by Read, John
“Scavenged them after the riot. Thought they might come in handy.”
“Thanks,” Avro said, setting his new rifle in the jeep.
The four of us gathered around the reactor, preparing to transfer it to the jeep. We kept the reactor plugged in while Watson used the room’s crane to lift it off the dolly. With the nuclear reactor in the air, Avro and I guided it toward the jeep. The reactor fit snuggly into the bed.
We disconnected the crane and stepped back. The power supplies hung over the tailgate like umbilical cords. Those cables were the Alamo’s life line, after all.
“What now?” I asked. “Just unplug it and hope for the best?”
“Give me sixty seconds to get back to the control room,” Watson said. “Once I’m there, I’ll open the service doors leading to the Alamo’s pavilion. There will be soldiers there but without the reactor it’ll be dark. Keep your headlights off as long as you can. Once you’re there, I’ll open the barrier to the rest of the colony.”
“Are you sure you’ll have enough power for that?” Avro asked, knowing that the barriers had limited battery backup.
“I can re-route the Alamo’s battery reserves. It’s not much but I can control the barrier doors. The spaceport will have its own battery backup as well. Not enough for life support, but enough to launch a single MAV.”
“Okay,” Avro said, “let’s do this.”
Watson nodded, turned, and jogged down the hall.
“John, Amelia. Are you ready?” Avro said, his hands gripping the large power cords protruding from the reactor.
“Ready,” Amelia said.
“Ready,” I said.
As Avro pulled the last remaining power cord from the reactor, the room went completely dark. Avro climbed back into the vehicle.
“Buckle up,” I said, hitting the accelerator.
The jeep sprinted out of the reactor room and down the hall. We took an immediate left toward the Alamo’s pavilion and waited for the pressure doors to open.
“Anytime now, Watson,” Amelia muttered, as I switched off the headlights.
The door to the Alamo’s pavilion opened to mass confusion. MDF soldiers and Alamo security ran in all directions, guided by flashlights mounted to their guns.
I tapped the accelerator, letting the jeep creep into the large room. We hadn’t been spotted. I drove further into the square toward the barrier to the rest of the colony. Behind us, several people ran down the hallway from where we had come. It would only be a matter of minutes before they realized the nuclear reactor was missing.
In the distance, we saw the barrier to the colony opening. The guards at the checkpoint started screaming at each other. They probably suspected another mob.
Someone yelled, “The barrier is opening! Prepare for an ambush!”
From all around, soldiers started running toward the exit. Some even hopped into trucks. The soldiers seemed confused to find no one on the other side. A few vehicles and soldiers ventured into the channel to investigate.
A dozen soldiers stood between the exit and us, panning their lights across the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. We could stay hiding for only a few more seconds. “Screw it!” I hissed, turning on the headlights and hitting the accelerator.
“What the hell are you doing?” Amelia yelled.
“Getting out of here!” I replied.
I increased our speed as we approached the door and MDF troops started diving out of the way.
“Stop that jeep!” someone yelled. Soldiers scrambled for their guns but it was too late. Our jeep crossed the barrier, entering the channel that connected the Alamo with the circumferential. I merged right, heading toward the ramp that led to the bridge.
The jeep’s high beams illuminated the channel in a xenon glow. Support beams flew past as I accelerated, giving the illusion that we were traveling at impossible speeds. We approached the end of the channel and I could see the bridge’s cylindrical glass tube up ahead. Something was off about the bridge. It was moving!
“Oh shit,” I said, staring at the highway ahead of us.
The bridge swung and twisted like a dock in a hurricane.
I looked over at Avro. He looked like he was enjoying himself. “Who’s looking for adventure!” he cried. It wasn’t a question.
“Ugh!” Amelia moaned.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor and topped one hundred fifty kilometers per hour. We hit the bridge with the roadway level but rode up a curving track as the deck lifted up and to the left.
Glancing in my rear view mirror, I saw several pairs of headlights. Soldiers hung out the passenger side windows, guns in hand. I doubted they’d shoot us from behind. If they damaged the reactor, their pursuit would be in vain.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“By the looks of it?” Amelia leaned out the window, looking toward our pursuers. “All of them.”
The first MDF truck left the channel and entered the bridge at high speed. As it did, that section of deck whipped up and to the right, flipping the truck. It rolled against the glass.
“Ah, guys? I don’t think I can stay on the road,” I said as the road under us wobbled to a forty-degree angle.
“We’re going to tip!” Amelia screamed.
“No, we’re not,” I yelled, pulling the jeep to the right. I drove onto the shoulder, putting one wheel on the sidewall until the structure formed a V shape beneath the vehicle.
“Oh no, you’re not!” Amelia yelled at me, as the wobbling bridge forced me to pull further to the right.
“Oh yes,” I said, driving onto the tube-shaped wall. It was like traveling through a twisty straw.
We drove along the transparent flexi-glass that held in the air. Lit by our headlights, dust-drenched winds poured a red current beneath us. I looked back again. There were three vehicles in pursuit.
The bridge slid down its previous trajectory. As the angle decreased, I steered the vehicle back onto the deck.
The roadway under the jeep rose to our right. I piloted the vehicle to the left and grudgingly back up onto the glass. I gauged our progress by observing the bridge’s structural girders. Halfway there!
The three trucks followed us along the wall. Amelia climbed out of her seat and into the truck bed with the reactor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Avro yelled.
“This!” Amelia pointed the gun at the flexi-glass wall behind our jeep and unloaded an entire clip into the glass. Shards of flexi-glass sprayed into the air as the bullets ate away at the improvised roadway.
Seconds later, the first pursuing truck drove over the place where Amelia had fired. The glass gave way under the weight of the truck, and the truck wedged itself into the hole. The second truck slammed into the back of it, driving the first through the glass. The first truck disappeared into the maw, plunging to the canyon floor. The remaining truck swerved to avoid the hole as a rush of air escaped through the opening. Dust and debris lifted off the ground, flying backward toward the hole.
“Breach!” Amelia cried. Our ears popped as the air pressure began to decline. “Okay, maybe that was a bad idea!”
I looked ahead, noticing a barrier rising up out of the pavement. For once, I wished every device didn’t have a battery backup.
“Stay on the wall,” Avro instructed, sounding calm considering the situation. Ahead of us, the barrier rose higher than our bumper.
The remaining truck lumbered after us, racing for the exit. The soldiers tore the doors off their vehicle, throwing them onto the deck. Their intention was obvious, climb over the rising barrier. They’d never make it.
“I don’t know if I can hold it!” I yelled, leaning to the left as the vehicle fought to keep its wheels on the curving wall. The bridge’s wall arched towards the exit as we neared the barrier. The tube curved just enough to keep the vehicle off the pavement. We flew over the barrier, the jeep barely passing through the shrinking gap.
“Brakes!” Amelia yelled, as
we literally flew into the channel.
“Brakes?” I yelled back, “We’re not touching the ground!”
The SUV leveled out before landing. I slammed on the brakes. The jeep skidded, spun, and came to a halt. We watched as the barrier locked shut, sealing the bridge with the two remaining trucks inside. From inside, headlights lit the tube like trains in a tunnel.
Though the barrier’s rectangular window, we watched as the soldiers jumped from the trucks. They ran towards the barrier, trying to keep their balance as the bridge continued to wobble. One of the soldiers pressed his face to the barrier and pounded on the window. His eyes were bloodshot and blood poured from his nose from the lack of pressure. Another soldier pulled out his side arm, firing three rounds into the glass. Avro leaned out of our jeep, holding up the middle finger on his spacesuit’s glove.
I turned the vehicle around and sped through the channel toward the spaceport.
A bead of sweat trickled down my face. “Let’s not do that again,” I said.
We sped through the channels, following the signs to the MAV Terminal. With the first round of pursuers suffocating on the bridge, we expected reinforcements from the base to show up at any moment. We’d killed dozens of MDF soldiers during the riot and another dozen or more on the bridge. How many where left? Forty? Fifty?
We crossed into the spaceport’s MAV terminal and Avro put a hand on my shoulder. “Stop the jeep,” he said. “Amelia, pass me that gun.”
Avro jumped out, turning toward the entrance. He opened a panel and found the manual override for the barrier that separated the channel from the terminal. The barrier clanged shut and Avro fired three rounds into the panel’s battery.
“They’ll breach the door but it’ll buy us some time. And if we’re lucky, they won’t be bringing in any vehicles.” Avro hopped back in and we raced through the terminal toward the waiting spacecraft.
The Martian Assent Vehicles rested in silos on the south end of the spaceport. The cockpits and cargo holds were accessible from inside. Only the vehicles’ nose cones were exposed to the Martian atmosphere. Instead of seats and gates like the other terminals, this one had loading docks for accessing each spacecraft’s cargo holds.
I slammed on the brakes, stopping at the first silo. A scaffold-like staircase led up to the cockpit. Avro sprinted up the two flights, yanking open the hatch. I backed up to the hold.
Our jeep’s headlights illuminated the area. With the terminal’s glass roof caked with dust, everything took on a reddish glow.
“Are you sure you don’t need a key for this thing?” I yelled up to Avro.
“Nope, don’t need one,” Avro yelled back, leaning into the cockpit twenty feet above our heads.
“Do you know how to operate it?” Amelia asked.
“Let’s just say I studied harder than most on that Martian transport,” Avro replied. “You worry about rigging the bomb and I’ll worry about getting it to sub-orbit, okay?”
“Roger that,” I said, opening up the cargo hold. The hatch opened in sections like the door on the Tyson Space Telescope.
I turned on my spacesuit’s flashlight, inspecting the hold. It was just big enough for the reactor and had several hooks we could use to secure it in place. The spacecraft’s fuel tanks ran along the side of the vehicle, creating indents in the walls. The MAV used solid rocket fuel. If they had used liquid hydrogen and LOX, we would have siphoned it for the colony’s energy reserve.
Amelia lowered the jeep’s tailgate. “Do we need to lift this thing?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t have to,” I said, opening a utility panel on the silo. I slid out a truss, extending a cantilever arm over the reactor.
Amelia and I connected four carabiners to the reactor, hoisting it out of the jeep and into the air until it swung over our heads like a pendulum.
“This ain’t so bad,” Amelia said, steadying the reactor with a gloved hand.
“Thank one-third gravity,” I responded. “Let’s get this secured.”
We pushed the reactor into the hold, fastening it to the floor with straps.
“Now for the fun part,” Amelia said. “Time to rig the bomb.” She grabbed the charges from the Jeep.
“How’s it going up there?” I yelled to Avro.
“Almost got it,” he called back. “This thing is designed for orbit but we need it to skim the atmosphere. Had to break several safeties for this to work. Hey, send Amelia up when she’s done. We need to figure out the detonation sequence.”
“I heard him,” Amelia said. “I’ll be up in a minute.” She used duct tape to secure the breaching charges near the solid fuel boosters. Her feet stuck out of the cargo hold as she planted a charge on the far side.
“Do me a favor,” Amelia said, sliding out of the enclosed space. In her gloved hand, she held a strange-looking electronic device.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“This is the trigger for the bomb. I need you to take this up to the cockpit and feed the cables back down.” She handed me the trigger. A weave of fuses hung from the device like Rapunzel’s hair. With the trigger in one hand and the fuses in the other, I climbed the stairs, finding Avro in the copilot’s seat. I handed Avro the trigger and I fed the cables through a panel and down into the cargo holds.
“Got it,” Amelia yelled, grabbing the fuses from below. “Let me get these connected and I’ll be right up.”
Amelia shimmied out of the cargo hold and closed the hatch. She then climbed the stairs to the cockpit and sat in the captain’s chair. I watched for soldiers from the landing, leaving the experts to their work.
“How’s it going?” she asked Avro.
“Almost done with the auto-sequence,” he responded. “That should do it. The MAV is programmed to launch sixty seconds after we close the hatch.”
“Okay, great,” Amelia said. “Now let’s get this detonator hooked up.” Amelia held up the trigger in front of Avro, the fuses dangling out like a cobweb as they coiled downward to the cargo area below.
“What I am supposed to do with that?” Avro asked, examining the device.
“All we need is a current running through the wire to trigger the detonation.”
Avro considered this for a moment. “Okay, the trigger needs current, but only after the ship reaches altitude.”
“Correct,” Amelia said.
“Can’t be done. All circuits receive power during the countdown as part of the system check. Why can’t you just set a timer?”
“We don’t have a timer. I figured you’d program the MAV to do it.”
“Really?” Avro said. “You thought I could rig a bomb with a spacecraft as the trigger?”
“Ah, yeah,” Amelia said, “you’re like the smartest man I’ve ever met.”
“Guys?” I said from the stairs, “We’re about to have company.” At the far end of the terminal lights from a dozen flashlights bobbed up and down.
“You’ve got sixty seconds, max,” I yelled. “You guys need to figure something out, and fast.”
“A dead man’s switch!” Amelia said. “Hand me that cable.” We watched as Amelia added an extra length of cord to the trigger. “In the movies, when the villain holds the good guys hostage, he holds the trigger in his hand. If the heroes shoot him, the villain’s hand releases the trigger and the bomb goes off.”
“Oh no,” Avro said, “I don’t like this one bit.”
“If you can’t rig a timer...” Amelia said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Shut up, John!” they both yelled at once.
Avro leaned out of the cockpit. “Get that jeep ready to move. I’ll be down in a moment.”
I jumped down the stairs in a single bound, closed the jeep’s tailgate and tried to listen to Avro and Amelia’s conversation.
Their voices were muffled but I didn’t like what I heard. “No decent rockets…. Blast radius…. Radiation…”
“What the hell, Avro!” I yelled, looking at
the lights bouncing in the channel. “They’re almost on top of us!”
“Get in the jeep!” Avro yelled. “Passenger seat! And put on your helmet!”
I did as he asked.
Avro leapt down from the MAV’s cockpit. When he got to the jeep, he grabbed Amelia’s helmet. Like a basketball, he passed it up to Amelia on the landing. Avro put on his helmet, grabbed the two rifles and climbed into the vehicle.
“Take this,” he barked, handing me a rifle and shifting the vehicle into drive. “Shoot people!”
“What about Amelia?” I said, as Avro pulled away from the silo.
“She’ll be fine.”
I looked back at the spacecraft. The hatch had closed and a blast shield rose from the floor, protecting the terminal from the launching spacecraft.
“Oh, no no no!” I yelled. “Is Amelia in that thing? How the hell is she going to be fine?”
Avro ignored my questions. “I said hold on!” he roared, hitting the accelerator and turning the vehicle south. In seconds we were going over one hundred kilometers per hour. Our headlights illuminated more MDF soldiers. They must have found another entrance. They raised their rifles. Avro jerked the wheel to the left toward a row of soldiers and they dove out of the way.
I pulled the trigger, not sure if I hit anybody, but they scrambled for cover as we sped past. Bullets clinked off the exterior of the Jeep as we twisted down the terminal’s hallways.
There was a loud rumble behind us as the MAV’s main engine ignited and the spacecraft shot up into the sky. Several of the troops stopped shooting and looked up. The spacecraft was visible for a few seconds as it blew the dust off the roof.
As the colony’s last remaining power source screamed away, the soldier’s expressions changed from anger to despair. I watched as one soldier kneeled, resting his hands over the back of his head.
“Ah, turn?” I asked, as we approached the southern wall.
“No time,” Avro replied, pulling out his rifle and sticking it out the window.
“Turn the damn vehicle!” I yelled as we neared wall, realizing what Avro was doing. The wall wasn’t a wall. It was a window!