Gaia's Demise: Book Summary
A
group of people, armed mainly with primitive weapons spot the approaching LAV
25. The leader wants to allow the wag to pass without a problem. One of the
younger tribesmen decide that a leadership change is needed and kills the
leader. After the change he decides to attempt to stop the wag.
Ryan sees the tribesmen attempting to set up a roadblock and
orders them to drive right through. The would be toll takers take heavy losses
in the attempt to stop Ryan’s crew. The crew continue to drive and pass
through a blasted area, but it was a clean nuke and there is very little
radiation.
The finally arrive at the ruins of Shiloh and discover that
it is all sand and ruins, partially submerged. There is no sign of a redoubt. As
he is watching over the ruins, Ryan discovers that he is standing on a land
mine. With JB’s help he gets away and survives the detonation of the device.
The explosion attracts a near by blue shirt patrol. They race
after the patrol hummer in the APC in order to stop them from reporting back to
the base. After a long chase they finally ram the Hummer and destroy it, killing
the men inside. But it’s too late, the warning had been issued.
There is a small base built, complete with a Satellite uplink
dish. A little girl is looking over the base for her mother when she encounters
a patrol. They kill her.
The APC has had it. The chase and the ramming damaged it
beyond repair. The group makes camp and begins construction of a raft. They use
parts of wreckage in the construction.
Silas wakes up from a horrid nightmare involving Doc Tanner
and his wife. He is now an old man and the nightmares have been getting worse
and worse. He knows that he is losing his mind and that his time is limited.
They set out on the river and come towards a man made island
of old war ships and other wreckage. It is the home to a group of sailors all
who believe that they are the last survivors on the planet.
When they see that there are women in Ryan’s group they give chase.
Ryan’s people fight the islanders, destroying a PT boat and
killing several of the men. They are surprised when the sailors stop the chase
but discover that they are caught in a rip tide that is leading them to a whirl
pool. They manage to shoot past the whirlpool and encounter a waterfall a short
ways past it.
Back at the blue shirt base the slaves being used openly
rebel and inflict heavy losses on the sec forces. One even tries to get at Silas
but is stopped by one of his personal guards. Silas gets those he can into the
bunker and activates the kite system. This space based weapons platform kills
everything within a mile of the bunker. Only
those in the bunker survive.
The group finally come around after surviving the waterfall.
The raft is still with them and they have quite a few of the supplies but lost
everything else. They found that they are in a swamp. They set about cleaning
their weapons and prepare to head out to the ocean and find solid ground shortly
after that.
The mutant named Sullivan is pretending to be a healer at the
hospital at Front Royal. He kills more than he saves.
A nurse informs him that she knows who he is and warns him about a trap
that the sec men are setting to trap him. All she wants from him in return is to
leave with him. He kills her as
well and the sets the hospital on fire to cover his escape.
The sec forces chase after him and finally catch him. He is
pleased when he hears that they are going to take him to see the baron for his
crimes. He figures that he can complete his mission that way.
Back in the swamp Ryan and the rest encounter a man in the
water. He watches them and makes no hostile moves. He even shows them where the
deeper water is so that they will be able to travel easier. Once they hit the
deeper water the make good time but are surprised when a large number of people
appear all around them. The mutants form a circle around them and don’t
attack, instead they help protect when a huge mutant gator attacks.
They fight against the gator and finally kill it. The strange
mutant beetles help them as well by retrieving most of the supplies that they
lost and even give them the skin of the gator.
They clean up again and prepare to travel. They come to a small ville and
look to trade for some horses. After talking to a whore they find the
information they need and head to the horse traders.
While they are dickering a group of cold hearts attack wanting to get the
weapons and the goods. The cold hearts are defeated but the horse trader is
killed as well.
A group of ville sec men arrive and demand to know what is
happening. After Ryan explains what
happens they send the group to meet with the Baron of the ville.
The baron is with his Doomie lover. She warns him to believe
the liars and other things about the group. Finally the baron meets up with Ryan
and the band. They learn that he lost his leg and his son to the mutant gator
that they killed. The mutant was known as Frankenstein. Ryan tells the baron
that they killed the mutant and bargain for horses and ammo as well as other
supplies as a reward.
Doc is disgusted when he sees that
the baron allows slavery to be practiced in his ville. So that night he slips
away from the others and does what he can to free the slaves. This forces the
group to take off in the middle of the night. The baron sends his men after them
because of it.
They travel thought the night and
then stop for a rest thinking that they may have lost the pursuers. But that
isn’t the case. The companions
continue to ride, coming to a bridge. When they get to it they set it on fire
and continue. It appears that the pursuers are actually a group of cannie mercs.
Silas and his men pull into Shiloh
and begin to talk to the people around them, pretending that they are friendly
and they’re to help. He wants volunteers who will work for a season to help
rebuild the United States. The people have no choice but to do as they wish.
Several are killed as they try to run away.
The group are camped out two days
later and they are set upon by strange mutants that have a symbiotic
relationship with plants that grow out of their bodies. The creatures suffer a
heavy toll as they steal the horses and packs. Ryan the others race after them
in order to get their transportation back. The trail leads back to a city that
is almost covered up by the desert.
Inside the city they track the
mutants down to an old National Guard armory. They go inside and find the
mutants and wipe them out but the horses were crippled and they had no choice
but to kill them. But they don’t find the supplies.
Jak leads them to a twenty-story
building where they find that it had been hollowed out. It seems that it is the
mutants main nest. They continue to explore in order to find the gear. Ryan
figures that they are going to come under attack from an ambush.
They realize the mutants were starving and that is why they risked so
much to get the horses.
Silas lands at the new base that he
is getting built. He learns that a patrol captured Ryan’s group. It turned out
to be false as the patrol leader didn’t know how to read and couldn’t read
the message that was left. He warns the soldiers not to make the same mistake
again. While they are talking a
slave drops and breaks an electronic component. Silas prevents the overseer from
killing him. Silas needs every
able-bodied man and woman to achieve the goal he has set.
Again he knows that his time is limited and takes one of his lieutenants
named Sheffield in on his work.
Ryan and Krysty go to check a
sports arena. They see wags, weapons and supplies scattered all through the
field entwined in a huge mutated plant. They both go inside and find their
passions ignited. Krysty wants him badly but Ryan keeps his head on straight
enough to stop having sex long enough to knock her out and pull her out of the
arena before he collapses.
Pair of mutant’s tries to pull
them back in but are killed by the other companions.
Silas shows Sheffield a videotape
depicting what the results will be with returning electricity to the Deathlands
as well as the satellites potential as a weapon. He plans to cleanse the
Deathlands with the satellite as well as the rest of the world.
After rescuing Ryan and Krysty and
learning what weapon the plant is using Jak and JB cover their mouths and head
into the Arena. The use Battery acid from the vehicles inside the arena to kill
the plant by pouring it in the roots. After
that they find their supplies and take a blue shirt hummer.
It turns into a jihad, as the symbiots want to get revenge for the death
of their god.
The hunter Clem and several other
brown shirts arrive at Bullrun ville and discover that it has been destroyed.
The center of the ville is a molten crater.
Silas used the Kite satellite to destroy the ville. It terrifies the men
to see how precise the blast is.
After leaving the plant ville
behind, the group comes under attack from a sniper who has been waiting for
them. The man is ecstatic. The sniper is killed in the fight but the companions
capture a second man and from him learn that Silas is behind everything that is
happening. They get even more weapons and goods from the men.
Silas used the Kite satellite to
destroy Bullrun ville and then Casanova ville as well. It takes several days to
accomplish the task. Front Royal is next on his list of targets. During this he
repositions the Satellite in orbit. An ancient hunter killer satellite
challenges the kite but is destroyed by it’s own malfunctioning weapon systems
before it can accomplish it’s task.
The captured Cannie mercenaries end
up destroying the foot of one of their own people in order to escape from the
quarry where they have been forced to work. They steal a truck and attack the
quarry, setting off the explosives and putting and end to the work going on
there.
JB is busy trying to remove the
explosives from the bridges that they have been encountering along the way. It
is cold and dangerous work but they have to do it. After getting past the bridge
they spot the truck that the cannies had stolen and get into a running battle
with them. The hummer is damaged beyond repair and they take the supplies and
then put the bodies of the cannies in the hummer and roll it onto the bridge.
They hope that it will cause the blue shirts to think that Ryan’s group had
been taken out by the traps.
After the explosion at the quarry Silas hears that one of the sentry posts didn’t report in. He is positive that Ryan’s group is responsible for it and dispatches a squad to intercept the group. Because the Quarry had been heavily damaged Silas has all the slaves get to work on the Satellite uplink tower.
The companions continue on and near nightfall spot a huge column of foul smelling smoke the closer they get to the civil war battlefield of Shiloh. The come to the top of a hill and spot Silas' huge ville and the damaged quarry.
As they watch the ville, Ryan spots Silas. The doctor is raging at one of his sec men. Ryan decides that he isn't going to pass up the opportunity to kill the scientist. He takes four shots and kills the man. He tries to go for Sheffield but the other man grabs one of the near by sec men and uses him as a human shield.
Once Ryan's group decide to make tracks, Sheffield sends all available sec men after them. He grabs a CD rom from Silas' remains and kills a sec man for allowing the doctor to be killed. He disappears into the doctors hut.
As the group leave they encounter a sec man and kill him. They get the man's radio and call in saying that they had been attacked and a large force of mutants were making their way into the camp from the opposite direction. They encounter a group of blue shirts on motorcycles and attack them. They get four bikes in the process. It is the fastest way that they can get to the redoubt.
As Sheffield watches the CD he got off Silas he hears about the attack. He knows for a fact that the attack is a ruse and sends the sec forces in the opposite direction, on the right way to intercept Ryan's people.
Ryan's group race for the redoubt, fighting off several more bikes and even encounter a helicopter which they shoot at in order to force it away. The helicopter does leave but they see that many of the small animals and birds begin to fall from the trees around them. They realize that the kit is attacking them. They kit the acceleration and even drop all the excess supplies they have in order to outrun the weapon.
When they arrive at the redoubt they find that Silas left behind a mutant surprise. The creature turns out to be almost impossible to kill as it regenerates almost instantly from the wounds it sustains. They eventually get past the creature and into the redoubt. Silas screwed them again by messing with the Mat Trans unit so they can't jump out. With the Kite pouring microwaves down on them they have only one option to head as deep into the redoubt as they can and use the shielding around the reactor to protect themselves.
Sheffield declares himself Baron.
End of Gaia's Demise