Under Dark Sky Law (16 page)

Then the secondary crawler slammed into the
back of her unit.

She was thrown against her safety harness,
pinching some of her still healing wounds, but it prevented her
from slamming face first into the windshield. Either there was an
equipment malfunction and he had been too careless to secure the
harness properly, or the crawler impact had just been that intense,
but Delta crashed into the windshield and went flying from
vehicle.

Xero cringed as his head splattered against
her crawler’s rearview camera, treating her to a close up view of
his brain matter. No bueno. She snatched the gas mask from the seat
beside her and crammed it on her head. There was no time to get
into the safer bunker of the cargo container, so she elongated the
straps of the restraint harness and crawled down to the floor
boards and tucked herself as far under the seats as she could
get.

Reaching a hand up, she grabbed the radio and
tried to reach Echo. “Do not leave the vehicle cabin. Repeat, do
not leave the cabin. Fasten your restraint harness and take shelter
at the bottom of the cabin,” she said.

There was no response.

A wave of anger rolled through her, furious
that her own operatives had made such huge errors in judgment. She
was no better than the government soldiers or Calavera, letting
missions go to shit and ruin everything like this. So
unprofessional. So unacceptable. When had she let things get so
sloppy? How had she or Milo let such inexperienced operatives out
in the field in the first place? With Echo not answering the radio,
she already knew that they would both pay for their mistakes with
their lives. She threw the radio against the dashboard, but it
clattered harmlessly back onto one of the seats.

The two storms finally met, and vicious winds
ripped against the armored sides of the crawler. Thunder shook the
ground, vibrating through the vehicle’s heavy metal exterior.
Through her closed eyelids she could still see the flash of thunder
as lightning struck the carapace and grounded itself into the
earth. Heavy rain splattered against the metal exterior and the
barrage sounded like some of the finer gunfights Xero had lived
through.

She breathed slowly and calmly, centering
herself and forcing measured full breaths through the old
respirator. It wasn’t much, but it would help keep the sand out of
her lungs. She was resistant to most of the chemicals floating
around the pits, but even the strongest of lung tissue couldn’t
deal with a pound of sand lancing into bronchi at 100 miles per
hour. She was suddenly thankful that she had insisted on gearing up
in the uncomfortable tight black acid resistant polymer suits. Just
from the smell blasting through the air vents, she knew she was in
for a nasty chemical bath. It had been a few years since she’d had
a really bad chemical burn, and it wasn’t something she was looking
forward to.

The haboob hit the crawler, and she settled
in for a long battle between the metal and the winds. The vehicle
slammed back and forth, steel screeching and cargo thumping in the
back of the hold as the winds lashed away. The double paned windows
creaked, groaning and heaving under the strain of the wind and the
air pressure, finally giving way with a resounding pop. Glass
rained down on her, but the jagged spheres would have been the
least of her worries.

That is, if a few choice shards hadn’t ripped
through the tender polymer suit. The glass chipped chunks of skin
out from under them on their way down , but that wasn’t what she
was worried about. There was nowhere to go. No time to get into the
cargo hold without risking getting blown away or fried by
lightning. No escape.

The rain came then, pouring through the
broken windows and onto her prostrate body. The first drips of the
acidic rain touched her skin and ate into her lacerated flesh
through the violated suit. There was no reason to hold back and she
screamed into the wind defiantly, daring it to keep going. The rain
was now the dominant threat, having determined the hard way that it
was in fact laden with poison. The harness would hold her in the
vehicle, but with the windows broken and water gushing into the
cabin, she wasn’t sure if she would drown or chemical burn herself
to death first.

Grabbing the fabric of the harness, she
hauled herself back up onto the bench seats. She was still in the
direct spray of the caustic rain, but at least she wasn’t swimming
it in the foot well anymore. There was nothing left to do but wait
it out, hope that the suit could withstand more damage, and that
the body of the crawler stood up to the full brunt of the storm.
She had seen the thick reinforced steel carapaces crumple against
the immeasurable forces of the desert elements, and she wasn’t sure
what a better death would be—to be crushed inside a tin can,
smashed against rocks by gale force winds, or melted to death in a
toxic rain bath.

All three options circled in her mind as the
wind sucked at her through the broken windows, the corrosive rain
ate at her skin through the tears in the suit, and she heard the
steel shell groaning against the smashing air pressure. Sand mixed
in with the rain and ground into the her new and existing wounds.
The suit thankfully sealed against her skin, but trickles of rain
still leaked down into some of the crevices of her suit, burning
the unhealed stiches and scratches from the week’s abuses. The pain
melded into a familiar shell of torture, and she kept concentrating
on her breathing. Sand was clogging the respirator, and
hyperventilating would have meant another swift option for death.
Even with so many routes for dying, she didn't have to ponder the
possibilities too long—after thirty minutes of torture, one final
gust of wind shoved at the crawler, and the whole thing lurched
over.

Amidst the other pains, the blunt force of
ramming into the side of the crawler seemed like a joke. That is,
until gravity rolled her onto the edge of the shattered passenger’s
side window. The sting of the glass shredding her suit seemed like
child’s play before the rain dripped into the new openings in her
flesh. The resulting agony made her teeter on the edge of
consciousness, but she held on, knowing that passing out would mean
certain death if the cabin kept rolling and she was left to get
crushed in the rotation or drowned in the bottom of a rain choked
floor when it finally came to a stop.

Then the rain stopped. The wind stopped. The
lightning and thunder stopped. The driving sand stopped. It was all
just gone. It was so silent she thought she had actually died, but
the excruciating pain was a reminder of what a fantasy that thought
was. The desert was a cruel mistress—her storms were as swift and
violent as they were transient. She was so beautiful you couldn’t
resist her, and so fickle she could punch you with one hand and
caress you with the other. Like every other monsoon or haboob Xero
had lived through, it hadn’t lasted that long. She had never been
religious, and she wasn’t ready to give it all up to Jesus, but
thank god for small favors.

Her balance was off after so much rolling and
shaking, but the sun was out again, and the rays peeking through
the crawler’s broken glass gave her an idea of what orientation she
had come to lay at. The broken driver’s side window was flush
against the wet desert sand, and she was partially dangling from
the safety harness. She groaned and hooked her fingers inside the
center mass of the rig and pulled apart the release tabs. Falling a
few feet, she thumped against the soaked driver’s seat and her left
elbow struck the sand poking through the broken window. After
clearing the sand from the portals of her gas mask’s respirator she
lay there, just breathing, pushing aside the pain and any feelings
of panic that were trying to cloud her judgment. She was alive, and
that was more than most could ask for in this situation.

With a huge groan she summoned the rest of
her strength and climbed vertically up the seats towards the
passenger’s side windows. It was a sloppy dismount, but she had
never been so happy to fall five feet in her life. Ashamed as she
was of her lack of a properly protective roll, even smacking face
first into the sand seemed like an accomplishment. She was out of
the wreckage. She was alive. The storm had moved on. Everything
else was just gravy.

She came to her hands and knees and finally
got the wherewithal to strip off the gas mask and the damaged suit.
The sun was already evaporating the water that the monsoon had
dumped in the area, taking with it some of the chemicals that were
burning her skin. Her undamaged skin was doing a decent job of
repelling the toxins, but the areas already damaged by stab wounds
or glass were on fire with the caustic ooze. She needed clean
water.

Naked in the new sunlight, the desert smelled
strangely good. She was able to look past the scent of evaporating
sewage and detect the faint smell of desert sage and wet rock. This
is why she loved the desert. Even in the middle of Armageddon there
was something beautiful.

Relief hinged on whether she could get into
the hull of one of the crawlers. The back entrance to her vehicle
was crumpled against her partners’ cabin from the initial accident
still, the force of the crash having been enough to meld the two
together in a gnarled metallic embrace. She gave a scream to the
world, frustrated with having to go through the burden of moving
just a few feet south to access the other crawler’s cabin. Each
movement felt like torture, and she could just imagine the acid
chewing away at her wounds.

The back door to the second crawler was
buried in the sand, but also partially open, meaning there was a
chance for her to try and fish something out. She scrambled over
there, thrusting her hand through the crack in the doors, hoping
desperately to come across something useful. After a minute of
fruitless groping she stopped. She had to calm down. Think. She had
the tools to deal with this situation. After taking the time to
collect herself she spent a few minutes digging a trench for the
door so that she could gain better access to the hold. After
digging a foot down into the sand, she could fit her top half
through the gap, which gave her significant leverage in accessing
the supplies.

Her desperate hands gripped all manner of
items, but none of them felt right. When her fist finally closed
around a large jug of water she screamed out loud, her voice
echoing into the empty distance. She upended the container and the
water coursed over her body, soothing the seared flesh. Once the
initial respite of the water had passed she went into damage
control mode and began inspecting herself for any life-threatening
injuries. For as much as it had hurt, it looked like the suit had
done its job of protecting her skin from having too much exposure
to the toxins. Most of her skin was red and raw—likely first degree
burns that would feel like shit for a few days but wouldn’t kill
her.

The rest of her injuries on the other hand
were much more serious. The rain had eaten through the stitches Zed
had sewn through her prison lacerations, and the exploding glass
had added additional slashes that were oozing blood and separated
plasma. The gaping slices were raw and ragged, tortured from the
acid that had been worse than literally rubbing salt in the wounds.
Fortunately, the blood was slowly dripping as opposed to pouring
out across the wet sands. The acid was ironically sealing off some
of the vessels—the polluted rain may have actually helped save her
life. She couldn’t afford to pass out from blood loss, but pain,
that she could work through. With any luck the penicillin injection
she’d gotten from Zed would be enough to prevent infections.

Once again she found herself naked in a
crisis—this was happening far too frequently. However, the monsoon
rains had lowered the temperature, and though the sun had come back
out again, it was no longer hanging in the middle of the sky.
Finding clothing was not a survival priority just yet.

Though it was just a formality, she had to at
least try and verify the deaths of Delta and Echo. This turned out
to be more difficult than expected—Echo was nowhere to be found,
and aside from chunky stains clinging to the back of her crawler,
Delta’s remains had also been scattered by the storm. If somehow
Echo was alive, there wasn’t anything she could do for him at the
moment anyway. Next priority was trying to radio back to a command
base—whether that was the Phoenix or Yuma domes, or her crew in the
pit, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to
wander the desert on foot, but given the verified volatile weather
patterns, it wasn’t a task she was eager to take on.

The radio in the rear unit that Delta had
crashed was toast—the crawler wouldn’t start, and it looked like
the whole head unit was smashed. There would be no radioing for
help with that thing without some serious electronic surgery. After
carefully scuttling back into the side of the uprooted crawler she
found that the electrical system was still working, but something
was still wrong with the radio. It turned on, but all she got was
static with no sign of any connecting transmissions. Something had
clearly been dislodged in the impact. It was possibly fixable, but
it would take tools that she didn’t have on hand.

She found her laser tossed towards the back
of the cabin, looking like it was in good shape still. Though
scraped from being juggled about during the storm, after careful
inspection she verified that the shell was intact—thinking back to
the fried skeleton at The Niagara, she wouldn’t have wanted to risk
firing a damaged laser that had also gone for a soak in an acid
bath.

At least she had a weapon—she didn’t think
there was much in the way of defense items in the shipment they had
been trying to deliver. She cursed herself again for her
carelessness. Typically she verified and double-checked all cargo
before going on a run—that way she knew exactly what was on hand
and how the cargo could affect the mission if anything went wrong.
This time she had only given a cursory look at the shipment’s
manifold. In her head she saw herself lecturing other employees
about how sloppy planning and preparation could only lead to sloppy
results. Well, she was right about that, and she was reaping the
consequences of her own negligence.