by Ryder Stacy
One of the car roofs took a direct hit from a rocket, sending Ashton and Douglas and three of the Aussies flying off in a geyser of flame. They fell from the speeding train, hitting the grading and rolling end over end, bloody corpses, dead before they came to a stop. But there wasn’t time to mourn—not now. Rockson climbed down the steel ladder at the end of the third car and got on the intercom to Detroit and Chen, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Get it going back there—our firepower ain’t doing shit to these bastards.”
“We got it, man—just figured the fucking thing out,” Detroit yelled back over the constant explosions that were just barely missing the Silver Bullet and drawing closer by the second. “Just hold on a few more seconds, hold on.”
“We can’t hold on,” Rock yelled angrily, slamming the receiver back down and heading up to rejoin his men. If they were going to die, he would be with them, fighting down to the last breath in his body. Ten cars behind him, the hydraulic rods groaned as the roof of the attack car slowly opened up, parting in the middle and filling the floor where Detroit and Chen were standing with beams of light from the pasty cotton swab of a sun that slowly rose on the horizon. Each man stood in front of a battery of blinking lights and radar screens that beeped out screaming warnings of attack. Both Freefighters had spent hours perusing captured Russian weapons manuals—and what had seemed like a waste of precious time, was now about to pay off in spades. They lined up the nearest craft until the blue dots on their computerized attack systems were dead center of a series of concentric circles. The screen lit up with “Target Tracked—Fire At Will.” Both men pushed the bright red ignition buttons just below the radar grids, and the car shook with a violent roar as two Annihilator missiles flew up from their tubes straight into the air. The laser-guided missiles rose about two hundred feet and then turned on a dime, their afterburners clicking on, emitting a ten-foot tongue of flame from their tails. They shot forward at nearly 1,000 mph, right for the fleet of weaving death craft. The three-foot long Annihilators tore into the two helicopters that the Freefighters had sighted—guided by their computer systems—and sent them on a sudden detour to hell. They exploded out a rain of steaming hot metal and parts of human bodies that fell to the tracks just behind the Silver Bullet, coating the tracks red.
In the attack car, Chen and Detroit quickly sighted up another two—and then another. The tide of battle turned quickly as the chopper fleet dove like maddened birds, twisting and diving in every direction, trying to outrun the slivers of steel that mercilessly tracked them down. But the Reds had built their air defense systems well—after all, they had to protect the Russian brass that rode the Silver Bullet—and every missile that was fired found what it was seeking.
Atop the speeding cars, the Freefighters let out a collective roar as chopper after chopper exploded and fell to the tracks behind them. Maybe they would live after all. At last there was but one of the jet craft left, and it came swooping down on the train, just twenty feet above the ground, trying to avoid the missiles and firing every weapon it had at once. Chen pushed the firing button sending the final missile up through the roof and toward the attacker. The flame-spitting tube shot right into the spinning rotor of the chopper, decapitating the blades from the craft. The helicopter veered wildly like a drunken man trying to find his bearings and then plummeted down, out of control. It crashed into the tracks just ahead of the engine, exploding in black oily smoke. Reston, at the controls, saw it fall—and as his eyes widened in horror, saw the tracks lifted right up off the ground and thrown to the side. He slammed on the brakes, locking the wheels tight as the Silver Bullet came to a screeching stop just inches from the demolished rails. They weren’t going any further—this particular luxury tour was over.
The Freefighters scrambled down from their perches and quickly unloaded the ’brids and camels, bringing the hysterical animals down a wooden ramp. They loaded up their own equipment, tied President Langford, his eyes as dead as midnight shadows, atop one of the hybrids so he wouldn’t fall off, and headed off, leaving a trail of burning helicopter hulks for miles behind them. Within minutes, the predators that lived in the woods bordering the tracks came hesitantly out of the treeline, sniffing the air. It was thick, pungent with the scent of fresh blood—lots of it. They would all eat well today.
The Freefighter/Aussie force rode hellbent for leather through the thick woods ahead, wanting to get as far as possible from the wreckage before the Russians sent yet another armada to destroy them. Though on this day of destruction for the Russian Empire, Rockson somehow thought they might have had enough. They rode for hours, not daring to stop until they were twenty miles away from the rails, changing their trail a dozen times, losing themselves in the thick forests of what had been Maryland. But at last it was clear that, at least for the moment, they were safe. Rockson held his hand up and the Freefighters dismounted to let the ’brids rest for a few minutes. But the Aussies stayed atop their snorting beasts.
“Well, it looks like we’re going to be heading off now, Yanks,” Boyd said, nestled between his camel’s two bulbous humps. “We done what we came here for—helped you blokes out of a bloody bit of trouble, I dare say.”
“That you did,” Rock said, extending a hand up to shake with the Aussie leader. “But I thought you’d be coming back with us to Century City. We could use men like you. Whatever I said when we first met—I take it all back now. You ‘blokes’ are the equal of any man here.”
“We appreciate your words, Yank,” Boyd said, reaching behind him and lifting a Foster’s—which he popped the top from, taking a deep, satisfying swig. “But we’re almost out of brew, you know. No—we’ll be heading off. Give our services to ’ooever needs ’em—and who knows—maybe in our travels we’ll even find a whole buried warehouse of ale—a brewery, just waiting to feed its buried treasure to dry, thirsty lips.” The Aussies made their farewells, and headed off to the north, quickly vanishing among the trees until only the sounds of their snarling camels could be heard echoing through the dawn.
The Doomsday Warrior stood there for a moment, thinking of all the carnage of the past week. Then he sighed and turned to Kim, who had come up alongside him, and held her close to him. This round was won. But the fight would go on and on. Until the enemy was vanquished.
Until America was free once more.
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