DustOff Read online

  "You alone?" he asked.

  The first girl, all knees, elbows and a wiry mop of tousled hair piled on top of her too skinny head, nodded.

  The other two, another girl and boy trying harder to look dirtier than the first, followed her lead.

  Lt watched their heads bob like oversized balls on narrow springs.

  They looked harmless enough, but it depended on what they were trying to do.

  Follow him was one thing, but if they were acting as a distraction.

  "Warbucks, check our six," he said, eyes locked on the trio in front of him.

  "I don't have a timepiece," she told him.

  "Six o'clock," Lt sighed. "Check behind us."

  "It's called astern," she informed him.

  "I don't give a shit what you call it. Check it and tell me if we're clear."

  Annie tilted her head to spy on the other end of the bridge.

  "Nope," she answered.

  "Not clear?"

  "Not even close," she said.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see her standing up, hands lifted over her head in the universal sign of surrender.

  "Licks?" called to her.

  "We're human," a man's voice answered. "Take your gun off the kids."

  "I'm going to turn around," said Lt. "Hold your fire."

  "Hold," the man answered, but Lt didn't listen.

  He wasn't too concerned about it, to be truthful.

  If anyone decided to take shots at him, the armor would keep him safe.

  Annie was beside a big rock, and if the shooting started, he hoped she could duck down fast enough to avoid getting hit.

  Lt wanted to see what he was up against.

  He kept the blaster aimed at the three teens and turned to see two men standing at the far end of the bridge, a distance of four meters between them, both holding ancient lever action rifles.

  One was aimed at Lt, the other at Annie.

  He lowered his blaster.

  The odds were low of her being caught in a ricochet, but under direct fire?

  He didn't think she was fast enough to duck out of the path of a bullet.

  "Careful friend," Lt advised.

  "I'm not your friend," the man on the left said.

  He kept his gun trained on Lt.

  "You kids get out of the way. Go home."

  He had hard eyes the color of flint, worry lines etched in deep creases on his forehead and a permanent frown carved on his lips, bracketed by wrinkles that ran down from his nose to his chin in almost a straight line.

  He looked like a man who had not known laughter in his lifetime.

  The finger on the trigger was steady, Lt noted and the gun barrel didn't waver.

  "You probably want to be my friend," Lt said. "It'd turn out better for you that way."

  The man nodded his head like a chunk of granite sliding off the rockface of a mountain.

  Chin down to his chest and up again, as he considered the statement.

  His partner sent a pink tongue out across his chapped lips, made the circle before darting back in, and out again.

  "Maybe," the flint eyed man answered. "But you look like a hell of a lot of trouble."

  "Brother, you have no idea," Lt said.

  The man studied him more, not that there was much to see other than the armor, which he took a keen interest in.

  The eyes drank in the Suit, the blaster, then danced over to Annie in her jumpsuit.

  "Guess it's safe to say, you're not from around here."

  Lt shrugged, but it was lost on the man, hidden inside the armor.

  "Depends on where here is."

  "We don't have names on the map anymore," the man answered. "The Licks took care of all the named places."

  "And a few more besides," said Lt. "I'm in the business of paying them back for that."

  "How's that working out?"

  "Business is good," Lt grinned, still lost on the man but it must have shown in his voice.

  "We had a couple of young men who thought they might enjoy alien hunting," said the man. "A little payback. They're dead now."

  Lt nodded.

  "It happens. I've lost good men myself."

  "They were good men," the rifle didn't waver, but the finger came off the trigger and rested on the metal guard next to it.

  "I haven't seen one of those Suits since before the invasion. I thought they were lost."

  Lt glanced down at his armor.

  "We found 'em."

  "And is that a flight suit?"

  "From the Bezos," Annie pointed up.

  His hard eyes followed the direction of her finger as he glanced up into the blue sky.

  "All that was lost," he informed her.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but he beat her too it.

  "Guess you found it too."

  "He did."

  The eyes moved back and landed on Lt.

  "That what you're good at? Finding things that have been lost?"

  "Nope," said Lt. "I'm good at killing fucking Licks. I just got lucky finding better ways to do it."

  The man slid his eyes across both of them again, up and down her, then down and up Lt.

  When he was done, he lowered his gun, though kept it ready, and his partner followed his lead, as if some private communication passed between them.

  "Name's Ramirez," the man with flint colored eyes said. "Do you think you can help us find something?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Eli Ramirez was a pragmatic man.

  He walked six steps behind Annie on a narrow trail that he instructed Lt to follow.

  It was a useless instruction because the wiry haired girl had stayed behind when told to go home, hiding behind the trees just off the trail.

  When she saw the direction they were going, she took off.

  Lt just followed her.

  Eli held his rifle against his hip as he walked, prepared to blow a hole in the back of the woman's head if Lt did something he didn't like, and had shared the plan with both of them.

  "Don't do anything, okay?" Annie said in a tight grin.

  But her eyes were serious. Lt knew why.

  He's seen the glint in Eli's eyes, and the man looked like he meant what he said. Which Lt could appreciate.

  "Abe," he called back over his shoulder. "You taking us back to that Church?"

  Eli stutter stepped and recovered quick enough.

  "Name's Eli," he answered. "And how did you know about our camp?"

  "Passed it by," said Lt. "Left you good folks alone, and now you're out here at gunpoint dragging us back to it."

  "Why did he call me Abe?" Eli asked Annie.

  "It's his thing," she said. "He calls me Warbucks from Little Orphan Annie."

  "Does he know your real name?"

  "I don’t know," she shrugged and Eli could see her do it. "Hey Lt, do you know my real name?"

  "Warbucks are you kidding me? After all we've been through together? I've had women try to break my heart and break my nuts but none of them cared enough to crash me into the ground in a space ship. You never forget a woman's name after that."

  She shook her head.

  "See?" she said to Eli, as if that explained it.

  "You crashed?"

  "Yeah, Abe, we crashed hard. She plowed us into the ground like she was mad at it."

  "We were being shot at," she defended herself.

  "Don't let her fool you Abe, there was shooting. But you know, before the aliens took all the cars away, people would say things about woman drivers. Bad things. I can't say she wasn't trying to do her make up in the monitor as a mirror, cause I had my eyes shut tight. Crashing and all."

  Eli stared at the back of the helmeted head as they walked down the path.

  "I wasn't putting on make-up," she said. "We were coming in hot, under fire."

  "You don't have to make excuses for it Warbucks. I was there. We know what happened."

  "Why Abe?" Eli called out.

  "Caus
e you seem like an honest man," Lt said without turning.

  Eli nodded, and if Lt had turned, he might have seen the man stand up a little straighter, shoulders thrown back, spine erect.

  The Lt's assessment and subsequent dubbing of the nickname touched on a feeling Eli liked about himself. He liked to think he was honest.

  Honest in a world gone mad.

  "Don't let it bother you," said Annie.

  It didn't, but Eli didn't share that with her.

  They reached the edge of the trees and Lt stopped to wait for the wiry haired girl to make the metal building before he stepped into the sunlight.

  The people, men, women and children gathered on a call he didn't hear, the girl yelling perhaps, and lined up to watch their approach as Eli directed them around the crops and into the blacktop asphalt parking lot.

  Lt remembered something from his youth, a trip to a Church with his grandparents. The man on the pulpit gesticulating as he read from the Bible about Thou Shalt Not Judge.

  Cause he felt like the group watching them sure as hell was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lutz wished his looks could kill.

  "Hey Buddy," he caught the attention of the guard by the gate. "Shouldn't you be fighting Licks instead of, you know, holding us hostage?"

  "You're a prisoner, not a hostage," the guard snapped.

  "Yeah Lutz, weren't you just a prisoner?"

  "Shut up Crockett. I'm making a point."

  "Ignore that back-stabbing sack of shit, Lutz."

  "I'm trying to reason with him Babe."

  "You can't reason with someone with shit for brains," Babe stared at the guard.

  "Give me a reason," the Guard threatened.

  "I thought I just did," Babe waved him forward.

  But the man stayed behind the fence.

  "If I come in there, it won't be good for you."

  "Talk, talk," said Babe.

  "Babe, don't antagonize the man guarding us," said Crockett.

  Babe leaned back and stared at his squad mate and fellow prisoner.

  "Why not?"

  They were all locked inside their armor, a safety measure since a raised faceplate exposed their head to traditional gunshots.

  "What can he do about it?" Babe sneered.

  The guard had a traditional weapon, which didn't concern him. Chief did, though.

  The traitor stood just outside the fence, blaster in hand, and though it wasn't aimed at his former squad, it was the only thing that had a chance of stopping them.

  His faceplate was lowered too, hiding any expression he might have. Babe thought he looked like a statue and wondered if he could crack his head off like broken marble if he had a strong enough bat.

  He spied a man approaching, dragging Doc beside him by the collar of his shirt.

  Babe rolled up into a hunch, feet under him coiled like a spring.

  The guards might not be able to hurt the squad, but Doc didn’t enjoy the protection of the armor.

  Even before the man said anything, Doc knew what he meant to do.

  They stopped on the other side of Jake. The man pressed a pistil under Doc’s chin and lifted the whiskered, grizzled visage toward the blue sky.

  “Russel wants to speak with the leader,” the man said in a husky voice.

  Jake’s head turned, a statue finally moving. He regarded the man for a moment, then nodded.

  The blaster floated toward Babe, and motioned him to move.

  “We could rush them,” said Lutz.

  “You’ll kill the Doc,” said the man as he shoved the pistol in deep enough to earn a groan.

  “Hold,” Babe said. “Time’s not right.”

  The blaster bounced again, a second invitation for Babe to come out of the fenced enclosure.

  The squad leader stood up, held his hands low and marched toward the gate.

  The other guard opened the wire as he approached and shut it just as fast once he was through.

  “Lead the way, Chief. I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “Walk,” Jake said as the blaster trained on Babe’s back.

  Babe shrugged, but the movement was lost in the armor. He marched along the edge of the fence, headed for the large gate.

  “Tell that guy to lower his pistol or I’ll rip his arm off,” Babe said.

  Jake didn’t pass on the message, but Babe saw the hostage holder drop his pistol and step back from Doc all the same.

  He guessed the man was attached to his arm.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jake ushered Babe into the large canvas command tent to find Russel sitting alone in one of the camp chairs.

  His feet were up on another chair, holding a large clear bottle of water in his lap.

  "Wait in the corner," Russel ordered his son. "Make sure he doesn't try anything."

  Babe stood and waited.

  He didn't like having a blaster at his back, but he wasn't afraid of what the man.

  If he wanted the squad dead, he would have told Jake to shoot them in the enclosure.

  Or drag them off one by one into the woods and do it there to quell any chance of the others bum rushing the kid and getting an edge on him.

  "Son of a bitch," Babe muttered.

  "Quite a predicament," Russel nodded.

  "No," Babe corrected. "I just had a thought. We should have rushed Chief to take him out. We might have gotten one or two hurt, but without his blaster, you're helpless against us."

  "That just occurred to you?" Russel sat up, as if Babe might rush his son now and he would be trapped in the tent with the armored warrior if he won.

  "Just this second," Babe glanced over his shoulder.

  Jake lifted his blaster and aimed it straight at his squad mate.

  "Don't worry Chief, I'm not going to do it now."

  "Afraid to take me one on one," Jake finally spoke.

  "I'd whip your ass in a fair fight. We both know it. But that idiot you sent to get Doc had a twitchy finger. He hears blaster fire, he might pull the trigger and shit himself," Babe turned back to Russel. "I don't know in which order."

  "You don't like my men much," Russel mused.

  He sat back in the seat, still poised and tense, but he tried not to show it in front of Babe.

  "Don't take it personally asshole. I don't like many people. Especially collaborators. I hate collaborators."

  Russel snuffed and took a sip of the water.

  "Is that all you think I am?"

  "I heard the speech before," Babe said. "Doing what it takes to save the human race, blah, blah, blah. I've seen people fighting to save us."

  The contempt in his voice filled the room.

  "Mister, you're not one of them."

  Russel waved a hand to dismiss what he was saying.

  "Two sides of the same coin," he said. "We're both after the same end, just by different means."

  "Is that what you need to tell yourself to get to sleep."

  Russel glanced at his armored son in the corner by the door.

  "I don't sleep much. I don't have that luxury."

  "Try counting sheep," said Babe. "Or do the dead humans you sold out haunt your dreams too much."

  Russel took another sip.

  "I can see you're not going to be convinced."

  "Convinced Lt is coming back here to kick your ass and kill every last one of you? No need to convince me of that. That's a fact."

  Russel saw Jake flinch in his armor, but Babe must have heard him.

  "That's right Chief, he's not going to be too pleased with you either. I think I'd buy tickets to watch him peel you out of that armor."