Shattered Skies

by ALICE HENDERSON

  In a section just after the shuttle towered a gigantic metal machine. It stood on treads, like the photos she’d seen of tanks in books. It was absolutely monstrous, bigger than some of the single-story houses she’d sheltered in during her trek from New Atlantic. The exhibit sign said it was a “Shuttle Crawler Transporter.” As huge as it was, she was staggered to see photos of even bigger ones that had transported gigantic rockets to lift-off areas.

  Gordon joined them from an adjoining room as Raven moved off in a different direction. “This place is out of sight!” the pilot said, his eyes sparkling.

  She and Gordon walked into the next exhibit hall and stopped abruptly. In the center of the room, roped off and still gleaming and silver, stood the A14. Its sleek body was not entirely unlike the shuttle, but it was narrower, and the wings were slightly sharper in shape.

  Gordon gave a long, low whistle. “There she is.” Together they walked around the ship, making a complete circuit. It was in remarkably good shape, and H124 closed her eyes briefly, basking in relief.

  She could hear Dirk and Raven talking in the next room. “In here!” she called out.

  They hurried toward her, standing in wonder. “We found it,” Raven breathed. “And look at it! Looks like they just built it yesterday. It’s in fantastic shape.”

  H124 leaned in to read the A14’s placard:

  “While never launched, the A14 was the first and only craft in a planned series of spacecraft that would replace the shuttle program. Designed to take off directly from the ground on its own power, it did not require the use of rocket bodies. As space junk orbiting the earth became more and more of a hazard, designs like this became more valuable, as ejected rocket bodies became the biggest orbiting debris risks to communication satellites and other craft. The A14 was designed to make the trip quickly and efficiently, and could be used to repair orbiting telescopes and make delivery runs to the International Space Station.”

  H124 paused at that part of the description. An international space station? Though a ceiling blocked her view of the sky, she found herself involuntarily looking up. There was a space station up there? Was it still there? How had all of this been lost? She returned her attention to the placard.

  “Though this project was heralded as the next vital step in space exploration, due to numerous budget restrictions and funding cuts, ultimately the A14 project was abandoned. This is the only model that was ever built.”

  “It was never even launched,” H124 said. She found a large stepladder on wheels in a back room, and Gordon climbed to the top to examine the A14’s engine. He gave a sigh, relieved to find the engine was still in there. Some of the planes had had theirs removed to make them lighter and easier to display. Dirk and Raven stood beside her, staring up anxiously.

  “We’d have to do some tinkering before this thing will be able to fly,” Gordon told them. “Not the least of which, we’d have to convert it to a different fuel source. Not a lot of refined jet fuel lying around these days.”

  “Do you think you could do it?” Raven asked.

  Gordon turned, his eyes sweeping over the fuselage. “Needless to say, it’s pretty different from other craft I’ve worked with. But I think with Rivet’s help, we might be able to repair it.” Rivet was the Rover’s top engineer, and she was currently in Sanctuary City, piecing together the blast deflection craft. H124 gripped Raven’s arm happily. As Gordon climbed down, she hugged him fiercely, and he chuckled and hugged her back. “At least we can try.” He took in the size of the thing. “Getting it out is going to be a challenge.”

  Already H124’s mind pored over possibilities. They’d brought along a number of maglev sleds, figuring they might have to maneuver the A14 out of a tight spot. But they wouldn’t be able to move it very far. The sheer weight of the craft meant that the sleds would only be able to labor for a few minutes before their power cells depleted. They could recharge in the sun, but it would take so many repeated cycles that it was completely impractical. And getting it to a place where there were no Death Riders, PPC, or hostile Badlander groups was essential if they were going to get it ready to go. They had to move it somewhere safe enough that Rivet and Gordon could get to work converting the fuel system. It would take teams of people coming and going, bringing supplies, and it wouldn’t be long before others noticed their presence and showed up in droves to pick them clean of whatever tech they had.

  Dirk turned to Gordon. “We can’t just work on it here. It’s too exposed with that blasted crater now. It won’t be long before Death Riders notice we’re here.”

  H124’s mind flashed to the bloodthirsty marauders and a chill swept through her. If they’re not already outside now. She brushed the thought aside.

  Raven nodded. “I agree. We’d be a target for every band of scavengers once they saw activity in this area.” He paced, thinking. “We do have a satellite location near the west coast. It’s still across the country, but it’s a lot farther south than Sanctuary City, and would get us a little closer. It’s a protected location, and there’s an engineering lab, some living quarters, an armory.”

  “We still have to get the A14 out of this museum,” Dirk pointed out.

  H124 thought back to the previous room. “What if we use the synced maglevs to lift it onto the Shuttle Crawler Transporter?” She glanced around at their faces. Dirk seemed to like the idea. “It’s electric. The plaque said it had an enormous amount of torque. We can charge up the Crawler with the UV recharger. Then we just drive it, A14 and all, right out of the loading doors.”

  Dirk brought this hand to his chin, then pointed at her. “I like it.”

  “And then?” Gordon asked. “Once it’s outside?”

  “Could we lift it somehow?” H124 asked. “Fly it under a helicopter?”

  “It’s too heavy for what we’ve got,” Gordon put in. “I’ve been mentally going through all the aircraft I know of, stashed around the country and up in Sanctuary City. We don’t have anything that could carry something like this.”

  H124 thought of the train tracks she’d seen from the plane. They weren’t far away from here, and they stretched all the way to the horizon, joining with a network of tracks that all converged in the ancient metropolis in the distance. Hadn’t Byron mentioned something that first night they met? Something about the “Big Worm,” a steam engine that glided along tracks just like these? “The Big Worm,” she said aloud, her eyes lighting up.

  Dirk spun, staring at her in disbelief. “The Big Worm?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what’s called? It’s a steam train.”

  Dirk shook his head adamantly. “That’s a crazy idea. They can only drive it so far before it gets too much unwanted attention. They’ve had to armor the whole train.”

  She wouldn’t let the idea go. “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “We don’t even know where it is right now. It could be anywhere along the route.”

  “Who operates it?”

  “This Badlander Grant.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve never met him, but I hear he’s completely crackers. Spent too much time alone.”

  “But Byron knows him, doesn’t he? He said he’d seen the Worm work.”

  Dirk pursed his lips.

  Opening up her comm window, she called Byron. In case their mission was unsuccessful, he and Rowan had been moving Badlander camps into an old network of bomb shelters they’d found.

  “Halo!” he said, grinning when he saw her. He’d taken to calling her by that nickname more and more often.

  “Byron.” She gave a little smile, though her stomach did flips at the sight of him. His long brown hair hung around his shoulders, his green eyes twinkling in his tawny face. She still hadn’t figured out what she was supposed to do with her feelings for him. “Do you remember that first night we met, when you kid
napped me and stole my car, then forced me to march through a river of fecal matter and break into a hostile megacity?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” His grin widened.

  “You mentioned something that night about The Big Worm.”

  “I remember.”

  “Is it still operational?”

  “Sure is, and they’ve cleared an even longer track.”

  “How long?”

  “From a hundred or so miles east of where New Atlantic was, all the way to about two hundred miles shy of the west coast. Granted, it runs through some pretty desolate territory.”

  “Could we, say, borrow the Big Worm? We found the launch vehicle and need to move it cross country.”

  “You’d attract a lot of attention.”

  “It’s our best chance.”

  “A lot of hostile attention.”

  “Yes.”

  Byron cocked an eyebrow. “So you want to load this thing onto a steam train and drive it a thousand miles across the weather-ravaged, Death Rider-infested, PPC-airship-patrolled wastelands?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “I am so in.”

  She laughed.

  “Let me check with the engineer, Grant. See where he is right now, if he’d be up for this crazy adventure.”

  “He would have bragging rights after.”

  “Always important.”

  “Tell him we need to get the A14 as far northwest as possible, to a safe place where Rivet can work on it. There’s a Rover satellite location there.”

  “Give me a minute,” Byron told her. “And I’ll contact him.” He signed off.

  “First step,” Dirk said, moving away, “is getting these loading doors opened.”

  He retraced his steps through the museum entrance, the others following. Back at Gordon’s Lockheed Vega, they unloaded a portable UV charger and twenty heavy-lifting maglev sleds, transporting them all back to the museum.

  The loading doors had been fitted with backup hand cranks in case of power outages, but hopefully the portable UV charger would provide enough power to get it open. They still had to blast through layers of windblown dirt that had accumulated over the loading doors, but didn’t want to do it until the last minute.

  Unhooking the mobile UV charger, they laid it on a maglev and moved it to the Shuttle Crawler Transporter. After attaching it to the transporter’s massive bank of batteries, they programmed the maglev sled to hover beside it as it moved. They dragged a few displays out of the way to clear a path to the loading doors.

  H124 climbed up into the controller booth of the Crawler and started it up. Lights blinked on the instrument panel, the battery meter flickering to life. She exhaled gratefully and inched the massive machine forward, out of the area where it had stood for so long. The treads groaned and creaked, breaking free after lying immobile. Angling it down the corridor toward the A14, she found it to be surprisingly maneuverable, able to turn even when stationary. The treads below rotated and trundled forward. She stopped in front of the A14.

  Raven linked all the maglevs together, and maneuvered them beneath the body and wings of the A14. Then as one, the sleds lifted the craft. She could hear their whirring propellers working desperately to get lift, the tiny motors revving high. Then the A14 was aloft, slowly rising up. Raven steered it up, passing over H124 in the controller booth, and began to position it over the transport platform on top of the Crawler. The A14’s tires had gone flat long ago. He had just started to gently lower it when H124 heard the maglev rotors begin to wind down, their power depleting quickly.

  They were still two feet above the Crawler when the humming of their rotors dropped to a barely perceptible thrum. Raven entered a command, and the maglevs slipped out from under the A14 just as the sleds gave out altogether. The A14 dropped the remaining two feet onto the Crawler, and the vibration shook H124 in her booth. The sleds fell to the floor, completely depleted.

  Dirk climbed up the exterior of the Crawler and began strapping down the A14 with Gordon.

  H124’s PRD beeped, and she opened the comm window to see Byron. “It’s all set,” he told her. “Here’s the coordinates where we’ll meet you.” Her map blinked, letting her know it had received the location. “See you tomorrow afternoon,” he said with a grin, and signed off.

  For the rest of the evening and part of the next day, they hid underground, exploring the vast museum. H124 slept in the lunar display next to the Eagle lander. They’d placed the maglev copters outside to charge in the sun, and by the next morning, they were ready to go again.

  Outside in the blistering heat, H124 helped Dirk transport more explosives over to the loading door area. Countless years of dirt and windblown debris had covered it, so they set up a few explosives and moved a safe distance away.

  They lay down and covered their heads.

  “Fire in the hole!” Gordon called out.

  Dirt rained over H124, dusting her clothes.

  They stood up, brushing themselves off, and approached the exposed door. Using small folding shovels, they uncovered what little dirt was left, completely clearing the opening. The aperture was definitely big enough to get the Crawler and A14 through. Now they just needed to feed power to the door’s mechanism to get it open.

  They returned to the quiet cool of the museum, H124 taking a deep breath of the chilled air. It was musty and smelled mildewy, but it beat the brutal heat above.

  H124 climbed back into the operator’s booth on the Crawler. With the A14 still secured on top, Raven gave H124 a thumbs-up. She turned the enormous transporter, aiming for the exterior doors. The progress was tortuously slow, inching forward across the floor of the museum. Her mind began to race, worrying that Death Riders or Badlanders might see the open doors above and come to check it out.

  They turned on the power to the loading doors, and they wrenched open. Sunlight poured into the subterranean museum, illuminating displays that hadn’t seen light in too many years to count.

  Finally she reached the bottom of the ramp and drove upward, feeling the weight of the craft pulling at the Crawler. But she managed to motor all the way to the top and out into the blinding sunlight.

  She watched as the doors cranked down slowly, sealing once more, blending in with the desolate terrain. She checked her PRD. The intact railway track was close, only two miles away, but the going would be very slow. She started out, knowing the others would easily catch up to her. She’d only gone a hundred feet when they emerged from the museum entrance and walked over to her.

  “How’s it going up there?” Raven called up to her.

  “I might break a land speed record here for slowest vehicle ever.”

  He chuckled and walked alongside her, the others joining him.

  Above her the heat beat down, so she fished her sun goggles out of her toolbag and slipped them on. Better. Already sweat trickled down her back and her feet were starting to overheat in her boots.

  Dust devils swirled by as she maneuvered around a stand of long dead trees. Just as she had outside New Atlantic, she spotted strange objects among the barren trunks. Large metal cylinders, hollow and riddled with rusted holes, lay scattered, some still upright. Metal benches, leaning and falling apart, had been situated throughout the trees. A small, crumbling footbridge spanned what was now a dry creek bed filled with sediment and dust.

  They passed a dilapidated structure with the faded word “Café” barely visible above doors open to the elements.

  A collapsing knee-high black fence encircled a large depression in the center of the trees. A worn metal sign read “Paddle bo…rent.” A plastic contraption with a steering wheel and foot pedals, sun-damaged almost to white, sat cockeyed in the middle of the dry depression.

  They passed a few more dilapidated structures. Dirk walked out front by himself, his expression distant. Below her, Raven an
d Gordon chatted companionably about the experimental forests the Rovers had been planting.

  When the tracks came into view ahead, H124 mentally urged the Crawler to go faster. She checked her PRD. The Big Worm would be here in just a few minutes. She edged up to the tracks, the glare of the sun still dazzling even with her goggles on.

  To the west, the tracks bent away out of sight, angling gently northwest. She heard the train before she saw it, a metallic singing in the tracks. Dirk bent down and touched one of rails, feeling the vibration. “Right on time.”

  Then she saw a column of white steam in the distance and the train came into sight, the sun glinting off its black metal sides. As it powered down the tracks toward them, she could hear the steam engine pumping away, the rhythmic chuffing as it moved the wheels.

  It slowed, chugging to a hissing stop in front of them. She could see now that it was completely shielded in armor, thick iron plates covering all areas of ingress. With a clang and a hiss, a metal door covering the engine jutted out and slid upward. Inside she saw a few steps leading up to the engine compartment.

  Byron appeared in the doorway, gripping a handle and leaning out. “Halo!” he called, jumping off the train. He waved up at her on top of the Crawler, and she waved back, her stomach once more doing acrobatics.

  He greeted the others, then turned back to the train. The engineer stepped out, a bearded, heavy-set man with tousled brownish-black hair framing a tanned face. His brown eyes twinkled as he took them all in.

  “This is Grant,” Byron said. He introduced the others.

  “Make no mistake,” Grant said, eyeing them each in turn. “This is a crazy mission, and if my train gets messed up, I’m hunting you all to your graves.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, and then Grant burst out laughing, holding his generous belly and shaking with laughter.

  Raven gave an uneasy chuckle.

  “I have a few ground rules for riding in my train,” Grant went on. “First, don’t spill coffee on the control board. Second, you go to the bathroom on your own time.” He scowled at them each in turn, and they all exchanged confused glances. “And lastly, and most importantly, don’t go drinking so much liquor that you shoot up the place, thinking it’s infested with opossums.”