“You lost your family in the war, didn’t you?”
Mulligan froze for an instant, and Leona could almost see something flip inside of him like a circuit breaker. Mulligan whirled upon her like some thundering war god and seized her arms in his big hands. He swung her around as if she were a doll and pinned her against the padded side of the airlock, causing her to gasp in a queer mixture of fear and something bordering on delight. She’d found what made Mulligan tick, or at least found the path to it, but as she saw the uncontained fury break across his face, she suddenly wondered if she might take the discovery to her rapidly approaching grave.
“Yes, they died in the war, along with six billion other people!” Mulligan snarled, and his voice was as tight as a well-tuned snare drum. “And guess what, Eklund? After the missiles dropped, they were still alive for almost four hours! They were in Scott City, some little hick town that was only thirty minutes from Harmony, and I couldn’t get to them because of my own recklessness!”
Leona writhed in his powerful grip, feeling his thick fingers dig into the flesh and muscle of her upper arms, but there was no escaping the towering man’s grip. She would have bruises—if she survived the encounter. Mulligan’s eyes were wild, filled with a mixture of pain and rage and despair that had festered unchecked in him for a decade, and even she knew such a combination was as volatile as unstable nitroglycerin.
Suddenly, Mulligan released her and stepped back, his fingers curled into fists, his feet spread wide apart against the swaying of the vehicle. He glared down at her, his chest rising and falling as he took in great deep, ragged breaths.
“Get what you wanted, Lieutenant?” he asked finally, his voice barely audible over the sounds of the rig’s passage. “Any other action news updates I can provide, now that we’re finally having that warm heart-to-heart you’ve been after?”
“Don’t you ever touch me again,” she said. She tried to put steel in her voice, but it sounded pathetic and weak after his fury.
“Then take the hint, girlie—stay the hell away from me.”
He turned and marched past her, heading for the cockpit.
***
Andrews and Rachel were in the cockpit. The day beyond the viewports was hardly bright and accommodating—it looked like another storm was beginning to brew, coalescing on the horizon. He glanced down at the instruments, paying special attention to the radar display, which showed a deepening wall of clutter that rose almost twenty thousand feet into the air, and it was climbing.
“Mind if I sit in on the last leg, Captain?” Mulligan asked.
“Mulligan! How do you feel?” Andrews asked, looking up at him from the confines of the left seat.
Rachel stiffened when she heard his voice, but he ignored her. “Like shit, sir, but that’s normal.”
“Yeah, well, you should be resting. I hear you’re recovering from one hell of a concussion,” Andrews said, facing forward.
“Concussion, hangover—who can tell the difference, these days?” Mulligan said, trying to adopt a jovial tone and failing miserably.
“I already have Eklund ready to come forward,” Andrews said. “You should rest, Sarmajor.”
“I’ve been out for over two days, Captain. I’ve had more than enough rest, and I’m a hundred percent operational.”
Andrews chuckled. “You said that right before you passed out.”
“Yeah, well, that was then, this is now. How about it, sir?”
Andrews glanced up at Mulligan again, then down at the instruments. After a moment of consideration, he nodded slowly. “All right, Sarmajor. But if you start feeling messed up, you let me know and Eklund will take over. Understood?”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Take the right seat. Just so you know, the number two differential’s blown. It shit the bed about two days ago.” Andrews nodded again, this time to Rachel. Slowly, hesitantly, she unbuckled her safety harness and pushed back the copilot’s seat.
“Can it be fixed?” Mulligan asked, twisting to one side to allow her enough room to leave the cockpit. It hurt like hell, and he could feel Leona Eklund staring daggers into his back. Mulligan came to the wry conclusion that he was caught between two women who probably wanted nothing more than to stab him repeatedly in the heart with dull pencils.
Andrews seemed mostly unaware of his predicament, though he did watch Rachel with a casual expression. “Negative, it’s completely fragged—can’t be repaired without a lift and a hardstand. It’s put us another seventeen hours behind schedule.” He nodded out the viewports. “And there’s another treat: a storm building up to the east. Eklund says it’s a big one.”
Rachel pushed past Mulligan, her eyes downcast. He released a small sigh. At least she didn’t make a dramatic exit, which meant she was either extremely exhausted or her husband had spoken some words of wisdom that she’d taken to heart. Either way, Mulligan was happy to ease himself into the copilot’s seat and close the shield door.
“Well, I can tell you one thing, Captain. This mission wasn’t a bore.”
Andrews rubbed his bristly chin with one hand and nodded. “I’ll give you that, Sergeant Major.” He studied the instruments and made a small noise in his throat. “That storm’s coalescing pretty quickly. The front goes right off the scope.”
Mulligan checked the rig’s position on the moving map display, and he was surprised to discover just how close they were to Harmony Base. “We’re not that far from the signal repeaters. We should have voice contact with the base pretty soon, assuming they have enough power to transmit. No sign of pursuit from California, right?”
“Negative,” Andrews said.
Mulligan put some confidence into his voice. “Then we’re almost there. We’ll make it home without a hitch, Captain. Maybe we should switch on the transponder, so the base’ll know we’re coming. Just in case we can’t make voice contact.”
“Good idea,” Andrews said, and he pressed a button on the panel before him. “You a man of faith, Sarmajor?”
Mulligan bit back his immediate reply and took a moment to actually consider the question. “I don’t know about faith, sir. But the odds look good.”
Andrews nodded. After a moment, he looked over at Mulligan, studying him as the enlisted man looked out the viewports. Mulligan watched him from the corner of his eye, wondering why the hell everyone found him so interesting as of late.
“Thanks for coming back for us, Sarmajor,” Andrews said finally. He turned forward and monitored the rig’s progress as it traveled on under the guidance of the autopilot. “And I’m sorry we didn’t at least try and return the favor.”
Mulligan was surprised by the sudden sentiment, but he didn’t let it show. Besides, his face was so battered that adopting a surprised look would probably hurt like hell. “Forget it, sir. If I had any sense at all, I would’ve died back there. You had five people to take care of, and a mission to complete. If I’d been in your boots, I would have made tracks, too.” He paused for a moment. “Besides, life hasn’t been a barrel of laughs, lately. Dying’s nothing I’m afraid of, believe me.”
“Maybe you ought to alter your outlook a bit? You’re still alive, and some folks care—”
“Yeah, sir, thanks a lot, but let’s not go there, okay? We’re still on an ongoing mission, so let’s keep our minds focused on that.” He faced Andrews directly. “Okay, sir?”
Andrews met Mulligan’s gaze evenly and held it. “Roger that. But I want to tell you something, Mulligan. I was wrong about you. Having you on the roster wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.”
Mulligan snorted. “Who’re you trying to kid? Letting Benchley talk me onto this rig was the biggest mistake I’ve made in years. I’m way too old for the Iron Man act. I should’ve stayed in the dark with everyone else.” Almost against his will, Mulligan was surprised to add, “But, uh … thanks anyway, sir.”
Andrews nodded and turned away, apparently satisfied with Mulligan’s response. Mulligan busied himself by r
unning some diagnostics on the rig’s drivetrain components, hoping that if he looked busy enough, Andrews wouldn’t be tempted to make any more maudlin chitchat.
22
Law examined the growing storm with some trepidation, watching as it billowed and grew on the horizon. While the SCEV had handled itself admirably—it even continued rolling along its course when Law had, very much against his will, fallen asleep in the pilot’s seat—the storm front was simply gigantic, stretching from horizon to horizon … and it was still over fifty miles away. Great flashes of lightning illuminated the pulsating formation’s innards, and a wall of wind—a gust front, he remembered from his earlier days—had already swept over the SCEV, sending clouds of dust flying across the vehicle’s viewports. To say the tempest was intimidating was a massive understatement.
Will this be the end? he wondered. Will this storm destroy the vehicle, or just give Andrews enough cover to return to this base of his?
Either way, I’m dead.
Law had not taken the time to stop at any of the caches on the way back to Harmony Base, so the SCEV was critically low on fuel. He had only a couple of hundred miles left, then the rig would be reduced to battery power. After that, he would have—according to the computer display in front of him—another thirty hours of power before the SCEV became inoperable. Given the rather toxic environment outside the vehicle, it was obvious he wouldn’t survive for long after that happened.
There had been no sign of his quarry. Had Andrews and his remaining crew taken another route? Had they been delayed somewhere in their travels, and he had passed them by in the darkness? Had he been wrong in assuming that his lightened rig would be able to catch up to Andrews’s heavier one? Had they deviated from their course to take on more fuel at one of the caches?
He just didn’t know.
But I’m close. He regarded the moving map display. Harmony Base was only a hundred or so miles to the east, buried beneath the gently rolling landscape of dry earth and desiccated grass and the occasional twisted, rotting tree. I’m close, so even if I get there ahead of them, I can simply wait for them. He judged that he could extend his survival by several days if he shut down the rig and conserved fuel and power, laying in wait for his prey. The interferometers positioned along the rig’s exterior shell—basically a series of antennae designed to receive electromagnetic pulses along certain spectra—would alert him to SCEV Five’s approach, presuming Andrews was running with the ground-search radar enabled. And why wouldn’t he? There was no reason for him to disable it. Even if he was operating it at minimal power, as Law was doing, the SCEV’s receivers would detect the pulses of millimeter-wave radar energy long before Andrews and the others could get a solid return that showed his location. While in the Marine Corps a lifetime ago, when the planet was still green and fertile, Law had learned that radar energy was detectable far beyond the range of its own receiver, which was one reason that pilots and warships had practiced emissions control, limiting their use of technologies that could give away their location before they were ready to engage the enemy. Perhaps he could use that to his advantage—
A chime sounded over the cockpit speakers and, for a moment, Law was overcome by terror. Had Andrews found him? Was his vehicle being targeted by another rig, hidden somewhere out on the landscape?
He scanned the displays and saw he had been given a remarkable gift. SCEV Five’s transponder had been activated, and it emitted a string of data.
Including the rig’s position, just seventeen short miles ahead of him.
Law almost laughed out loud. The other vehicle was moving at less than forty miles per hour, which meant he would catch up to it in less than sixty minutes. He reached for the map display and zoomed out, examining the surrounding terrain. There was a small line of ridges that stood above the plain twenty-five miles ahead. If he could get to them in time, they would provide Law a clear view of the area, and he would be able to look down on SCEV Five as it rolled past.
Law dropped a waypoint onto the ridged area by dragging a finger across the map display’s touch screen, and the SCEV obediently altered its course.
Soon, Andrews. Soon.
***
As they closed to within fifty miles of Harmony Base, Andrews slipped on his radio headset, switched one of the radios over to the approach frequency, and pressed down on the TRANSMIT button on the control column. “Harmony Base, this is SCEV Five. Over.” He released the button and heard nothing but static-tinged emptiness crackling across his earphones. He tried again. “Harmony Base, this is SCEV Five. We’re inbound to you now. Can you give us a SITREP? Over.”
A faint voice came through the static interference, vague but distinct. “SCEV Five, Harmony Base. Stand by for Harmony Six. Over.”
“Roger that, Harmony. Over.” Andrews looked over at Mulligan. “Well, we get to talk to the Old Man himself.”
“The wonders of modern communications technology never cease to amaze me, sir,” Mulligan said. He donned his own headset and adjusted the boom microphone. “I hope he picks up soon. We’re going to lose commo once that storm hits.”
A low whine came across the radio as Benchley spoke, his voice barely audible above the background noise.
“SCEV Five, this is Harmony Six. SITREP. Over.”
“Harmony Six, this is SCEV Five. We have three supports. One soul and one rig lost. Number two differential is gone, but all other systems are green. ETA in just over one hour, but we’re on a storm run. Is there any way you can you boost your signal output? We can barely read you. Over.”
Lightning flared in the storm, and the radios were awash with static. Benchley responded, but Andrews couldn’t make out the words.
“Harmony Six, negative contact. Over.”
Again, Benchley’s voice came across the radio, horribly distorted and drowned out by the rising tide of white noise. Andrews repeated his situation report and again reported negative contact, hoping that those in Harmony Base might be able to hear it.
Mulligan stirred in the copilot’s seat. “We should still be able to establish voice contact at this range,” he said. “They must’ve burned through the auxiliary power faster than they thought.”
“Damn,” Andrews said. He had an ominous vision of a darkened Harmony Base, the air stale and filled with the stench of sweat and untreated waste, the personnel inside the subterranean fortress fighting to draw enough oxygen from the carbon dioxide-saturated air. Had more people died? Would even more die over the next hour?
Could they even send the vehicle lift to the surface to retrieve them?
“Transmit our status over the data link,” he told Mulligan. “Ask them to raise the lift, so we can at least make it that far.”
Mulligan’s fingers flew over the instrument panel as he executed the captain’s command. “Done.”
Andrews pressed the button that opened the pressure door separating the cockpit from the second compartment. “Leona, you still back there?”
She appeared at the doorway a moment later. “You want me to come forward?” she asked, glancing over at Mulligan.
“Negative—we’re close enough to Harmony that we’ll keep the staffing as it is right now. Get everyone else up and ready. We’ve got about a hundred klicks to go, and that storm is going to be on the doorstep by the time we get there. Let me know when everyone’s awake and strapped in. We’ve got to move a little faster.”
“Roger that.” She looked at Mulligan again. The big NCO ignored her, but there was some tension there. Andrews found himself wondering what was up between them.
Later, he told himself as Leona withdrew. Andrews sealed the pressure door again and peered through the viewports. Dust was blowing across the dead fields, driven by the storm’s gust front. It wasn’t heavy enough to vastly reduce visibility, but that was coming. By the time they made it to Harmony, they’d be half-blind despite the radar, infrared, and the rig’s rather impressive array of floodlights.
“We’re good to go back h
ere,” Leona said over the intercom a few minutes later. “Everyone’s strapped down. Open her up.”
“Cool. Thanks,” Andrews replied. He switched off the autopilot and pushed the control column forward. The SCEV accelerated, picking up speed until it was dashing across the landscape at almost fifty miles per hour. He had to slow when it rolled up to a series of ridges, but he stuck to the narrow defiles between them, using them as avenues to shield the rig from the mounting wind. It took only a few minutes, then they were back on the plain. Andrews pushed the control column forward again, coaxing the big rig into an all-out sprint across the more-or-less flat terrain. Even with the rig’s sturdy suspension, the ride was hardly a comfortable one.
A series of loud bangs cut through the air. Andrews swept his gaze across the instrument panel and reduced power, thinking the machine’s drivetrain was experiencing another failure. But the combined moving map and radar display froze up, and a single message flashed across the screen: SYSTEM INOP: HARDWARE FAILURE.
He was trying to process what had happened when he felt the control column move forward with such intensity that it was almost ripped from his grasp. Mulligan had slammed the copilot’s control column full forward, until it literally banged against the control stop.
“We’re taking fire!” he snapped.
***
It couldn’t be more perfect.
Law positioned the SCEV atop one of the ridges that overlooked the plain and eased it slightly downslope, where he hoped the miniguns would have a full field of fire. Just to be sure, he slewed them from side to side once he had set the SCEV’s brakes, then checked elevation and depression. Both weapons would be able to engage SCEV Five, which approached Law’s position from the southwest. Thanks to godsend of transponder technology, he was able to monitor his enemy’s progress across the wasteland without needing to resort to the millimeter-wave radar system to paint the target. That would only serve to alert Andrews and his crew, and Law was in no mood to sacrifice surprise just yet. While the SCEV carried several thousand rounds of tungsten-cored 7.62 millimeter bullets, he knew they would be mostly ineffective against the SCEV’s armored hide. In fact, they couldn’t even reliably defeat the rig’s tires, which were constructed out of a self-sealing honeycombed polymer. But the radome on top of the vehicle wasn’t armored at all, beyond a fiberglass shell that was transparent to radar. Beneath the shell lay the radar scanner itself. Law knew if he damaged that, he would also take out the vehicle’s anti-missile defenses, which the helpful electronic manuals he had read during his voyage informed him required a radar contact to act against. With both the radar and AMW system down, Law could target Andrews’s SCEV with a Hellfire missile. Since the weapon was designed to destroy even densely armored main battle tanks, SCEV Five would be easy prey.
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