“About that,” Rex said. “Orion called down here earlier. He has a lead. He’s in Sanctuary City with Onyx, waiting to talk to you.”
After they’d settled in, they all gathered in Rivet’s workshop and opened up a comm channel to Sanctuary City.
Orion’s umber face shimmered on the floating display. H124 smiled at the sight of the astronomer. “I’ve been digging through the historical records with Onyx.”
Onyx, the Rover’s talented hacker, leaned into the frame and smiled, then saw her cousin Raven. “Yá’át’ééh!” she greeted him in Navajo.
“Aoo’, yá’át’ééh,” he responded.
Orion gave an ironic smile. “For once things aren’t against us. Turns out it’s not a question of where these nuclear payloads are, but where they aren’t. Missiles are hidden all over the country in these underground silos. It’s not going to be tough to find them. They’re everywhere. There’s a nest of them here,” he said, sending coordinates to their PRDs. H124 brought up her floating display to see a cluster of red dots a few hundred miles to their southeast.
Orion continued. “Should be more than enough to get the payload we need.”
“Do the Badlanders know about these missile silos?” H124 asked Dirk.
He shook his head, then thought a minute. “Although…a camp near where I grew up found a bunch of really deep holes in the ground. May have been empty silos. This camp wasn’t the nicest group in the world. They used to…um…” He glanced around nervously.
“Yes?” Raven prompted.
“They used to throw people down there. Enemies mostly.”
“Alive?”
He grimaced. “Kinda. Yeah.”
“Enemies ‘mostly’?” she asked.
“Sometimes they’d throw people down there for fun.”
She raised her brow.
“But the people had to be real jerks to deserve it. I mean, so I heard.”
Not for the first time, H124 was grateful that it had been Byron’s clan to find her on the road all those nights ago, though she’d nearly bought it that first night in the camp.
Onyx leaned in again. “There’s been increased PPC drone activity up here,” she told them. “They’ve flown over twice in the last few days.”
Raven frowned.
“How often do they usually fly over?” H124 asked him.
“About twice a year. Onyx has a system to block them,” Raven told her.
H124 looked back at the hacker. “When the drones fly over,” Onyx explained, “I send up a jamming signal, so it doesn’t pick up any of our communication or EM energy in the city. To the drone, Sanctuary City just looks like another stretch of uninhabited land. But the frequency of these fly-overs worries me.”
“Do you think they know we’re down there?”
She bit her lip. “It’s more like they’re searching for something. I don’t know what.”
“Keep me posted,” Raven said.
“Will do.”
Gordon spoke up. “I can fly us down to the missile silos.”
Raven turned to him. “We’ve got a C-130 Hercules stored here that should be big enough to stow the warheads.”
Gordon nodded. “Perfect.”
Orion exhaled. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” H124 responded.
“Hágoónee’,” Onyx said to Raven.
“Hágoónee’.” He closed down the comm window, and they all looked at each other.
H124 stared back at the coordinates Orion had sent, the cluster of red dots showing all the missiles, then panned out to see the other silos, all along the coasts and the center of the country. “Why did they have so many of these things? Aren’t they enough to destroy the world a thousand times over?”
Raven sighed. “Yep. But they kept building and stockpiling them. Apparently there was a time when world powers agreed to dismantle them, and partly did. But then for some reason, tensions returned and they started making new ones and stockpiling again.”
As Gordon refueled and prepared the plane for the flight, H124 walked around the satellite location, taking in the vast mountains rising to west of her. Ancient burned-out forests lay between her and those summits. Most of the trees had toppled and now lay sun-bleached and white. Wind tore across the expanse, hot and dry.
Her PRD beeped, and she brought up her comm window to see Rowan’s smiling face, his blue eyes squinting in bright sunlight. “How’s it going out there?” he asked. His cropped blond hair looked sweaty and dirty, and he wiped a sleeve across his forehead.
“Pretty good. We’re definitely on track.”
He breathed out. “Here, too. Been doing pirate broadcasts, trying to warn people to leave Delta City. Relocating a lot of Badlanders to old bomb shelters. But a lot of them won’t go. Don’t seem to think there’s a real threat.” He shook his head. “Can’t say I blame them. They’ve worked hard to claim territory in some of these places, and then some stranger comes along and tells them a rock is going to fall from the sky and kill them all?”
“I can see why they’d be doubtful.”
“But I’m sure you guys are going to be successful, and moving all these people will all be for nothing. Then they’ll really hate me.” He gave a rueful smile.
“It’s great of you to try, though.”
They both went silent then, an awkward silence hovering. “You okay?” he said at last.
She bit her lip. She wanted to tell him about Byron, but wasn’t sure how that sort of thing was done. She and Rowan had seen so little of each other lately. She didn’t know how he felt about her.
A sudden shout on Rowan’s side drew his attention. “Oh, man. Another fight is starting. It never ends. Where are you all off to next?”
She told him of the missile silo location they’d found.
He frowned. “That’s right in the middle of Executioner territory.”
“Who?”
“Some of the foulest Badlanders out there.”
“Used to throw people down the empty silos?”
“So you’ve heard of them.” He gazed around, and she could see two men fighting behind him. One staggered back under a brutal uppercut. “I think I’d better go with you all. I know them. Might be able to smooth some feathers before you head out there. Be there in case things go south.”
She brightened. “We’d certainly love your help.”
“Okay.” He spun and shouted, “Will you knock it off? I can barely hear!” at the two fighting men, who completely ignored him. One bumped into him. “I can rendezvous with you at this location,” Rowan told her, then entered some information into his PRD.
She opened her map screen when it beeped, seeing a glowing red circle about fifty miles from the missile silos. “I’ll let Gordon know. And thanks, Rowan.”
He smiled. “See you soon.” His window shut down.
Outside she heard the sound of the C-130’s engine firing up. Gordon’s face appeared on her comm link. “Time to stock up on some weapons of mass destruction.”
“I’m ready,” she told him.
Chapter 7
H124 stood at the top of a silo, staring down the dark tube at the missile, its body stretching down into shadows. A vast plain extended to both sides of her, holding even more nuclear missiles. It made her nervous just to be around them.
They’d flown over some of the strangest terrain she’d ever seen. Vast flats of brown, waving grass gave way to abrupt cliffs and valleys filled with colorful geological formations—stark spires of dark brown, tan, and grey, like little canyons that appeared suddenly, sunk into the earth.
After picking up Rowan, they’d landed some distance away to stay clear of the cliffs. Wary of the Executioners, they’d deboarded with their equipment quickly: water, maglevs, pocket pyros. H124 still carried her small, brick-sized flight suit.<
br />
At the silo, Dirk had struggled with accessing the ancient doors that hid the missiles. But finally he’d succeeded, revealing the deadly projectile beneath their feet.
A metal ladder extended down the side of the tube. She and Byron climbed down, following Dirk and Raven. Rowan stayed topside with Gordon in case the Executioners showed up. They had to protect the plane.
H124 descended carefully, her clanking boots echoing in the chamber. Cobwebs caught in her face and hair. A platform opened up near the middle, with a walkway leading to a neighboring underground chamber. They moved toward it, finding a control booth and small storage area.
Returning to the tube, Byron stared up at the missile. “So we just need a tiny part of this thing?”
Raven nodded. “Just the payload, not the missile.” He checked his PRD, pointing to the location of the payload inside the projectile.
Unfurling several maglev sleds, they powered them up. They went to work, using the maglevs to raise them up to the missile’s side. With pocket pyros, they began cutting into the missile’s exterior.
At last they lifted out the warhead, placing it gently on a maglev. For now, they stowed it in the storage area, preparing to gather other payloads. They didn’t dare bring it topside yet, when they could be spotted by Death Riders or other dangerous factions. They’d wait until they’d collected enough to deflect the asteroid. Then the warheads could be loaded onto the C-130 and flown to Sanctuary City to be hidden with the blast deflection craft.
Moving through the network of silos, they removed several more nuclear payloads. Raven had told her that this dry, inhospitable country had once all been farmland, people living in houses scattered across the landscape, the wind sighing in their corn and wheat crops. They’d been farmers, teachers, grocery store owners, all going about their lives. But even then, these missiles had waited under the ground, ready to arc across the earth and destroy similar communities in other countries.
She wondered how they’d felt, lying in their beds at night in the dark. Did they think of the dormant threat hiding under their fields, waiting for the push of a button or the mad whim of some leader either here or across an ocean?
When H124 and the others had gathered enough nuclear material, they started to load up the maglevs to deliver them to Gordon’s plane. They moved a few payloads, then returned to the silos to transport the remaining warheads.
They had two more loads to go when H124 heard a deep thrumming. She froze in the middle of calibrating the current maglev sled. She met Raven’s eyes in the gloom of the silo.
“Airship,” he breathed.
Dirk creased his brow. “What are they doing this far out?”
Her heart started thudding. “Do you think a surveillance drone went overhead? Saw us?”
Raven’s face had gone slack, his eyes glassy. He stood there unmoving.
H124’s mind raced. Should they run out and try to cover the plane? Have Gordon take off before it got here? If it saw him, the airship pilot could easily outrun Gordon and bring down the C-130 Hercules.
She started to bring up her comm window, but Gordon beat her to it. “There’s an airship out here! I don’t see it yet, but I hear it.” On her display, he searched the sky nervously.
“You have to get out of there,” she urged him. “But don’t do it in the air. Can you taxi somewhere with ground cover?”
On her display, she watched Gordon searching the area around him. “I see a cluster of buildings about a mile away. Might be something there.” He pulled out a pair of diginocs and studied them more closely. “They’re pretty beat up.”
“Do it,” she told him.
“What about you?”
“We’ll stash these last two pieces somewhere and hide. Wait for the airship to pass.”
“And if it doesn’t?” asked Gordon.
“Then we get blown to kingdom come,” Dirk said softly.
“Or burned alive,” Raven added, his voice barely a whisper.
“They might already know we’re down here,” Byron put in. “If a drone did fly over earlier, they could have spotted our activity. We have to move these last two payloads to a different area.”
Dirk ran to the missile silo control booth and shut the overhead doors. Darkness filled the underground chamber and they switched on their headlamps. To their right, across a metal catwalk, stood another door. They commanded the maglevs to follow them, and Dirk crossed the walkway, pausing at the door. He pulled out a multitool and pocket pyro and went to work disarming the lock.
Raven still hadn’t moved; his breathing was shallow. H124 knew the horrors he’d seen, what an airship had done to his parents. She was halfway across the walkway when she realized he hadn’t moved. She hurried back to him.
“Raven?” she asked.
His glassy eyes were a thousand miles away. Gently she touched his arm. “We have to go.”
He blinked, looking down at her. “Of course.”
She took his hand, and together they crossed the bridge, joining Dirk and Byron. The acrid stench of burning plastic filled the air. Dirk twisted a few wires together, and the door clicked. Pushing against it, he managed to slide it open, admitting them to a musty corridor with metal walls.
After the maglevs had passed through, she slid the door shut behind them. In this dark passage, with meters of solid earth between her and the surface, she couldn’t hear the airship anymore. Her comm window beeped. She brought it up. Gordon sat in the cockpit of the plane. “I still don’t see it. I’m almost at the buildings. Looks like one of them is big enough to cover the C-130. Holes in the roof, though. Some sheet metal is lying around. We might be able to drag some up on the roof. Cover the bigger holes.”
A pit in her stomach turned, sour and unwelcome. She should have gone with him. Should have climbed the ladder out and ran to the plane. He and Rowan were out there alone now, two people who were supposed to heft huge sheets of rusted metal onto a roof.
She felt a strange flash of a new emotion. A contempt, almost a despising of herself. “I should have gone with them,” she said aloud as he clicked off.
Raven turned to her, his shadowed face wary. “That thing would have spotted you and cut you down.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Or it might have followed you right to the plane,” Dirk pointed out.
It was all speculation, she knew, all of their points. Maybe it would have. Or maybe she could have helped. She thought of everything she and Gordon had been through together, and hated the thought of him exposed out there. Rowan was tough, sure. But Gordon was a pilot, not a fighter.
Dirk cracked a small smile. It was the first one she’d seen since he’d learned about Astoria. “I don’t think you need to worry about Gordon. Dude’s pretty resourceful, you know. He’s made it this long, and he’s not exactly a spring chicken.”
She took a small breath. “Okay. True enough.”
The gloomy corridor led to a second door, and they waited while Dirk rewired the lock. When it clicked, they pushed aside the door, finding another walkway. It went on for what felt like miles, lengths of underground tunnels with connecting doors, some leading to other launch tubes, some to control booths. She marveled at the sheer level of engineering, the expense and work that had gone into this entire network, all for the sole purpose of destroying someone on the other side of the planet. And at the same time, these people had cut funding to combat the biggest threat of all—the asteroid that right now barreled toward Earth.
She pulled up the map on her PRD and tracked their progress, showing how far she was now from the plane. She opened the comm window.
Gordon’s face filled the screen, but there was very little light. Rowan brushed rust off his shirt behind him. “It worked. Got the holes covered,” Gordon whispered. “But I don’t know how hidden we’ll be if they take a lot of time to search
. I can still hear the airship, but haven’t spotted it yet. It must be above the clouds.” He paused. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
She watched as he moved his body into a patch of light and peered up. “It’s a PPC dropship.”
Raven faced her display. “They’re deploying ground troops?”
Gordon kept staring up, his mouth parting. “They’re landing! They’re right over your location!” He looked back at them. “Get the hell out of there!”
Chapter 8
They raced through the tunnels, trying to gain some distance from the dropship. Maybe they could cover enough ground and pop up somewhere far enough away that they could skirt around the PPC’s troops and make it to the plane. But they’d been down in the dark for too long, the maglevs burdened with too heavy a weight. Without sunlight, their charges began to dwindle, the copters sputtering, just as they had when lifting the A14.
Dirk had gotten ahead of them. He slowed when he saw them pause. “What’s happening?”
Raven glanced around. “The sleds are running out of power.”
“Can we use the power cells from our PRDs?” H124 asked. As soon as she said it, she realized they couldn’t. Their PRDs controlled and steered the maglevs.
“We have to get to the surface before they give out.” Raven lowered the sleds to conserve energy.
H124 turned on her comm channel and called Gordon. His worried face came into view. He stood pressed against the inside wall of the weathered outbuilding, staring out. “What does it look like up there?” she asked.
His brow creased. “The dropship has landed. Two transports are now on the ground, loaded with troops.” He squinted in a shaft of bright sunlight. “They’re checking out the last place where you went underground. Trying to figure out how to get it open.”
She looked down at the payloads. They had to get them to the plane. She regarded the others in the gloom of the walkway. “What if we split up? Two of us get these maglevs to Gordon’s plane. The others create some kind of distraction so he can get out of here with them.” She turned to Byron. “Feel like stealing another transport?” she asked, recalling their attempt to rescue citizens in Delta City all too well.
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