by Ryder Stacy
The Technicians, with Lang leading up the twisting trails behind Ice Mountain, had traveled for days. Everything had gone wrong—from blinding sandstorms, to half the ’brids dying from lack of water. But they were here—and that was what mattered.
“These slopes have a ratio of incline-to-hybrid stability that is quite alarming,” Ullman said to Lang, as they at last reached the top of the peak that looked down on Century City, some two miles off.
“Sorry about that,” Lang said. “I’ll speak to the construction teams as soon as we’re home about building some superhighways up here.”
“I sense an equation of jocularity,” Ullman said, trying to smile, though his exhausted body could barely gather the energy to move his lips.
“Halt,” a voice screamed out at them from behind a tree. “Who goes there?” Ullman reached for his black beam pistol but Lang put his hand out and softly pushed the deadly weapon back.
“It’s Ok—it’s one of the good guys,” Lang said, his mismatched blue and violet eyes, like Rockson’s, twinkling with excitement at being home. “It’s Lang,” the young mutant said, holding his hands out to show he had no weapons. A face peered cautiously from around the tree trunk. “Remember me—Lang? I’m back with the expeditionary force sent to bring back the Technicians.” He swept his hand around him, to show that the race of mini-men was indeed with him. “Well, here we are. I must say I was expecting a more fitting welcome.’
“Jesus—Lang,” the guard said, stepping from behind the tree, as a dozen other faces in branches and concealed behind rocks lowered their weapons. “Where the hell have you been? Don’t you know we got a goddammed war going on around here?” He quickly told the returning freefighter and the Technicians who gathered around curiously what had occurred.
“Well, what happened?” Lang asked, his face draining of blood.
“We don’t know for sure yet,” the guard answered. “There’s wounded already coming back from Forrester Valley and—” his voice cracked—“they said it wasn’t going too good at all. Could have used your friends here though—I’ll tell you that. Too bad you’re so damned late.”
Lang’s eyes flashed with anger, mostly at himself—for not having arrived in time to make the crucial difference. “Fuck off, Parcells,” he said. “We did every damned thing we could to—”
His voice was cut off by the sudden screaming roar of six jets far overhead. Jets that were swooping down in a wide circle obviously preparing to strike.
“Holy shit,” Lang shouted. “Maybe we’re not too late after all. Ullman—deploy your men. There’s no time for setting up tripods or any of that shit. Just tell them to pull them out and start firing. Those are Red bombers—and I think I know what kind of cargo they’re carrying.”
“There is a sudden necessitation of destructive energy,” the leader of the Technicians said, addressing the rest of his race who stood around him in a circle. “Without proper mathematical coordinates we are requested to equate particle-beam energies necessary to terminate approaching air vehicles. Compute?”
“Compute,” the voices of the Technicians answered at once. They drew their pistols and unslung their black beam rifles, lying down on the rocky trail as the freefighter guards looked on in amazement. They sighted up the six jets, using the three triangular sights that stood on top of the smooth black barrels.
One after another of the small race of super geniuses pulled the triggers on their deadly weapons. Black beams, as dark as the darkest dream, shot out of the narrow muzzles and in a millionth of a second—traveling at the speed of light itself—slammed into the bombers, themselves moving at nearly two thousand five hundred mph. Most of the black funnels of energy missed, but one clipped the tail off the rear jet. It veered wildly out of control, spinning around like a drill and headed straight for the Rocky Mountain peaks below, exploding in a puff of fire.
“Destruction equals velocity of target divided by acceleration capability of attack force time skill of that which sets in motion,” Ullman bragged, turning his head to look up at Lang and the rest of the freefighters who watched, their jaws hanging open.
“Shoot, shoot,” Lang screamed. “Talk later.”
The black beams tore out of nearly thirty-five smooth plastic alloy barrels. They did not seem to fire so much as just suddenly be there—hanging in the air for miles like some sort of dark rainbow. The planes were fast and began taking evasive maneuvers as soon as the rear Ilyushin went down. The beams crisscrossed the sky, moving like searchlights as the Technicians, inexperienced in battle situations, tried to home in on the supersonic jets.
Two of the beams suddenly converged on the nose of Ilyushin just behind the leader. They sliced through the magnesium frame like knives, cutting the jet bomber cleanly in two. The two pieces flipped wildly, one of them slamming into another Ilyushin just behind it. The plane roared into a ball of blue fire, still moving at triple the speed of sound. The comet streaked in a wide arc far off in the snow-capped mountains.
“Three subtracted—three positive,” Ullman muttered under his breath. The three jets suddenly broke formation completely, two of them moving to the right and left, in sharp dives, their wings tilted at ninety-degree angles. The third continued straight ahead, coming in toward the Technicians and Ice Mountain.
“Don’t let them get away,” Lang yelled to the prone Techs. “If any of them drops its load—it could mean the death of thousands of freefighters.”
The Techncians—growing both excited at their successes in their very first firefight and terrified that they were going to miss those that were left—didn’t even take their fingers off the small triggers of their weapons. They just let the black beams search across the sky, desperately trying to make contact. Thirty-five beams of the most powerful energy ever known to man searching for three hurtling slivers of steel. Three of the black funnels reached the jet that had dropped to the left almost at the same instant. In a millionth of a second, there was nothing left of it—not even a puff of smoke. It was gone into God knew where.
Ullman, who was beginning to believe he and his people could actually shoot down real, living, firing enemies—could contribute to the freefighter’s battle for their very existence—was starting to feel pretty good. Why, it was all so absurdly simple. X = X. Unstoppable force against stoppable mass. He closed one eye and set the other looking down the row of sights until he had the jet that had dropped to the right lined up in the violet glow of the atomic-powered system. Then he squeezed the trigger softly. The beam shot out like a shark hungry for dinner and bit into the engine of the bomber. It ignited like a small volcano spewing out its entire loan of super-high-octane fuel in a single fiery burst. The burning hulk dropped slowly, spinning in blazing circles like a leaf on fire to the smashing rocks below.
“One left to compute,” Ullman screamed as loud as his small vocal cords could muster. The entire race of Technicians trained their awesome fire power on the single craft that hurtled toward them like a spear.
But Major Velinsky was piloting the final jet, and he had seen his share of fireflights—though none quite like this. He knew that only every bit of his experience and cunning would get him through. And he also knew that if he came back in defeat, the colonel would see that he died a horrible death. Velinsky had nothing to lose, and these are the most dangerous of men.
He dropped the Ilyushin down to tree level in a screaming dive and straightened out, heading toward the source of the black beams and—he assumed—Century City, at nearly three thousand mph. The tips of the wings glowed white-hot as he approached the limits of its structural endurance. He shot forward like a meteor, the after burner charring the tops of firs and pines in a trail of black. Soon, soon . . .
The Technicians saw the last jet drop like a stone and then lost sight of it. Their beams stopped for a moment, leaving the air suddenly bright and weirdly silent.
“Where the hell is he?” Lang muttered anxiously.
“What goes down—must com
e up,” Ullman said with a trace of a mocking smile as the mini-men strained their eyes, their fingers ready on the triggers for the sight of the supersonic jet. Suddenly it reappeared just over the rise of Ice Mountain. It reached the peak, clearing it by not more than twenty yards and immediately climbed straight up in the air.
“Eliminate, eliminate,” Ullman stuttered through parched lips. The beams of instant death shot out from every particle gun. They ripped through the air with a thundering roar, imploding the very atoms of oxygen and hydrogen that they passed through. Suddenly a glinting globe of steel dropped out from the vertically climbing Ilyushin and plummeted to the earth. It had barely hit the air when the ripping tubes of utter blackness found their target. The jet had had to slow slightly in its climb straight up to the heavens. The beams touched the fifty-foot-long hawklike jet at the same instant, destroying every atom within, as the steel and Fiberglas, the teeth and flesh of Major Velinsky all fused for an instant before evaporating into pure energy exploded out into the atmosphere. He would no longer have to fear the wrath of Killov.
“Six minus six equals zero,” Ullman said, holstering his black beam pistol as he rose.
“Down, down, all of you,” Lang screamed as he tore his eyes from the dropping globe. He grabbed Ullman under one arm and carried the Technician leader twenty feet where he dove behind a solid rock peak. Some of the Technicians, realizing something was wrong, followed suit, but many didn’t.
The air over Ice Mountain, some two miles off, was suddenly lit with the retina-burning, writhing hell of an atomic blast. Gamma rays, alpha and beta rays, shot out in every direction, burning every living thing they came in contact with to a black porridge. The very cell of the trees, animals and humans that the deadly radiation touched were fried to a watery ooze in the space of a millionth of a second. A mushroom cloud reached up toward the clouds as the second waves of heat and then sound followed close behind the deadly radiation. The Technicians who had made it to the rock covering slammed their hands over their ears, thin screams issued forth from their lips. Their brothers, still out in the open, had not been so lucky. They lay curled up—little fetal balls of black sculpture. Around the mountain rise, the Technicians’ black beam weapons lay melted, shriveled up in twisted shapes, nothing but dripping plastic.
The neutron bomb went off just a mile-and-a-half from Century City. One minute the people inside were going about their business, treating the first of the wounded coming back from the Battle of Forrester Valley, sending out more ammunition by hybrid team. The next, they were lying on the concrete floors of the subterranean world as the walls, the very mountain above the city, shook and trembled as if in the hands of a giant. Machinery and equipment fell over, crashing into useless pieces, the computers ignited from the electric pulses of the blast, flames shooting out of their screens. Throughout the city, the lights flickered for long seconds before the emergency system cut on. Shells in the Liberator factory ignited from the heat streaming right through the mountain’s two hundred feet of rock and set off an explosion that cracked half the walls of the city, setting numerous small fires. Throughout the multi-levels of C.C., horror stories unfolded as thousands met their deaths—crushed by falling equipment, trapped in rooms suddenly blazing with flames. The hydroponics tanks shattered from the initial blast of the bomb, their ten thousand nutrient-grown vegetables and fruits spewing out onto the floors followed by a cascade of water which shot down the lower halls. Everywhere was death, stalking the halls in dark bloody robes, as the city at last ceased shaking and the screaming began.
By dawn’s early light, the first of the returning, victorious forces came to the northern entrance to the city and stared in horror. The wide cave entrance was no more. The soil was black, hard on the surface. Whatever went off had sent an avalanche of rock and dust covering the entire base of the mountain beneath which C.C. was built. The American troops went from hidden entrance to hidden entrance, finding each one covered with tons of debris. They felt a ghastly feeling in the pits of their stomachs. They could survive even the heavy losses of the battle back there in the valley but if C.C. was gone . . .
At last—a small entrance, hardly large enough for a man to fit through. The freefighters frantically clawed away at the rubble in front of the narrow cavern until they had made an opening. They slid through one-by-one and ran down the corridor as it opened inside, dreading what they would find at the other end.
They emerged into the main debriefing chamber and found more devastation—the walls and ceilings had nearly collapsed, bodies lay strewn around the rock floor, decapitated, ripped open by the falling structure.
“Jesus God,” Detroit, one of the first inside, said as he tore into the main thoroughfare of the city. Dust and blankets of plastic coating that had covered the high cavern walls were everywhere. But the city still stood. Wounded, badly damaged—it was there. The thick rock walls of the mountain above had saved it. The freefighters made their way from level to level, helping the wounded, assessing damage. The top brass from civilian and military sectors of the city’s inhabitants held an emergency meeting as each detailed just what damage had been done in their portions of C.C.
It was bad—but it could have been a lot worse. All main power and life-support systems, including air filtration, were either undamaged or had already been repaired. Hydroponics was totalled. But basic nutrient stock and stockpilings of unassembled tanks were still functional. Shecter’s science labs were coated with at least two inches of dust and rock, and filled with overturned lab tables, but most of its equipment was still functioning. The gymnasium, the communal dining area and kitchens, and the library and video rooms were in shambles. In all, nearly a third of the city had been destroyed, a third suffered slight-to-moderate damage, and a third was unaffected. As the casualty figures poured in from messengers at the makeshift hospitals, it became clear that they hadn’t suffered losses as bad as it had at first appeared. About six hundred were dead, another thousand wounded, but most expected to live. It could have been worse—a lot worse.
Eighteen
Rockson waited on the northern peak until every last Nazi had exited Forrester Valley, until Dr. Shecter, who was in great pain—but would survive—and all the other wounded had been carted off to Century City. He was elated. The battle had gone well—try a miracle. The Glowers had kept the promise they had made to him when he had been in their camp months before. “If you ever need us—really need us—we will be there.” And they had. Seconds from complete annihilation and then . . . It was a miracle, a fucking miracle.
He stared out over the valley, filled with smoking ruins, tanks lying on their backs like bloated turtles, flames pouring from their cannons. The bodies of the countless dead Germans only visible from his mountain height by the bright blotches of scarlet that sat on each one as if to prove he was dead. The Nazi artillery units continued to send out random volleys of shells from far across the valley—covering their withdrawal and hoping to take a few more freefighter souls with them, on this day of death for Germany.
Suddenly Rock heard a sound behind him and turned, drawing his shotpistol.
“Rock, y-you’re alive. Thank God.” It was Rona, dirty, her white ski suit ripped to tatters. She threw her arms around him.
“Where the hell did you come fr—”
“We got the command center, Rock, then split in a Hitler chopper. Detroit took the team back to C.C. I got out—to look for you. I-I had to, Rock, I had the most horrible feeling.”
“Well I’m alive—and we won.” He put his strong arms around her and pressed her tightly against him.
“I know—the Glowers. I saw them when I was tramping through these damned woods looking for you. Had a few problems on the way.” She grinned, holding up bruised knuckles.
“They had more trouble than you, I’ll wager,” Rock said, kissing her. She let go of him and walked over to the edge of the peak, where Rock had commanded the battle from, and stared down hard, her eyes sweeping acro
ss the already foul-smelling graveyard of nearly seventy-five-thousand men. Flocks of buzzards and vultures flew from the surrounding towering rises, their immense dark wings filling the sky. They soared down in ever tighter circles amid the many fires below and fell onto the dead with a ravenous hunger, tearing at the once-in-a-lifetime feast.
“Rock, it’s so hor—” Rona turned to say. But her words were cut off as a battery of German artillery opened up from across the valley with a few more presents. The shells whistled across the great divide, digging into the upper slopes of the peak which Rona and Rock stood on.
“Rona!” Rock screamed as an arm-sized shell dug into the granite just feet below her. The female warrior was tossed into the air like a rag doll, landing hard just inches from the edge—and a hundred-foot drop. Rockson rushed over to her, grabbing her beneath both arms and gently lifting her. He carried her a few yards to a patch of soft moss and laid her carefully down. Her face was deeply gashed along the temple as blood seeped through her white ski suit from numerous small wounds.
“Rona, Rona,” he called out mentally. There was a weak, oh so weak answer. He lifted her head onto his lap and kissed her pale lips. She was alive but her wounds were bad.
“Rock,” she whispered.
“Don’t talk,” the Doomsday Warrior said, squeezing her closer, and trying to hide the deep fear in his eyes.
“Why not?” She half smiled. “Might as well tell y-you, Rock. You . . . are . . . my . . . love.”
