"Something like that," she said, walking past him and out of the doorway.
Seth turned to Alexandria’s bedroom and then moved his eyes to Chloe’s room. He bit his bottom lip and swore in his mind. Parker would pay for taking them away from him, and perhaps worse, making him need Samantha Burns. He hurried after her.
Chapter 11
On the easternmost cliff face of Trivium Port, iron deposits showed as smooth and speckled, polished by the settlers of decades ago and hardened by a reinforced sealant. It covered the upper precipice and transitioned the port’s many balconies below with the cragged rock above.
The balconies had the reputation of being wondrous attractions to the people of Mars, a blending of the natural terrain with human ingenuity, jutting out like lips of the mouthed rooms that lay hidden within. Their light color contrasted the darkened reds of the cliff’s face, making them simple to spot. The balconies weaved along the face creating fascinating plays with the light, particularly now, as the yellow-orange sunset lit the port.
But admiration for such wonders pushed away from Chloe’s thoughts. She grasped her fingers around the rope as she hung one hundred meters above the closest balcony and five hundred feet from the ground below. She settled against the cliff’s face, digging her toes into the frozen rock, carefully finding security for her feet between the crevasses and cracks. It will be easy, Shannon had said to her when she debriefed her on her mission’s plan, a little climb down to the museum, nothing to worry about.
From her vantage point, looking down to her death below, there was nothing easy or little about it. They were to rappel down to the First Century on Mars Museum and steal one of the drone small freighters on display. It was a surprise to Chloe when Shannon had assured her that the ships in the museum were operational, and more importantly, had minimal security. They just needed to break in. Simple, clean, and without many questions raised by the MSA. It was only a museum, so why would anyone suspect an Alliance plot?
Shannon was several meters below her, rappelling systematically down the face of the cliff. She carried a heavy bag across her back, her face awash with glee. Chloe didn’t believe it, but Shannon actually enjoyed the death-defying stunts.
She, conversely, was terrified, hoping her fear wouldn’t paralyze her. This time she didn’t have Seth to catch her. She pushed her legs off and zipped down another five meters. She set her feet, ready to push off again. As she was about to spring away, a gust of wind swirled around her. She pulled herself closer to the wall, bracing her feet to control the swaying.
"Speed up!" Shannon yelled. "The port security will notice if we don’t move faster."
"Coming," Chloe said sheepishly, trying to hide the shaking her nerves wanted to let out. She closed her eyes, trying to find the strength Seth gave her, but in a flash, she saw his hand grabbing for her, trying to pull her away from the cliff. She shuddered.
She pushed off with her legs. This time she went ten meters. She could do this. She rappelled again, adjusting her hand to slow her descent. Focused, she concentrated on the sound of the line running through the carabineers. The rhythmic hum focused her mind. She was getting closer and closer with each push.
After a half-dozen more rappels, she was there. She had made it.
"You okay?" Shannon said.
"Never been better," she replied, shifting her gaze to the balcony. Approximately the size of a large bedroom, it jutted out more than most of the other balconies in a half-circle shape.
She moved farther in. A series of tables and chairs rested near the edge. Against the cliff face, arching like a shadow from over the balcony, a large door separated Chloe and Shannon from their prize.
Directly in front of them, she pointed. "The ship." She paused. "But how will we get in?"
"Easily," Shannon said. "The door is located on a single-access balcony. For safety, there’ll be no locks on this double door."
She pressed the release button, and she was right. It snapped open, and a single swoosh sounded as the air released.
Chloe, with Shannon, moved into the vestibule between the double doors. She reached for her breathing mask and slipped it off. During the wait for the air conversion, her mind flashed to Alexandria, wondering where Radella had taken her. She frowned. Until she and the Alliance freed Mars, Alexandria would remain hidden. This was the first step.
The door hissed as the air filtered in.
"Shuttle Echo-Blue, you have been cleared for landing. Stay on your present course. Deviations will result in immediate discipline," the MSA controller voiced over the radio. The transmission light faded from green to red.
Atalo groaned.
"Don’t worry," Parker said, soothing his copilot. "The codes worked out. My source was reliable." But Parker felt the same uneasiness. The pit of his stomach roiled. The entire plan was foolish and only half thought out, but with under a day to plan, they couldn’t think of anything better.
Besides, where else did the MSA keep thousands of kilos of metalor-enriched explosives? Only on Phobos. Located around the small moon, where the elite engineers of the MSA resided, the main shipyard of the MSA military was the shining example of the MSA’s superior might, commissioned by the former chancellor Damon Arwell and administrated by none other than Admiral Juncon.
Parker took in the view in front of him. The construction projects stretching across the surface were impressive. In the distance, past the main station, scaffolding wrapped around six cruisers in various stages of construction, and a painful indication of the MSA’s permanence within the solar system. A chill rippled down his spine.
He adjusted his course toward docking bay number five and glanced at the navigational screen. The ship tracked along the assigned flight path without error.
"How is it going?" Eamonn asked from behind him. "Did the codes pass through?"
"We are through the easy part." Parker craned his neck and smirked. Eamonn’s newly shaven head and night-black goatee were still delaying his recognition of his friend. "Get to the back. We’re coming up to the hangars." He nodded toward the viewscreen.
Eamonn obeyed and left the command bridge for the rear compartment.
Ahead, Parker caught his reflection in the viewscreen. He had cropped his shaggy hair in favor of a shorter, spiked look. Atalo had opted for a more basic approach, growing his beard out into an overgrown five o’clock shadow. Together, they were disguised as a delivery crew. Hopefully, it would fool the MSA.
"Shuttle Echo-Blue, hangar doors are opening. Set your controls to automated landing," the controller voiced over the radio.
"We read you," Parker said. He gave control to the computer. His stomach twisted further. He may never get control back, trapping them in the ship. "Switching to automated control."
He entered the command. The ship rocked as the computer adjusted its speed and course, slowing it to a snail’s crawl and shifting it so it was centered with the opening before them. He sat back in his chair.
As the hangar surrounded them, he muttered under his breath, "No turning back now."
Chloe absorbed everything in the room as she stepped through the inner door. Aside from Shannon, no one else was in it. The room was large, a hundred meters into the side of the cliff, and a rustic metal smell dominated it. To her left, a large bay window blazed the yellow-orange of the sunset along the floor, creating a supernatural aura around it. Ten meters in front of her, the closest craft on display was an elongated hoverbike, roughly the size of a horse. It looked clunky and awkward to her. The frame stretched out, pushing the driver into a frontal horizontal position when mounted. Parker would have loved it.
Shannon stepped forward. The hero of the Battle of Lunara wore a long face. Her skin was dirty. She looked shrewdly about, searching for the drone ship.
Toward the front of the room, it rested, shown off with sharp lighting to display its full spender. It was long and narrow, stretching some forty meters from bow to aft but perhaps no more than six meters wide.
Near the nose, a circular impression bent into the hull, and Chloe knew instantly that was the transmitter satellite for the master ship to control the obedient drone ship. Most importantly though, it was flyable, with crisp paint and no visible holes. Shannon’s homework had paid off.
Chloe stepped toward it.
"No," Shannon said. "You’re going to break into that ship over there. One of the newer, sleeker models." She pointed to a smaller ship with twin-mounted engines and a stretched cockpit window.
Newer model, Chloe thought, whatever that means in a museum. She tilted her head slightly, hoping Shannon had an answer.
"Don’t argue," she said. "We don’t have much time. We already tripped the silent alarm. We have maybe…five minutes before security gets here."
"We aren’t stealing those ships," Chloe protested. "I’ll just be wasting time."
"They’ll investigate. I need a diversion. Quickly, take the crowbar and try to force the canopy open. Make it obvious, bend whatever you can."
"I get it," she said. "I think."
Shannon dashed toward the drone ship while Chloe moved begrudgingly away to the ship she was assigned. Pulling the crowbar back, Chloe slammed it into the crack between the hull and the canopy. The metal clanked. She pressed the crowbar down, and the canopy screamed in protest. The seam bent back, exposing the sealant inside.
Chloe pulled the crowbar back again, forcing it into the crack once again, only higher this time. The metal peeled back. Looking closer, she realized there was no use in trying to pop it open. With between fifteen to twenty clasps holding it down, it would take hours to force it. And even then, the atmospheric seal was useless and thus, the ship useless to the thief. Instead, she chipped away at the paint. It flaked to the floor. They would certainly see this.
She moved to another ship and repeated the same process. If she was reading Shannon correctly, Shannon wanted security to think that someone had taken the drone ship out of necessity, and it was not a specific target. She randomly vandalized two more ships, attempting to get in, and making it appear that an inept group of thieves had been foiled.
Behind her, Shannon’s footsteps pattered closer. Chloe turned, hearing the fast, urgent feet.
Instantly, as if she had heard something, Shannon’s eyes darted maniacally, trying to pick up anything in the back of the room. She drew her gun.
Chloe dropped the crowbar. As it rattled along the floor, she cringed. Big mistake. A deep, forceful voice yelled from across the room: "You…stop." A really big mistake. Instinctively, she reached for her sonic pistol and aimed it toward the voice. A bullet whizzed by her head, and she dropped to the floor.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Shots echoed thunderously around the room. Shannon countered the attack with a volley of her own bullets. Chloe whirled around and caught sight of the guards sprawling for cover.
Crouched to keep down, yet high enough to see the guard’s movements, Chloe shuffled to the open side of the double door. Within seconds, she was inside. "Come on!" she yelled to Shannon. She drew her pistol and fired half of her clip into the depths of the room, keeping the guards at bay and hoping she didn’t hit any of them and kill anyone needlessly.
Shannon came running, and in the same motion, slammed the close button on the outside. Then she moved her finger to open the outer door.
Chloe twisted around to face the fast-approaching guards.
"Faster, faster, faster," Shannon muttered as she watched the display screen return the vestibule’s atmospheric pressure reading. It edged closer to full compression for the Martian atmosphere and their freedom.
Chloe, riveted by the guards advancing toward the doorway, almost forgot to put on her breathing mask. Quickly, she slipped it on and glanced to make sure Shannon hadn’t made the same mistake. She hadn’t.
Aside from the heavy breaths of the girls, the vestibule was silent. Vulnerable, trapped between the doors, Chloe kept thinking about the guards’ opportunity to shoot through the glass and kill them. The guards raced to the door with a clear view of them but were unable to do anything. They were fifteen meters away. No, she thought, they can’t enter. The glass is bulletproof. It had to be with the Martian dust storms.
Shannon pressed the release button repeatedly for the outer door. Nothing happened. She pounded on it continually and urged the door to open with a few choice words. Besides an escape point, the open outer door sealed the inner door, barricading them from the guards.
Chloe’s hands shook uncontrollably. Capture meant Shannon would die under the thumb of the supreme chancellor, and the evil Hans Bauer would torture her. And worse, neither of them would see their son or daughter again. In that regard, she knew Shannon had the same motivation for safety as she did. She trusted Shannon…even though she had betrayed Eamonn.
Quaking, her eyes unmoved, she did her best to touch the minds of the guards; any kind of touch that slowed them from continuing toward the release button on their side of the door. She pressed her hand against the glass, hoping to focus on the guards. Nothing. Fear fogged the space between them.
Then the compactness of the vestibule disappeared. Behind her, the sound of the air sweeping into the doorway made her flinch, and as if her instincts came to a realization, ignoring the guards within her vision, an intensifying fear jolted her already fragile nerves. This fear wasn’t about her capture. This was worse. With the outer door open, the deadly drop from the balcony loomed. How had she rappelled the cliff before?
The wind howled, and coldness swept across her body. She continued to stare at the guards. Her eyes focused on them. Her muscles locked. She didn’t want to turn around to face the balcony. Scenarios flashed in her mind to escape facing the drop. Foremost was an image of her fighting the group of guards who were in a rage to open the door. She could do it—
The soldiers, frustrated by losing the race with Shannon and the door panel, were throwing the butts of their rifles against the glass. The booming thud made Chloe jump backward. She felt the handle of her gun in her hand. She could eliminate them and not have to face the balcony—
Chloe felt Shannon seize her shoulder, and she jerked back with a cry. The rest of her body followed. Sprawling, fighting to keep her balance, she flailed across the coarse surface of the balcony on her butt. Using her gloved hands to stabilize her, she slid to a stop.
Immediately, she wheeled her head around, wanting to curse at Shannon, but she saw the urgency of the situation. Shannon, with her back against the closing door and her feet pressing against the frame, struggled to keep it open.
"Something to wedge it," Shannon growled, fighting with the doorway.
Of course, Chloe realized, pushing her fear aside as necessity overrode all other considerations. If the outer door stayed open, the inner door couldn’t open. The guards thumbed at the keypad, but the computer stifled any attempts to override an atmospheric containment breach.
She paused. That also meant she had to face the balcony.
She shrugged the thought away; fighting the guards was a crazy idea. The second shot would kill her. She wasn’t Seth. Somewhere out here was a different way to escape. She whirled around, looking for something that would help her.
Scanning, she saw a table and chair less than a meter away. She dashed over to them. Her first instinct was to grab the table, but the glass top made it useless against the heavy door. So she grabbed the back of the chair and felt its weight.
Shannon cried for help.
"Heavy enough," Chloe muttered. She took a dozen strides and was back to the doorway. Shannon snatched the chair from her hands, shifted her body, and let the door close between the legs of the chair. The gears grinded in protest but the chair held against the door.
Chloe let out a deep breath. "What now?"
"Over here," Shannon said, already heading toward the equipment bag she had left on the balcony. She zipped open the bag and retrieved a crossbow.
Chloe hesitated as she saw it. The crossbow was large, with a single grapplin
g arrow attached to one end and a shimmering rope tied to the other.
"A zip line," Shannon said. "Have you ever been on one?"
"No," Chloe replied, not hearing her words, continuing to focus on the crossbow. "I don’t think I can."
"Nonsense!" Shannon shook her head. "Grab the hand trolley out of the bag. You’re going first."
Shannon leaned her torso over the edge of the balcony. Using the eyepiece, she aimed against the terrain below, finding a spot close enough to the ground for them to land safely, but not too far to out distance the line. She fired.
The sound of the rope unraveling disappeared as a puff of dust kicked up in the distance. The arrow had penetrated the rock. Shannon pulled on the crossbow to test the hold. The line went taught. She drew her knife and sliced the line from the crossbow. With a heave, she tied the rope against the support beam bracing the doorframe.
She moved toward Chloe. "Come on," Shannon said. "If I’d known you were such a coward, I never would have taken you."
"No, you needed me," Chloe said in defense. "You needed help. Give me a moment."
A crash shook the door, followed by a series of thuds. The butts of rifles and boots beat against it. Bullets ricocheted off the glass and kicked harmless back into the room.
"There isn’t a moment," Shannon said, sticking her chin out and stiffening it. "You must find the courage. I won’t leave you here."
The sound of the port’s section alarm blared around them. Shannon’s eyes turned desperate. She scanned the area below. With spotlights sweeping along the surface, the port security searched below. She grimaced. No longer localized to the museum as she had wished, the break-in had failed to stay discreet—which meant hovercars and patrols were coming.
Chloe remained rigid, unable to move. Her eyes saw only the floor of Trivium Port, so far below.
"Enough of this," Shannon said. She stooped to one knee and cut the nylon handles from the bag. Then she tore the bag open, pulled out the hand trolley, and stood. She reached over her head and attached the trolley to the line, pulled Chloe’s hands up to the handle, and wrapped the nylon straps around her hand, securing her to the trolley.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 75