Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) (34 page)

      The first thing Rick could see after the light faded was the astonished looks on the people’s faces when he and Pete stepped out of the bright light that had formed behind them.  There was nothing that could be said to those who didn’t know what a port was and very little point now to try.    Three men stood in front of Rick, four in front of Pete.  But, the distraction of the bright light was fleeting.  They were all under heavy assault.

      They had ported to the spot where the transmission had been made.  It was outside of the gas station, on the side of the building.  The collection of survivors, all various ages, all male, had barricaded themselves behind two old battered rusty cars.  These cars were at an angle to each other making a sort of V that they took shelter inside of while they fought off the attacking hordes.  The men were a mixture of Chamorro and Chinese and Japanese.  They were armed with various weapons from pistols to shotguns to one AK-47 and by the looks of them they had already held off several attacks.  They were dirty, bloodied and tired.   Pete quickly found his cousin and wasted no time keying his microphone.  He gathered everyone around him, ushering them closer to get ready for the port.   When it finally came, relief swept over him.  At least, they weren’t going to have to make their way back to the Pot.  It wasn’t that far, but it was full of spiders and termites along the way.  Now, they could get into the Pot and try to weather the storm, maybe rescue a few others.  Pete smiled at Rick, and then the light enveloped them.

      Rick waited for the customary time for the light to fade and his eyesight to return.  It didn’t take long. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he was getting more accustomed to porting.  He was unpleasantly surprised to find that he was still at the gas station with his three rescues looking dumbfounded at the empty spot where Pete and the four other men had just been standing.  They were gone.  He was still there.   “What the…!?”  He yelled.   The three men with him looked scared, and one of them shouted as a mass of reddish spines and hair came at them over the hood of the wrecked car.  He quickly fired the pistols in his hands, and the spider fell backward.  Rick didn’t have any time to figure out what had happened.  He flipped the safeties on his two M4s and leveled them at spiders starting to clamber up around them.  It’s go time.

      He fired both weapons over the hood of the car and bore down on the lead spider.  It exploded in a ball of goo.  The next one got a burst of 7.62 from the AK that the other man beside him was holding, forcing it backward and over the one behind it.  Then they all opened up on anything that moved.  Soon the number of spider corpses and parts had doubled in front of the car.  The wretched arachnids were squealing in their death throes as they poured the lead into them.  Eventually, so many bodies piled up in front of them that Rick couldn’t see the ones approaching from beyond the mass.  After several more bursts, it didn’t matter because they stopped their attack and withdrew, trying to find another way around this impenetrable wall.

        Pete, he thought, seriously.  What the crap?  He looked down nervously at the REAL-Pro 9000 strapped to his right wrist.  He never told me how to use it.  Great, that’s just great.  There were several buttons, a little screen, and one large button.  If I start pressing these things what’s going to happen?

       So far the spiders hadn’t flanked them.  They seemed to prefer head-on attacks even though they were racking up the casualties.  Rick looked around at their position, trying to look for weak spots.  The car they were behind was very neatly parked long ways against a corner of the building, allowing for a good solid defensive position.  But, Rick didn’t like the fact that they were at a gas station.  One wrong move and something was going to explode.  He would have preferred falling back to a safer position, either that or maybe Pete could come back.

      Another small wave of spiders began clawing their way over the pile, trying to work their way forward.  Rick let loose with another loud barrage, sending them scurrying backward.  Come on, Pete, he thought.

      In the distance, he could hear the almost steady sound of the gunfire coming from the Honey Pot.  Rick began to grow worried about his situation.  If something happened, something bad, and Pete found it impossible to get back, then he was stuck here with limited ammo and half a mile of distance between them.  In addition to this, he had no way of communicating with either Dennis or Pete. As he was contemplating his next move, an additional patrol of spiders started over the mound at them.  All four of them started shooting.  The younger guy stopped only to reload his gun.  Rick was trying to conserve his ammo.  He let out three round bursts.  After hitting a big red spider coming over the left of the mound, something caught his attention that made him stop and turn around. The side wall of the gas station was to their backs, but it was only about 15 feet high.  He looked up and saw what he most feared.  A whole host of spiders had managed to climb over the back wall of the station and make their way along the roof.  They had positioned themselves precisely over top of their prey, and they fell on all four men.  Rick instinctively opened fire upward, alerting the three other men to the danger.   But, they were too slow reacting and turned as the spiders fell.  The oldest man, the one standing on the far left, was hit first as the spider fell directly on him, sending him and his weapon flying backward onto the car trunk.  They made a loud thud as they both hit it, the spider quickly biting into its victim’s throat, sending blood flying in a long deep red spurt. 

     The second man screamed and dropped his gun, panic seizing him, and he turned to run.  He was cut down before he could take three steps.  Another spider fell on him and bit one leg off and then another.  Blood went in all directions as he screamed in agony.  The first man was already dead while the rest of the spiders descended on the two remaining defenders.  Rick tried to reposition his two guns but he only managed to get one burst out before a spider was on top of him.  He caught the six legged monster under the belly with a burst that caused it to curl instantly up in an agonized ball.  He kept pouring fire into it until he was sure it was dead.  But, one M4 was only clicking now, the magazine empty.  He tried to eject the magazine so he could flip it and slam home the full one but he was hit in the back by two spiders that sent him falling out of the protection of the wrecked cars onto the pavement, the M4 flying off to his left. This left the last man standing temporarily alone.  He was the youngest of them, probably 20 or 21.   He was set upon by both of the spiders at once and he was no match for their onslaught.  He didn’t make a sound as he collapsed under the two heaving bodies of the spiders and disappeared from view.  He died just as silently.  Rick quickly pushed himself up, holding onto his remaining M4.  He had to fall back quickly.  He instinctively made his way into the front office of the gas station, the front door having been torn down, trying to find a place of refuge.  He looked around quickly, but, he didn’t have time to react.  The spiders had soon discovered where he went and were starting to make their way toward the open doorway.  With his free hand, he reached for one of the fragmentation grenades hanging from his vest. He was quickly running out of options.  He pulled the pin out with the hand that was still firmly gripping the M4.  What was it?  Count 8 seconds and throw or 8 seconds till it exploded?  All those John Wayne war movies and he never paid attention.  He threw the grenade and simultaneously jumped behind the counter of the gas station.  He watched, as if in slow motion, as the grenade flew out into the air in a perfect little arc toward the open doorway.   Unfortunately, throwing was not one of his strong suits.  Accuracy was even further down on that scale.  The grenade glanced against the wooden doorframe of the old station and fell unceremoniously onto the concrete just outside in a sickening clunk.  Everything seemed to slow as if someone had pressed the slow motion switch on the universe’s remote control.  Both he and the spiders watched fascinated as this little round piece of metal rolled off the concrete and onto the asphalt.  And it rolled and it rolled……right under the gas pumps.  Rick’s eye’s opened wide as he tried to yell an expletive.  He started to run but at that very moment, a bright green light glowing from his wrist caught his attention and he remembered the REAL-Pro 9000.  There was a big red button backlit just below the small display screen that was glowing green.  Why not, he thought.  Without a free hand to push the button, he brought the device up to his forehead instead.  But, he didn’t activate it.  The third time he slammed it into his forehead it finally worked.  The grenade sitting perfectly under pump number two finally exploded and it shattered the big pane of glass in front of the station.  The explosion ignited the gas pumps and they went up next in a huge bright flash of orange, red and intense heat, and sound.   Fortunately, the bright green light of the port formed around him and enveloped him into nothingness.

      Pete exited the port light into the Honey Pot control room cursing and swearing.  The four men with him looked around in shock.  “What happened?!”  He yelled at Dennis.  His manager was looking up from one of the control consoles with the distinct air of a lost cause painted firmly in the dark lines of his face.  Before he could speak, the building heaved and dust and pieces of ceiling tile fell on them.

       “Boss, we’re at maximum.”  Dennis started.  “We’re draining everything.  I don’t have the extra power for another port.”

       Pete rushed over to the console, his face was twisted in anger and frustration.   The defensive fire had increased from the roof.  He could feel the building vibrating from the heavy strain.  Something had gone wrong.  “We got to get dem boys out of dere.  They’re trapped.”  He said, but the intensity of his words was useless.  Dennis was right.  The power output was pegging in the red.  Dennis didn’t say anything else.  He decided to escort the four men Pete had rescued downstairs to the shelters. 

     Pete could clearly see the guns were down to 15% ammunition but the spiders kept coming.  The shields were barely holding.  The output monitor was fluctuating badly.  The bugs were trying to overwhelm it in mass.  He had to find the power somewhere.  If he had to take something offline, just long enough to get them back.  He scanned his defense grid looking for that one thing to turn off.  His hand started toward the auxiliary power switches when the building suddenly shook again and more ceiling debris rained down around him.  Then the lights flickered, flickered again and then went dark as the main generators failed momentarily.  Pete stood in the darkness, as the emergency generators tried to kick in.  Red lights on the console in front of him began to blink erratically as power levels dropped suddenly.  The guns overhead fell silent.  The shield fluctuated as the reactor began to scramble.  The sudden change in power levels had sent it into an emergency shutdown.  The situation had just gone from real bad to catastrophic.  Finally, the back-up power switched in and the lights came back on, blinking overhead and not as bright as they had been.  The gauges and lights on the console blinked as well.  The guns overhead started firing and the shield stabilized.  They had temporarily regained defenses but the back-up power couldn’t keep the whole system going indefinitely.  He had to get the reactor back online.  It was already in shutdown mode, which meant he was going to have to wait for the rods to be completely cleared from the core before he could reinitiate the reactor.  And that process was a lengthy one.  The one thing they didn’t have was a lot of time.

        The loss of power was Dennis’s alert that he was needed and that the situation had gotten much more intense.  He left the four men standing in the lower hall with instructions on how to get to the shelters and then bolted back toward the control room.   He rounded the doorway to the control room just as the lights flickered back on.  Pete was standing there with his full concentration on the massive control panel.  Alarms were beginning to sound now.  “What happened?”  Dennis shouted.

       Pete looked up at him quickly.  “We lost de reactor.”  He simply said.

      Dennis looked at the monitors.  They were shaky now and grainy.  The spiders were climbing on top of each other.  They were almost as high as the roof now.  “We’re about to be overrun!”

       “I got dat, bra,” Pete said quietly.  His mind was in total focus now.  He had cleared every distraction.  He knew instantly what he had to do.  He had to buy time, time to get the reactor back up.  “Cut the guns, Dennis.”  He calmly said.  The main power to the gun mounts was on a junction box just to Dennis’s right.

      Dennis looked at him dumbfounded.  “What?”

     “The guns, bra.  Cut the power.  I need it.  I need all of it I can get.”  Pete switched a few things into the off position on the console.  Dennis reached over and pulled the big metal handle down and all power to the roof ceased.  The guns fell silent again.  Pete switched a few more things and then his wrinkled hand fell on the big red switch embedded on the right hand-side of the console.  There were two of them there.  Dennis suddenly realized what he was doing.  “I’m gonna trow des switches and buy us some time.  You get dat reactor back online.”  His hand was on the first power switch to the plasma guns, the last big defense in the Pot.  He turned the red switch and then turned the other.  The plasma rifles came to life and the last light show of the Honey Pot began.   

      The plasma cannons were special high-tech equipment procured from the boys at DARPA.  They were theoretical in principle, proto-typed in form and experimental only.  Pete had incorporated four of them on the roof defenses.  They were spectacular to watch.  They were massive mounts about the size of a car that could draw power, focus it and project it as a plasma beam for over two hundred yards.  The mounts were tied into the Pot’s targeting systems and could track or just sweep across a grid.  Anything the plasma touched it incinerated.  Now, the first beams swept out and down, frying hundreds of spiders as it swept along.  The blue light lit up the darkness in a weird glow.  When it reached its full, arc the beam ceased and the gun reset itself and prepared to fire again.  There was enough power in the whole system for four full shots and then, without the reactor, they would be defenseless.  But, hopefully, those four shots would kill enough to drive them back and buy them the needed time to get the reactor up.  Dennis was already preparing the rods for reactivation.