by Clay Moore
Spike was not as bewildered by the chaos that was happening around him as was Oliver. He did see a single card slowly drawing his weapon hoping that nobody would see him do so. Spike changed the pointing of his gun to that guard and shot him in the chest.
As if that was what was required to make the people see reason, the crowd screamed once more and ran out of the main room. What's most of the people were out of the main room Oliver and the men could hear the klaxon. A minute later the elevator cars hit the first floor and opened, and another rush of people ran for the exits.
Oliver gathered up his two men but the eye. He led them away from the main floor and used the stairs to go down to the first subbasement. They ran through the subbasement and towards the dock. When they hit the dock, Ike opened the two rear doors. I can Oliver rolled into the van. Spike entered the trailer and pulled the door shut. While he did that Oliver made his weapon safe and sat in the driver seat. Within a minute the van drove out of the employee parking lot.
Oliver took a few side roads and then stopped in the middle of a four-way stop to see that Unicorn one last time. Then without any further fanfare, he pulled the trigger on the controller and the first group went off he flipped to the second bomb group and pulled that trigger.
The response was deafening. Even as Oliver's rolled towards the Snake in the van, they could feel the thunder through the ground. As they continued to drive, they saw the golden dome of the Unicorn sag in the middle and then ultimately fail.
Anton watched as his new torturer did his work. It was blood he works, and it marked the technician with that distinctive red mark reserved for his kind of work. Anton was never really that much of an up-close killer. He preferred to hit someone with a blaster bolt from three or more meters away. It wasn't cowardice that kept him from getting closer. He just knew that he was not very good at hand-to-hand combat. He was better with a blaster.
In all of the four hours that Guranga worked on the agent, the only thing that Anton heard was a stiffening breath when an especially cruel and gruesome torture was applied by Guranga. What was keeping that man alive, and what was preventing him from talking? He asked those questions of Guranga.
"Only people who have hope can resist most tortures. If you like I can administer chemical inducements."
Anton really did not like Guranga. His high pitched voice grated against Anton's nerves. Guranga didn't see the need for personal hygiene even when he was not working. No matter his reputation Anton did not like to torture anyone. If you needed that person dead, he wanted them gone now, not after hours of torture.
Anton got out of his chair and approached the agent in his chair. He grabbed the agent's slick, black hair and pulled his head up. He turned to head so that the agent’s eyes looked at him. "Why do you —“
Without warning two explosions went off in sequence. Anton could tell when someone very competent at set off some demolitions. Then he heard a noise from the tortured agent. It was a gurgling noise coming from deep within his throat. The gurgling was made by blood trickling down his throat. Then Anton realized that that gurgling was laughter. This was what kept that agent alive.
Anton stood up and looked at his men. "Send someone to find out where that explosion happened! I want to know within five minutes."
I have been blind," said Anton with the emphasis on the word "Blind."
"What do you mean, sir?" Of course, Guranga would want to know what was happening. It could mean his life with Anton felt like it.
“That has to be what he was waiting for. That was what gave him the hope to resist your torture."
“That explosion? Should we evacuate?"
“I don't know. It all depends on what I hear from the report that I will get in a few more minutes."
“While we are waiting should I end that wretch’s life?"
"No. If what I think has happened then I have been outmaneuvered. This is the closest the new gang has come to me. I should turn everything over to number one and retire."
“No, sir. Please, not number one."
“It’s too late. Number one has been made my inheritor. All that I have will be his."
“Sir, I beg of you. Yes, no sense of honor like you do. He will run the organization for his own personal reasons. He will not run the organization to benefit all like you.”
“Perhaps that was how they found me. Perhaps I wasn't ruthless enough."
Anton said nothing. Further, he took his communicator out of his pocket and answered it. Anton listened to the report only making a few grunts. Then slowly he put the communicator back into his suit coat pocket.
"That explosion we heard was not just one explosion. It was a sequence of two explosions. The first explosion apparently knocked down or damaged the inner struts. The second explosion breached the storage tanks under the Unicorn. The resulting explosion was simply Radamite burning as fast as possible and sending a jet of 3000° straight up and to the sides."
"Has the unicorn been destroyed," asked Guranga.
“Five minutes after the explosion she collapsed. The Unicorn is no more.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Whoever did this was playing a game of chess with me. It turned out that I was the king in this match. The man in gray was the queen. Tell everyone Guranga that you all should evacuate, or make the best deal you can with whoever accomplish this feat."
“What about the agent?"
“If they get here in time to rescue him, then they deserve it. See your own disposition Guranga.”
Anton before he left the torture chamber he patted his clothes to make sure that he had all of his tools, including his 7.5 mm blaster pistol. Then, with his escort of guards, he went back to his office/apartments. At his office, he logged into the private computer terminal. He entered a sequence of commands. Then he ran into his apartment and grabbed the particular case that was carefully prepared for an escape.
He took the single elevator that had a fundamental requirement. The key was on his person, so it actually activated and took them down to the second floor with his guard. He went to a particular room that responded to the presence of his key. He entered the room and saw that the slide was still in place.
He turned around quickly and drew his blaster. Where he was going, he could not afford to take two stout men with him. They would breathe too much oxygen and overeat food. He put a blaster bolt into each of them. They were also stunned to say anything, except die.
John drove slowly through the construction areas around the Snake. The luxury grav-car floated on its Null Grav, as he meandered his way to the frontier StarPort where Hecton kept his personal starship. John had to hand it to Anton. Whenever he did a project, it always seemed to fit well within the economy of the world, or township. Anton was very good at meeting people and giving an excellent first impression. John was determined that he was going to drive that smarmy smile off of his face.
As he drove through the area known as Shaker Heights, the construction seemed to increase in pace. Anton was doing everything in his power to ensure that people could live near him, and want to live near him. This was to prevent someone from trying to drop a bomb on the Unicorn. Basically, he was setting up the people living around the Unicorn as a flesh and blood shield. John found a group of grav-cars of the construction workers. He drove his electric car in between two beats up grav-cars
John stepped out of his grav-car. He pulled out a uniform jacket that went with the uniform pants. The uniform jacket had goldtone buttons. It was overall khaki in color. The pants were also khaki in color, but they had a royal blue stripe running down the outside of the leg. John made sure that his shoulder holster was where it should be and could be seen. He brought along his communicator. John also tied a tie around his neck on the white shirt. He took out an extensive case that someone said was a catalog case. Civilian pilots who ferried people around carry that catalog case with all of his technological equipment to help him get them where the passengers wanted to go. Then
he added the topper to the uniform. He put on his head a khaki colored Peaked cap. There was one more thing that he needed to really make this costume right. From inside of the coat, he brought out a pair of sunglasses.
Snake Eyes belong to a star system in which the star was an orange color. It didn't have very much mass, so Snake Eyes was dim and in the 15 to 20°C range. The stars light was so faint that sunglasses were not required. John rather doubted that anyone would point that out to him. He was after all the pilot. And people would know that he was the pilot because of the clothing that he wore. That is the whole idea of hiding in plain sight.
John started walking into the Greenbelt that surrounded the Snake. There was a paved walkway that led into the Greenbelt. This had to be for the employees to leave the building. On his memorize diagram he wondered why there was something that looked like a white path through the forest. He asked if there might actually be a checkpoint for entry into and egress from the Greenbelt. He rather doubted that though. It would be better to have the inspection at the entryway into the make a casino. There would be no need to protect the personal shuttle from his own people. All that would be needed was a gentle sign pointing towards the mega-casino. Most people would not need to worry about what was on a branch. If they did, they would actually run into a guard who stood his watch near the personal starship.
John was ready for any guard that might be protecting Anton's personal shuttle. He had a needle gun in his right coat pocket. He was requested to keep the body count down by Oliver, and he would do that if he could.
No one was on the path. It seemed like John had the hall greenbelt to himself. Then he saw the trail branching to the right. It still kept on going to the make a casino, but the way to the right path was the way to Anton's personal shuttle. John started down that road. The past took a sharp curve to the left. As he walked around that bend, he could see the starship.
The starship was a triangular hull design. At the rear of the ship was an open hatch situated between two Radamite jets. From the free hatch came a ramp that people walked up to get into the starship. The ship was small. It didn't have the comforts of home. It was designed to get Anton out of Dodge as fast as possible. Standing to John's right by the ramp was a security guard. John looked intently at that guard to see if there were any precautions taken against needles. That was when he saw the neck guard and the combat armor. There was no other recourse.
John waved his left-hand hand at the guard, while he unbuttoned the uniform jacket with his right. John reached into that uniform jacket and pulled out his 12.5 mm heavy blaster pistol. It may have had its range shortened, but still hit with a mighty thump. Without skipping a beat, he continued to walk forward. When the guard realized that the man was coming to Adam with a drawn blaster, he fumbled around trying to get his own submachine blaster from its position across back into his hands for use.
John could see in the guard’s eyes the moment he decided that it was done or die. When that moment came, fear was evident in his eyes as well. John extended his right arm. He pointed at the chest with his blaster, and he pulled the trigger. The weapon bucked in his hand. 100 mg of ionized copper atoms burst from the barrel and struck the garden the chest. Because of the combat armor, the guard had a chance of surviving. Unfortunately, he was dealing with John, who understood the physics of defeating combat armor. John tried to make sure that his blaster bolt struck the combat armor at a 90° angle. Trying to hit a 90° angle is always going to be tough, so a little leeway on the pure perpendicular about 5° on either side of the perpendicular was built into the training about blasters.
The guard fell back when he was hit by the blaster bolt. Then he holstered the blaster pistol in his shoulder holster. He dropped the flight case and pick up the guards hands. He turned the guard into the shrubbery somewhat away from the personal starship. John walked back to where he is flight case was. He erased the heel marks created by the guard's boots. John picked up his flight case. Then he started up the ramp into Anton's starship. When he reached, almost the exact middle of the ramp and explosion could be heard. John looked in the direction of the blast and saw smoke rising from the golden roof of the Unicorn. Then before he could resume the walk up the ramp, there was a considerable roaring noise. Shooting through the top of the Unicorn was a jet of Radamite flame. This effect shook the ground. It was so violent that almost through John off of the ramp. As it was, he ended up on his ass on the slope.
Giggling like a schoolboy he took his time in standing up. Then he could hear the groans of metal beams buckling. The unicorn had so much glass in its structure that the sound of broken glass could be heard for kilometers. When he managed to get up on his feet, he could no longer see the Unicorn on the skyline. For a moment he wondered how many people were able to make it out of the Unicorn. Then he walked up the ramp.
John had never been inside of a personal starship before. He knew of several CEOs of corporations that had them in case he needed to leave somewhere quickly. The cockpit was open to the rest of the ship. That seemed typical of what the ship's mission was. Then he heard something somewhat unusual. A near-human voice was speaking to him in the personal starship.
“Attention intruder, if you intend to steal the starship you are not going to succeed. They required key is missing which will permit the ship to leave the ground."
There was no way that this ship had any internal weapon systems. That would be trusting his life to a computer system, and that was something that Anton Hecton just could not do. John walked quickly to the cockpit. He dropped his flight case in the area just behind the pilot's couch. Then John took out a red colored data stick. He inserted the data stick into the pilot's socket. Then he waited. During the wait, the computer was trying to warn him of the dire consequences of trying to steal the ship. Then it stopped in mid-warning.
“I think I had just enough of that program," said Rosie over the intercom.
“You didn’t transfer yourself did you?"
“Of course not. But I did have to be here temporarily shut all the security systems down. You can now fly this thing like you own it because you do. I saw that."
John was all smiles. He watched for the red light on the red data stick. When it went out, he pulled it out from the socket and put it back in his pocket. Then an intercom signal came from the Snake.
"Pilot!" That was Anton's voice all right.
John touched the intercom button and said, "yes, sir. What was that explosion?"
“Just don't worry about that. I need you to get that ship ready to go as soon as I'm aboard.”
"I take it that you are the only passenger for this trip."
“You have such a grasp of the obvious. I'm – in a bit of a hurry.”
"As soon as you hop aboard I'll get this crate off the ground."
John let up on the intercom button. Inwardly he was elated. Everything was occurring the way he planned it. John always did love it when a plan came together. Vivana used to complain that he would like to make love to his idea if that could be arranged. Her complaint was never much more than humor. She knew what he felt about her. He pretty much demonstrated every day of his life with her. And she reciprocated by loving him as far as she could every day of her life.
As part of the startup procedure, he had to get the ship operating on its own internal power. Just like every starship in space, the two-star jets were its inner power. The problem with that is at the start chance gulp down fuel unnecessarily. On all starships, there were at least one or smaller Radamite jet engines that offered little to no thrust but had sufficient power generation to start up the two Radamite engines and to run everything inside of the ship until those Radamite jet engines were running. The auxiliary power units had to be started up from the internal power batteries. This, however, was not going to be a frontier start-up of the starship. The starship was plugged into shore power, shore atmosphere, and shore fuel supply. He would not have to utilize the internal amount. All he had to do was to push the bu
tton. On the Eagle, he knew where that button was almost by feel. Of over 125 years of small craft construction, the controls on just about every single ship were in the same spot. On the ego, it was above him with his left hand, and he can use his thumb. On Anton's personal starship it was in the exact same position. John pressed that button with his left side and held it down. He was listening for the change in the engine which would tell him that the driver had caught.