This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  Can it reacquire us in this?

  He hoped the obscuration generated by the storm would work to their advantage. He knew the radar-seeker in each Hellfire’s nose would energize upon breaking target lock, and that the weapon would climb to reacquire the rig with its own internal millimeter-wave system.

  Apparently not. Another alarm sounded, indicating a second launch. Andrews repeated the procedure, feeling a cold, clammy sweat break out across his forehead and scalp as his heart pounded in his chest. Mulligan muttered a curse, working the control column and sending the rig into a series of violent gyrations. There was another distant thud as the AMW exploded, but Andrews kept pumping out the chaff anyway as the radar warning receiver continued to trill its song. Mulligan cranked the rig hard to the left, almost seeming to turn it in the middle of the plain—

  The world seemed to explode right outside the viewport beside Mulligan, and the rig lurched in an odd way, rising up on its left tires as something slammed into it. The horizon rolled, and the thunderous cacophony of screeching metal and shattering plastics filled the air. The displays flickered, and the master caution warning alert blared as Andrews reached for the control column on his side and pulled it hard to the right, only to find it was already contacting the control stop.

  “Fuck!”

  The SCEV rolled over onto its side and, victim of its own momentum, continued rolling until it skidded across the plain on its back, the view through the viewports dimming as earth and a cloud of dust washed across them, turning almost black.

  23

  The world had turned upside down, and Andrews couldn’t quite make sense of it.

  The cockpit was mostly dark, illuminated only by glowing warning annunciators and the anemic flickering of LED displays. Something kept going beep-beep-beep with a metronomic regularity, but Andrews couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt confused and disoriented, and there was a growing pressure in his head. The straps over his shoulders felt incredibly tight, as if the gravity reels had attempted to retract the entire harness, pulling him against the seatback. He blinked in the semi-darkness; all he could hear above the beeping alarm was the tick and pop of cooling metal and electronics. Outside, the wind howled, loud enough to be heard through the rig’s thick hide.

  The wind blew away a coating of dust on one corner of the viewport, and Andrews knew that the world was actually right side up. It was the SCEV that was upside down.

  Oh, fuck … we’re on our back!

  “Come on, Andrews!”

  Andrews saw movement beside him, and he looked over to see Mulligan brace himself against the cockpit overhead before he hit his harness’s quick release. He tumbled out of his seat and sprawled across the overhead, the weight of his body snapping off several plastic switches on the panel. He squirmed around on the panel until he was able to sit upright, and he looked at Andrews hanging down beside him like some ridiculous giant bat.

  “Captain, are you hurt?” he asked.

  Andrews considered the question, and decided he felt mostly fine. He shook his head. “I’m good.”

  “Then let’s get the fuck out of here, sir. We’ve got battery power available, but that’s it.”

  “What happened?” Andrews put a hand on the overhead—now below him—as Mulligan had done, and released his harness. He half-fell out of his seat, braced by his arm and his legs slamming into the bottom of the instrument panel. That hurt.

  “Must’ve been a near-hit by that last missile,” Mulligan said. “I guess it broke lock, reacquired it, but couldn’t maneuver fast enough to put steel right on target. Must’ve hit the deck right next to us as I was turning, and the blast flipped us over.” Mulligan regarded the instrument panel, then flipped a switch to shut off the beeping alarm. “We’re not going any further in this crate, unless you happen to have a Triple A membership.”

  Andrews extricated himself from beneath the instrument panel. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind,” Mulligan said dryly, pulling open the pressure door. It squealed in its track, then stopped suddenly when it was only halfway open. Mulligan tugged on it with both hands and wrenched it open a few inches at a time, until there was enough space for the two men to slide into the next compartment.

  The lounge compartment was a mess. Lockers had burst open, spilling their contents. The rest of the SCEV crew lay on what once was previously the overhead. Laird and Leona lay in a bleeding, twisted heap just outside the cockpit door. Andrews reached for them and gently began to pull them apart.

  “Jim? Lee? You guys all right?”

  “I think so,” Leona said, blinking in the dim emergency lighting. She seemed dazed and unfocused.

  Laird was anything but, and he shoved her in the shoulder. “Then get the hell off of me!”

  Andrews found there was enough room to stand, so he got to his feet and picked his way past the pair as they unwound themselves with Mulligan’s help. Across from the dining settee, Rachel and Choi tended to Kelly, who lay quite still. The precious core supports sat next to her, having exploded out of their locker and shattering the dining table in the process as they hurtled from one side of the SCEV to the other. Andrews picked his way to Rachel’s side and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Babe? You okay?”

  She nodded and glanced over her shoulder, looking up at him for a moment before turning back to Kelly. “I’m good, but one of the core supports tagged Kelly in the leg. I think it’s a bad break.”

  “Christ. Can she be moved?”

  Rachel watched as Choi gingerly felt along one of Kelly’s legs. Andrews noticed it was bent at an unnatural angle near the base of her thigh, the flesh there hard and mostly unyielding beneath Choi’s probing fingers. Choi looked up at Andrews, his usually affable features marred by concern.

  “I don’t know about that, sir. This looks severely messed up,” he said.

  “Make a hole, make it wide,” Mulligan snapped. Andrews stepped aside as far as he could, and Mulligan squeezed in beside Rachel. He knelt next to Kelly and examined her injured leg, and none too gently. “Choi, you have knife?”

  “Yeah.” Choi reached around and pulled a folding knife from his pocket, opened it, and handed it to Mulligan. The sergeant major cut open her uniform over the injury site and ripped it open, baring her entire leg. Choi started to remove her boot, but Mulligan stopped him with a wave. He turned the knife back to Choi and continued exploring the wound. Sure enough, there was an angry red impact site on her leg, just above the knee, and it was swelling considerably. Mulligan shook his head with a sigh.

  “It’s a closed break, so that’s better than her bleeding out. We’ll need to get a splint on her right now, and have something ready for the pain if she comes to. If we take it easy, she’ll be okay.” Mulligan turned and looked back at Leona as she pulled herself upright, wincing at the pain in her own leg. “Lieutenant Eklund, you’re a medical officer … What do you think, codeine?”

  Leona nodded. “Choi, there should be some injectable codeine phosphate in the medical locker behind you.” The locker’s door was bent inward, probably from one of the core supports crashing into it. “If you can get it open, I’ll give her a dose right now. The vacuum splints are there, as well, in red bags. Pull out a medium unit and the pump.”

  “I’ll treat her, Lieutenant,” Mulligan said. “I’ve done this sort of thing before, and the codeine’s an intramuscular injection, so that’s easy. Just tell me what dosage to administer.”

  “Sixty milligrams should be enough for the next few hours, Sergeant Major,” Leona said. Her voice was curiously brittle, but if Mulligan picked up on it, he didn’t show it.

  “So what else did they teach you at Fort Bragg, Sarmajor?” Andrews asked.

  “A little of this, a little of that. You want to see something really special, remind me to whip up some of my famous five-alarm chili. It killed a Texan once.” He looked up as Choi yanked open the medical locker and pawed through the disorganized contents
. He found the splint first, then the small bottle of pain medication. He handed them over to Mulligan, who looked at Choi expectantly.

  “I need a hypodermic, dumbass,” he said finally.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Choi turned back to the medical locker, rummaged through it a little more gently this time, and pulled out a plastic of individually wrapped hypodermics. Mulligan filled one with the prescribed medication.

  “Mike, what the hell happened?” Laird asked. “Did we actually take fire out here?”

  Andrews nodded. “Affirmative. Looks like Law and some of his pals are still in possession of my rig. The bastard must’ve been chasing us across half the country, then split off and set up an ambush when he caught up to us.”

  Laird’s eyes widened. “But we’ve been averaging almost a hundred klicks an hour and had a day’s lead time, at least!”

  “He must’ve stripped down the rig to increase its speed. Once we lost the differential, it was only a matter of time until he caught up to us—he just had to follow the e-nav. He’s still out there, too. We can’t stay here.”

  Leona frowned. “Mike, there’s a storm front moving in. Even in full gear, the sievert count’ll be high enough to kill us!”

  “We’re not going to survive in here either,” Andrews said. “We just happen to be the proverbial sitting duck.” He turned to Mulligan. “You’re the survival expert here, Sarmajor. Any tips?”

  “Don’t look at me—I’ve used up my quota of miracles on this trip.” Mulligan administered the injection, then capped the used syringe and tossed it into the plastic box. “We’ll need to suit her up before I can put on the splint. Choi, you’re going to help me. We need to be careful, because we could pop an artery if we move her too much.”

  “And I could scream,” Kelly said breathlessly. Even though her eyes were closed, she was coming out of it. She was sweating slightly, and her blond hair was stuck to her forehead. Deep circles were forming under her eyes.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Andrews told her. “We’ll do our best to make sure you don’t get hurt any further, all right?”

  “That’d be awesome,” Kelly said, her voice faint and weak.

  “Don’t worry, XO,” Laird said. “I’ll bust heads if anyone does anything stupid.”

  Kelly smiled vaguely, then seemed to drop out again.

  “All right, let’s get suited up. We’re abandoning the rig,” Andrews said. “We’ll go with full environmental gear, including respirators. I don’t like the fact that someone might be shooting at us while we’ve got air tanks on our backs, but we’re not going to live very long without them.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Laird asked. “The supports?”

  “Too heavy. We’d never be able to hump those things out of here and our wounded at the same time.”

  “Mike—those are the things we need to get back to Harmony!”

  “They’ll be fine,” Rachel said. “Even if the rig is destroyed, they’ll survive. You already know how heavy they are, and the weight is because they’re extremely dense. Fire won’t harm them, and only shaped charges would be likely to make them unusable. It’s safe to leave them here, Captain.”

  Laird shrugged. “Well, you’re the SME,” he said. “All right, crew. Let’s suit up.”

  Andrews looked at Rachel and smiled at her as the others started prepping to leave the overturned rig. “I’ll bet you’re glad you came, huh?”

  She took his hand. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Besides, for better or worse, right?”

  “Yeah, well, I hadn’t thought things could get much worse, but here we are,” Andrews said, turning to the suit locker and pulling open its heavy door.

  24

  The airlock was inoperable, and they discovered the SCEV’s tailgate was also not available for use—the big loading door had been jammed shut in its frame when the rig rolled onto its back. That meant everyone would have to disembark via one of the side viewports in the cockpit, which could be used as an emergency exit. Loaded down with respiration gear and weapons—as well as one immobile crewmember and one walking wounded, exiting via the cockpit was no small chore. It took Andrews almost a minute to clear the vehicle and emerge into the wind-torn day. He conducted a brief security scan—there wasn’t much to see, especially with all the loose dust blowing around—then turned back and assisted Leona in exiting the dead SCEV. Rachel and Choi came next, then Mulligan, and they all helped him pull Kelly Jordello’s still form through the opening, handling her as gently as they could. Andrews saw her eyes were open but glassy behind her visor. Either she had slipped deep into shock, or the codeine was strong enough to dope her up. Laird was the last to emerge, and it took him quite some time to fumble his way out of the vehicle. Once he did, the crew looked toward the eastern horizon.

  Through the blowing dust, Andrews saw the brewing storm squatting on the horizon, a dark mound illuminated by brief bursts of internal pyrotechnics. A malignant mass, pregnant with the promise of death.

  “Look at the size of that front,” Leona said, awe clear in her voice when she spoke over her mask’s transceiver.

  “I see it,” Andrews said. He turned in a half-circle, trying to get an idea of the terrain. He recognized the general area, but it wasn’t until the wind ebbed for a moment and the dust began to settle that he saw a low-lying ridge several hundred meters to their left. He pointed it out to Laird. “Jim, get everyone to that ridge over there. Hide in the rocks. Choi and I will hang back and give you some cover for as long as we can.” He turned to Mulligan. “Sarmajor, you go on ahead. Try to make it to Harmony’s perimeter. Someone’s got to be watching for us.”

  Mulligan scowled behind his visor. “What? I can’t leave now.”

  “The odds are what they are, Sergeant Major.” Andrews felt suddenly weary, and he wished he could rub his burning eyes, but the full facemask of his respirator prevented it. “They won’t change very much if you stay. And you’ve got the skills—if anyone can survive in this shit, it’s you.”

  Mulligan stood where he was, looking directly at Andrews. His scowl was gone now, replaced by an odd look Andrews hadn’t seen before. Was it respect, or something else?

  “Hit the road, Sergeant Major,” he said finally, when Mulligan made no move to obey. “That’s what we call an order, just in case that flew over your head the first time.”

  The two men looked at each other for another moment, then Mulligan shifted his rifle and reached into the knapsack that hung from his side. He pulled out three forty-millimeter grenades and handed them to Andrews.

  “Here, take these. They’re old, but they’ll still work. Standard M441 rounds, nothing fancy and nothing that’ll be likely to take out an SCEV. But if you can get a shot at the radome, take it. Otherwise, they’ll be about as effective as a frying pan.”

  “Hey, better than nothing,” Andrews said. He had two of the SCEV’s original loadout of forty-millimeter grenades, and Choi had the last one. He handed two to Choi and kept one for himself.

  “Good luck, sir. I’ll be back,” Mulligan said. Without further ado, he ran off, keeping to a crouch and heading due east.

  “Jim, get the others to the ridge,” Andrews said.

  Rachel took one of his gloved hands in her own. “Mike, I’d really like to stay with you.”

  Andrews shook his head. “No way, hon. There’s nothing more you can do down here. Get to the ridge and hunker down. Help will come, believe me.” He smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see the lower half of his face. “No heroics here, I promise.”

  She looked at him keenly for a long moment. “I hope not.” She reached out and touched his mask. “I can’t even kiss you good-bye.”

  “Then kiss me hello later,” he said.

  “Andrews, I’m going to need help with Lieutenant Jordello,” Laird said to Rachel.

  “Get going,” Andrews told Rachel. He nodded to where Laird and Leona stood over Kelly’s supine form. She wore a vacuum splint on
her injured leg, which had in turn been bound to her uninjured limb by several cravats.

  “On it, Captain,” she said to Laird, slowly turning away from Andrews. She helped Laird haul Kelly into a fireman’s carry, despite the fact the splinted leg made the action awkward. Laird didn’t seem to notice, and he set off toward the rock-strewn ridge hovering in the distance. Leona followed, hobbling on her injured leg, an assault rifle in her hands. Rachel looked back at Andrews for a moment, then turned to join them. The wind began to blow again, and the billowing dust swallowed them from view.

  “Choi, ready?” Andrews asked.

  “You know it, sir,” Choi responded immediately.

  “All right. About three hundred meters to the south, there’s that region of rocky outcrops. You know which one I’m talking about?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s where we’re headed. Follow me, and keep low.” Andrews headed off in the opposite direction from Laird and the others, keeping low and moving as quickly as he could through the flying dust. He glanced back occasionally to ensure Choi was still with him, but he kept moving. They were out in the open and, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why they weren’t already dead.

  ***

  Law had laughed aloud when he saw his second missile strike the ground near the SCEV and the resulting explosion that lifted its right tires high into the air. The rig seemed to hang there for a moment, like a stunt driver doing a trick in one of the mindless adventure films he had watched as a youth, and for an instant he thought it would slam back to the ground and continue on. But slowly, inexorably, the rig leaned further to the left until the chance of recovery died. The SCEV grounded on its left side, tearing a huge gash in the dry earth as it slid along for several meters before turning turtle, crashing onto its back in an explosion of dust. Bits and pieces of the vehicle flew through the air as panels and antennae and even the forward-looking infrared scanner and one tire were shorn off by the force of the impact. The vehicle ground to an abrupt halt, and columns of steam and smoke erupted from its undercarriage.