End Game

I remember when my father first took me driving. The blood seemed to drain from his face and he gritted his teeth each time we just missed another car. Claimed that he was going to drop a load each time we almost ran through a red light. Puh. I was sixteen then. I'm twenty-nine now, and if my old man ever rode in the seat next to me, he'd need a diaper.

Then again, few people alive wouldn't need one. Makes me wonder how many tough guys out there would flinch at driving a space tank 250 mph on the surface of another planet – knowing that a crash meant explosive decompression; that the only chance of surviving is for you to go faster through terrain you've never seen before. Or how many could handle fighting a sadistic alien species chasing you from planet to planet. Heh, maybe I oughta get a diaper. But there's no time for that.

We've been fighting this war for near on three years now, and it's finally come down to this. Five hours ago, I took a squad of my best men, loaded them into the best equipment we had left, and marched straight into the jaws of hell. We were supposed to take out some alien factory that the Colonel had reconned a few weeks back. It'd been on the schedule for days, but those damned aliens kept poppin' up in other places, keepin' us busy.

Just like a Tatrion. They reveled in our pain, the suffering of the troops. Had we had more men, we could have marched in there and destroyed the factory weeks ago. Lady luck just wasn't with us that day, I guess. For that matter, she'd been plying her wares elsewhere most of the days between then and now. When we finally mustered the forces, got out to the site and took out the factory, the creatures had another unpleasant surprised for us.

Turns out those – things – were tapping the planet's core for energy. By blowing up the factories, we'd unwittingly loosed a chain reaction that was causing planetwide tremors. That wouldn't have been so bad, 'cept whole parts of the planet started suddenly breaking apart and shifting. Took out one of our reserve bases in a matter of minutes. And it wasn't finished. Even hovering vehicles need something to hover over. No ground, no hover.

Colonel Jameson called for a full evacuation of Chorane, and I was sure as hell happy at the idea of getting off this planet.

"That's the last scrap scavenger, Commander," one of my sergeants informed me, "we're ready to move out."

"Get to the dust off point, and launch immediately," I said, "we'll meet you at the space rendezvous."

"Yes, sir!" came his smart response.

I watched the lumbering production unit pack up its terrain hooks and engage the primary hoverdrive. Still amazes me how that elephant floats sometimes. I remember hearing the engineers argue back and forth about the issues of magnetic resonance strips versus circular antigrav panels. The conversation was so far out of my league that I felt brain bleeding out of my ear. All they had to do was make the damn thing work, and, after the Colonel gave them a tongue lashing over their arrogance, it did. The thought brought a small smile to my face as the hulking scrap factory took off toward the launch pad at a steady clip.

"Falcon 5 and 6, take up a defensive position by the Pro unit and make sure it gets where it's supposed to get."

"Aye, sir!"

I watched the other two space tanks bolt after the massive machine, the long barrels of their Pulse Cannons bobbing up and down with each hump in the ground. I looked at the scarred and dented hides of the war vehicles and shook my head. They were signs of the ridiculous battles we'd had to endure. The minor dings reminded me of the assault on the moons of Jupiter, where we'd been so effective that thought we'd be home for Christmas. Sear marks along the undersides evoked the unpalatable image of the slaughter on Mercury. Turns out the space tanks hadn't been so well adapted to the heat, and we lost just as many from overheating as we did from Tatrion attacks. The 'Searing Sands', we called it; you couldn't last five minutes outside of a vehicle without your life support packs going down and cooking you in the process. I still think it was ridiculous, trying to mount a full-scale assault on a base that we'd never seen. Then again, I'm only a Commander in this outfit. If I had been higher ranked, I guess I would have the gift of divine intervention to see areas without sending recon. No time for bitterness now. There was more packing up to do.

"Falcon 4, pack up the nav camera here and prepare to move out."

My communications panel crackled. "Falcon Leader, this is Colonel Jameson."

"This is Falcon Leader," I responded, "go ahead."

"I'm sorry to do this to you, Commander, but a situation has developed."

Damn.

"Talk to me," I said, watching the mechanical arms of the other space tank expertly dismantle the nav camera and begin the long journey back.

"Final recon has discovered that the Tatrions have built a launch pad, and are preparing to blast off from the planet. We can't let them escape, or their next target could very well be Earth."

Time to play the hero again. "What's the mission?"

"You are to get to their launch pad and disable it as quickly as possible. Word has it that there will be minimal resistance, but you only have about two hours before we have to launch the convoy."

"Sir, I've already dismissed Falcon 5 and 6 to protect our production unit. Falcon 4 is well en route. I've only got two wings, to complete this mission."

"Then I hope that they are the best you have." His brief sigh on the other end burned my backside. We'd kept a running tally on how many times the Colonel would do something melodramatic in a pitiful attempt to make us think he actually cared about our lives. No. I've seen too many of my friends left to die for that crap to work on me. Not that it would save me from the job I had ahead. "We're sending the coordinates to your computer now. The timing will be close. We'll wait for as long as possible but cannot stay any longer if we're going to get out of range when this planet goes up."

Goes up. I guess that's a nice way of describing what happens when the core suddenly decides it wants to be on the outside. "Yes, sir, we're on it."

"We're ready to move, Falcon Leader," came the voice from one of the two tanks next to me, "just say the word and we'll be to the dust off point."

"We're not going yet, Reggie," I said, trying to sound confident, "the Colonel has one last mission for us before we get some off time."

"I'm sorry Falcon Leader, I think my equipment is malfunctioning. Did you just say—"

"You heard me Rege. We go fight. We go home. Chorane go boom. I'm hoping to keep it in that order."
Casey jumped into the conversation. Relatively good pilot, considering that he'd managed to live this long. He wrangled a medal of bravery back on Mercury that put him on the high list with command. What they didn't know was that he earned it while hot-dogging on patrol and just happened to save the last remnants of a strike team by sheer luck. "Sir, I don't know if you've noticed, but the planet is going up. If we don't get going soon—" In my heart of hearts, I'd feel little panic if he were to spontaneously combust.

"I'm well aware of that, Falcon 3," I said, "but if we don't succeed, then no one is going to get any shore leave." I started plugging in orders to my command uplink. "I'm sending you two the coordinates to our objective, a launch pad the Tatrions have built to get off the planet. Our orders are to infiltrate and destroy this launch pad, stranding them here."

"With all due respect, sir," Reggie said, "that time schedule looks too tight for comfort. My computer clock is telling me that it's going to take somewhere between forty and fifty minutes to get there under ideal circumstances. With all this bouncing around we're going to shake our vehicles apart."

"We're going to have to overdrive it," I responded, a lot calmer than I felt, "and we're getting underway now." I paused, an inadvertent action that let precious seconds tick from our collective life clocks. "If you don't want to go on this mission, then I understand. Just turn your ship and don't look back."

As ballsy as that sounded, I was wishing that it was me that could turn and go back. My blinking panels sung a tune as another gas vent opened up thirty feet to my rear. The damn things were coming faster and faster now, and there was no time to waste. I spun the space tank on its invisible heel and stepped on the accelerator, letting the G force press me into the seat. My rearview monitor showed exactly what I expected and I accessed the communications net again. "Thanks, Rege."

"We didn't fight all this time for me to chicken out on you now, Commander."

"Looks like Casey wasn't up for it this time." I said without inflection.

"It's just you and me, savin' the galaxy." Reggie responded.

I opened a control panel next to my drive console. Inside the dingy compartment sat an offensive orange button, conspicuously marked overdrive. I tried to swallow, knowing that the last ones who tried this weren't left alive to tell the tale. Rematul's heat did quite the number on the engines, and the overdrive just finished the job. The idea of exploding before I got underway didn't sit well with me for an approach. I closed the container. "We're gonna have to get there on full throttle. Save the overdrive for egress."

"Gotcha, Commander. Going to full throttle now."

Chorane, for all its gaseous belches and unpredictable weather patterns, was the best planet we'd encountered yet. I wasn't love struck by Venus's dense atmosphere and lightning storms, and I'd have gone to war with anyone just to get off Mars. Chorane looked like one of those places that I used to read about in science fiction as a kid. There was no life on the surface, but the filmy green layer of nitrogenous space waste almost looked like grass in contrast to the rugged brown peaks and valleys. The atmosphere was a little thicker than Earth's moon. Saturn loomed a scant few hundred thousand miles away, reflecting plenty of light to the surface. Heh, it almost looked welcoming, if it wasn't zooming by at such a high speed.
Reggie and I raced across the surface as fast as we could go. Our space tanks strained as we pressed along, fractional gravity aiding our progress. We were making record time – if anyone was going to keep a record – we bounced and slid our tanks around rocky obstacles while skirting noxious clouds of acid. A short 50 minutes later, we arrived within combat range.

"Falcon 2, switch to combat mode and cover me."

"Sir! Incoming Tatrion fighters at 2 o'clock!"

"Stay calm, how many?"

"Uhh, 2. But it doesn't look like they see us yet!"

I angled to take a look. Yep, those were them alright. Two of 'em. They had obnoxious ovular vessels with a flexible whip-like tails holding the propulsion equipment. Strange flecks of blue and red arced along the smooth middle before coming to a halt right by a confounding array of external equipment. It'd have taken a hundred engineers with a hundred hammers a thousand years just to figure out how the stuff worked. But I didn't care. All I knew was that they were just as vulnerable to explosive decompression as I was.

"You take the one on the right, I've got the left one!" I said, flipping into battle mode. I heard the automatic loading sequence begin above me as the chamber charged the pulse shell. I didn't wait for the ready signal before I opened fire. By this point, combat was clockwork for me, and there was no hesitation. A few short seconds later, it was over. The Tatrions hadn't even gotten off a shot.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo!" Reggie yelled, "Attack successful!"

"Keep your head, Falcon 2," I said. "Proceed on to the primary target."

We found the launch pad in short order and loaded up our tactical nukes. The Tatrions set up their launch bay at the end of a torturous gorge, forcing us to weave our way around the rumbling passage to get there. Reverberations from the shuddering planet caused my seat to quake with unnerving frequency. These things are a pretty smooth ride, but there were times it felt like we were being dragged across a serrate edge on our bellies. Three volleys later, all that was left of the Tatrion launch pad were random shards of metal. Man, what a sight.

"Alright, it's time to get out of here," I said, "turn 'er around and let's get back to the launch pad."

"Right Commander."

We spun and high-tailed it outta there. The high walls of the gorge seemed to be rumbling even more than when we first got in. And, because of the winding passage, we couldn't engage the overdrive until we got in the clear.

Reggie was ahead of me when the fissure opened up. There was no chance to realize what was happening. The high-pressured gas, ignited by the heat from my engines, exploded into a vermilion ball that flipped my tank like a coin. I slammed to the ground, the vehicle cart wheeling out of control. The wrenching sound of metal screamed over my head as I hung on for dear life. Then, bam! I had hit the ground and was sliding through the green muck. When I finally stopped, hanging upside down from the straps in my chair, my throbbing heart was the only sign that I was alive.

"COMMANDER!" Reggie screamed at me over the intercom.

I grunted, groping for the console. "What's my status?"

There was a brief pause on the other end, "Sweet Jesus—" I heard the voice say. Reggie's not a religious man, but when it comes down to some things, he suddenly gets a little faithful. "You're in bad shape. Looks like one of your engines is missing. The tank barrel is totally ripped off, and I'm not getting any power signals from your aft plasma conductor."

Lovely.

I checked my panels. "I'm running cockpit power only right now, and that's not going to last much longer."

"Stand by, I'm going to try to flip you over." Reggie said, shifting his tank into position next to mine.
As if the planet knew we were talking, another vicious 'tremor' rocked the ground. I didn't realize quite how serious the situation was until I felt that quake. It's one thing to get the bumps in a hovering vehicle – it's another to be in contact with the ground and upside down. I tried to keep the blood from going to my head when I heard a simultaneous screech and a massive THUD. It sounded like my vehicle was crying out in pain.

"Rege?" I asked, receiving a lot of static. I smacked the console a few times before getting a voice.

"Commander?"

"Rege, are you alright out there?"

Reggie was distraught. "Commander, a massive hunk of debris just landed on your ship. It's gone right through the engines and is blocking all possible approaches. I can't get to you!"

The rational side of my head kicked in and I looked at the clock. "Reggie, listen to me. I want you to turn around and get out of this gorge. Engage overdrive as soon as you do and get back to the dust off point."

"Sir—"

"Don't argue with me, soldier!" I shouted, "You've only got 40 minutes left before they leave, and you have a chance to get there."

"I'm going to try to blast you out."

"No! You might hit the plasma coils and that'd do me for sure."

"I won't let you die alone—"

"Better one of us than both of us. Go, now!"

"Jim, I can't leave you like this!"

"Reggie, get off the damn planet!!" Our voices had risen to fever pitch, and my final outburst was met with heavy silence. My breath came and went in labored pants, pained by the awkward position of my seat. A few moments later, I heard Reggie gun his engines in final salute as he left the scene.

After the initial shock wore off, I quickly took stock of my surroundings. Green muck covered my visors, rendering me totally blind. The only light in the cockpit came from the multicolored panels and the slight tint from the stuff covering my windows. The blood was really starting to bust up my head so I unclipped from the seat and managed to slide into an uncomfortable sideways position. A few more gyrations left me resting against the topglass, looking up at my control console like a 20th century astronaut.
Weapons were inoperative, engines shot to hell. The only thing that showed any sign of life was my comm. Ignoring a momentary shower of sparks, I entered the codes to hear the gen-space messages from the launch site.

"…still *crackle* -ting on Falco-*crackle* Got message that *crackle* down *crackle*. Awaiting arri-*crackle* Falcon 2."

Rege had made the call in. The mission had, in their minds already succeeded. Now it was just a matter of picking up the last two humans still on the surface. Or rather, the one they could pick up now that they knew he was coming.

They also knew that I would not be coming.

"This is Falcon Leader to flight group, Falcon Leader to flight group – hello?" No answer. Just fuzzle and fizz. Damn. The transmitter must have been crushed when the tank barrel ripped off half of the roof. For safety's sake, the entire space tank had been equipped to act as one giant receiver, so mercifully I could listen in on the conversation. That is, of course, if there hadn't been so much static.

"fffttt-crackle-hisssss-kaahhhhssszzzzz"

It was no use. I had to cut it off.

So here I am, stuck in the near dead cockpit of a VI-455 HoverTank on the surface of the planet Chorane. I've ranted, I've raved – I've beaten my fist against the wall until it was torn and bloody. God alone knows how it came to this. Every once in a while, the tank shudders as another ground fissure opens up. I can almost feel the planet being torn apart like a ball of lint. The radar is still pinging as if it were working, and the emergency siren doesn't want to quit that long annoying note. What I wouldn't give for some maddening silence right now, something that will let me die in peace.

My leg is falling asleep, so I shift my awkward position to get the blood back down there. Not like it'll help the situation, but if I'm gonna go, I don't wanna be in too much pain. My eyes fall upon the bulkhead, and it makes me smile. There are almost 55 notches on that little strip of metal; 55 times that I wasted some enemy vessel; 55 times that I looked death in the eye and gave it the finger.

Heh. Well, who's fingering who now?

I don't know how long I've been lying here, but the tremors are getting worse. I'm just waiting for the ground to open up under me and swallow me whole. Or for a fountain of chemicals to burst through the double windshield and fill the cockpit with noxious fumes. Of all the ways to die, I might to be the first to experience death by planetary explosion – if I last that long.

The emergency siren is growing weaker now, puttering out after screaming its note for – I don't even know how long. Waiting for the end sucks. Maybe – just maybe I can give the comm another try. Smacking the panel a few times for good measure, I activate the button and let the static fill my constricted tomb.

An agonized voice breaks through the silence. I perk up, it's Reggie, and he's screaming my name. There's a struggle going on. Amidst his howls, I can hear the communications jockeys straining to pull him back. 'Get him out of here', they say. 'Prepare for launch', others say.

I turn off the communication and relax back into position with a sigh. Why am I in tears? Something in the back of my mind is telling me that crying won't solve a damn thing. But I cry anyway. Maybe it's the stresses and fears of the war coming back to haunt me. Maybe it's the pain of knowing that I'll never get married, have kids – see my parents again. Maybe it's just Reggie, knowing that he made it giving my soul the least bit reason for peace.

The launch vessel is long gone now. I'm sure of it. Jesus, what a sight it would be to see a planet blow up. Soon, Saturn's gonna have a new addition to its rings, and I'm gonna be part of it. But at least there won't be any Tatrions to prey on the pain of our species. That's some respite. And in a way, will be my legacy.

I look down as a distinctive rumble begins under the tank. Through the topglass, I can see the ground begin to sink in on itself, breaking apart. The entire vehicle shudders and quakes. I feel like a piece of laundry being tossed around in a dry cycle. Harder and harder now, the vibrations are beginning to rattle the looser screws of the cockpit. Showers of sparks break out as a hunk of the front panel detaches and slams into the ceiling-made-floor.

This is it.

I wait – and watch. The fissure is growing wider as the ground yawns open. I see the jagged rock edges part directly under me, shaped like rotted brown teeth. It is growing hotter in here as the inner steam presses in futility against the strong double topglass. I lean over and look down as the mouth grows to encompass the cockpit. The permaglass is the only thing between me and the molten center of Chorane. Metal squeals and slips. I'm falling – falling – falling—.

And as the red-orange jewel approaches from below, I find myself thinking, "How beautiful—."