Rogue Star_Frozen Earth_Post-Apocalyptic Technothriller

by Jasper T. Scott

  OneZero stopped pushing us and looked up just as a buzzing roar split the sky. One of those giant discs, maybe the same one that had trashed our truck, came hovering down and landed on the highway in front of us. A ramp dropped, and a humanoid Screecher model came out and waited at the bottom. OneZero pushed us forward again, and I realized that she meant for us to board the aircraft.

  Akron stumbled and cried out as his foot caught on some piece of debris hidden in the snow. It turned out to be a car’s bumper. He cursed and limped the rest of the way to the ramp.

  A guilty lump rose in my throat as I watched him. Right now he should be with his family preparing to leave this mess behind and start a new life on Mars. And right now my family and the Hartfords should have been looking for a new shelter where we could weather the coming winter. In my desperation to find the shelter we’d been promised, I’d doomed us all. If I hadn’t told OneZero to pretend to take us all hostage, she’d never have had the chance to actually do so. Or would she? If that was her intention all along, had my scheming really changed anything? I couldn’t have stopped her from taking us hostage. I shook my head to clear it. I wasn’t going to let myself off that easily.

  OneZero shouldered past us as we reached the bottom of the ramp, and she shrieked something at the other humanoid model. The four-legged we’d seen emerge the first time the disc had landed walked past us and up the ramp, folding its six spider-like arms against its sides to fit through the door.

  We waited and looked on as the two humanoid robots conversed in shrill tones.

  I felt a tug on my jacket. “Daddy, what are they talking about?”

  “I don’t know, Rachie,” I said.

  “Do you think they’re talking about supper? OneZero hasn’t had anything to eat either.”

  I shook my head. “No, sweetheart. Robots don’t need to eat.”

  “But we do. Can’t you ask them if they have something? My stomach hurts.”

  I winced at that and nodded, offering my daughter a tight smile. “I’ll try.”

  Kate was watching the exchange, biting her lip with tears gleamed in her eyes. As our eyes met, she looked away shaking her head. She might not have said it, but I knew she blamed me for this, too. Whatever happened next was on me.

  OneZero turned and gestured for us to walk up the ramp. She said something in Spanish to accompany the gesture, to which the other humanoid model cocked its head curiously.

  Akron started up the ramp, but the second robot stepped in front of him, blocking the way. OneZero turned and said something else to the second robot, and they spoke for another minute in their screeching language, leaving us shivering at the bottom of the ramp. They finished speaking, and the second one turned to regard us with gleaming black eyes. It said something to us.

  It was speaking Spanish now, too. Somehow OneZero had shared her knowledge of the language with it.

  “He says to get inside,” Akron said, as the second Screecher stepped aside. Akron led the rest of the way up the ramp, and we emerged inside the ring of the aircraft. It was the same gleaming metal on the inside as it was on the outside. I noticed that the inner wall of the ring was lined with metal clamps, and that the four-legged Screecher model was clamped against the wall. These were the Screechers’ equivalent of seat belts. Everywhere else that I could see the clamps were empty, but I estimated that this disc could carry at least twenty Screechers.

  A groaning sound started up behind us and I turned around. The landing ramp was rising into place. Now facing the other way, I noticed that the outer wall was transparent, or else lined with some kind of digital display. It gave us an unobstructed view of the snow-dusted highway and the wall of cars to either side.

  Both OneZero and the other humanoid model pointed to the inner wall. OneZero said something, and Akron translated: “They want us to secure ourselves for transit,” he said, and I noticed that he was no longer shivering. It was almost as cold inside as it was outside, but at least here we were sheltered from the wind.

  I glared at OneZero. “Transit where?”

  “Dónde vamos?” Akron asked.

  “Vamos a Haven.”

  I didn’t know a stick of Spanish, but I didn’t need to know what those other words meant to understand what she’d just said. Somehow OneZero had gleaned enough from our conversations with Akron Massey to realize why we had wanted to speak with him, and where we were trying to go.

  The implications of that hit me hard. I hadn’t just doomed the eight of us. I’d doomed everyone in Haven Colony, too.

  Chapter 59

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Akron demanded as OneZero and her partner forcibly clamped us against the wall by our wrists and ankles.

  “Yes,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. An apology would sound hollow at this point.

  “I told you that robot was trouble!” Harry added.

  Kate caught my eye as she was clamped to the wall beside me. To my surprise there was no accusation in her gaze—only fear and apprehension.

  “Daddy!” Rachel screamed when the second humanoid robot grabbed her by her wrists.

  “Get off of her!” Alex said. He took a run at the Screecher, but before he even reached it, the robot lashed out and sent him sprawling with a back-handed slap.

  “Alex!” Kate sobbed, but he picked himself up just a few seconds later.

  Rachel continued to struggle, and blood seeped between the robot’s fingers as metal bit through her wrists. “Stop it!” I yelled. Tears stung my eyes. “Let her go!” I yanked hard against my restraints, bruising my wrists in an effort to break free. “Rachel! Stop struggling!”

  But she was hungry and tired. She was beyond reason. She screamed and cried, tears streaming down her face. “OneZero! Help!”

  My gaze snapped to the robot. She just stood there, watching, and I glared at her with pure hatred.

  The second robot finally succeeded in clamping Rachel against the wall, and then stepped away, shrieking softly, as if muttering under its breath. It pointed to OneZero and then indicated the others. Deborah and Celine were huddled to one side, hugging each other and crying softly. Alex stood a few feet away, stunned into silence.

  The second robot went over to Akron and began speaking to him in Spanish while OneZero secured first Alex and then Celine and her mother against the wall. This time no one resisted. My eyes tracked back to Rachel. She was sniveling more quietly now, her eyes wide with shock. Thankfully her wrists were no longer bleeding, so the cuts couldn’t have been very deep. I breathed a sigh and shook my head, looking out at the snow-dusted world beyond the aircraft. A buzzing roar came rumbling through the wall, and the ground fell away swiftly below us, revealing snow-covered fields and trees, and a vast length of wall stretching all the way to the Mississippi River. The river itself was clear of vehicles, but I could see that the second wall the Screechers were building spanned the river, too.

  A jolt of sudden acceleration jerked us against our restraints, and Rachel cried out in pain. My gaze snapped to her, and I slowly shook my head, blinking tears, and wishing I could reach her.

  Akron raised his voice, arguing loudly with the Screecher busy interrogating him. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but Akron’s tone was defiant.

  The Screecher stepped back and raised its arms. Weapons deployed with clicking sounds and bright green lasers converged on his chest.

  He spat at the robot. “Púdrete!”

  The lasers grew brighter and his sweater began to smoke. Akron’s eyes widened, and then an agonized scream burst from his lips. His sweater burst into flames and the lasers vanished. He was on fire, and still screaming.

  The Screecher interrogating him said something else, and I picked out the word Haven once more. Akron gave no reply besides his screaming. The rotten stench of charred fibers and skin filled the air, and I cringed, nauseated by the smell.

  “Esta bien!” Akron roared. “Te diré!” The second Screecher stepped forward an
d put out the fire by patting it with its hands.

  A flicker of movement caught my eyes. OneZero’s arms were up, weapons deployed and tracking. A staccato burst tore out, and the robot standing in front of Akron froze. Its eyes lit up from within and a muffled explosion sounded. It collapsed at my feet with a heavy clunk. In the same instant the dog-like Screecher sagged against its restraints.

  OneZero’s head turned to me, and our eyes met. “Friend,” she said.

  Shock rippled through me, followed by a profound sense of relief. I slumped against my restraints, watching as OneZero turned to Akron and said something to him in Spanish.

  “What did she say?” Harry asked.

  “She also wants to know where Haven is,” Akron replied.

  That gave me pause. Was this some elaborate version of good cop, bad cop? “Is that a good thing?”

  Akron nodded slowly. “I think so. She says she wants to help us get there.”

  Chapter 60

  OneZero left us where we were, hurrying around the circumference of the disc on some unknown errand. Maybe she was off to pilot the aircraft.

  “It was all a ruse?” Kate asked.

  I nodded slowly. “She didn’t betray us. She saved us from both the army and her people, and now she’s going to take us to Haven.”

  “What if that’s the ruse?” Harry asked. “What if they’re just trying to trick us into giving away its location?”

  I frowned, wondering at that. My gaze landed on the disabled Screecher at my feet, and I shook my head.

  “No,” Akron added in a strained voice. “I was about to tell them where it was when OneZero shot the other two. I think that might be why she chose that moment to intervene. She wanted us to know that we could trust her.”

  “So why doesn’t she let us go?” Deborah asked.

  Before anyone could venture a guess, the disc tipped forward, giving us a view of the sky, and accelerated suddenly. The buzzing roar of the rotors rose to the shrill whine of a jet engine. I felt my stomach drop and the blood rushing away from my head. Rachel cried out in alarm, and I saw dark spots dancing before my eyes.

  “It’s okay, Rach!” I said, yelling to be heard over the sound of the aircraft’s engine. “It’ll be over soon!”

  The acceleration eased and OneZero came striding back around the ring. I noticed that the floor had somehow slanted, allowing OneZero to walk straight despite the aircraft’s forward tilt.

  OneZero dropped to her haunches in front of Rachel and opened her restraints first. To my surprise, Rachel leapt into OneZero’s lap and wrapped her arms around the robot’s neck.

  “I knew you weren’t bad!”

  I smiled tightly at that. Rachel let go after just a moment, and OneZero went about releasing the rest of us. Akron was last in line to be released. When it was his turn, he and OneZero had a brief conversation, and then they hurried off together.

  “Where are you going?” I called after them.

  “To show her how to get to Haven!” Akron called back.

  * * *

  April 28th, 4:30 PM

  1 HOUR BEFORE THE ROGUE’S ARRIVAL

  OneZero sat at the pilot’s station, strapped in like a fighter pilot rather than with metal clamps. OneZero’s seat was the only one on board, and we weren’t in a hurry to clamp ourselves to the wall again, so we stood and sat behind her, bracing ourselves for any sudden changes in direction.

  We’d been flying for an hour already, and so far no Screechers had come after us. I hoped that would hold true until we could get to Haven.

  A vast, rippled expanse of water appeared in the distance.

  “That’s Lake Pontchartrain,” Akron said.

  I nodded as if I knew where that was.

  “New Orleans is on the other side,” Akron added.

  “Then we’re almost there!” Deborah put in.

  “Almost,” Akron agreed.

  We streaked out over the lake. The far side was hidden by smoke or mist, but before long, New Orleans came swirling out of the haze. I spotted the Mississippi River snaking through the city, and the rippled blue expanse of the Gulf of Mexico in the background. The city didn’t look like it was flooded yet. I checked my watch. It was just after midday.

  “We’ve got less than an hour before that rogue star arrives,” I said, remembering the news headline I’d read back at the Peabody.

  “You think we’ll see the tidal waves?” Alex asked.

  “We’d better not,” Akron said. “Anyway, we still have time. At the speed it’s moving, the rogue should still be a few million miles away.”

  We’d probably see the tidal waves rolling through the Gulf of Mexico as we flew the rest of the way to Haven.

  Akron pointed to what looked like a harbor on the far side of the lake and said something to OneZero.

  I rocked forward onto the balls of my feet, and Kate stumbled, grabbing my arm for support. Our airspeed was dropping. The ripples on the lake below became more noticeable, and I realized that our altitude was dropping, too. OneZero was taking us down for a landing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I thought we were going to Haven?” Deborah added.

  Akron glanced over his shoulder, his gaze flicking from me to her. “We are. But we have to take my submarine to get there.”

  “But what about the tidal waves?” Kate asked.

  “We still have time.” Akron pointed to the ripples on the lake below. “The waves are only a couple feet high right now.”

  My brow furrowed. “I thought the captain took your submarine back to Haven?”

  “I lied. There is no captain. It’s self-skippering. The coordinates are stored in the computer. I didn’t want to tell you about it, because then you’d be able to use it to get to Haven.”

  “But you told us how to find Haven, anyway—an oil rig 300 miles south of the Mississippi Delta.”

  “More like southwest, and more like a hundred and fifty miles,” Akron explained.

  I snorted and shook my head. Of course that had been another lie.

  The harbor grew steadily larger, and I scanned the docks looking for something lurking beneath the water. To my surprise, I didn’t even see any regular ships, let alone submarines.

  “Where are all the boats?” Kate asked.

  “People used them to get away when the Screechers arrived,” Akron said.

  “I wonder if anyone managed to escape,” Harry said.

  Akron shook his head. “Most of them will run out of fuel before they can leave the gulf and start heading North, and the whole of the Gulf of Mexico is in Screecher territory.”

  “So is Haven,” I said, wondering for the first time if it would actually be a safe place for us. “How do you know the Screechers won’t find it?”

  “I don’t, but I do know that it will be hard to find. As long as Haven doesn’t transmit any signals, and as long as the Screechers don’t spot our solar farm or start building ships, we should be able to stay hidden. Assuming, of course, that they don’t capture us before we can get there.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t know our language. They couldn’t interrogate us if they tried.”

  “Then why is my chest barbecued?” Akron nodded to OneZero. “She knows Spanish, and she’s already proven that she can share that knowledge. It’s just a matter of time before they learn all of our other languages, too.”

  I grimaced. He was probably right. I wondered what they’d have to say to us once they did. Where did they come from? What did they want? We still didn’t know. I stared at the back of OneZero’s head, wondering what secrets she had to tell us.

  I was just about to suggest to Akron that he ask some of those questions when OneZero adjusted our speed again and hovered us down to an empty parking lot behind the docks. We were out of time for chitchat now, but maybe we’d have a chance to talk while Akron’s submarine took us to Haven.

  As we came in for a landing, I noticed no snow dusting the ground, and that t
he trees here had yet to lose any of their leaves. I wondered if New Orleans was farther south than San Antonio, but even if it was, I doubted it could be that much farther south. It was probably because New Orleans was a coastal city and the water helped regulate the air temperature.

  OneZero unstrapped from the pilot’s seat and stood up. We followed her around the ring of the disc to the landing ramp. It was already open. OneZero led the way down, metal feet clomping as she went.

  Before we’d even reached the bottom, a distant buzzing sound reached my ears. I looked up and saw two glinting discs screaming across the lake toward us.

  OneZero said something to Akron and then charged back up the ramp. I hesitated, about to usher my family up after her.

  “We have to run for it!” Akron said. “She’s going to try to hold them off!”

  Chapter 61

  As we ran across the parking lot to the docks, OneZero’s disc shot into the air and tipped up, zipping out over the water. Stuttering lines of fire streaked out from the two pursuing discs and ricocheted off its armor. OneZero fired back as she led them away.

  I stopped at the water’s edge and gaped at the dogfight, watching those discs dwindle to glinting specks against the hazy line of the horizon.

  “They’re coming! Into the water!” Akron shouted, and raced by us, pounding down the wooden docks. He dove off into the choppy gray water with a splash.

  Everyone ran after him. I hesitated, looking for whatever Akron had seen. Why jump in the water? A soft buzzing noise broke through my daze, and I remembered that the Screechers are heat-seeking. I tore off down the docks, catching up to the others. Alex and Celine jumped in with a tandem splash, followed by Deborah. Kate lingered, trying to convince Rachel to go next.

  “No!” she said. “I don’t want to!”

  I scooped her up in my arms. “We’re going to jump together, okay?” Waves knocked against the wooden planks of the docks, sloshing over the sides and wetting our feet.