Old Man Maddington Page 4

  * * *

  The people that built the Space Platforms, which dotted the heavens of Earth, designed them to be virtually indestructible. They knew that to attack one, even with a sizable armada, would be suicide, for with the aid of the Earth Space Defense Fleet and ground-based defenses, well. . .it was nice knowin ya. Therefore, no one but the suicidally desperate would attack a Space Platform. Those inside one knew it, the Earth Space Defense Fleet knew it, hell, damned near everyone in the entire galaxy knew it. Therefore, NO ONE would attack one. NO ONE would have such a craving to meet their moldy ancestors.

  So when a small fleet of three tiny convoy escorts thrust its way out of netherspace, on a direct trajectory with Space Platform III, blazing at full throttle and complete radio silence, it's secure occupants laughed as they radioed for assistance. As if they needed it.

  The three tiny convoy escorts fanned out to form a three pronged attack, but instead of blasting away with their small blast cannons, and going into evasive maneuvers to avoid fire, and burning away from the Platform as fast as their ships would take them, and coming around for as many passes as they could before their idiocy could be casually wiped aside and pondered upon later, the ships made a dead bead for the Platform, with only minimal dodging.

  The ships took hits but did not return fire. It seemed all their guns' power was being pulled into the shields. Then they were in too close to hit, and their targets were clear; the three biggest gun emplacements. . .the surface of the cannons roared with the brief flames of escaping gas, but the station's dense shielding held.

  Six larger craft appeared as the three smaller ones did, and in pairs they headed for the same three targets, all shields, no guns, kamikaze. The Platform's gun emplacement shields were still mostly at full power. Two of the ships were destroyed before they could reach their targets, but the others managed to demolish one gun battery and severely injure another, the last gun remaining unscathed.

  Long moments passed. An ESDF task force arrived to secure the area. Twelve Gargantua-Class Battleboats, of a type not seen in over a hundred years, bullied their way through the task force's defensive screen. . .but these guns were firing. Randomly and at nothing in particular, but the task force took damage. Still, though, the ships barely maneuvered, pummeling their way toward the Platform, and nothing was stopping them. Three of the old Battleboats sustained heavy damage, and four of them were completely destroyed, but the rest made their way to kiss the Space Platform, and the Black Widow took her mate.

  The guys on the ground hadn't fired a single defensive missile, until the Space Platform began to make its slow decent Earthward. The void-black horizon became lit with defensive missiles and Matter Cannon fire, making dust of the possibility that the unnatural meteor might destroy a fair-sized town, when what would be left of the Platform, unfired upon, would lick the dirt.

  They would be more alert the next time -- and the test came sooner than they could hope.

  Space Platform V was the next target. When it called for backup, it didn't laugh. It was a smaller Platform than Platform III, and the horde of ships falling toward its bulk were shooting as they made their descent toward oblivion. More and more ships of the ESDF poured into the area, and at the last moment the invading fleet pulled off from its attack of the Platform, just out of gun range, and began to engage the ESD Fleet. Missiles from the world below began to systematically drop their targets before the defense fleet arrived, but a few of the missiles were shot down before they could find their mark.

  The invading force fought without skill. It was the best unmanned drones could manage to do, but they did their job well, as a diversion --

  The real attacking fleet, in a classic battle formation, tore out of netherspace, closer to Platform XII than was safe or sane, guns and shields at full power, Maddington's hovertruck at the forefront.

  "Yep, there she is, the fat bastard I saw in the sky the day I was arrested! She'll go down or we'll die tryin! It's too late to turn back now, you old fartknockers! We'll fight and die this day no matter what we do, so lets go kickin and screamin instead of rottin to death in the Old Folks Home or some Corporate Prison!" James Maddington screamed over the comm-speakers, his voice blaring for those hard of hearing. "Let's show 'em how helpless we are now!"

  "Hell yes! Hell fuck yes!" said old Henry with fire in his eyes as he made adjustments to his flight controls. "Teach these fuckers to cut my Social Security! This day all pigs die! Or enough of them to impress my woman! Fire that gun, bitch! Don't hold back!" He targeted one of the Platform's guns with his front cannons, and held the trigger down.

  "Get 'em Henry! Fuck 'em! Burn 'em! These fuckers 'll think about the next time they send a lady's children off to the Uranium mines because I couldn't pay their Goddamned Citizenship tax! They took my babies, Henry! They took my children and fuckin sterilized me! Um, Henry, how do I recharge my guns?"

  Henry chuckled as he dodged return fire from an ESD needleship. "Lolita, did you even hit anything?"

  "Hell yes, you stupid. . .oh shit, Henry, we're still transmittin! Sorry folks!" She smiled sweetly.

  "Uh, yeah. . ." said an old guy that looked like a dog eating peanut butter. "Shit! Front shields out -- " Static filled the air, and snapped dead.

  Three husks lay dead, and the platform seemed virtually undamaged.

  "Startin to wish I'd went to that vacation planet with the others," said Vocoder woman.

  "Ah, quit yer -- ssssrrrrrrrriiiiiicccccchhhhhh -- "

  "Red leader, this is Gold leader; the ground launchers, they've stopped," said an old man with a melodramatic personification.

  "Cut out the pseudo Star Wars crap, and concentrate on yer killin!" said an old man wearing a leather cowboy hat covered in bronze studs.

  "Goin in for a strafing run, commander, need somebody to back me up," Hector's voice cracked over the comm. "Some of those ships 've broken off from the diversion and are headed this way!"

  "No shit!" screamed Toothless.

  "Here I come!" Arnold yelled, wearing his new clean blue loincloth.

  The sleek needlecraft of the ESDF came into the battle in a "Flying Vee" formation, breaking off into pairs to engage the motley group of modified freighters, bulk cruisers, Battleboats, and other, smaller craft of the Old Folks Battle Fleet. A few of the Platform's guns had been knocked out, but along with a good number of remaining smaller ones, the main cannon spat out clump after clump of accelerated particles, and ship after ship fell into dead orbits, or burned up in the atmosphere after being smashed into ragged scrap.

  "Are we winning?" an old voice screeched.

  "I've got one on my ass!" cackled another.

  "Slow fucking convoy escorts. . ."

  "You youngins are gonna die sooner than ya expected!"

  "That sounds like an old man, Charlie!" yelled a shocked young female voice.

  "Sure does!" was Charlie's startled reply.

  "Who the fuck's talkin to the enemy?" Maddington asked "If they take control of your ship, don't come whinin to me about. . .shields dangerously weak, engine damaged," Jim Maddington said as he pulled out of his attack and drained his hovertruck's guns into his shields.

  "The battle goes badly, folks. Anybody who wants to retreat better do it now before that Terror-class Battleboat gets close enough to use haul-beams. Whoever wants to stay, regroup with me while we still have a small chance, and we'll go and take that damned Platform with us!"

  Half of the ships jerked their way out of the battle, and half of those were destroyed. A few made it into netherspace, to go back to the geriatric paradise of a lush, alien world. The rest stayed, to fight, and die the old way, the way of war.

  An old refurbished freighter was one of the first of the last to go.

  "That gun's still hittin us, Henry," said Lolita. "We gotta go take it out. Those ships 've pulled out and them ground missiles are startin to mow us down again. Oh Henry, what a wonderfully romantic way to go! I love y
ou Henry. . .always have." A tear rolled down the old woman's wrinkled cheek.

  "I know it, Lolita, I love you too!" Henry's smile was grim, and he resisted the overwhelming urge to take Lolita, the soul of his life, into his arms and crush her in his embrace for all time.

  "Keep hittin that gun Henry, and we may destroy this fucker yet," Maddington chimed in. "I'll cover ya!"

  "No use -- sssssssssccccchhhhh -- we're goin down -- vvvrrroobbbbssskkkk cccchhhhh -- takin that fuckin gun with us -- scccc -- thank you again for this opportunity, Jim. We -- scccccccrrrrrup!"

  The lovers' ship became an incandescent blue flame against the black backdrop as it streaked toward the huge matter cannon, that almost turned it's massive barrel their way in time -- too late, and the gun became a black char against the Platform's grey surface.

  "This is my last transmission," said Arnold, his ancient voice strangely subdued. "It is time, Jim; it is time. Goodbye Jim, Hector, Snaggle-toothed Janey. . .fair-haired Cara. . .Stephen, you no-toothed old cus. . .goodbye all. We shall win the day, and other words of triumph!"

  "What the hell?" someone muttered after Arnold's cryptic transmission ended abruptly.

  Arnold was flying a beat up hearse-ship he'd modified himself. Its dented black form could barely be seen in the pitch-darkness of space, the sun glinting off of its lacquered surface at a keen angle. His ship wove, twisted, dove like a hungry eagle, swooped and blasted, swooped and blasted. . .and the main hanger doors of the Platform -- which had, at the beginning of the battle disgorged its fighters and sent them off to do battle with drones -- began to slowly crawl open. Arnold's ship jetted for the open maw just as --

  "My god, my god! It's, it's. . .Arnold!" Hector said, stunned. What could have been, must have been the wispy spirit of Arnold, grown to the size of the Platform, fell toward the artificial gravity, his blue spectral arms raised to the heavens. He smiled. His hearse, a black bullet tearing the flesh of some elephantine heart, exploded somewhere within. Those who survived the destruction of Space Platform XII in escape pods, and those who would die in the moments following, would have sworn they heard the dim echoing laughter of a deep-pitched giant, as the Platform did a damned good impression of going supernova.

  "Cosmo," Jim whispered morosely.

  It was in that final moment of astonished bewilderment, both at what they had accomplished and the spectacle that had been Arnold, that the last remnant of those brave Old Folks from the Leisure Lodge Nursing Home, were, by the graciousness of the ESDF, sent on. . .

  His ship crippled, sputtering and jerking erratically as it fell limply to the Earth in a lazy spiral, old Jim Maddington managed to crash his hovertruck in the forested hills of the Colorado wilderness.

  * * *

  When the hovertruck was discovered, a note was found with it. It read, "Not yet, you grungy ticks on my ass. Come and find me. I'll be waitin! P.S: My dick needs to be kissed, tenderly. Will you do it for me?. . .wait, wait, you fuckers are pretty demented and probably wouldn't do it right anyway, so disregard that." A big smiley face was drawn on the bottom of the scrap of paper the note was written on. The smiley face's hand had its big middle finger stretched out, with little wiggling lines of motion drawn around it.

  The authorities followed a small exhaust trail for three days, finding at last an old abandoned hovercycle, exhausted of its fuel, with no sign or trail of the terrorist Jim Maddington. The engine was cold, but they knew they had him. The circle had been formed.

  The cordon tightened. They would have him soon enough.

  * * *

  Jim Maddington turned on his television, the small color portable he'd found in the dusty closet of the abandoned log cabin he used as his final recluse. He lit one of his last joints, inhaled deeply, and sat back with a sigh.

  ". . .authorities reported today that they are about to bring about the final chapter to the 'Mad Reaver Maddington' saga. But they've been saying that for weeks, and no one here at this news station believes they'll ever find the man responsible for destroying so much, in his evil reign of terror. James Robert Maddington, the man responsible for. . .

  Another simulated news jockey. I know they're close, they're finally telling the truth. The law telling the truth for once. . .ha! Those fuckers make enough noise in the woods to. . .there they go again. Do they think I'm deaf because I'm old? Do they think they sound like deer or something? I won't sit here waiting for 'em, to die like a dog in a cage at the Shelter. . .

  Maddington rose from his chair, ground out his joint in a black plastic ashtray, and loosened his guns, a blaster and a 45', in their holsters. He kicked open the tattered front door, and strolled casually outside. He knew he was dead. For that there 'd be no reprieve. He only hoped to take a few of those fuckers with him.

  A fat, eager cop was the first to die. He stumbled out from the underbrush, and a shot from the 45' cracked the man's skull open.

  A horde of armed others rushed from their meager shelter surrounding him, crack blast, crack crack plfoom. . . Jim Maddington's shredded remains hit the grassy sward almost gently. A balding man in camouflage came to stand over him, carrying the shotgun that had cut old Jim near in half, his head cocked in moronic curiosity.

  Old man Maddington's mouth made the motion of words, and the bald man leaned forward to hear what last words the dying old codger might whisper, so he could sell them to the tabloids, or make up something, whatever would make that money yo. . .

  "My. . ..my. . ." Jim whispered feebly.

  "Yes? Your what? Hurry up man, before you die!" said Baldy.

  "My ass. . .crack. . .itches. Will you. . .scratch it for me?" The blaster in his right hand came up to the bald man's temple with a last jolt of strength, and old Jim Maddington's last thoughts were happy as warm brains splattered in his laughing, dying face. . .