Earthfall (28 page)

T
wo hours later
, SCEV Five was slowly climbing up the rim of the Santa Clara Valley, leaving the shattered metropolis of San Jose behind. Mulligan refused to vacate the pilot’s seat, so Andrews helped Leona out of the cockpit and asked Kelly to check her wounded leg. She had already cleaned and dressed the wound during the time they made their way back to the warehouse, but Andrews wanted it looked at again. The last thing they needed was for Leona’s wound to become septic while they were out in the field. He then claimed the copilot’s seat and strapped in while Kelly tended to Leona; Laird and Choi continued with decon procedures. He paid particular attention to the ground-search radar, looking for any sign of SCEV Four. There was no indication they were being pursued, which was a relief.

“How’re you hanging in, Sergeant Major?” Andrews asked as the rig bumped its way toward the remnants of Highway 130, a twisting road that cut through the foothills surrounding the valley. Blocked in places by old mudslides, the road was just barely navigable. It was also fairly flat, which made it preferable to striking out overland.

“Still operational, Captain.” Mulligan kept his eyes on the road, weaving around the occasional rotting husk of a long-abandoned motor vehicle. While he continued to handle the SCEV with impressive dexterity, Andrews was becoming worried. The sergeant major’s face was puffy from swelling, and there was dried blood in his dark hair from a small scalp laceration.

“Maybe you should kick back for a while,” he suggested. “Let Laird or Choi come forward and—”

“I’m good to go, Captain,” Mulligan said.

Then his head dipped forward, and his hand slipped off the control column. The SCEV began to slow immediately, drifting to the left and bouncing over the remains of a rock-studded earth slide. Mulligan’s head bobbed from side to side, and for a moment, Andrews thought the older man was joking, but it became apparent that he had passed out, held in place by his safety harness. Andrews seized the copilot’s column and brought the rig to a halt.

“Mulligan?” Andrews reached over the center console and shook the sergeant major gently. There was no response; he was out cold.

“Guys, I need a hand up here!”

Laird appeared almost instantly. His hair was wet, and he wore only a mustard-yellow T-shirt and his duty uniform trousers. He had apparently just stepped out of the small shower in the rear of the SCEV.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, bending over Mulligan. He put his fingers against the bigger man’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

“He just passed out,” Andrews said, unbuckling his safety harness after setting the rig’s parking brake. He pushed the seat back and got to his feet, crouching over the center console. “He still has a pulse, right?”

“Yeah. I guess that means he’s really
not
a robot,” Laird said. He unfastened Mulligan’s harness and supported him when he slouched forward. “Hey, Sergeant Major! Can you hear me?”

Mulligan made a small groan, but didn’t respond in a meaningful way. Laird looked over at Andrews.

“Looks like a concussion,” he said. “Or maybe worse.”

Andrews didn’t like that. Everyone onboard knew first aid, and both Leona and Kelly Jordello were qualified medics, but a brain injury was something they were ill-equipped to handle.

“All right, let’s get him out of here,” Andrews said.

***

It took almost an hour for Law to extract SCEV Four from the collapsed building that had encased almost half the rig. Law had thought for certain he was going to perish in the collapse; even though he had slowed his pursuit of SCEV Five to avoid being crushed to death beneath the mass of the small office tower as it pancaked, several upper floors had suddenly tilted over, falling directly onto the street. Law had thrown the rig in reverse immediately, but the vehicle had been caught inside the debris field’s leading edge.

Remarkably, he survived.

More importantly, so had SCEV Four.

It took time to back the rig out of its near-tomb. Reversing, advancing, reversing again, the big vehicle shuddered as its tires sought purchase in its bid to retreat from the wreckage’s embrace. Finally, it did just that, and bright sunlight lanced through the dust covering the vehicle’s viewports as debris rolled off its snout in a small avalanche. Law continued to back the SCEV away from the mound of rubble until it sat in the middle of the next intersection. Only then did he relax and roll the engine condition levers to IDLE. The twin turbine engines slowly spun down to a low whine, and Law knew it was absolutely miraculous that they hadn’t ingested debris and destroyed themselves.

Shapes surrounded the idling vehicle, approaching cautiously, fearfully. Law watched them draw near, and he chopped the fuel to the engines, shutting them down. Cool air whispered over him courtesy of the vehicle’s environmental system, and he sat where he was for a time, taking a moment to simply luxuriate in something he never thought he’d inhale again—clean, purified air.

He unstrapped himself and pushed the pilot’s seat against the bulkhead, then left the cockpit. He cycled open the inner airlock and stepped inside the small room. The inner door closed and, after a moment, the outer clamshell doors opened, rising on well-oiled hydraulic rams. Law squinted at the harsh, unfiltered sunlight that greeted him, inhaling air tainted with dust. It was a warm day, almost eighty degrees now, and he pulled a filthy balaclava over his head. Direct exposure to sunlight was no longer a good thing; since the nuclear detonations had virtually eradicated the planet’s ozone layer, it was taking Mother Earth quite some time to replenish it. Prolonged exposure to sunlight could result in all manner of vicious skin cancers, so Law and his family avoided it as much as they could. Indeed, those who walked to the base of the airlock stairs looked like extremely scruffy mummies, wrapped up from head to toe in thick cloth. Not even fingers or noses were exposed. Law pulled on the pair of dark goggles that hung around his neck and checked to ensure his gloves were tucked under the wrists of his jacket. Satisfied there was no exposed flesh for the sun to attack, he stepped down the small stairway as a tall, reedy figure wearing a patchwork of old military uniforms stepped forward to meet him.

“Xavier,” Law said.

Xavier nodded and looked past him at the towering SCEV. His eyes were unreadable behind his goggles, and after a moment, he pointed them back at Law.

“Will you go after them?”

“Yes,” Law said simply.

Xavier looked at Law for a long moment. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “I don’t mean to challenge you …”

“Then don’t,” Law snapped. Xavier flinched slightly and stepped back. Law reconsidered his attitude an instant later and sighed wearily. “Speak your mind, Xavier.”

Xavier swallowed, the action clearly visible behind the scarf he wore over his face and the hood covering his head. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why chase them?”

Law snorted. “You
know
why, Xavier. No one outside the family is to be trusted. We’ve met outsiders before, and they’ve always tried to take what we have—murderers, all of them, half out of their minds, looking only to kill and steal and destroy anything that’s decent.”

“They didn’t,” Xavier said softly.

“What?”

Xavier hesitated for a long moment. He was old now, but he was still a good soldier, and had served capably as Law’s second-in-command for quite some time. Even though he still had to be punished on occasion—everyone in the family had to be disciplined from time to time, and Law was hardly stingy when it came to inflicting pain—Xavier had studiously avoided doing anything that might upset Law. But as he grew older, Law had sensed a change in Xavier. While he had no desire to experience the fields of pain Law could inflict, Law could tell Xavier had reached a decision some time ago to stop living in fear. Law smiled beneath his balaclava. An admirable choice, but the man was still eager to avoid the pain.

“They didn’t come to murder us, Law. They came here only for what they needed, things we had no use for.” Xavier’s voice was level, reasonable. Just the same, the others standing nearby slowly began to back away.

“And what do think will happen if Andrews makes it back to this Harmony Base, Xavier?” Law asked. “He’ll report to his superiors, as any good soldier will do, and what if they don’t like what they hear? They’ll send a force back to destroy us. You know the code we live by, my friend—
trust no one.
” He waved at the SCEV looming over them. “And if they return in more of
these
, or machines capable of even greater destruction, then the family will fall.”

“We have no proof they would do such a thing.”

“No proof? How many brothers and sisters have we lost, Xavier? Forty? Fifty? That was just from a small detachment of these soldiers. Imagine what will happen when
more
of them arrive!” Law felt the rage boiling up inside of him, that festering fury that was always close at hand, the poisonous anger that his handlers had unknowingly unleashed during their operations. The drugs and selective surgery and the introduction of thousands of tiny, microscopic machines that reorganized his brain had made him at once more than and less of a man. “To them, we’re no longer men and women. We’re
animals
! That’s the mentality of Man, to destroy, to kill. It won’t happen this time. I won’t let it.”

“But, Law—”

“
They destroyed the entire planet!
” Law shouted with such ferocity that he feared he might damage his vocal chords. “Look around you, look at what’s
left
. We scrabble to survive here while
they
live in comfort, staying hidden for years until they were certain all of
us
had died. How many did they kill, Xavier? Billions!
Billions
of human beings died from that damned war, and now we’re next!”

Xavier said nothing. After a time, he nodded slowly and looked down at the ground, his expression hidden beneath layers of protective clothing. Law stared at him, waiting for him to say something. He needed Xavier now more than ever, and he needed to get himself under control before he did something rash, something that couldn’t be undone.

Xavier finally looked up. “What are your orders?”

“Take two men inside. Remove all the food and medicine, the bedding, the water, anything the family could use. But be quick about it. I’ll need to leave within the hour.”

“But how will you find them?” Xavier asked.

“They need to return to their base as quickly as they can, so they’ll follow the same route they took to get here,” Law said. “Simple, really—I’ll catch up to them in the field and deal with them somewhere in the wasteland.”

“And what will happen to us?”

Law looked at Xavier for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “That will be up to you, Xavier. I’m leaving the family under your care. I intend to return, but I don’t know if I will. So you should do whatever you need to do to keep the family going. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Law. I understand.” There was a mournful quality to his voice that touched Law. He stepped forward and put his hand on Xavier’s thin arm. Xavier flinched at the contact, but Law held firm. He put his free hand on Xavier’s other arm and pulled him into an embrace. Xavier stiffened, but he didn’t resist as Law hugged him powerfully.

“They’re yours to tend to, Xavier. I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again, so lead them as best as you can. Be what I could never be. Be strong always, but also be what I never was. Compassionate.”

“Are you certain this is the only choice we have?”

Law released him and stepped back, motioning to the SCEV. “Get started,” he said, then turned and walked up the ramp and into the waiting rig.

A
s the sun
descended and slipped past the horizon, SCEV Five made its way across the former state of California, picking its way across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, sticking to roads wherever it could. Day died and night was born, but the rig continued its trek, bumping along through the darkness, unimpeded by the utter blackness thanks to its array of infrared devices. By the next morning, the burly machine had descended from the mountains and accelerated across the mostly flat deserts of Nevada. It then turned on a southerly course, aiming for New Mexico, where it would cut a path across the lowest part of the Rocky Mountains. Once clear of the rugged spires of rock, the SCEV would change course again, this time northeasterly, where she would return directly to Harmony Base.

It would take six days. If all went according to plan, the rig would deliver its precious cargo of replacement supports thirteen days after the Core had gone offline.

Andrews oversaw the SCEV as it sped into the glowing gloom of another night, and he wondered how many more friends might have perished waiting for them to return. As the lights grew dimmer inside the base, as the CO2 scrubbers slowly failed, how many of the people he had known for the last decade had slipped away? None? A dozen? Fifty?