by Logan Jacobs
“I think you should take your tops off and dance,” I blurted out before I lost my nerve.
“Uh, what?” PoLarr sputtered.
“I’m still listening,” Tempest shrugged.
“We’ll set my wrist-chron, which I’m gonna use to detonate the plas-ex, for twenty seconds,” I explained as the idea solidified in my mind. “Then we’ll call the Sec-Men down here, you two dance topless to keep their attention, and when the door blows, they go with it. Two birds one stone.”
“Better than two girls one cup,” PoLarr said.
“What the hell is that?” Tempest asked.
“You do not want to know,” PoLarr answered and shivered. “What is wrong with you, Havak? Why is that in your head and now in my head?”
“Someone tricked me into watching it,” I almost dry heaved at the memory. “They were an asshole, and I punched them, but the damage to my innocent mind was already done.”
“You come from a very weird planet,” PoLarr said shook the memory from her head.
“Okay, I’m done,” Tempest stated as she squished the last little rope of plas-ex into the door frame.
“Great,” I said as I took my wrist-chron off. “You two get prepped while I set this up. Get sexy but, you know, not too naked. We need to move fast once that door is blown.”
“Is he always this demanding?” Tempest asked PoLarr as she shrugged out of her jacket.
“More or less,” PoLarr replied and winked at me while she unzipped her jumpsuit to the waist. “It works for him though.”
“Less talking more naked making,” I tossed over my shoulder as I slid the back of the wrist-chron out of the way. My improvised munitions mod, the one I’d ill-advisedly picked before a match in a jungle, fired up in my brain. As I looked at the little circuit boards and tiny wires that were the guts of the high-tech wrist-chron it was like a blueprint of the device popped up in my vision. Parts of the blueprint blinked in my brain and my fingers knew exactly what to do and flew nimbly over the complex components. I gently removed two thin wires from the guts of the casing and slid them into the roll of plas-ex in the doorframe. Then I gently placed the wrist-chron on the doorknob and set it to countdown from thirty seconds. “You guys ready?” I said and turned around.
I felt my mouth fall open and I gazed upon my two alliance mates on the other end of the cubicle. PoLarr had unzipped her jumpsuit to the top of her pubic area, in fact, I could just make out the little tuft of silky, white blonde, hair that poked out the top of her panties, and her small but spectacular breasts were pushed over the top of her bra. She stood with her back to the wall, her back slightly arched, and stared at me like she was fucking me with her eyes.
Tempest stood next to her, naked from the waist up, her shirt and jacket folded neatly at her feet. She also had her back to the wall with her hand stretched up over her head as she slithered and writhed. Her full, heavy, teardrop shaped breasts swayed seductively with her movements, and she gazed at me with animal lust.
“What do you think, big boy?” Tempest whispered, her voice low and husky.
“Yup, yup, yup, you guys are ready,” I muttered as I stood and poked my head into the little window. “Hey, fellas! Come check something out!”
The two Sec-Men at the end of the hall put down the guns they were messing with and rushed down to the door. They were pissed and clearly not used to their prisoners fucking with them. As they moved up close to the door to peer in the window, I pressed a button on the wrist chron and heard the small beep as it began to count down.
“Shut up, meat bag!” One of them yelled gruffly.
“Chik-Tillo don’t like his food to talk back,” the other one chuckled smugly. “Neither do we. Get away from the window!”
“Okay, okay,” I said and held up my hands. “Just thought you’d like a little appetizer.”
I moved away from the window and stepped back to the far side of the concrete cell.
Their eyes went wide as they gazed at the sexy show before their unbelieving eyes.
Tempest and PoLarr threw themselves into it with gusto. They gyrated to the beat of some unheard song like exotic dancers on a stage. It was such a good show that I felt a twinge of desire stir in myself and had to work very hard to shove it back down.
Now was not the time. I hoped there would be time later, but definitely not now. PoLarr’s hand slid down her taut stomach and disappeared under the black fabric of her lace panties while Tempest caressed her own breasts seductively, her fingers dancing over her hard nipples, teasing them.
The Sec-Men were mesmerized, their eyes wide as they drank in the display of overt sexuality and licked their oversized, cracked lips with saliva slick pink tongues.
I watched the makeshift detonator countdown. As it hit, the last three seconds it beeped once for each remaining second.
Beep.
“Cover!” I yelled to PoLarr and Tempest.
Beep.
They ducked down, their sexy show over in a second, as I covered them with my body. We all put our hands over our ears and opened our mouths so that the explosion wouldn’t blow out our eardrums.
Beep.
The boom was like being in the breach of a cannon, and it shook the walls. Dust covered us in a cloud of pulverized concrete.
I risked a quick glance and watched as the door ripped from its heavy hinges and became a tumbling steel scythe, propelled by the force of the explosion. A jagged piece of rebar pulled from the concrete hit one of the Sec-Men in the face, caved his head in like a rotten melon on a hot summer day, and chunks of bone and brain sprayed across the gray concrete like some gory Pollock painting.
The other Sec-Man got caught by the full force of the door as it flew a full twenty feet down the hallway, and then the edge caught the concrete floor, and it tumbled and spun the remaining twenty feet until it crashed into the stairwell at the far side of the hall. All that was left of the Sec-Man was a mangled skin bag full of broken bones that leaked green guts all over the stairs.
My alliance mates and I were in motion before the door came to a stop. PoLarr zipped up her jumpsuit and helped Tempest back into her shirt and jacket in a flash. We were through the door quickly and headed toward the table of guns that had miraculously remained standing.
I heard some shouting from the top of the stairwell as I slid to a halt by the table. PoLarr, her face a mask of payback unfulfilled, sprinted down the hall on her long, gazelle like legs, and hit the stairs two at a time.
I grabbed her Equalizers and tossed them to her as she flew up the stairs. She caught them by their polished, black wood grips, and an evil glint sparked from her brilliant blue eyes just before she disappeared on the first floor.
Then I heard the guns boom.
Tempest and I weren’t far behind. I holstered my own Equalizer then grabbed my Eradicator carbine and slung my chainsaw sword over my back. Tempest had her shotgun in one hand and PoLarr’s jetpack in the other. We nodded to each other and then bounded up the stairs like Butch and Sundance.
As we came through the stairwell doorway bullets tore into the wooden walls around us. PoLarr spun and twirled, her duster floating around her body like an angel’s wings as her Equalizers felled foe after foe.
There were ten Sec-Men crowded into the main floor of the saloon armed with various weapons. Some had crossbows, a few had old pistols, and two had automatic rifles. They didn’t stand a chance.
Tempest’s scattergun boomed from beside me and caught one of the Sec-Men in the groin. His mangled genitals splashed on the wall behind him as he fell to the ground, writhing in agony.
I dodged to the left and let loose several well timed three-round bursts from my Eradicator. The souped up .357 magnum rounds on steroids cut down two Sec-Men as if they were paper targets on a range.
Almost faster than the eye could track, PoLarr laid waste to the remaining three at point blank range. Their bodies, now with massive holes in them, crumpled like discarded puppets.
&nbs
p; Then there was nothing but silence and gunsmoke.
Without a word the three of us raced to the saloon's exit and peered out. Just as we hit the doorframe a massive explosion ripped through the shanty town, and we had to duck back from the heat. When I looked back out the door, the entire other side of the street was on fire. Various Sec-Men and what I assumed were the inhabitants of this cannibal haven ran through the dusty street in a panic.
“Marc! PoLarr! Do you copy?” Nova’s voice shouted in my ear over the suddenly very loud comm-link.
“Hey, Nova,” I responded as a smile burst on my face. I couldn’t help it. Her voice sounded like heaven. “Sorry we’re late to the party.”
“By Paladin’s honor, I’m going to kill you when I see you,” she replied, her voice full of relief.
“Hey, sugars,” Aurora drawled in my ear. Under her cool, sexy voice I could hear the relief in her as well. “Better late than never.”
“Where are you guys?” I asked, back in tactical combat mode. “We need to get out of this place. They like to eat people.”
“Yeah, we saw,” Nova’s voice shuddered. “The oil refinery is also a fucking slaughter house. We’re at the farthest storage tank trying to refill the Behemoth but we’ve attracted a little attention.”
“I’ve got us shielded,” Aurora grunted. “But I don’t know for how much longer.”
“Okay, hold on,” I snarled. “The calvary is on its way.”
Tempest handed PoLarr her jetpack and the Val’Keeyre slid into it like a second skin.
“Tempest,” I said and turned to her, “you and I are gonna sprint right down the middle of this fucking street and kill every motherfucker we see. Don’t stop until we get to the truck. PoLarr, rain hell from above.”
“With pleasure,” she smiled like a jungle predator.
We reloaded our weapons, nodded to each other, then charged out into the maelstrom of bullets, fire, and smoke.
PoLarr shot into the air, guns already spitting sweet death as Tempest and I burst from the doorway.
My finger squeezed the trigger again and again, sending streams of hot lead toward target after target as my legs chewed up the ground under my feet. Tempest and I ran like wicked wraiths and left a path of death in our wake. Her shotgun boomed buckshot at any unlucky Sec-Man or cannibal that got in our way.
Smoke and dust stung my eyes and burned in my lungs, but I shoved the pain away, and pushed it down into my trigger finger where it could lash out with fearsome firepower with devastating results.
Above us, PoLarr hung in the midday sun, backlit amid the purple sky, as vengeful as any Greek deity and twice as deadly. Her Equalizers sang a staccato symphony that lulled souls to sleep with high powered slugs of doom.
We were going to kill them all and let their gods, if they had any, sort them out.
In the space of two dozen heartbeats, we’d made our way down the quarter mile stretch of Everywhere’s main street and came upon the battle at the Behemoth.
Aurora stood atop the trailer, her arms held high, fingers folded into duel “devils horns” signs as streams of dark matter flowed from her hands to form a dome around the Behemoth. The shield was full of cracks, like a myriad of thin spiderwebs as Sec-Men concentrated their firepower.
Thadeeus directed the Sec-Men, waving them forward, encouraging them to aim at the point where the shield showed the most cracks.
Nova had a long hose pulled from one of the large storage tanks that they had pulled the truck up to shoved in the fuel filler neck. I watched as gas sprayed from the full tank, and she then pulled the hose to the back of the truck to refill our reserve tank. Her massive machine cannon hung from its sling on her back, but while she was busy trying to get as much gas into the truck as possible she couldn’t return fire.
“Hold on, guys,” I said into the comm-link. “We’re almost there.”
“Hurry, Marc,” Aurora panted. “I can’t sustain the shield much longer.”
“Nova!” I yelled in the comm. “That’s enough gas. Get up to the grenade launcher and give the Sec-Men something to be scared of.”
“With pleasure,” the Paladinian knight barked. I watched as she dropped the fuel hose, swung herself up to the top of the trailer with one yank of her powerful arms, and took the controls of the dual machine gun with over-under grenade launcher. Just as the shield began to flicker in and out of existence, Nova let loose with four rapid fire shots from the grenade gun.
The high-ex rounds landed amid a group of Sec-Men who had all gathered together, and they flew apart in a severed limb confetti explosion.
PoLarr dropped from the sky, her jet pack running on fumes, and landed next to Aurora just as the space vampire collapsed from exhaustion. Nova switched to the machine gun and began to send streams of tracer rounds in wide arcs from the top of the trailer. Sec-Men scattered despite Thadeeus’ screaming at them to hold their positions.
I brought the Eradicator up to my shoulder and pulled the trigger as soon as the red-dot laser sight settled over the thin, Sec-Chief’s skull. It exploded like a stomped grape. His bright yellow blood shot out from the ruined mess of his skull in a geyser that painted the dark sand in gore.
Once their leader’s body lay sprawled on the ground, the rest of the Sec-Men scattered to the wind, which left an open path for Tempest and I to run to the truck.
Twenty feet before we reached the Behemoth, a stream of liquid flame burned across our path and sent us sprawling to the dirt. I rolled and came up in a crouch as I spun to see where the flames had come from.
Ten yards away, Chik-Tillo sat atop some kind of modified earth moving vehicle behind the barrel of a massive flamethrower that dripped burning liquid fuel. The vehicle moved over the ground slowly on rusty tracks as the grotesque cannibal operated the controls. Spit flew from his worm like lips as he screamed in rage.
“I’ll suck the marrow from your bones!” He hollered manically and let loose another stream of flames.
“Tempest, go!” I yelled. “Start the truck and haul ass!”
“What about you?” the stubborn blue-green alien shot back at me and nearly got singed by the flames.
“Don’t worry about me,” I shouted. “I’m gonna serve that fat fuck dessert!”
I pulled the trigger on my machine gun. The bullets pinged all around the heat shield that Chik-Tillo sat behind, and he attempted to duck for cover.
Tempest used the opportunity to bolt for the truck. She dove into the open driver’s side door as Nova and PoLarr helped Aurora into the back seat. A second later I heard the throaty roar of the twin supercharged engines.
I didn’t get the chance to celebrate. Chik-Tillo spun the flamethrower toward me, and I barely dodged the stream of fire. It played across the bodies of several Sec-Men and set them ablaze. Oily smoke billowed from their corpses and filled the air with the sickly sweet smell of charred meat.
The scent sent Chik-Tillo into a rambling, muttering rage, and he began to spray fire in all directions. Soon the entire town was going to be up in flames. That’s when I realized that he’d positioned his flamethrower tank thingy right next to one of the huge fuel storage tanks.
I emptied the Equalizer at the cannibal then ran with all I had toward the Behemoth which was slowly pulling away from the fuel tanks. Flames licked at my heels and singed the hair on the back of my neck, but I willed my legs to move faster.
With a last burst of speed I jumped and grabbed hold of the open cab door. I pulled myself up and turned to face the burning shanty town.
“Floor it,” I told Tempest who was in the driver's seat.
She did, and the truck lurched forward. The flaming wreck of a town began to pull farther and farther away.
Chik-Tillo still screamed in his vehicle.
“I will feast on your entrails, mark my words!” He shouted after us. “I will sow the wind with your blood!”
Without conscious thought, I pulled my Equalizer from its holster in one smooth, swift, lighti
ng fast motion and held it extended in front of my face.
“Reap the whirlwind, you cannibal fuck,” I whispered and pulled the trigger.
The semi-jacketed hollow point bullet shot through the air at twelve hundred feet per second and hit Chik-Tillo right between the eyes. His head snapped back and then he gazed at me with lifeless, unblinking eyes while the bullet continued its journey through his brain, and out the back of his skull where it sparked off the side of the storage tank.
An orange fireball the size of a football field bloomed bright behind us. It expanded and quickly consumed the whole town, erasing the den of death and degradation from the face of the planet.
Smoke stung my eyes and filled my nostrils.
It smelled like victory.
Chapter Thirteen
We drove in the shadow created from the column of thick smoke the width of a football field as it billowed from the tens of thousands of gallons of fuel burning where the city of Everywhere used to stand. The tendrils of adrenaline slowly withdrew their static charged fingers from our nerves the farther and farther we got from the cannibal enclave that was now a literal hell on Earth.
“How’s Aurora?” I said and glanced behind me into the passenger compartment. The white-haired space vampire was laid out on the big bench seat bookended by Nova and PoLarr. Aurora’s pale blue geometric tattoos barely glowed.
“She’s almost completely drained,” Nova said with more than a hint of worry in her voice.
“By my best estimation,” PoLarr said as she looked out the window to gauge the position of the sun against our current direction. “We’re still half a day of hard driving away from the next checkpoint.”
“I don’t think she’ll make it that long,” Nova breathed. It was rare for so much emotion to seep through her stoic, feudal knight facade of fortitude.
“Well, then I’ll just let her drain some life force from me and that will be it,” I said forcefully. “Problem solved.”
“We all know that in this state, she won’t be able to stop herself if you get too close to giving every bit of your life force,” PoLarr pointed out.