11
The sun was low in the sky, bathing the shattered city in fiery light that was beginning to turn a brilliant shade of orange. That was the thing about nuclear exchanges, Jim Laird thought as he piloted SCEV Five down a dusty avenue. They left enough contaminants in the air to refract the light in such a way that they doubled the beauty of a sunrise or sunset.
“SCEV Four, this is SCEV Five. Can you copy? Andrews, Eklund, Spencer, Mulligan, kick it back. Over,” he said into his headset as he steered the big rig down the same streets SCEV Four had taken over two hours ago. He gripped the control column in his left hand, and the instrument felt slick beneath his fingers. Laird was sweating, despite the cool air blowing over him from the vents overhead.
“We should have gone in with them,” Choi said suddenly. He sat in the right seat, dividing his attention between the instruments and the view outside.
“Yeah, no kidding. Unfortunately, Andrews is the mission commander, and he told us to stay,” Laird snapped. He regretted his tone immediately. Choi normally served with Andrews and Eklund and Spencer, so of course he would be worried about the sudden silence that had descended over the comms. When Laird had insisted they hold station for another half hour, just in case Andrews and the others were delayed for some harmless reason, Choi and Rachel Andrews had been pretty direct in voicing their displeasure. Even Kelly had questioned the decision, though not aloud. Laird had only to look at her eyes to get that, but he had held firm. Andrews and the others were probably so absorbed in looking for the supports that they had blown past the radio check. Overreacting to that wouldn’t make things any easier.
“Sorry, Tony,” he said lamely.
“Don’t sweat it,” Choi said, and Laird had to wonder if he was joking.
Rachel entered the cockpit, and Laird had to fight not to groan. She’d been the poster child for worry and despair during the entire trip, and now circumstances had conspired to make her even more tightly wound. Laird felt the weight of her stare as she knelt between the cockpit seats.
“Anything yet, Captain?”
“Not yet, Andrews. I’ll let you know as soon as things change. Now go back and strap in. There’s a lot of broken ground ahead, and—”
“What the f*ck?” Choi said suddenly.
Laird backed off on the control column, slowing the SCEV. “What is it, Choi?”
“Check this out!” Choi tapped the center display excitedly. “According to Four’s transponder, her bearing is changing. She’s moving!”
Laird glanced down at the display. Sure enough, the rig was moving. Dead slow, but it was definitely moving. Which didn’t make any sense at all.
“Could their radio be out?” Rachel asked, a glimmer of hope in her voice. “That would explain why they haven’t been able to respond, right?”
Laird shook his head with a sigh as he accelerated again. “Each rig’s got three separate radios with dedicated antennas. We can broadcast on VHF, FM, and HF. The chances of all three failing are …” He reconsidered what he was saying, and who he was saying it to. With a sigh, he glanced over at Rachel and gave her a jerky smile. It was the best he could do at the moment.
“Ah … yeah, Andrews. They could be NORDO. Maybe that’s it.”
Choi was apparently oblivious to what he was trying to do. “Whatever, sir, but the engineering uplink says she’s on standby, and the rig’s engine isn’t running. Even if they were moving on auxiliary, the entire system wouldn’t be in standby. For instance, the airlock doors haven’t been cycled, and the security code wasn’t entered—”
“Yeah, great, thanks a lot, Choi.” Laird took his eyes off the road to stare daggers at the younger man. “You’re a big help, man. Keep it up.”
“Watch out!” Rachel screamed suddenly, gripping Laird’s shoulder with enough strength to hurt. Her fingers dug into his flesh hard enough to leave bruises, but the pain barely registered in Laird’s mind as he snapped his eyes forward and looked out the viewports. What he saw made him swear, and both he and Choi stomped on the brakes at the same time. The big rig shuddered to a vibrating halt as its anti-lock brakes stuttered like a machine gun. Laird and Choi both reached out and grabbed Rachel at the same time, preventing her from flying into the instrument panel as the SCEV suddenly decelerated. From the back, Kelly Jordello let out a shout, and Laird heard something go flying to the floor of the second compartment.
Then everyone jerked backward as the vehicle came to a full stop and thrashed backward on its suspension. Rachel fell back onto her ass with a cry, her feet kicking up into the air. Laird ignored her and fumbled for the parking brake before hitting the quick-release on his harness. Beside him, Choi did the same. Both men stared out the viewports as a cloud of dust slowly rolled over the rig. Before it obscured their view through the thick glass, they saw a stumbling figure approach the rig, hands held high, as if in supplication.
It was Mulligan. He looked like he’d been through one hell of a fight. Laird grabbed the seat release and kicked the seat all the way back until it smacked into the bulkhead. He hauled himself out of the pilot’s seat as Mulligan collapsed to the ground outside, his MOPP suit ripped and torn, his respirator assembly and facemask gone.
***
Blessedly cool air whispered over Mulligan as Laird and Choi pulled him through the tight airlock and half-carried him into SCEV Five’s second compartment. They’d already removed his tattered environmental suit and tossed it into the incinerator before cycling open the inner door, leaving him dressed only in his sweat-soaked Army Combat Uniform. The two men dragged Mulligan over to the faux leather settee and eased him down onto it as Kelly Jordello moved toward him with the rig’s medical kit in hand.
“Gotta shower,” he said to her. “I’m hot—”
Kelly shook her head, and her ponytail swayed back and forth. “Not necessary right now. You haven’t been exposed for very long.” She glanced at Rachel, who stood nearby. Mulligan followed her gaze and, when he saw Rachel, he could tell by the set of her jaw that she was barely hanging on to her emotions.
“Rachel, get him some water, please,” Kelly said.
Rachel hesitated for a moment, then stepped over to the kitchenette and drew a cup of water from the sink. As Laird and Choi pulled off their suits, Kelly snapped on some rubber gloves and slipped on a surgical mask.
“Procedure,” she said to Mulligan when he looked at her.
“Lieutenant, I need to hit the shower and decon,” he said.
“You have open wounds, Sergeant Major. You’d better let me tend to those first, unless you want to scrub them out with water and bleach yourself. Are you light-headed? Nauseous? Having trouble catching your breath?”
“Well, yeah. It’s been a tough couple of hours.”
“You’re dehydrated. Rachel, the water?” Kelly pulled out a stethoscope and unbuttoned Mulligan’s soaked ACU blouse. The T-shirt beneath it was dark with sweat.
Rachel held out the cup to Mulligan. He reached for it with trembling fingers and missed it on the first try.
Kelly took the cup from Rachel and put it in Mulligan’s hand. “Drink that. We’ll get you loaded up with electrolytes in a bit.”
Mulligan brought the cup to his lips and drank down the contents. Some slid down the wrong pipe, and he coughed mightily, almost spilling the rest all over himself.
“Take it easy, Mulligan,” Laird said.
“Blow it out your ass, sir.” The sound of his voice reminded him of a metal rasp being dragged across stone. “We have a bit of a situation here.”
Laird apparently chose to overlook the insubordination. “Where are the others, Sergeant Major?”
“Captured, I think. Maybe even dead. I was cut off from the rig—”
“Captured?” Rachel said, her voice high-pitched and shrill, a perfect counterpoint to Mulligan’s dry, husky rasp. “By who?”
Mulligan took a moment to drink the remainder of his water, managing not to drown himself at the same time. He cleared his throat and looked at her directly. “By survivors of the war, ma’am. Like the judge always said—when you’re hot, you’re hot.”
Rachel stared at him for a moment as her cold dread suddenly blossomed into a hot fury. “So you just left them there? You ran out on them, you f*cking bastard?”
Before Mulligan could formulate a reply, she was all over him, pounding him with her fists. Mulligan took the punishment. He didn’t have the strength to fight her off, anyway.
“You left them! The only reason you’re here is because you were supposed to watch over them, and you left them!”
“Rachel, get off him!” Kelly shouted, shoving her away just as Laird and Choi grabbed her shoulders and yanked Rachel back. Laird pinned her up against the sealed inner airlock door with one thick arm, pressing it under her chin. She fought against him, but Laird just increased the pressure.
“Keep this shit up, Andrews, and I’ll f*cking choke you out!” he bellowed, right in her face. “Get a grip—now!”
Rachel’s lips pulled back from her teeth as she continued to fight, thrashing and kicking, but Laird was not a small man, and he was true to his word. Rachel began to choke when he put enough pressure on her airway that she couldn’t take a breath. She finally relented, but it took longer than Mulligan would have thought.
That girl’s got some fire in her, for sure.
When she began to sag, Laird quickly released her and grabbed her under the arms so she wouldn’t fall to the deck. After she took several ragged gasps of air, Rachel raised her head. She didn’t look at Laird; instead, she glared directly at Mulligan, and the hatred he saw in her eyes was truly impressive.
“Business as usual for you, isn’t it?” she gasped.
“That’s it, Andrews. Knock it off,” Laird said. “Can you stand?” When Rachel finally nodded, Laird straightened. “All right, I’m going to let you go. Don’t go batshit again, otherwise we’ll tie you up in back. You get me?”
“Yes, Captain. I get you.”
Laird slowly withdrew. After exchanging a glance with Choi, he turned back to Mulligan. It was pretty obvious even to Mulligan in his current state that Laird’s mind was whirling. Finding survivors of the nuclear conflict has been Laird’s mission for the past decade; now that he’d nearly realized his mission, it was too much. This was something the team just couldn’t handle right now.
Still, he had to explore it.
“People?” Laird asked, finally.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. But there are a lot of those bastards, and they’re apparently none too happy to see us.” Mulligan started to laugh then, a laugh that sounded a little crazy even to him. When he saw the others staring at him as if he’d lost his marbles, he got himself under control. “I’m sorry, but it’s kind of ironic, huh? We’ve finally found life outside of Harmony. Boy, I’ll bet Benchley’s going to pop a boner over this.”
Laird shook his head, stunned by the news. Kelly resumed her work, listening to Mulligan’s heart and taking his blood pressure.
“Jesus,” Laird said after a loud sigh. “Yeah, I’d probably get a little hot and bothered over it myself, if we didn’t have other things to take care of right now.” He rubbed his face, then crossed his arms. “All right … we’re still getting Four’s transponder signal. Whoever your new friends are, they’re apparently moving the rig, but we can track it down. Hopefully, the others won’t be too far from it.”
“Better wait for a few hours, in that case,” Mulligan said. “The bad guys’ll think they’re secure, and we can roll up on them using the darkness as cover.”
“They could be unprotected, Sarmajor. The rad count’s still high enough that continuous exposure will cause damage,” Kelly said as she finished taking his vitals.
Laird nodded. “Jordello’s right, Mulligan. The sooner we get our people back, the sooner we can complete our mission.”
Mulligan sighed. “Excuse me, sir, but do you have a plan?”
Laird hesitated. Choi and Mulligan looked at him, waiting for an answer. Kelly pulled out cotton, gauze, swabs, and antiseptic as she prepared to clean out Mulligan’s wounds, something he wasn’t looking forward to. He noticed that Rachel Andrews kept her eyes rooted on him, as if she was trying to stare holes through his head. Mulligan suddenly found that he was very tired of all the p-ssyfooting around, and decided to roll in for the kill.
“Listen, Captain—we have night vision devices, armored mobility, secure communications, and a fair amount of firepower at our disposal. But unless you play it smart, none of that’s going to mean jack.”
“So what are you suggesting, Sergeant Major?”
“I’m suggesting that I’m the only warfighter in the vehicle, so you might want to let me take the lead on this one, sir. No disrespect intended, but I’m the only one here who’s already had his cherry popped, so I kind of know what we’re going to have to do.”
“You left them,” Rachel said. “Why should we listen to you?”
“Because if they’re not dead, I’ll be able to get them back alive.” Mulligan scowled. “Shit or get off the pot, Captain. We’re danger close across the board. What’s it going to be?”
Laird frowned, glaring at Mulligan, furious at being called out in front of his crew. Mulligan sympathized, as he would certainly feel the same way if their roles were reversed. But that changed nothing, and they probably had a lot of fighting ahead of them.
Laird couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice. “All right, Sergeant Major. You’ve made your point. What first?”
“We break it down into manageable pieces and knock them out one at a time. Hiding the vehicle would be a great way to get started, sir. Get us out of the middle of this street and under cover.”
Laird stared at Mulligan for another long, frosty second. Choi fidgeted, looking from one man to the other. Finally, Laird motioned to Choi.
“Get forward, Choi. Jordello, get that son of a bitch cleaned up and deconned. Once you’re done, Sergeant Major, take some time to get yourself squared away, then tell us how you figure we’re going to get this done, if you don’t mind.”
“Hooah, sir,” Mulligan said.
Choi pushed past the settee and headed for the cockpit. Laird turned and followed him without saying another word and, a moment later, the rig started moving again.
“I’m going to clean your wounds, Sergeant Major. When I’m done, you can shower up.”
“Roger that, Lieutenant. Do your worst.” As Kelly started cleaning out the scratches on his face, Mulligan looked over at Rachel. She continued to glare at him, her arms crossed, her feet spread so she could keep her balance as the vehicle swayed slightly from side to side. Mulligan sighed and decided to try one last time to reach her.
“It’s going to work out okay,” he told her. “We’ll get them back.”
Rachel snorted and turned toward the cockpit. “They were dead the second you came aboard, Mulligan.”