacket. Von Reisling had let her order them, having them of course, cleaned and perfumed first. She had ripped the emblems off.
“Well, I don’t know if these slaves can fight,” Rock said, “but they sure as hell seem willing to try. And that’s half the battle.”
They headed quickly out the door, Rona delivering a ripping front kick with the toe of her shoe to the one Nazi who seemed like he might be able to try and rise. He quickly joined the others with scarcely a groan. The two Freefighters grabbed subs and pistols from the guards and strapped on ammunition belts.
“It feels good to be packing again Rock,” Rona smiled at the Doomsday Warrior as they started back down the long circular stairway.
“No woman should be without one,” Rock shot back as they picked up speed.
“Goddamned right,” Rona answered, never one not to get the last word, taking two steps at a time behind him, “not when 5,000 Nazis want to worship you like a goddess one minute and rape you the next.”
They hit the bottom steps and tore into the street, guns at the ready in their upraised hands. Rock joined the free slaves who seemed somewhat upset. They pointed to the left, barely able to speak, edging back around him as if seeking protection. The Doomsday Warrior turned and looked at the five tanks and 100 German troops advancing on them in a huge column about 150 yards away.
The would-be freedom army looked at him desperately. He was the Rockson, surely he would come up with something.
“What we do?” a voice called from out of the crowd. “What we do?”
For the life of him, Rockson had no answer.
Twelve
“This way,” Rona yelled out as the group stood frozen still, like rabbits who await the approach of the wolf. “Move it!” She pointed back inside. “There’s some kind of tunnel,” she said. “I heard Von Reisling mention it once to one of his underlings. He was asking if the basement escape equipment was completed and the man said ‘yes’.”
Rock directed the free slaves, who had guns taken from the Nazis, to set up a line of fire on the advancing troops. They needed every second they could get. Rock and Rona tore around the main floor of the cylindrical tower searching for the hidden entrance.
“Here it is,” Rona cried out as she found a button that made a hidden wood paneled steel door slide open. They went down the stairs and found below the building’s electric and microwave power stations. Off to one side was a tunnel, only five feet in diameter, a perfectly round tube covered with a smooth shiny metal. Right at the mouth of the tunnel, which seemed to stretch on forever into the unlit darkness, sat a small tubular vehicle about six feet long. A cockpit sat atop it, which was open.
“Just in case he was ever late for lunch,” Rock said as Rona walked over to investigate it. The slaves began pouring down the stairway behind the Freefighters.
“Rockson! Rockson?” Lyons yelled, “they’re closing in. Our firepower isn’t stopping them anymore. Already six of us are shot. You must come.”
“Get the men down here. We’ll go through this tunnel here. Blow it up behind us. But fast, man. Fast.”
Lyons rushed back up and began herding the men down. Rock could hear the tank shells landing just outside as the damp cement floor below him shook with vibrations.
He turned back to Rona. “Does the thing work? Maybe we could—”
Before he could finish the sentence, Rona, who had been leaning forward on the side of the cigar-shaped shining aluminum/magnesium craft, lost her balance on an oil slick on the floor and fell into the contraption. As if programmed by computer, the curved cockpit dome snapped down into place, instantly sealing her in. The craft seemed to shake and then emitted a high-pitched whirring sound. Rockson saw that it was inching forward down the tunnel and with animal speed he leaped forward. If he could open the cockpit, maybe it would stop. Rona too was struggling to open it.
There didn’t appear to be any way. Now the thing took off. Like a snake striking, it settled down and just shot forward into the pitch black perfectly round tunnel. Rockson was knocked by the takeoff from his hold on the cockpit, but as he fell he reached out a hand and grabbed hold of a luggage rack on the very back. He flew behind the screaming, crackling steel cigar, hanging on for dea
r life.
The cylindrical craft seemed to accelerate every second, borne down the tunnel into which it fit perfectly by some kind of electrical charge which crackled with static around the edges. Rockson reached his other hand forward as well and hung on, gripping the steel shaft at the back with all his strength. The perfectly smooth edges of the tunnel created no friction against his clothes so he slid along effortlessly behind it. But the men back there—the men he had left! He felt torn with confusion. They needed him, yet so did Rona. And if he let go he might smash up and down on the walls like a ping-pong ball at such great speed. He’d have to hold on for now, and wait.
The tube buzzed like a steel bee through its hidden tunnel for about 25 seconds, covering a distance of nearly two miles. They came to a sudden but smooth stop at the other end of the tunnel, which opened into a dimly lit storage room of some kind. Rock jumped down onto the floor and tried to gain his balance as the ride had made him dizzy. The cockpit clicked and suddenly flew open and Rona emerged with a strange look on her face.
“What just happened?” she asked, “I think I missed something.”
“You fell into the Silver Express here,” Rock said, raising an eyebrow. “I went to grab you and . . .”
“Rock, all those men—they’re . . .”
From far off they could hear the reverberating sounds of explosions echoing down the tube.
“I’ve got to get back to them. Stay here.” The Doomsday Warrior jumped back into the craft and began pushing every button in sight as Rona looked on, not wanting to be left behind. But Rockson couldn’t get the craft to budge. Whatever instruction that had been programmed into it had also shut down its functioning systems.
“Damn,” Rock said, jumping out again. He slammed his hand against the side of the craft, which gave off a low gong-like sound.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said angrily. “See where we are.”
Rock headed for a door at the far end of what looked like a warehouse, filled with heavy industrial equipment and supplies. He opened it and looked about and gasped. It was the garbage dump where he had worked, or part of it which the slaves had never been allowed to enter. But there on the other side of a gate—the area for dumping corpses, the railroad car and the tracks which led off to the swamps. Suddenly he saw lights bobbing up and down coming down the road that led from the fortress itself. A dozen or more armored vehicles came streaming right toward the warehouse. They knew the other end of the tunnel and had sent men to bite down on whatever came out this end.
Rock’s battle strategies had gone awry rather quickly. He had been too anxious, he berated himself, to get to Rona, to see her. He should have thought things out more. Now all those men . . . it gave him a sickening feeling in his guts, a feeling he had never known before—of betrayal. They would have seen him going on the tube. They would think he had fled, a coward. That all his words about becoming men were lies. He shook his head in anger. Damn this fucking world. The way it twisted the plans of men.
But there wasn’t time to battle a full regiment of Nazi troops, as more and more light filled the road, making a solid line back to the fort. They were after him bad, whoever had organized the slave rebellion must be captured.
Rockson ducked his head back inside the warehouse and looked quickly around for anything they could use: a vehicle, a weapon. But just motors, and gear boxes, load reducers, recharged batteries, stood around in no particular order on the floors, and hanging by huge hooks from the walls. He noticed a float, an inflatable device of some kind on a shelf and walked over. A CO2 raft. He grabbed it and some rope and threw them over his shoulder.
“Come on, Sugar Pie,” he said to Rona who stood by the door checking the clip in the lifted German automatic rifle as the bouncing headlights drew closer, a thousand murderous eyes in the dark night.
“Where the hell are we going to go cruising out here?” Rona asked as Rockson pulled her into the darkness of the flat fields ahead.
“Going into the swamps. It’s the only place they won’t dare follow. We’ll hide inside, then come out and somehow get back to those men. I pray some are left.”
They rushed through the darkness following the railroad tracks that Rockson had gotten to know so well in his time here in Goerringrad. They had gone but half the distance when the far dawn began breaking through the thick clouded sky above. The great cumulus mountains took on deep electric purple tones as the sun reflected off their curving mile-high sides. The ground around the fleeing freefighters grew from black to gray and suddenly they could see everything. Could see the flat wet reed fields all around them, the tracks heading off to the foul swamps which lay ahead and behind them. The German attack force was closing in every second as the machine gunners in the lead AMRV opened up with a burst that traced a jagged line just yards away.
“Faster,” Rockson yelled. They flew toward the swamps, jumping right and left every second or two. Rock set the pace, with Rona following behind. They had practiced this style of avoidance running in the C.C. as all active Freefighters did and moved along with a perfect cadence, shifting, evading, but never slowing their charging stride.
At last they arrived. The thick green bubbling slime lay at their feet. Rock set the raft down and pulled the release valve on the CO2 cartridge. “Pray this thing doesn’t have a leak,” Rock said, “or we’ve got some major problems.”
The Germans were within a thousand feet and closing fast. Now a second armored car opened up with a hail of slugs that ripped into a large moss-covered boulder only yards from the two. The raft made a rasping sound and then suddenly was inflated, filling before their eyes in a matter of seconds. Rock picked it up and threw it down right at the green muck’s edge.
“Madam,” he said, letting his hand drop toward the slightly bobbing rubber craft.
“Are we really going out into this stuff?” she asked, looking quite unhappy about the idea. The rising sun was now a red pearl on the tongue of a far off mountain, illuminating the thick rippling green slime with a ghastly pinkish color. She had never seen anything so uninviting in her entire life.
“Oh Rock,” Rona said as she stepped gingerly into the tightly inflated six-foot by four-foot raft. “If I end up drowning in this green mud I’ll kill you.”
Rockson stepped in and kicked off from the bank. The raft lazily slid out into the thick green porridge, topped with dead leaves and vines fallen from surrounding mutated willows that stood in groups every twenty or thirty yards. “See, I even have a paddle,” Rock said, trying to reassure Rona, who sat at the bow staring ahead with horrified eyes at the mist-covered jungle of green muck ahead.
“That really makes me feel better, Rock. I want you to know that,” she answered, not turning around for fear that any movement might make the boat tip. Behind them the Germans roared toward the swamp, opening up with everything they had, even a few mini-cannons which sent thick blasts of slime splashing into the air around the raft. The swell rushed under the rocking raft but didn’t harm it. Rockson paddled like mad with the small wooden oar, sculling the boat from the back. At first the weight was hard to get going but after a few seconds he made the thing build up a little steam and they sped away from the shore.
Rockson spotted a thick series of groves of the large and thickly leaved swamp trees and headed for them. But the Nazis were closing in just yards from the swamp’s edge, pouring down a steady stream now from every damned thing that could spit lead. Rock veered the craft behind the closest grove, getting a little bit of cover. They couldn’t afford to have even one slug tear into the raft. The smell of the dank green oily liquid beneath them was nearly overpowering now that they were right out in the middle of it all. Rona kept feeling as if she was about to gag, preparing to lean out and contribute some of her own to the ocean of slime.
Bullets from the Germans rocketed around them, zinging into the trees in the way. The Nazi vehicles screamed to a halt right at the swamp’s edge. All but two, that is, which misjudged th
e amount of solid land left and flew right into the stuff. They instantly stuck in door high as the green liquid rose around them. The Nazis were preoccupied for a few seconds and Rockson took the opportunity to shoot forward in the open toward a second, much thicker grove of trees. He was just yards away when one of the officers looked up and directed fire. But it was too late. The raft whipped behind the high cover as tracers screamed vainly into the bubbles behind them. The mist closed around them.
“Damn. Damn you!” Von Reisling screamed, raising his fist at the departing prisoners. Just feet from the shore, two of his vehicles and nine of his best men were being sucked under to horrible deaths. Suddenly they were gone, straight down into the seemingly bottomless swamp.
“Do not think it is over,” Von Reisling screamed in broken English into the swamp which was now misting over with thick curtains of gray steam from the heat of the rising sun. “We will come after you—we will bomb you. You will not humiliate the Fourth Reich. That I promise you.”
With that he turned and entered his command car, ordering the others to stay behind and continue firing in the enemies’ last known direction for at least an hour. He drove off, back to camp, seething with fury. The man had created an insurrection, nearly a hundred slaves, who had all died or been recaptured. But worse—he had stolen the woman. The woman, Eva herself, was gone. He could not believe it! He had had her so close. The goddess herself in his grasp. And now gone. It was an ultimate tragedy. For a nationalistic, history-conscious Nazi like himself, it was tinged with a gothic melancholy. A great man had lost his perfect woman.
With the morning mist rising higher and thicker by the second Rockson took the opportunity to head further back into the swamp, to get even more islands of trees between them and the still-firing Germans. He didn’t need to have them get a “lucky” shot in. The Doomsday Warrior slowly paddled forward, Rona sitting up front, calling back directions every few seconds. The main thing was not to get snagged on a branch or sharp rock. There was something about riding an air raft in the center of a vast swamp that made one feel a little unsure about the future. Within minutes there was nothing but thick fog around them tinged with the pungent smell of the rotting swamp. Rockson couldn’t even see Rona at the far end of the raft only six feet away. He slowed almost to a crawl.
