by M. D. Cooper
“Shit,” Erin muttered, knowing that a kilo of antimatter was easily equivalent to a very large fusion bomb.
This deep in the crust, on a fault line below an old volcano…it would lead to tremendous damage.
Arla announced.
Sergeant Grey announced to everyone on the local network.
Erin realized she was holding her breath, waiting for the AI to inform them of her success. When the word came that the bomb was disabled, she gasped for air.
Erin realized she had to leave. The Marines had that site covered, but she had the rest of Tyre to protect.
She turned and rushed through the obstacle course, returning to the cave entrance. As she jogged and weaved around the crystalline obstructions, she contacted Usef and Chief Kang.
Erin explained the situation to the pair. To her credit, the police chief’s reaction was calm as she faced her planet’s imminent destruction.
Kang said as Erin finally got out of the crystal cave and its sweltering heat. She began running up the passageway that led to the lake cavern, listening to Kang while also trying to figure out, based on what she knew, where the SSS had planted the bombs.
the chief was saying. When Erin didn’t reply, Kang said,
Erin blurted.
Usef pressed.
Erin said. she said to the AI,
She was at the narrow gap leading to the great cavern that Usef had struggled to pass through. As she squeezed through, she had the vague impression that something was wrong, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Onyx said.
Erin said.
said Chief Kang.
Usef added.
Kang replied, already sounding distracted.
Erin began, but the major interrupted her.
The calm in his voice reassured Erin, and she nodded to herself as she traversed the tunnel.
Kang interjected.
Erin didn’t respond. She knew her worry wouldn’t help matters. Kang’s officers and Usef’s Marines had a difficult, urgent, dangerous job ahead of them, and they all needed to focus to find the sites in time—stars knew there were enough of them. Samuel had eleven ‘vineyards’ that were directly situated on active fault lines.
Not caring if she got wet, Erin cut partway across a shallow section of the great lake, splashing through the water to reach the narrow tunnel that led further up through the steep passageway.
The ascent promised to be arduous, and a few minutes later, her breath was coming in harsh gasps as she sped up the tunnel to the surface, heedless now of the sparkling walls.
Far below her in the crystal cave, Sergeant Grey called up.
Erin was about to reply when a shot rang out, her armor absorbing the round as it hit her side. She spun away instinctively, aghast and bewildered as she ducked behind a protrusion of rock just in time to avoid a second shot, which grazed her shoulder.
Her chest heaving, Erin tried to make sense of the situation. Who the hell could be attacking her? And how could she fight back? She was weaponless.
No, that wasn’t true. Before supporting Isa to help her walk, she’d slung her weapon across her back. It had been hanging there this whole time.
Stars, Usef would never let me out of my apartment if he knew about this.
Erin drew the gun over her shoulder and set the stock against her shoulder.
She had a rough idea of the location of her assailant from the direction of the fire. It had been coming from a nook on the opposite side of the tunnel and above her current position. Erin angled her weapon and fired, but she couldn’t shoot directly into the shadowy recess.
A third shot from her enemy flew behind her, glancing against the backs of her calves.
Stars, she couldn’t stay where she was forever, trading shots. She had to return to the police cruiser to help in the search.
Erin ran out from behind the rock protrusion and up the tunnel, spraying fire. She sped toward the crevice that hid whoever was intent on killing her, round after round spurting from her weapon.
No answering fire came. Holding her gun in front of her, she mounted the last couple of steps to the nook. Was it a trick designed to give her opponent the opportunity to shoot her at close range? Erin couldn’t help that if it was. She had to get past her assailant.
Just as she reached the hidden spot, a pair of legs in armor splayed out. Erin jumped back, stumbling a little down the slope, but the rest of the armored body quickly followed, falling toward her.
Erin stepped hastily aside. The body passed by and continued to tumble, bouncing off rocky outcrops before finally coming to rest half-hanging from a jutting rock. The person who’d been shooting at her was a Marine.
“What the…?”
Erin scanned the steep passage. No other surprises seemed to be lying in wait.
She took the long steps required to get down the rocks to reach the hanging body. The armor wasn’t latched together properly, just resting against the man’s body. She lifted the helmet and leaned forward to get a clear look at the dead man’s face. Not recognizing him, she sent the grisly image to Onyx.
the AI replied.
Of course, the brief glimpse Erin had of him at Ushu’s air and spaceport had looked nothing like the lifeless face hanging in front of her.
she said.
Walter commented.
Erin suddenly realized what had been wrong at the narrow gap: Usef’s armor had been missing.
“Nice try, buddy,” Erin muttered, turning away. She didn’t have time to waste looking at a corpse.
She began to run up the tunnel again and asked Chief Kang for an update.
she replied. We have a better idea of what we’re looking for now. I’ve also focused evacuation efforts on everyone living anywhere near Jefferson’s properties.>
said Erin.
It looked like they had a slim chance to stop this before it started.
The tunnel seemed longer going up than it had coming down. When would she reach the top? Her side hurt a little, and she remembered that was where Rahmin Butler’s shot had hit her.
Why was he there waiting for me?
Erin guessed he must have left the cave before Pippa, or she would have killed him as well as Ada. His wound would have made his progress slow.
What had he been trying to do?
Perhaps he’d been hoping he might still survive, and he’d wanted to reach the pinnace in the lot outside and escape. She and Usef must have passed him on their way down, but he’d hidden from them. Usef must have also passed him when he’d returned with Martin on his shoulder.
It had been lucky for her that she’d been armed, or Rahmin Butler might have died more satisfied. Erin wondered about her reaction when she was attacked and cornered; it hadn’t been hard to fight back with lethal force. Killing seemed to come easy to her these days.
She reached the end of the steep tunnel. At last. She leapt into the passageway that led to the entrance cavern. She was gasping, and her leg muscles trembled from the effort to rush up the kilometers of tunnel, despite the powered support of her armor. The level ground in the entrance cavern made the going easier for her, and she sped across the space, sending bats flying, until she ran out into the starlight.
An ambulance shuttle was lifting away, and Private Karla and the other Marine who’d taken Isa out of the caverns were walking toward her.
“Thank you,” Erin said, relieved that Isa was on her way to Ushu’s hospital.
She also noticed that the terrorists’ pinnace that had stood in the lot was gone. She guessed that Usef had commandeered it to get Martin back to the capital. If Rahmin Butler had somehow made it to the surface, he would have been disappointed.
“Of course,” Karla said with a nod. “There’s a shuttle coming down for us from the Sark. Once the sergeant gets up here, we’re off to the next site on our list.”
“Good luck,” Erin replied with a nod before turning to climb the short distance to the police cruiser, parked in the clearing above. She ran around the outside of the cave entrance and up the faint trail into the tree-filled slopes of Mount Ida. More uphill running faced her, this time through the trees that she and Usef had walked down among recently, though now it seemed like a long time ago.
The police cruiser was no longer in stealth, and its interior lights shone from its open ramp, seeming to invite Erin in. She walked up the ramp, all her energy drained from her exertion. She headed directly to the control room, where Chief Kang was coordinating the efforts to save Tyre.
Erin stepped into the space, removing her helmet. The officers who had accompanied Kang and the chief herself were alive with action as they buzzed around the holo of Tyre, which hung in the center of the holotank.
They were almost too busy to notice her, but then Kang said, “Erin, you came back. I thought you might stay with the Marines.”
“I wanted to help out here,” said Erin. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing much more to report just yet. The search teams are moving as fast as they can, but they have a lot of ground to cover. Samuel Jefferson sure knew what he was doing when he purchased his land. I was doubtful at first that the terrorists’ plans would have their desired effect, because so many of Tyre’s fault lines run under the oceans, but Onyx did an analysis which showed that the SSS had figured a near-optimal layout. If even half of those bombs go off, the planet is going to see hundreds of volcanoes erupt. It’ll be entirely unviable for decades…maybe longer.”
“I hope they manage to find the shafts quickly,” said Erin. “If we had a week or two, we might get everyone off the planet, but we don’t have anywhere near that long.”
“What’s your estimate?” the chief asked.
“I’m guessing that once Pippa joined up with the other members of the SSS, they had no reason to delay any further. I think they were in the crystal cave to set the charge for the final bomb, then they were going to go off-world while the detonations took place. Maybe they would have gone to Troy afterward, or even Carthage, to try to continue their wave of destruction.”
Chief Kang shook her head. “Why Tyre? What did we ever do to them?”
“Just exist,” Erin replied with a heavy sigh. “Like the rest of the New Canaanites, Tyrians are an abomination to the SSS adherents. You had to be wiped out. But don’t worry, none of those fanatics are ever going to hurt anyone again. Now we just have to destroy their legacy too. What are you doing now? Can I help with something?”
“I think we have everything covered. I’ll show you.” The chief walked with Erin over to the holo of Tyre. “It’s really just a matter of coordinating the search and disarm teams. My officers, Karin and Edgar, are dealing with that. Thank stars the Sark was here, though. Without it, we’d be looking at hours to reach all the sites. Everyone who’s living near a danger zone is evacuating. Luckily the remoteness of the locations means that the people living at those sites have access to fast, efficient transportation. Onyx is helping too. We’re doing everything we can, as fast as we can.”
Erin watched the dots streaming over Tyre’s globe. Would their efforts be enough? Moving away from a detonation site might save the Tyrians for a short time, but if enough bombs went off, their deaths would be inevitable, only slower.
“Oh shit! Fuck! A bomb’s gone off,” one of Kang’s officers cried out.
The holo switched to a satellite view from the site. It was on the Eastern Tyrian continent, a thousand kilometers south of the musical pillars. White-hot heat rippled out from the blast zone. A gigantic cloud of ash was forming. Magma would be boiling up through the cracked crust, sending out poisonous gases, devastating everything it came near.
Erin drew in a breath. If one bomb had exploded, that had to mean the others would quickly follow. The SSS wouldn’t have set wide intervals between each detonation. For a truly devastating effect, all the bombs would have to go off close together, timed in such a fashion that the waves running through the crust and mantle would amplify each other and not dissipate or cancel one another out.
Erin slumped against a bulkhead. It’s too late. She’d taken too long to figure out what Pippa was doing. And now Tyre would be destroyed.
Kang gripped the holo display table. “Where is it? Did we have a team there?”
“No,” the officer, Edgar, replied. “That site wasn’t at any of Jefferson’s properties.” He consulted his readings. “The nearest city is Kedesh, but according to the blast data coming in, it shouldn’t be affected. We don’t have any records of habitations in the affected zone. As far as I can tell at the moment, no one should have been hurt.”
Onyx announced.
“Good work, Onyx,” Kang said through gritted teeth.
Despite the AI’s assurances, Erin waited tensely to hear the announcement of another detonation, and then another. Was it only a matter of time? She counted the seconds as they ticked past.
Onyx placed detonation estimates on each of the suspected sites, and Erin’s eyes were welded to them as the team progress reports came in.
Everyone in the room barely drew breath as team after team called in that they’d successfully defused their bombs. After forty minutes, there were just two more. One that a search and rescue team was heading to on the far southern reaches of Western Tyre, and the last, Sergeant Grey’s squad was flying to, four thousand kilometers north of the Mount Ida Caverns.
The teams reached their sites
with mere minutes left on Onyx’s estimated detonation timers, and Erin found herself gnawing on her lip, begging the stars for the teams to find them quickly.
Sergeant Grey called in a minute before the search and rescue team.
The final seconds saw Chief Kang pacing, while officers Karin and Edgar clenched their fists in mute fear. Erin tasted blood in her mouth and forced herself to stop chewing her lip just as both teams called in.
came from Sergeant Grey.
the search and rescue team called in seconds later.
The room erupted in cheers, with everyone crashing into one another for a trembling embrace.
“Onyx?” Kang asked a minute later. “Are we in the clear?”
Erin exhaled with relief as tears of joy streamed down her face.
Tyre was saved.
RECOVERY
STELLAR DATE: 03.23.8937 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Ushu Hospital, Ushu
REGION: Tyre, New Canaan System
Isa woke to the sound of voices speaking quietly and the tapping of footsteps on floor tiles.
She was lying in a dimly lit room, though brighter light shone through a half-open door. She felt calm, peaceful, and extremely woozy, like she’d drunk more than one of Mikkel’s famous cocktails aboard the Odyssey. She felt so woozy, in fact, that at first, she only lay still, without bothering to figure out where she was or trying to remember how she’d gotten there. The room’s single window was set to a soft green opaque color, so she couldn’t even tell what time of day it was.
Eventually, however, a few events from her memory filtered through to her conscious mind. She recalled that she was on Tyre, and she’d been in a cave full of crystals. Then she seemed to remember something weird had happened. She’d imagined she was back on Sirius and that she’d been left behind, but after that, she realized she wasn’t there at all, and some people had come to rescue her from….