Offworld (41 page)

Terry ripped the earpiece out of his ear and screamed into it.
"Chris, I know I told you to tell her, but could you have picked a
worse time?!"

"You said to do it before we die!"' Chris bellowed from below the
ledge.

Owen cut in with, "Let's all just try to calm-"

"I meant in a nice, quiet private moment. Not literally as we're
dying!" Terry yelled back.

Everybody shut up!" Trisha screamed.

Without knowing it, she had been holding her breath, and she
now let it out with a shudder. She glanced in the rearview mirror and
thought of the soldiers that were approaching.

Trisha took another deep breath and let it out slowly. The tires of
her jeep squeaked in protest against the strain their treads were being
asked to bear. She had only a second to analyze the situation.

If she remembered right, no more than forty feet separated the
parking garage and the building across the street, the road between
them spanning two lanes. They were more than ten stories up atop
the garage, and the building across the way had a lot more levels than that. And it was made up of a grid of perfectly square, plate-glass
windows at least ten feet wide and nearly as high.

Calculating the combined weight of the two jeeps, she leveled
her gaze directly ahead.

"What's happening up there?" asked Chris.

"Oh man ... she's got that look on her Face...." Terry said,
shaking his head nervously.

Without warning, Trisha committed to a mad, desperate act, and
mashed clown on the accelerator until it touched the floor. The gear
shift was still in reverse, so the tires threw up a howling protest of
black smoke, grinding against the garage's pavement like an electric
sander. She managed to make a bit of purchase on the cement, and
backed up as far as the winch and its dangling cargo would allow,
backing up an additional twenty feet from the ledge ahead. She could
almost see the front grille of Chris' jeep when her tires could go no
further and despite going full-bore in reverse, they began sliding
towards the ledge.

At that moment, Trisha popped the shift out of reverse and into
forward, while at the same time, she turned on the winch, causing
it to recoil, reeling in Chris' jeep. The jeep's transmission objected
loudly until the tires, which had been fighting against the weight of
Chris' jeep, suddenly catapulted forward.

Trisha's jeep picked up momentum, accelerating to high speed in
a matter of seconds, racing toward the roof's edge. Meanwhile, the
other jeep remained more or less in place, hanging but pressed up
against the side of the building.

Praying hard under her breath, Trisha locked her eyes onto one
of the square plate glass windows several stories below, trying to will
her jeep far enough forward....

As they neared the edge, Terry shouted in a panic, "Trish!?"

As the two jeeps came just five or ten feet shy of touching nose-tonose, Trisha's jeep ran straight off the roof's edge, and dragged Chris'
jeep along with it. The weight was far too great, as she'd expected, so before they'd made it halfway across, both vehicles began to plunge
towards the soldiers waiting in the street below.

But there was just enough thrust from Trisha's jeep to propel
both vehicles at a diagonal angle toward the skyscraper. Both jeeps,
still tethered to one another at their front bumpers, smashed into the
side of the skyscraper, shattering glass and crunching the vehicles.
Trisha's jeep embedded itself nose-first deep enough into one of
the square cement gaps in the building that it managed to cling to
its newfound moorings, settling inside a finely-furnished office with
a terrible crash of glass and metal. Chris' vehicle slammed top first
into a plate-glass window one story below where Trisha had come
to rest, so that the chassis stuck out of the side of the building, while
the cab was just inside it.

Chris felt a cut across his forehead and blood pouring down
beside one ear, but he was alive, and he was awake. That was all
that mattered. He and his seat were reared completely vertical, putting him on his back, not unlike the position he'd been in many
times during a rocket launch. Only the window in front of him
was mostly dark, staring into the beams and pipes and ducts of
the skyscraper.

Beside him, Owen was bleeding as well, but also conscious.
Mae showed no signs of life in the backseat, save the tiny rise and
fall of her chest.

Chris and Owen, thinking the same thing, untangled themselves
enough to rear back and kick the windshield free from the jeep. They
had an escape.

Gunfire shattered the air- no doubt the work of the soldiers on
the ground-and ricocheted off the underside of the jeep, which was
fully exposed to the outside, .

"I've got her, go on," said Owen, reaching into the back seat to
carefully lift Mae.

As Chris began to climb up the empty windshield frame, he
heard the awful sound of metal grinding against metal, and the truck
began to slide.

"Move!" he screamed, squeezing through where the windshield
used to be. He landed on cracked floor tiles which gave a little under
his weight. He spun in place and laid facedown on the floor. "Give
her to me! Get out of there, hurry!"

As the jeep continued to slide, Chris could only hope that the
winch rope from the other jeep would hold long enough ... and
that the others were conscious and able to get out of their jeep as
well, before...

Owen lifted Mae up high enough that Chris was able to get a
hold on her arms. She sagged heavily and did not wake, and Chris
held on tight. The jeep continued its slow slide...

Owen's mighty frame pushed himself up high enough through
the windshield to grab onto a two-by-four sticking out from between
the floor and the ceiling of the next level below, but with only one
hand.

His face and Chris' were only separated by the length of Owen's
arms, but the two men clung tight to their respective handholds. The
jeep suddenly broke free around them, sliding down and away, and
leaving a jeep-sized hole in the building through which Owen and
Mae dangled. Half a second after their jeep fell, Trisha's jeep was
dragged behind it by the cable, all but a black blur falling just inches
from where Owen and Mae were suspended.

More shots were fired from the street below just before there
was a tremendous crash, and Owen scrambled to climb up to safety
fast, while Chris strained every muscle in his body to pull in Mae's
unconscious form.

Barely holding onto consciousness, Chris led the way down flight
after flight of stairs inside the skyscraper. Owen carried Mae right behind him, with Trish and Terry pulling up the rear. Terry held his
gun at the ready, as did Owen, who only required one hand to carry
Mae over his shoulder.

Blood ran from cuts in all five of them, some deeper than others.
No one said a word as they ran, but a common feeling was shared
by all-that they were approaching the end of their journey. Whether
by Roston's hand or not, they were simply too exhausted and hurt
to keep this up.

Nearing the bottom floor, Chris could already hear the telltale
footfalls of Roston's soldiers entering the building just below.

Chris' weary mind flashed with thoughts, ideas. If they could
reach a side street-not the one Roston's men had blocked off-there
might be some parked cars there.... They might have a chance if
they could hot-wire one of them. But they would have to evade all
of the soldiers first....

They reached the bottom floor and gathered at the exit door.

"Terry, Owen, lay down some cover fire when I open this door.
I'll take Mae," he ordered.

Owen handed her off, even though Chris knew his friend was
internally questioning the move, given how much Chris was bleeding
and on the verge of passing out. Trisha joined him without a word,
taking up as much of the slack with Mae's limp body as she could
handle.

The bottom floor was a wide open lobby with comfortable winghack chairs and expensive-looking wooden tables and furnishings.
It left them with few places for cover. Still, they had no option. They
needed out. Outside, a dozen or so of Roston's soldiers were sprinting for the lobby.

With Owen and Terry firing their automatic rifles, Chris spotted
a desirable side-street exit and led Trisha toward it with a half run.
His head was cloudy and throbbing, and he dreamed of staggering
onto a comfortable bed and falling asleep.

They were almost at the door, ignoring the intense gunfight raging behind them, when a bloodcurdling sound emerged above
the cacophony.

Terry, screaming.

Chris stopped and spun. Terry was on the floor, clutching his leg.
His gun was hanging freely from its strap, and Owen was crouched
behind an upturned table, too far away to reach him amid all the
shooting.

"Put her down, put her down!" Chris yelled at Trisha. The two of
them lowered her to the ground, and Trisha knelt over her, trying to
protect the girl from stray bullets with her own body.

The world seemed to lag into slow motion as Chris ran toward
Terry, his mind racing back to just over a week ago when the Ares
was crashing.... Terry had fallen and needed their help, but Chris
was the one who refused to let the others go to him. Now here he
was, risking all of their necks to do that very same thing.

When he reached Terry, he found his friend still awake but bearing
down in pain. The bullet had pierced his thigh, but it looked to have
gone clean through. He grabbed Terry by both hands and dragged
him behind cover. He looked back at Trisha, who was being held
aloft by the throat by one of Roston's soldiers.

The man was shouting something in her face, and he had a
rough, growling voice. A voice that Chris remembered from the Lake
Charles bridge.

With his last remaining strength, he pitched Terry over his shoulder and ran for Trisha. But his legs were moving through molasses
and it was taking too long.

He was only halfway there when Owen caught up with the
big man holding Trisha up, and clocked him across the hack of the
head.

Chris saw that he was near a plate-glass window, and he grabbed
the gun still hanging from Terry's neck and riddled it with bullets
until it collapsed.

"Beech, let's go!" he shouted over the chaos.

Owen helped Trisha to her feet who, thankfully, was able to
stand under her own power-and it was after he and Terry had
hopped out onto the sidewalk that it registered with him that Mae
was no longer lying at Trisha's feet.

There was no time to consider. They had to run, and he was
carrying Terry and ready to pass out....

Owen and Trisha emerged from the building not far from where
he stood, and Chris saw now that they were on a lesser-used street
behind the skyscraper. Roston's men hadn't made it down here yet,
though that was sure to change any second.

A black jeep roared down the street and slammed on its brakes,
right beside Burke.

Chris was so, so tired, his spirit broken. But he would not be
captured without a fight. He raised his gun.

"Have to run for it, it's-"

The driver's door of the jeep opened and out stepped a tall man
with a braided ponytail.... Deeper within the jeep sat a short, eggshaped man with prematurely white, mussed-up hair and a bushy
mustache.

`-you!" cried Burke, his foggy brain needing a moment to catch
up with what he was seeing.

He recognized these men. He'd seen them before.

On Mars.

The man with the ponytail opened his mouth to say something,
but Chris shuddered-no, it wasn't him, it was the world that shuddered-and abruptly he was wading in an endless sea of water.

But this wasn't water the way he knew it. At the point where
his feet dipped lowest, it was ice cold, and his toes were frozen and
frostbitten almost instantly. The water around his chest where he was
treading was warmer, but it tossed to and fro ferociously, throwing
him about like a rag doll. Above the surface, the sky was not blue;
it was orange, and the air was blisteringly hot. It felt like fire to his
lungs as he breathed in.