No! She didn’t need him anymore.
Suddenly, and to her surprise, an inferno raged within her heart. She closed her eyes and focused on the man, searching for his mind. The man pressed downward, attempting to push her shoulder out of its socket. She used the pain, mixing it with her fury. Her breathing deepened, spittle flying from her mouth on each exhale. She was beyond angry. She was a supernova.
Then she surged her mind into his. He jerked back, nearly toppling over.
Chloe found the leverage advantage, twisted her body clear of his grasp, and thrust her foot into the crouched man’s jaw. He sprawled backward, spreading his arms and legs across the pad. He lay apparently lifeless.
She scrambled to her feet, disbelief churning in her mind. She hadn’t kicked him hard enough to cause unconsciousness. She stepped forward. Blood oozed from his ears, and he remained still. Against her better judgment, she stooped over the man, keeping her guard, yet worried about what she had done. She reached down, feeling for the pulse along the top of his neck. He was alive.
As she tried to sense activity in his mind, she palmed his forehead, and suddenly terror flowed within her. His fears and worries surged around her. The nightmares roiled from one to the next. She had done this to him by channeling her rage and injecting it into him. What had she done?
"Chloe," Shannon muttered from behind her. "Help me."
Chloe picked up Shannon where she lay and tended to her arm, making sure it was stable enough for travel. Her primary focus was still on the man she had imprisoned within his mind.
"I will be fine," Shannon said. "What about him?"
Sirens wailed. Chloe flinched. In the distance, no more than five hundred meters away, the hovercars of the MSA security force headed straight toward them. The spotlights splashed across the pad in front of them.
Shannon started, using her hand to pull on Chloe’s arm. Chloe didn’t move.
"Come on," Shannon whined. "They are coming for us!"
"I know," Chloe said, pulling her sonic pistol from her holster and cocking the hammer. "He can’t live with the thoughts I have placed in his mind."
Bang! Bang! The shots echoed off the cliffs to the side of the landing pad. Chloe didn’t stop to check the man’s pulse. He was dead. She had shot him to save him from a lifetime of terrors within a coma. Her ignorant use of her abilities had necessitated a mercy killing.
She pivoted to Shannon who was already heading away from the MSA security. Chloe didn’t hesitate any longer and followed her.
Unlike before, Chloe outpaced Shannon. After she sped past her, Chloe slowed to help her injured friend. The blood from Shannon’s arm trickled down to her elbow and pattered against the ground. Chagrined by the trail Shannon had left, Chloe removed her coat and wrapped it around Shannon’s arm.
The cold air rippled across her skin. Feeling goose bumps pop up everywhere, she shivered. The sirens grew louder. Her breathing quickened, and panic overcame her; she recognized it but couldn’t stop it. Frankly, she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. It was Shannon who was supposed to do the planning. Now, with Shannon injured, Chloe would be in the lead for the rest of the mission.
She scanned the area around them.
"There!" Chloe shouted, pointing with her free arm at a loadcart. Perfect. They hurried toward the vehicle. It was a standard loadcart with a large engine block to the front, passenger seating behind that, and taking up the back half, a cargo wagon. Jumping into the driver’s seat, Chloe checked the engine status gauges. The indicators read normal. The engine was still warm from the day’s use, which sped up the start-up sequence.
Beside her, Shannon labored to get into the perched seat. Chloe pulled her by the collar, and Shannon managed to make it up.
"Hold on!" Chloe shouted and stepped hard on the accelerator.
The loadcart lurched forward to its top speed in a matter of seconds, which wasn’t saying much. Chloe swore she could run faster. She drove blind, steering through a series of tight turns. She didn’t know where she was going or where they needed to be, other than away from the sirens closing in behind them. The loadcart jostled. Shannon groaned.
"Sorry," Chloe said. She shivered again. The evening air of Mars was starting to penetrate the blanket of heat from the day’s sun. Even if they escaped, they needed shelter.
Apparently, Shannon had the same idea. "Tunnel," she said, pointing toward an access tunnel.
The dark interior worried Chloe. "They’ll trap us."
"No, we have to get away from their aerial patrols. They are relaying our position—"
No sooner than she finished talking, an MSA hovercar swooped in beside them on the passenger’s side, its sirens screaming. Chloe grimaced, fighting off the horn’s pulsating squelch. The light from the twirlers blazed into her eyes. She jerked the controls, sending the heavier loadcart into the MSA hovercar.
A crash rattled her, followed by the shrill sound of metal tearing from the hovercar’s outer hull. The hovercar staggered, twisted to the side, and wobbled as the front end scraped against the ground. Smarting, the pilot returned to a safe distance. Chloe craned her neck and smirked, seeing the dread in his eyes as he hoped to avoid another encounter—
Then unexpectedly, Chloe reeled to the side.
Shannon, equally unprepared by the strike and unable to secure herself with only one arm, flew into the air, landing hard against the wagon of the loadcart. She scrambled on all fours, trying to find hand- and footholds. Chloe could do little for her.
Though she was injured, Shannon had the wherewithal to grab the tie straps, and by wedging her foot against the end of the wagon, she prevented herself—for the moment—from toppling to the concrete landing pad.
Chloe’s face tightened. She had to choose between the new threat and Shannon’s perilous position. First, she looked over her shoulder to the driver’s side; a second hovercar hit them. But its surprise advantage was over, and Chloe disregarded its threat for the moment; keeping the loadcart straight was her priority. Then she lunged toward Shannon, grabbing her injured wrist to help hold her from slipping to the surface. Shannon squealed in pain. But Chloe had limited options. Falling off meant certain death for the pilot—if not from the fall, then by Gwen’s hand.
As she juggled between steering and holding Shannon, Chloe kept the loadcart stable without giving up any ground to the MSA hovercars. The loadcart wasn’t faster than the hovercars, but considering its weight, keeping up the advantage gained by momentum was vital. Each strike from the hovercar was an effort to stop or slow them. Shannon’s grasp kept slipping, but Chloe needed to maintain speed so they would make it to the tunnel. If enough MSA caught up, she wouldn’t be able to stop them all. The loadcart was a mule, but it had its limits.
For both their sakes, she couldn’t slow down. Shannon would have to hold on.
The fingers on Shannon’s good hand bled from the fingernails as they dug into the metal paneling of the wagon’s bed. Still, Chloe did not dare slow even a fraction. Shannon would have to endure the torment.
They lurched again to the side. The hovercar’s pilot sensed Shannon’s terrifying position. Chloe cursed. She tried to reach for his mind, but everything was happening too fast. It was almost impossible to focus in the midst of this mayhem. She glimpsed farther ahead. Still several hundred meters away, the path to the access tunnel was clear. Chloe wondered if the stretch of concrete would ever end. Why did they make these pads so big? Didn’t they know it made escape difficult?
She swiveled her head around for the millionth time to check on the MSA pursuers. Disbelief confused her thoughts: between ten and twenty hovercars were chasing from behind at various distances.
Shannon screamed in agony. Their eyes locked for a moment. Chloe sensed the urgency of the moment. Her choices made from now until reaching the tunnel had to be perfect. Any mistakes and they either died horribly or, even worse, were captured by the MSA.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hovercar t
o the driver’s side veer toward them, attempting again to make use of Shannon’s perilous position. Perhaps a direct order from his superiors had encouraged him in. Chloe eyed the hovercar as it pushed into them. The loadcart lurched a third time. This time, Chloe had expected it and used the momentum to pull Shannon up toward her.
Something from behind jostled them mightily, and as she peered toward the front to regain their position, everything appeared clear. She turned to find Shannon again, but she was gone. Her first reaction was that Shannon had fallen off, and panic struck her heart, making it beat it faster. A dread surged down her chest.
But as Chloe looked behind, Shannon was nowhere to be found.
Wham! With a horrific crunch, Shannon’s body was slammed between the seat and the wagon. Her torso convulsed, and her arms and legs flopped across the loadcart. Relief and terror hit Chloe in the same instant. She was glad for her friend’s safety but afraid she was unconscious, or worse, dead.
Shannon groaned and convulsed. She was conscious. Chloe released the fear for her friend, and a surge of anger boiled from the ugliest part of her. Chloe wanted to hurt someone. She caught Shannon’s eye. Shannon nodded, grabbed the seat belt in front of her, and braced herself.
Chloe smirked. Shannon had to be the most resilient person on Mars.
Then without even caring about the consequences, Chloe jerked the steering wheel, slamming the front end into the hovercar. A loud pop sounded as the rigid metal frame of the loadcart crashed into the softer front bumper of the hovercar. The driver attempted to pull away, but his engines protested as he fought the weight of his vehicle and the loadcart. Hopelessly wedged in, the driver’s attempts were futile. Chloe veered away, and the hovercar had to follow.
She looked ahead and grinned. Only a hundred meters away, the access tunnel was getting closer, and by this time, she realized that only her loadcart would fit into it. It was one-way access to Trivium Port’s underground storage center, and more importantly, cover from the aerial patrols. Shannon was right. It was their only chance to escape. She maintained her course straight toward it.
The hovercar driver didn’t agree. Tangled within the sturdy frame of the loadcart, he was in pure panic mode. He yanked his control stick in an attempt to clear the hovercar away. The loadcart shook violently. The frame, pulled and twisted by the torque the driver exerted, squawked like a wounded bird.
The maneuver was useless. Chloe’s loadcart was more than equal to the task, steadily maintaining its course toward the tunnel. The hovercar did not contain enough power to budge the weight of the loadcart. The chances of arriving at the tunnel increased greatly.
Beyond that…Chloe worried about what would happen once she hit the tunnel. Her plan ended there.
Streaks of blue whizzed over her head and down the tunnel. She wheeled her head around and saw another MSA hovercar only twenty meters from her. They are shooting! Don’t they know who’s driving the loadcart? she thought. Possibly they didn’t care, or possibly Seth had issued the order to stop her by any means. She pressed harder on the already bottomed-out accelerator. The engine continued at its top speed.
BOOM! Chloe twisted back around. The hovercar flipped into the air. Immediately, as though she was possessed, she lowered her head and pushed herself as far down in the seat as possible. The bumper whizzed by her ear. If she hadn’t weaved her head to the side, the hovercar would have taken it clean off.
The light in the tunnel faded to a dim shadow. She slowed the loadcart.
Beside her, Shannon, still clutching the seat belt, whooped for joy. Chloe looked over her shoulder and realized why Shannon was so joyous. The hovercar, tossed aside when the tunnel’s opening ripped it off, was acting as a blockade, effectively separating them from the MSA security force—at least for the moment.
Chloe helped Shannon into the seat. The loadcart chugged along as they searched for a place to exit. The light from the tunnel opening vanished around a long drawn-out corner. Lights faintly glowed down the sides to mark the presence of the walls. A gust of warm air pushed against their faces, and the sound of giant fans echoed immensely, creating a din. Their muscles stiffened, and they anxiously continued.
After traveling another half kilometer, they came to an abrupt halt in front of a massive door, shielded with metal plates.
"Double-door system," Shannon said. Carefully bracing her arm against her side, she stepped out of the loadcart and walked to the front.
"Double doors, this large," Chloe said, walking up beside her.
"Of course, how else would they courier the cargo in and out of the port?"
"I never thought about it." Chloe stepped to the side, searching for an activation switch. "How do we open it?"
"We don’t."
Chloe paused, eyeing Shannon.
"I mean, the control station opens the doorway," Shannon said. "And they aren’t about to open it for us. Security has alerted them."
Chloe continued to remain silent. She hurried to the side of the tunnel, scanning the area for anything amiss. The pale beam lights from the loadcart glimmered off the sides, casting shadows where she needed light and giving light only on bare walls. After searching along the darkened walls with her hands, she found an air grate to the left side of the massive door. She knelt in front of the grate. The bars were warm. Then warm air brushed across her face, gently washing away the coldness of the tunnel.
"Here," she said. Shannon moved over. "Maybe we can get in here somehow. These ventilation shafts must lead to somewhere safe."
"I don’t know. Maybe we can find a pedestrian door, farther down the tunnel. Did we miss it?"
"We didn’t miss it," Chloe said. "I watched carefully."
Shannon bit her upper lip.
Chloe stood, looking down the tunnel, gloom weighing on her mind. The air from the tunnel grew warmer and stifling, but it did not stink. A weariness about going down the shaft tugged on her good senses. Yet the need to get out of there before the MSA came pressed her to action. She moved to the side of the loadcart and opened the compartments on the lower part of the frame. She rummaged through the nuts, bolts, and tools lining the inside. Then she found what she was looking for, a portable plasma cutter, a dozen centimeters in length with a sturdy handle.
Bar after bar, she cut, sending bars clanking down the darkened tunnel.
"Find something to light our way," Chloe ordered. "Come on, you have one good arm."
Shannon left to scavenge the loadcart. By the time Chloe had the bars cut off, Shannon had returned with a sack containing two flashlights and several landing flares. "Excellent," Chloe said, grabbing the sack. She returned one of the flashlights to Shannon. "Can you hold this while we fall?"
"I’ll have to," Shannon said. Then she hesitated. "What if we run into another grate or a smaller shaft? We’ll be good and stuck then."
"We have to risk it." Chloe looked over her shoulder down the tunnel. A light flashing along the tunnel caught her attention. "They are coming. Hurry now."
Shannon tucked her injured arm along her side, slid her legs past the cut grate and into the air tube, and leapt downward. Chloe smirked, hearing Shannon’s whoops and yelps as she twisted away.
Chloe waited for a few moments, hoping she was leaving enough time for Shannon to brace herself when she came up from behind. She jumped into the tube, sack in one hand and flashlight in the other, and slid after her companion.
Chloe bounced back and forth as she tumbled down the tube. The metal sheets shuddered under her weight. The air tube was a giant slide, and Chloe felt her childhood return. Twisting and turning, dropping at unexpected moments and leveling when she thought it would drop, the air tube was a nightmare and a joy. Then, over the shuddering of the metal, Shannon whooped a final cry before she went silent. Chloe braced for impact.
Instead of a sudden impact, such as slamming into the back of Shannon or jamming into a grate, a feeling of nothingness preceded the final stop. Chloe flew through the air, and at the
moment she realized she had nothing supporting her, the jolt of stopping against the bottom of a large tube rattled her teeth and compressed her tailbone.
As she rolled over on her back, she groaned.
Hot, searing air burned against her face. Already, as she reached for her forehead, the sweat beaded along her brow, and then, realizing that her whole body was in a sweat, she became more alert, searching for Shannon.
An instant later, Shannon grabbed her by the arm, and she started. "You scared me," Chloe said. She stood beside Shannon and took in the tube.
It was a large air cylinder, open enough to fit a hovercar in, and it contained several smaller tributary tunnels. The heat was oppressive. A portrait of Mercury flashed in her mind, and the echoing sounds of compressing and decompressing metal gave her an eerie feeling. The length of the cylinder was enormous; it had to be the main air ventilation system for the port. Trying to shoo the heat from her mind, she felt a surge of confidence lift her spirits. She considered the number of tubes running from this system and knew they would find an appropriate one to bring them to safety.
"Okay, so we are here," Shannon said. "Where to now?"
Chloe didn’t reply. Instead, she reached into the sack, pulled out a landing flare, and popped it against her thigh. A flame ignited. She tossed it down the tube. The tube glowed brighter, but it didn’t reveal any obvious escape.
"Look around," Chloe said softly, wondering how far their voices carried along the tubes.
"For what?" Shannon replied quickly. "I don’t know why I let you convince me to do this."
"Would you rather be in MSA custody?"
Shannon went silent, ignoring her.
Chloe flashed her light toward the opening closest to them. It displayed no markings. She moved from opening to opening, with the same result for each tube; no indications of what they were used for.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 77