Apollo's Outcasts

by Allen Steele

  Nicole and I didn't bother to pick up our helmets or carbines. Instead, each of us took one end of a stretcher and carried a wounded Ranger aboard the bus, with Mahmoud and Hans bringing out the second stretcher. Once the wounded were aboard, the Chief told Nicole and me to go back and fetch our helmets and guns. She and I grabbed our gear as fast as we could; as soon as we returned, Mr. Garcia slammed the hatch behind us.

  "Get us out of here!" he yelled to the driver. "Go west on Loop Road. That'll keep the crater between us and the snipers."

  The driver was Ed Tolley, the guy who'd picked me when I first landed on the Moon. He put the bus in gear, and we barely had time to take our seats before it sped away from the Pegasus, bouncing across rocks and craters as it made a beeline for the road. I was about to tell him to stop and wait for Gordie and Sam, but then I glanced through a window and saw them climbing into the back of a rover along with the Rangers.

  "We're going to have to take the long way back," the Chief explained. "The bad guys have taken up positions in the hills east of town so they can take potshots at anything coming out of the garage. We managed to catch them by surprise when we left, but now that they know we're here, I doubt we'll be so lucky going back." He pointed to our helmets. "Put 'em on. If we draw fire, you'll need to close your helmets if the bus collects a bullet."

  I picked up my helmet and shoved my head into it. "What about them?" I asked, looking at the two wounded Rangers. We'd left their moonsuits aboard the Pegasus.

  "They're just going to have to take their chances." Mr. Garcia caught the look on Nicole's face and shook his head. "Sorry, but that's just the way it is. We can't stop to..."

  "I know that, sir," she said. "But we also left behind the...the people we lost, I mean. They're still in the transport."

  "I'm aware of that, and I'm sorry to have to leave them there, but there's nothing we can do for them just now. Bringing them aboard would have cost us time, and the snipers might have drawn a bead on this bus if it had remained there any longer." He gave her hand a brief squeeze. "When this is over, I'll send someone out back here to get them...I promise."

  "All right," she said, staring him straight in the eye. "So long as you pick me."

  "Fair enough." The Chief turned to Mahmoud. "All right, Mr. Chawla...let's hear your report. What happened down there, and why did you return?"

  As quickly as he could, Mahmoud told him about the battle at Cabeus. He skipped a few details for the sake of brevity, but the gist of it was there. The Chief listened carefully, asking questions every now and then but otherwise remaining quiet. When Mahmoud got to the part of the story where PSU soldiers from Moon Dragon came to our rescue, the chief's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then Mahmoud told him that the enemy wasn't the US Marines but rather Ball North mercenaries, and Mr. Garcia stared at him in disbelief.

  "I'll be damned. I would've never thought she'd stoop that low." He sighed and shook his head. "That colonel...Thahn, did you say his name was?...was probably right. President Shapar probably gave the order to send private soldiers. That way, her administration would have plausible deniability if there were civilian casualties and put the blame on...well, who knows?"

  "Yes, sir," Mahmoud said, "but Colonel Thahn also raised another possibility...that Ball North was hired because the Marines refused to take on this particular mission."

  "Marines refusing a direct order from their commander in chief?" The Chief gave him a skeptical look. "I rather doubt that...but if it's true, then Shapar could be in serious trouble." A grim smile. "We can only hope that your friend is right."

  By then, the bus had made the turn on Loop Road that brought us within sight of the remains of Ag Dome 2. I stared at the blackened hole that had once been the farm; on the other side of the bus, the others were gazing at the massive rip in the lower part of Apollo's dome.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "The first wave of the attack came from space," Mr. Garcia said. "The Duke was outfitted with a missile launcher. Just before it landed, it fired six missiles at us. Fortunately, none of them were nuclear-tipped...I guess Lina Shapar wants Apollo intact, more or less...and when we saw them coming, we had just enough time to sound the evacuation alarm."

  "But didn't the Blitzgewehr...?"

  "The Blitzgewehr managed to take out four of the missiles before they hit. But it couldn't track all six at once, so two got through. The fifth missile destroyed the Blitzgewehr, and the sixth destroyed Ag Dome 2." The Chief pointed to the remains of the ag dome. "When it hit the farm, some of the debris ripped through the solarium ceiling. We were lucky, though. Almost everyone made it to the shelter, so there were few casualties. But we still lost some people..."

  "Sir...what about my sister Melissa?" I tried not to stammer, but wasn't very successful. "She...she worked in Ag Dome 2. Was she...I mean, did she...?"

  "She managed to get out. Your sister is safe and sound. But..." Mr. Garcia hesitated. "We lost one of our friends. I'm sorry."

  I stared at him. "Who?"

  "Eddie Hernandez," he said quietly. "He was in the farm when the missile hit."

  The bus had barely reached the Depot Road entrance ramp when it came under sniper fire. There was a loud tap against the vehicle roof as the vehicle turned onto the ramp; I didn't recognize the sound for what it was, the ricochet of a bullet, but Mr. Garcia did. He yelled for Tolley to step on it, and he responded by flooring the accelerator and sending the bus down the ramp at breakneck speed.

  I glanced through the rear windows to see that the two escort Rangers had jumped off the rover. Crouched beside the ramp, they raised their carbines and returned fire, covering our escape. Gordie and Sam were still in the back of the rover, and it looked as if Gordie was trying to find a gun of his own when both vehicles hurtled into the garage. Its doors were already open, and they shut as soon as the Rangers ran down the ramp behind us. Nonetheless, no one breathed easily until the dust scrubbers kicked in.

  A med team was waiting for us in the garage. As soon as the bus came to a halt, Mr. Garcia opened the hatch and let them aboard. I half-expected Hannah to be among the medics who carried away the stretchers, but she wasn't. Which was probably just as well; I'd lost too many friends today, and wasn't quite ready to see her again.

  "Get out of your suits and leave them here," Mr. Garcia said as Nicole, Mahmoud, Hans and I climbed out. "We'll have someone carry them back to the Ranger ready-room. I want the four of you to go straight to the shelter. Find your families, get a bite to eat, grab a nap. You'll be back on duty soon enough, and I want you rested by then."

  I couldn't even think of doing anything except finding my sister, but I nodded and followed the others from the garage. Since the solarium had been sealed off, the elevators were no longer operating; we went up a short flight of stairs, then through a pressure door leading to one of the mooncrete corridors that honeycombed Apollo's underground levels. The corridors were crowded with loonies; it seemed as if everyone had urgent business of one sort or another, and none of them paid much attention to four exhausted, battle-weary Rangers making their way to the storm shelter.

  The shelter was packed. What had once been an immense room seemed to have shrunk, now that nearly a thousand people were living there. The floor was lined with plastic cushions arranged in uneven rows, with translucent curtains hung from the low ceiling to provide a modicum of privacy. Some people lay upon their makeshift beds, reading or trying to sleep; others sat with their backs against the walls or simply wandered about as if looking for somewhere to go, something to do. Families clustered together, while individuals had found friends or coworkers to keep them company. The air was thick with the stench of too many people bunched together, and hundreds of voices speaking at once produced a cacophony that was almost deafening.

  It took a while for me to find Melissa. It wasn't until I happened to run into Ms. Lagler, who was ladling out soup in a breadline, that I knew where to look: a remote corner of the shelter, where she and Mr. Lagler
had pitched camp along with the Rices. When she told me that, I knew that I'd find Nina there, too.

  I made my way through the crowd until I located them. I'd never seen my sister like this before. Sitting in the corner, legs drawn up against her chest, she held Nina in her arms. As I came closer, Melissa looked up and spotted me. For a second or two, she stared at me in shock, then she hastily pushed Nina aside, scrambled to her feet, and rushed toward me.

  "Jamey!" she shouted, sailing into me so hard that she almost knocked the wind from my lungs. "Oh, thank God, you're alive!"

  "Yeah...yeah, you too." I held her tight. "Are you okay? Did you...?"

  "I'm all right, I'm fine, I..." And then she broke down, and all I could was hold her and let the tears come. In that moment, I'd somehow become the older sibling. At least it felt that way; I was giving her comfort, not the other way around.

  I waited until she stopped sobbing, then I led her back over to the cushions she and Nina were now calling home and sat down with them. Nina was as stoical as always, but I could tell that her brother's death had hit her hard. It didn't look as if either of them had slept at all since the attack: there were dark circles under their swollen eyes and their faces were wet with tears. They'd probably been crying for hours, and both were scared to death.

  It took a bit of prodding, but I finally managed to pry from them what happened. Eddie and Melissa had been working in Ag Dome 2--and, as always, Nina was there, too, to shepherd her brother--when the attack came. They'd been through numerous evacuation drills, of course, so when the alarm sounded, they immediately dropped what they were doing and headed straight for the underground tunnel leading from the farm to Ammonius.

  "We were almost there when Nina fell..." Melissa said.

  "I tripped," Nina said, correcting her. "Someone left a wheelbarrow in the aisle, and I fell over it."

  "Uh-huh, yeah. And it wouldn't have been so bad except..." Melissa shook her head. "There were so many people, and everyone was trying to get to the tunnel at once. So when Nina went down, I couldn't see her at all. I could hear her yelling, but..."

  "There were people stepping on me, pushing me down." Nina stared at the floor. "I couldn't get up. They were trampling me."

  "I was in the tunnel entrance, but I couldn't get back to her. Everyone was pushing against me, and they wouldn't get out of my way. And someone was shouting, 'Hurry, hurry, the door's about to close...'"

  "Eddie was behind me." Nina spoke calmly as if she was describing something she'd seen in a vid. "He picked me up and tried to run forward, but there were too many people in the way." She raised her hands above her head. "So he...he just threw me..."

  "I couldn't believe what he did!" Melissa's eyes were wide; even in the retelling, she was plainly astonished. "Maybe it's because...I dunno, maybe because she just weighs less here, but...Eddie just pitched her like she was a football or something, right over everyone's heads, and I reached up and caught her, and then we fell back into the tunnel, and then..."

  "The doors shut." Nina was still staring at the floor. "We were the last people to make it into the tunnel before the doors slammed down. And a couple of seconds later..."

  "There was a huge boom from the other side and...and that was it. The missile hit, blew the whole place up." Melissa slowly let out her breath. "Eddie was still in the farm, along with everyone else who didn't get out in time. But he saved Nina, just like when you..."

  "I know," I whispered. It was if a pit had opened in my stomach. Eddie saved Nina's life very much the same way our mother saved mine when I was an infant; the similarity couldn't have been more obvious.

  "I...I...I..." Melissa shook her head. "Oh, God...Jamey, I'd made so much fun of him, and then he...then he goes and does something like this, and I..."

  The tears came again, and this time some of them were my own. I told them about Logan and how he'd died, and then the three of us huddled together, arms around each other, sharing our misery with each other.

  I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and I looked up to find Hannah standing behind me. I don't know how long she'd been there, but it didn't matter; she already knew what happened to Eddie, and she'd just learned about Logan, too. In any case, words were unnecessary, our parting argument forgotten. I stood up and took her in my arms, and we were that way for a long time until Melissa joined the circle, and then Nina, too.

  Six kids had left Earth. Now we were down to four. All I could do was hope that we wouldn't lose anyone else.

  I wasn't very hungry, but Hannah insisted that I eat something, so I let her take me back to the communal breadline that had been set up in the middle of the shelter, where we each received a bowl of vegetable soup. Several rows of folding chairs had been set up nearby as a dining space, and while we had lunch--or was it dinner? I wasn't sure--I told her everything that had happened since the last time we'd seen other. It wasn't until I was done, though, that I recalled the way she and I had parted company.

  "So..." I looked down at the paper soup bowl in my hands. "Sorry about how our first date is turning out," I murmured, not sure what to say next.

  "Sure know how to show a girl a good time, don't you?" She said this with such a straight face that I thought she was serious. But then she forced a smile. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll come up with something better next time."

  "You want there to be a next time?" I asked. "I mean, the last time we talked...y'know, I think I said something stupid..."

  "Maybe you did. Or maybe I just took it the wrong way. I don't know, and I don't care. I'm just..." Hannah closed her eyes, shook her head. "I'm just glad you're still alive, that's all."

  "Yeah. So am I." I didn't mean it to come out that way, and for a second we stared at each other in awkward confusion. Then both of us started laughing, and that was it. Apologies given and accepted.

  We might have hung around with each other for a while longer, but Hannah had to get back to the emergency clinic set up on the other side of the shelter, and I desperately needed sleep. So we promised each other a real date once everything went back to normal--I wasn't sure it would, but there was no harm in pretending--and then I returned to where I'd left Melissa and Nina. My sister had found a spare cushion for me while I was gone; I unrolled it beside hers, lay down, shut my eyes, and did my best to sleep despite the constant noise around me.

  I thought I was going to sleep through the night, but that didn't happen. I was awakened by a hand gently shaking me. "Jamey...Jamey, get up," a voice said quietly. "There's something you need to see."

  I woke up to find Mr. Lagler kneeling beside me. "What's going on?" I asked. "Are we being attacked?"

  "No, nothing like that." The ceiling lights had been dimmed, so I could barely see his face. "We've received a netcast transmission from Earth. Loren Porter is putting it up on the big screen."

  Rubbing my eyes, I sat up to look around. I wasn't the only one being awakened. All around me, others were being prodded out of sleep by their families and friends. "What's so important that...?"

  "It's from the White House. I don't know what it's about either, but Loren says that it concerns us."

  I didn't like the sound of that, so I clambered to my feet. The ceiling lights were being turned up; there were groans and muffled curses as the room became brighter. At the far end of the shelter, the immense wall screen had been lit. Wondering what this was all about, I started making my way toward it, doing my best to step around others who were still getting up.

  I was about halfway across the room when I found Hannah. She looked as if she hadn't slept at all, and I didn't have to ask why; she had probably been spending her entire time in the infirmary, taking care of those who'd been hurt by the missile attack.

  "Do you know what's going on?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "No...but I don't think it's going to be good news." She slipped her hand in mine. "C'mon. I want to get closer."

  We continued to make our way toward the screen. By then, almost everyon
e in the shelter was awake. Nicole caught up with us; she hadn't slept much either, but at least she'd calmed down. I spotted others I knew--Gordie and Sam, Gabrielle, Billy and his uncle Don--and they seemed to be just as bewildered as everyone else.

  We'd just reached the front of the room when the screen lit. Mr. Porter appeared on it, a giant peering down upon the loonies gathered in the shelter. "Good evening," he said, his voice coming from the ceiling speakers. "I apologize for having awakened those of you who were asleep, but this is too important to wait until morning. Just a short time ago, a government netcast was transmitted to Apollo. This netcast was carried throughout the United States and was probably seen in most other countries as well, and apparently originated in the White House. I could tell you what it's about, but perhaps it's best that you see it for yourselves." He paused. "Here is the President of the United States...."

  He disappeared, and the screen went blank for a couple of seconds. Then President Shapar appeared. She was dressed in a dark blue business suit, a flag pin on her right lapel, and she stood at a podium with the presidential seal on its front. The background was a featureless wall, but I didn't think anything of this until Hannah hissed under her breath.

  "That's not good," she whispered to me. "Whenever my father addressed the nation, it was either from the Oval Office or the Treaty Room." She nodded toward the screen. "She's doing this from a bunker under the White House, next to the Situation Room."

  Lina Shapar began to speak.

  "My fellow Americans, I'm speaking to you regarding a matter of national importance. As you are no doubt aware, during the past three months our country has been faced with an embargo of vital lunar resources that was imposed upon us by the International Space Consortium, an organization of which the United States was a charter member. This action was clearly taken by the other ISC countries in an attempt to take control of the helium-3 necessary for the continued operation of America's nuclear fusion plants...."