“Boss. We’ve got trouble behind us,” Delta said over the radio.
Using the crawler’s mirrors and rear camera, Xero focused in on the desert behind them, and immediately spotted the problem. “Oh, motherfucker,” she said. She had been so fixated on the winds moving from the west that she hadn’t been paying attention to the easterly winds behind them. Not that it really would have made a difference. A rogue crosswind had decided to help coalesce a sudden super cell that was now looming behind their caravan. It was being sucked towards them at a rapid pace, closing in around them in a horseshoe formation. They only had one choice—to redirect their course straight forward, which sent them right back into the haboob.
“Alright, I want you to juice it to the max. Follow my lead—we’re going to try and outrun the lip of the storm and bank west before we hit the haboob. If we don’t make it through either one, drop anchor and shelter in place in the cargo hold. Got it?” she said.
“Roger that, “Delta said.
Xero punched an array of buttons on the dashboard, ground the gearshift until it clunked into place, and stomped on the gas pedal until it hit the dirty floorboards. Her hands clutched the steering wheel, struggling to keep the overloaded crawler upright as she banked around sand formations and rocks at speeds that it was not designed to travel at. As confident as she was that Milo had picked decent operatives, she also knew that they were short on personnel due to the heightened security needs, and she rarely if ever allowed cargo to be transported without at least one Grease Weasel in each vehicle of a caravan. Watching the second vehicle fishtailing behind her, she was reminded of the reason for this. It was a tough driving situation to be sure, but no one other than the direct members of the Grease Weasels themselves had as much time behind the wheel on deep cargo runs, and it was showing in the disaster unfolding in her review mirror.
Darkness was surrounding the caravan as the haboob and monsoon super cell closed in around them, and Xero knew that they had failed. Sometimes when you tangled with mother nature, there was just no winning.
“We’re not going to make it,” she said into the radio. “Activate shelter in place protocols. Do not exit the vehicle and try to move to the cargo container if the storms approach too fast. Drop the anchors, throw on a gas mask and don’t move till I tell you to. On the count of three you need to switch off the overdrive, downshift, and slowly come to a stop. Do not rush this process. Got it?”
“Confirmation, ready for your signal,” Delta said.
Xero counted down, and threw the switches. With a trained elegance she brought the cargo crawler to a graceful stop, the treads softly pushing into the sand. After the perfect deceleration she was hopeful they would execute storm protocols and escape the incident unscathed. She dropped anchor, and heavy steel mechanisms plunged deep into the sand around the crawler, giving her added resistance against the vicious winds. Everything went perfectly.
Then the secondary crawler slammed into the back of her unit.
She was thrown against her safety harness, pinching some of her still healing wounds, but it prevented her from slamming face first into the windshield. Either there was an equipment malfunction and he had been too careless to secure the harness properly, or the crawler impact had just been that intense, but Delta crashed into the windshield and went flying from vehicle.
Xero cringed as his head splattered against her crawler’s rearview camera, treating her to a close up view of his brain matter. No bueno. She snatched the gas mask from the seat beside her and crammed it on her head. There was no time to get into the safer bunker of the cargo container, so she elongated the straps of the restraint harness and crawled down to the floor boards and tucked herself as far under the seats as she could get.
Reaching a hand up, she grabbed the radio and tried to reach Echo. “Do not leave the vehicle cabin. Repeat, do not leave the cabin. Fasten your restraint harness and take shelter at the bottom of the cabin,” she said.
There was no response.
A wave of anger rolled through her, furious that her own operatives had made such huge errors in judgment. She was no better than the government soldiers or Calavera, letting missions go to shit and ruin everything like this. So unprofessional. So unacceptable. When had she let things get so sloppy? How had she or Milo let such inexperienced operatives out in the field in the first place? With Echo not answering the radio, she already knew that they would both pay for their mistakes with their lives. She threw the radio against the dashboard, but it clattered harmlessly back onto one of the seats.
The two storms finally met, and vicious winds ripped against the armored sides of the crawler. Thunder shook the ground, vibrating through the vehicle’s heavy metal exterior. Through her closed eyelids she could still see the flash of thunder as lightning struck the carapace and grounded itself into the earth. Heavy rain splattered against the metal exterior and the barrage sounded like some of the finer gunfights Xero had lived through.
She breathed slowly and calmly, centering herself and forcing measured full breaths through the old respirator. It wasn’t much, but it would help keep the sand out of her lungs. She was resistant to most of the chemicals floating around the pits, but even the strongest of lung tissue couldn’t deal with a pound of sand lancing into bronchi at 100 miles per hour. She was suddenly thankful that she had insisted on gearing up in the uncomfortable tight black acid resistant polymer suits. Just from the smell blasting through the air vents, she knew she was in for a nasty chemical bath. It had been a few years since she’d had a really bad chemical burn, and it wasn’t something she was looking forward to.
The haboob hit the crawler, and she settled in for a long battle between the metal and the winds. The vehicle slammed back and forth, steel screeching and cargo thumping in the back of the hold as the winds lashed away. The double paned windows creaked, groaning and heaving under the strain of the wind and the air pressure, finally giving way with a resounding pop. Glass rained down on her, but the jagged spheres would have been the least of her worries.
That is, if a few choice shards hadn’t ripped through the tender polymer suit. The glass chipped chunks of skin out from under them on their way down , but that wasn’t what she was worried about. There was nowhere to go. No time to get into the cargo hold without risking getting blown away or fried by lightning. No escape.
The rain came then, pouring through the broken windows and onto her prostrate body. The first drips of the acidic rain touched her skin and ate into her lacerated flesh through the violated suit. There was no reason to hold back and she screamed into the wind defiantly, daring it to keep going. The rain was now the dominant threat, having determined the hard way that it was in fact laden with poison. The harness would hold her in the vehicle, but with the windows broken and water gushing into the cabin, she wasn’t sure if she would drown or chemical burn herself to death first.
Grabbing the fabric of the harness, she hauled herself back up onto the bench seats. She was still in the direct spray of the caustic rain, but at least she wasn’t swimming it in the foot well anymore. There was nothing left to do but wait it out, hope that the suit could withstand more damage, and that the body of the crawler stood up to the full brunt of the storm. She had seen the thick reinforced steel carapaces crumple against the immeasurable forces of the desert elements, and she wasn’t sure what a better death would be—to be crushed inside a tin can, smashed against rocks by gale force winds, or melted to death in a toxic rain bath.
All three options circled in her mind as the wind sucked at her through the broken windows, the corrosive rain ate at her skin through the tears in the suit, and she heard the steel shell groaning against the smashing air pressure. Sand mixed in with the rain and ground into the her new and existing wounds. The suit thankfully sealed against her skin, but trickles of rain still leaked down into some of the crevices of her suit, burning the unhealed stiches and scratches from the week’s abuses. The pain melded into a familiar shell of torture, an
d she kept concentrating on her breathing. Sand was clogging the respirator, and hyperventilating would have meant another swift option for death. Even with so many routes for dying, she didn't have to ponder the possibilities too long—after thirty minutes of torture, one final gust of wind shoved at the crawler, and the whole thing lurched over.
Amidst the other pains, the blunt force of ramming into the side of the crawler seemed like a joke. That is, until gravity rolled her onto the edge of the shattered passenger’s side window. The sting of the glass shredding her suit seemed like child’s play before the rain dripped into the new openings in her flesh. The resulting agony made her teeter on the edge of consciousness, but she held on, knowing that passing out would mean certain death if the cabin kept rolling and she was left to get crushed in the rotation or drowned in the bottom of a rain choked floor when it finally came to a stop.
Then the rain stopped. The wind stopped. The lightning and thunder stopped. The driving sand stopped. It was all just gone. It was so silent she thought she had actually died, but the excruciating pain was a reminder of what a fantasy that thought was. The desert was a cruel mistress—her storms were as swift and violent as they were transient. She was so beautiful you couldn’t resist her, and so fickle she could punch you with one hand and caress you with the other. Like every other monsoon or haboob Xero had lived through, it hadn’t lasted that long. She had never been religious, and she wasn’t ready to give it all up to Jesus, but thank god for small favors.
Her balance was off after so much rolling and shaking, but the sun was out again, and the rays peeking through the crawler’s broken glass gave her an idea of what orientation she had come to lay at. The broken driver’s side window was flush against the wet desert sand, and she was partially dangling from the safety harness. She groaned and hooked her fingers inside the center mass of the rig and pulled apart the release tabs. Falling a few feet, she thumped against the soaked driver’s seat and her left elbow struck the sand poking through the broken window. After clearing the sand from the portals of her gas mask’s respirator she lay there, just breathing, pushing aside the pain and any feelings of panic that were trying to cloud her judgment. She was alive, and that was more than most could ask for in this situation.
With a huge groan she summoned the rest of her strength and climbed vertically up the seats towards the passenger’s side windows. It was a sloppy dismount, but she had never been so happy to fall five feet in her life. Ashamed as she was of her lack of a properly protective roll, even smacking face first into the sand seemed like an accomplishment. She was out of the wreckage. She was alive. The storm had moved on. Everything else was just gravy.
She came to her hands and knees and finally got the wherewithal to strip off the gas mask and the damaged suit. The sun was already evaporating the water that the monsoon had dumped in the area, taking with it some of the chemicals that were burning her skin. Her undamaged skin was doing a decent job of repelling the toxins, but the areas already damaged by stab wounds or glass were on fire with the caustic ooze. She needed clean water.
Naked in the new sunlight, the desert smelled strangely good. She was able to look past the scent of evaporating sewage and detect the faint smell of desert sage and wet rock. This is why she loved the desert. Even in the middle of Armageddon there was something beautiful.
Relief hinged on whether she could get into the hull of one of the crawlers. The back entrance to her vehicle was crumpled against her partners’ cabin from the initial accident still, the force of the crash having been enough to meld the two together in a gnarled metallic embrace. She gave a scream to the world, frustrated with having to go through the burden of moving just a few feet south to access the other crawler’s cabin. Each movement felt like torture, and she could just imagine the acid chewing away at her wounds.
The back door to the second crawler was buried in the sand, but also partially open, meaning there was a chance for her to try and fish something out. She scrambled over there, thrusting her hand through the crack in the doors, hoping desperately to come across something useful. After a minute of fruitless groping she stopped. She had to calm down. Think. She had the tools to deal with this situation. After taking the time to collect herself she spent a few minutes digging a trench for the door so that she could gain better access to the hold. After digging a foot down into the sand, she could fit her top half through the gap, which gave her significant leverage in accessing the supplies.
Her desperate hands gripped all manner of items, but none of them felt right. When her fist finally closed around a large jug of water she screamed out loud, her voice echoing into the empty distance. She upended the container and the water coursed over her body, soothing the seared flesh. Once the initial respite of the water had passed she went into damage control mode and began inspecting herself for any life-threatening injuries. For as much as it had hurt, it looked like the suit had done its job of protecting her skin from having too much exposure to the toxins. Most of her skin was red and raw—likely first degree burns that would feel like shit for a few days but wouldn’t kill her.
The rest of her injuries on the other hand were much more serious. The rain had eaten through the stitches Zed had sewn through her prison lacerations, and the exploding glass had added additional slashes that were oozing blood and separated plasma. The gaping slices were raw and ragged, tortured from the acid that had been worse than literally rubbing salt in the wounds. Fortunately, the blood was slowly dripping as opposed to pouring out across the wet sands. The acid was ironically sealing off some of the vessels—the polluted rain may have actually helped save her life. She couldn’t afford to pass out from blood loss, but pain, that she could work through. With any luck the penicillin injection she’d gotten from Zed would be enough to prevent infections.
Once again she found herself naked in a crisis—this was happening far too frequently. However, the monsoon rains had lowered the temperature, and though the sun had come back out again, it was no longer hanging in the middle of the sky. Finding clothing was not a survival priority just yet.
Though it was just a formality, she had to at least try and verify the deaths of Delta and Echo. This turned out to be more difficult than expected—Echo was nowhere to be found, and aside from chunky stains clinging to the back of her crawler, Delta’s remains had also been scattered by the storm. If somehow Echo was alive, there wasn’t anything she could do for him at the moment anyway. Next priority was trying to radio back to a command base—whether that was the Phoenix or Yuma domes, or her crew in the pit, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to wander the desert on foot, but given the verified volatile weather patterns, it wasn’t a task she was eager to take on.
The radio in the rear unit that Delta had crashed was toast—the crawler wouldn’t start, and it looked like the whole head unit was smashed. There would be no radioing for help with that thing without some serious electronic surgery. After carefully scuttling back into the side of the uprooted crawler she found that the electrical system was still working, but something was still wrong with the radio. It turned on, but all she got was static with no sign of any connecting transmissions. Something had clearly been dislodged in the impact. It was possibly fixable, but it would take tools that she didn’t have on hand.
She found her laser tossed towards the back of the cabin, looking like it was in good shape still. Though scraped from being juggled about during the storm, after careful inspection she verified that the shell was intact—thinking back to the fried skeleton at The Niagara, she wouldn’t have wanted to risk firing a damaged laser that had also gone for a soak in an acid bath.
At least she had a weapon—she didn’t think there was much in the way of defense items in the shipment they had been trying to deliver. She cursed herself again for her carelessness. Typically she verified and double-checked all cargo before going on a run—that way she knew exactly what was on hand and how the cargo could affect the mission if an
ything went wrong. This time she had only given a cursory look at the shipment’s manifold. In her head she saw herself lecturing other employees about how sloppy planning and preparation could only lead to sloppy results. Well, she was right about that, and she was reaping the consequences of her own negligence.
She climbed back out of the cabin and buried her face in her hands for a minute, pushing away the pain she was feeling from all the inflamed skin and fighting a sudden wave of intense nausea. When she looked back up again, she scanned the terrain in all directions, looking for landmarks for a clue about which direction she would need to head in. The sun was getting lower, and the acquisition of the laser was a real benefit—weird shit sometimes came out in the desert at night. She had the option of trying to make it somewhere on foot, or digging into one of the cargo holds and waiting for some kind of a rescue party to make its way out there, but that could be days. Eventually one of the domes would realize that they had lost communications and that their precious cargo hadn’t reached its destination on time. But she was in one of the dead zones—too far between dome areas for any non-pit dweller to travel to safely. It could be days or even weeks before an official search party was established. Her own crew would figure out something was wrong before that, but knowing her luck, a roving band of skeletons would find her before anyone was able to make it out there.
When she had almost completed a 360 degree scan of the surroundings, movement on the horizon to the west caught her attention. It was hard to tell if it was just a big cloud of steam, possibly from the storm’s waters evaporating in the remains of the day’s heat, or if it was smoke, but there was a big cloud of something in the direction of Yuma. She squinted, trying to get a better read on what was going on over there, and noticed additional movement. She had to be imagining it, but it looked like a big group of people spread out across the sands. She shook her head, wondering if she’d damaged something in her head during the incident, but as minutes went by she was more convinced that it was in fact a group of people moving in her direction. What the fuck. This was not an area you walked on foot unless something catastrophic happened. Not even marauders liked to frequent this area because of its reputation for volatile weather patterns and lack of colony settlements.
Under Dark Sky Law Page 12