The Ravagers Box Set: Episodes 1-3

by Alex Albrinck

  His eyes snapped open and he turned to his right, watching out the window as the massive concrete beam calved from the ceiling and fell, grazing the right side of the car. Mammoth reverberations shook the entire vehicle. Jamison didn't pay any attention. He'd survived and needed to get moving again. There was no time for fear, for wide-eyed contemplations of what might have been.

  He pushed both panels backward, disengaging the braking mechanism and slamming into a parked car behind him, then turning sharply left as he accelerated back in the direction he'd started. He made a sharp right hand turn and accelerated past parked cars, slamming through the rear bumper of one unfortunate vehicle attempting to leave its spot. Given the languid pace of the now damaged vehicle, Jamison doubted the driver knew of the impending carnage heading his way.

  He, however, knew that every delay in getting out precipitously increased the odds of the garage collapsing around him, crushing the car and exposing him to the Ravagers. It wasn't the outcome he'd choose. Escape the garage. Reach his final destination. Those were the only acceptable outcomes.

  Jamison shot past the ramp leading back to the fourth floor--which might not exist at this point--and accelerated into the right hand turn, wishing he'd been doing so while partaking in a ground car race. He tensed slightly as another rumbling sensation arrived, and he saw another tell-tale hairline fracture in a support beam overhead. He couldn't be trapped behind this one; there were no other paths out of the garage. He pushed the vehicle to a greater speed, figuring he'd accept any minor crashes on the far side as a necessary price to pay for getting past this latest potential impediment. He saw the shadow of the falling beam in his upper peripheral vision as his car scooted underneath. The beam fell behind him, a huge chunk of concrete of sufficient mass to generate a rush of air that pushed him forward. That unexpected burst of speed altered his timing, and he sideswiped several parked cars as he tried to make the sharp right hand turn to begin his descent on the next ramp. He increased the right hand turn angle and slowed the car's velocity to get away from the cars he'd damaged, and then accelerated down the ramp to the second floor.

  Getting closer...

  The next explosive vibrations came from his left. Another massive chunk of concrete splintered and fell, crushing a parked car. He noted another falling slab to his right in his peripheral vision. He wondered how long his luck would hold out; eventually, one of those chunks would land on him or in front of him. He had to get out of here, had to make certain Sheila had escaped, and then he'd explain everything to her.

  He hurtled into a sharp right hand turn once more and smashed into another car that had just exited its parking spot. He'd not seen the car past the corner and had no time to alter his course or speed. The force of the collision slammed the vehicle into a huge slab of concrete blocking the driving surface. Jamison watched as the life flashed out of the driver's eyes, and watched as the Ravagers started to fall through the gap in the ceiling like ash-colored snow. The car dissolved and they moved onto the driver. Mercifully, the woman felt nothing as the swarm of destructive miniature machines deconstructed her body bit by bit, absorbing the matter and using the raw materials to build more of themselves. Jamison hesitated for only a fractional second before throwing the ground car into reverse and crashing into other parked vehicles. He completed the turnaround and reversed course once more, pushing the panels fully forward. Two women exited the door from the stairwell, looks of fear upon their faces. They began running across the driving ramp, oblivious to the car hurtling toward them. One of them got across before Jamison's car reached them. The second didn't. The acceleration and mass of the vehicle crushed her bones and flung her body to the side, into and through the windshield of a parked car.

  Jamison paid her death little attention, instead accelerating into the left hand turn that took him down the straightaway, past more parked cars, and to the ramp he'd use to descend to the first floor. He'd become numb to the constant falling slabs of concrete at this point, registering each titanic flood of vibrations as nothing more than another data point urging him forward faster and faster. He passed more people running for their cars in an effort to escape the advancing swarm. Each stared after him in confusion when he'd fail to slow down or alter his course to avoid contact. More than one person didn't move out of the way in time.

  He reached the first floor and accelerated around the turn. He had to get down this final straightaway, around the corner, and down the final ramp to reach the exit. It would then be clear driving at full speed the rest of the way. Well, relatively clear.

  The thunderous vibrations reverberated through the floor of the car. Too close. He wouldn't make it this time.

  Jamison slammed both panels backward, spinning the tires in reverse to avoid impact before returning them to their neutral, braked position. It looked like a huge portion of the material once forming the upper three floors pancaked down before him. The dust from the impact nearly blinded him. He wasted little time wondering if he could get through that way. He slammed both panels down and the car hurtled straight back. He spun the car so it faced in his new target direction, using a parked car to aid the brakes in stopping him. He then pressed both panels fully forward, launching the car toward the opposite side of the garage.

  The hairline fractures began to appear in the concrete once more.

  Jamison knew he'd run out of time. He had mere seconds to get out of this building, or he'd be little more than a statistic in this madness, just another tally in the massive death toll. There was no time to try to get around to the exit ramp now; the building would be down long before he'd ever reach the ramp, long before he'd be able to leave that final ramp and hit the spur road.

  He had one final option, one he'd wanted to avoid. But desperation required he use that option.

  He reversed course and accelerated the car forward, back toward the three-stories-high pile of concrete he'd just avoided, manipulating the controls to perform a tire-screeching spin that had the rear of the car facing the concrete. He swiped three fingers down the side of the dash, and new images appeared. He cared about only one of those images.

  There it was. He'd not made a mistake. It was still there. Active. Primed for launch. A single small missile.

  Jamison tapped the image.

  The trunk of the car rose beyond his rear view mirror, but Jamison didn't need to watch to know that the missile launcher moved into position. He tapped the missile image repeatedly until he felt the recoil from the launch, watched the contrails of smoke form before the windshield. The smoke cleared quickly, and he watched the missile slice into and through the cars parked at the end of the straightaway before exploding.

  Jamison was already moving, panels fully forward. He couldn't wait until the smoke cleared. He'd just blown out what might be the final wall still standing in the entire garage, and knew the entire garage couldn't withstand the pressure strain long. Not with the Ravagers continuing their assault.

  The powerful engines accelerated the car down the straightaway and through the spot where the parked cars had been seconds earlier.

  The car continued, bursting through the cloud of smoke left by the missile, and then he felt the brief sensation of weightlessness as the car entered the open air. The cloud of smoke blocked his vision.

  It was probably just as well.

  He knew he'd likely land in a teeming mass of Ravagers.

  —————

  RODDY LIGHT

  —————

  RODDY TOOK A STEP BACKWARDS, staggered by Silver's words. “Sorry, sir. Did you say... set a course... straight up?”

  Silver looked bored. “Don't make me repeat myself, Light. You heard me.” The man's eyes narrowed. “Is there a... problem?”

  “Well, sir...” Roddy paused. “Yes, I did hear you. No problem. How high...?”

  “You'll know when to stop, Light. Keep going until then.”

  Roddy wasn't certain how to interpret the cryptic response. But he knew bett
er than to ask more questions. “Of course, sir.”

  Silver smirked. “Good boy. Dismissed.”

  Roddy spun on his heels and headed back to the cockpit, shut the door, and collapsed in his chair.

  What the hell was going on? What manner of insanity possessed Silver at this moment? His boss was a driven man, and as such engaged in frequent commercial trips to the various cityplexes scattered throughout the Western Alliance. His manner was best described as gruff and impersonal, but there was always a certain logic to his behavior.

  Now, though? Traveling out over the ocean and then demanding that they fly higher... indefinitely? Something was going on, and Roddy needed to figure out what, exactly, that might be. They'd not spent much time on altitudes in flight school, but one thing was made quite clear. If you flew too high, beyond a certain range, you were at risk of imminent and painful death.

  They were already near that maximum recommended altitude. And Silver wanted him to climb until... when, exactly?

  Perhaps just long enough to kill them all.

  Had Silver brought him along for some type of bizarre suicide attempt? Why involve his pilot if he wished to take his own life? And more importantly, why would he involve his own daughter?

  His mind flashed to Deirdre. Had Deirdre's meeting with her father prior to his arrival at Diasteel been some type of preemptive strategizing on her part? Had she realized he'd caught on to her infidelity and successfully pleaded her case with Oswald, perhaps suggesting that Roddy had been the unfaithful one? Had Silver finally been convinced and decided that he'd punish the man who'd reportedly hurt his daughter in the most permanent manner possible?

  He'd make sure he'd not go quietly. He checked the hidden knife sheaths under his left sleeve and right pant leg, just to be sure he was armed. The comforting weight of his sidearm required no secondary checks to ensure its availability.

  Then he took a deep breath and set a course to the maximum altitude allowed by the navigation system, confirming the need to override the safety thresholds when prompted by the flight computer.

  The horror stories from flight school flicked back through his mind. If one flew too high, the craft couldn't compensate for the differences in air pressure inside and outside the cabin. Even if the aircraft could, those traveling inside the cabin wouldn't be able to withstand the pressures experienced. Worse, if you went too high, you'd escape the gravitational bonds of the planet and float off into space. Nothing could bring you back.

  They followed that discussion up with instructions on activating the self-destruct sequences on the different aircraft. He'd considered it a rather macabre topic, but the instructors were adamant. Instant death was far better than suffering through the ordeals of above-threshold flight.

  Roddy swallowed. He decided that this must be either a punishment or a test. The only other possibility was that Oswald Silver had finally gone insane after decades of hard living. The damned fool was going to kill both of them.

  The craft's ascent slowed. His eyes flicked to the instrument panel. They were beyond the standard maximum altitude now, no doubt. Was that the sign? He felt as though something squeezed his head. This must be it, then. The end. The pressure inside the cabin was now too great for the pressure outside, and he'd succumb to a slow, painful death, just like they'd told him in flight class.

  He heard the sounds of the air pressure system working, and seconds later felt his ears pop. The relief was immediate. He felt... fine. Maybe the popping sensation was death, and he'd awakened in the afterlife foretold in the ancient religions?

  The numbers of the altimeter continued growing as the craft maintained its vertical flight path into the heavens. Roddy stared in horror. He should be dead. The craft ought to explode any second now. Would he have time to think of a way to talk sense into his employer and return the ship to Diasteel Headquarters before it was too late?

  If they made it back, he'd try to get Silver checked into a mental hospital for a thorough psychiatric evaluation. Silver likely owned or controlled every facility in the Lakeplex, though. He doubted the man would get an objective evaluation. They'd probably lock Roddy away instead.

  After another ten minutes, the pressure in his head built up to an uncomfortable degree again. The craft's ascent slowed once more and the pressure adjusted. His ears popped slightly, and he found that by pinching his nostrils and blowing, he could enhance the popping effect and reduce the pressure inside his head.

  After a few minutes, the craft continued its unceasing ascent.

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Something was wrong here.

  He sat up straighter. No, something wasn't wrong. Something was right.

  He slid around to the navigation computer. The system allowed him to set course for any spot on the planet using a coordinate system. That system operated in two dimensions, treating the spherical planet as a flat surface. With the correct coordinates, he could set course for a place even if he'd never been there before. The control system wouldn't allow him to program a course to an impossible coordinate set. The coordinate system used only positive numbers; if he tried entering a negative number, it would reject the input.

  In his experience, that was standard. No piece of equipment would permit operation outside its safe boundaries or with improper inputs. Many could, but it typically required significant, difficult manual overrides that pointed out the folly of the desired action. In each craft he'd flown while in Special Forces, he'd spun each craft up to a maximum altitude to familiarize himself with the dangers associated with such elevations. When he'd tried to go higher, though, the aircraft resisted. He couldn't slide the desired altitude reading higher than the safely allowable maximum, nor could he manually override the navigation computer by driving the ship himself. And this craft utilized the same navigation system and same design as the craft he'd flown in the past.

  Yet when he'd spun the altitude meter beyond the usual safe limits... it had let him. Yes, he'd needed to provide an override authorization. But it let him do that, and the craft flew past the upper threshold.

  More critically, the ship's navigation system knew that at specific altitude thresholds they'd need to stop and normalize pressures inside the cabin to match the changing pressures outside. Roddy hadn't needed to think about it or do anything about it, not that he'd been trained for flight at such extreme heights. The ship did.

  Which meant it had been programmed to do so.

  Which meant that it had been designed for flights to such dizzying reaches of the planet's atmosphere.

  Roddy felt his face tighten. Oswald Silver had been fully aware of that fact the entire time. He knew there was no risk. And if he knew, others must know as well. Why the secrecy, then? Why not let the pilots know that their craft could travel higher than previously communicated? Why not let the pilots know that their craft could handle the changing atmospheric conditions at extreme elevations?

  Roddy knew. He would have gone beyond the limit. So would the other pilots he knew, like Gambit. The trainers would know that as well. It could mean only one thing. They didn't want the pilots flying higher on their own for some reason.

  They were hiding something.

  He felt the anger rising in him, an inner reflection of the growing darkness around him. His visit with Oswald Silver would feature a new theme. He'd wanted to remind his boss of the dangers of traveling beyond the upper elevation threshold due to the risks the air pressure changes posed to the outer hull of the ship. He'd now voice his new concern. At their present speed, they were in danger of leaving the planet's field of gravitational influence. If they ran out of fuel inside that zone, he could still glide the craft back to the ground; gravity would provide the necessary force. But without gravity?

  They'd just float away and be lost. Forever.

  Roddy unstrapped his seatbelt, moved softly to his feet, and marched toward the cockpit door. He trotted down the wide metal circular staircase and into the main cabin. Oswald Silver, st
ill seated at his desk, looked up. He wore of a look of amused expectation on his face, a face which, curiously, looked much younger than it had during their previous encounter.

  Roddy stopped, slamming his foot down for effect, and swung his arm up to jab in the direction of his boss. He knew it was foolish to go on the verbal offensive against the most powerful man in the Western Alliance. But he didn't care. He'd not been given the full truth, and he knew it. He needed Oswald's attention. And it appeared that he'd gotten that attention.

  But his verbal tirade never started. As his foot completed its descent and his arm rose, he floated off the floor. Roddy felt a sense of shock and he froze, having no training in zero gravity environments. His momentum carried him into the cabin ceiling and he bounced off, grunting in surprise at the contact, and he careened wildly through the air.

  He managed to look at Oswald Silver as he spun in the air.

  Oswald Silver, lounged back in his desk chair and looking more sprightly than Roddy could ever remember, laughed.

  Roddy gritted his teeth.

  “I take it this is your virgin space flight, Light? Welcome to the joys of zero gravity.” Roddy rolled over in the air, trying to keep his face toward his boss, but he couldn't stop himself when he reached that point. Silver's face came into view with each roll. Roddy thought he might be sick, and not just because of the gleeful joy on the man's now youthful face.

  Silver's voice turned to one of annoyance. “Seriously, Light, this isn't play time. Get back to your chair. We should be reaching our destination soon.”

  “But...”

  Roddy paused. Now that he knew that the craft was meant to operate in zero gravity, he looked at the design of the cabin with new eyes. The extravagant wood trim running around the cabin, winding stairwell, and cockpit at waist height wasn't there for decoration after all. As he approached the far wall of the cabin, Roddy twisted slightly against his spin, halting his spinning momentum so that he approached the ceiling face up. He reached his hands out and “crawled” toward the wall, then used his hands and feet to “crawl” down the wall until he reached the wood trim. Silver whistled a tune he didn't recognize as he crawled along the walls like an insect. Roddy ignored him and inspected the trim. As he'd surmised, the trim featured a small hand rail. Roddy grabbed the rail and flipped himself over so that his feet were back on the ground--was there such a thing in a zero gravity environment?--and held himself upright as he walked around the perimeter of the room to the staircase and back to the cockpit.