Offworld

by Robin Parrish

  The place was murky and dangerous, a vast tangle of bizarre industrial structures that felt like a tiny rectangular city all its own, situated alongside Highway 10. It looked so old that Chris was amazed it could still be in use. Even though gasoline-powered vehicles had become sparse, crude still was a core component of any number of petroleum-basecl products.

  They passed rows of enormously wide, round storage tanks where gasoline, kerosene, and other refined yields were stored before being shipped to customers. Thick, fat pipes led in all directions, and railroad tracks ran parallel to Highway 10, just inside the property. Chris made for the dozens of tall silo-like distillation columns dotting the central part of the facility like miniature skyscrapers, where crude oil was separated into usable types of chemical compounds. The fires they'd seen from the road were randomly lit atop five of these skinny columns, as if Paul Bunyan's birthday candles were waiting to he blown out.

  The age of the facility and lack of personnel had combined to create a disastrous mess, with crude oil spilled out on the ground here and there, pipes leaking gasoline and other chemicals, and a few small ground fires burning at random.

  Chris went off-road, precariously aiming at the central core of the refinery, where the distillation columns were surrounded by metal scaffoldings. These held power lines and were assembled in a disjointed mess like a giant Erector set. The entire place was all but pitch-black, having lost electrical power probably weeks ago, Chris guessed.

  It was like trying to blindly feel one's way through an obstacle course. They had to slow to a crawl, barely dodging columns and metal struts and large spherical boilers, which were only visible when they were just a few dozen yards out. Finally, somewhere near the very center, Chris brought the van to a stop and turned off the engine. Owen glided in right behind him and did likewise.

  "They will find us here," Owen said quietly in his ear.

  Chris did not reply.

  His thoughts turned to Mae, alone in the truck with Owen, who'd just done some really incredible-if terrifying-things. He wondered how she was weathering it, and reprimanded himself for not suggesting she join him and Trisha in the van.

  A thunder of engines in the distance cut his thoughts short.

  Trisha deflated next to him. "That didn't take long."

  "Must've seen our brake lights," Chris whispered, frowning.

  Somewhere in the distance a huge fireball went up. They could see it through the tangled web of pipes and beams. The fire was more than fifty feet wide, billowing out and then up. It had just flashed into existence long enough to flash out again. The ground trembled in response to the blast, and they felt it a full second after the fireball went out. Another explosion followed, this one two hundred meters from the last. And another.

  "They're taking out the storage tanks," Owen explained through the radio, with little thought of maintaining the secret of their hiding place anymore. "Probably with grenades."

  "Trying to flush us out," Chris said. It was an effective method. He'd used something like it years ago as a fighter pilot during a wartime raid on an enemy compound. Only he'd done it with missiles fired from the air.

  More explosions rocked the refinery, and soon the blasts were coming faster, and in greater numbers, from all directions. Chris and Trisha could barely keep up, whipping their heads about, catching glimpses of the red and orange blasts, from forward and behind, or either side. The jeeps had spread out fast, and appeared to be closing in on them from all sides, burning everything in their path as they went. The ground shook with every blast, and Chris could practically feel the heat growing as the explosions came nearer.

  "There must be dozens of them," whispered Trisha. At least."

  "Which is more than they initially led us to believe," Chris agreed.

  "They've got military training," Trisha went on. "They're using coordinated tactics."

  Chris nodded, watching the blasts and trying to come up with their next move.

  "You think they're responsible for D-Day?" she asked.

  "Either that or they're more leftovers like Mae."

  The explosions were less than five hundred meters out and approaching fast. Chris' foot was itchy and eager to stomp.

  "We can't stay here, Chris," said Trisha.

  He switched on the van's engine. Through the dark pipes and structures, fireballs illuminated the background enough that he could see the moving silhouettes of six or seven jeeps turning in their direction.

  Chris tapped the gas, rolling slowly away from the oncoming jeeps through the impossibly dark, black maze of strange shapes jutting out in every direction. He edged the van a little faster as the jeeps closed in.

  "Look out!" Trisha gasped.

  But it was too late, and the front end of the van broke open a narrow pipe, sending a shower of white, hot steam rushing straight down in front of them.

  "Oh no ... " Trisha whispered. Instead of pure darkness, now they were blinded by clouds of steam.

  The windshield of the van was covered in moisture; Chris had to turn on the wipers to wick it away. He dared to go faster, to clear the steam, but when they emerged, six black jeeps were closing in on them on every side. He stopped the van. Their high beams pinned Chris' van and Owen's truck in harsh light. Once more they were stuck.

  "STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLES," said the same growling, mechanized voice they'd heard on the bridge.

  Chris responded by turning on his own headlights. Another explosion rocked the refinery, this one only two hundred feet away. Chris turned his head to see it out of his side window. There, on the far edge of the distillation columns, he saw something straddled between two of the tall towers. A large oil fire had been ignited by the last explosion. It was burning just ten feet above the ground inside a short, squat boiler. An avenue of escape could be seen beyond the fire, but the boiler blocked the narrow path between the distillation columns.

  Near the boiler was a bulky transport truck that had once hauled barrels of crude oil. It rested empty, its flatbed still winched up high as if it had been recently unloaded. Low, fencelike rims surrounded the bed on the sides and near the cab, but Chris thought the rims looked pretty weak.

  He looked closer now and saw the vehicle's hydraulic tubes that powered the bed winch. He rolled down his side window and extended Terry's pistol through it, aiming at the truck.

  "STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLES NOW!" demanded the voice.

  "Commander," came Owen's voice through his earpiece. "What are you doing?"

  Chris took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

  His shot struck gold, nailing the hydraulic tubing dead-on. The built-up pneumatic pressure began leaking fast, and the back end of the truck bed was lowering steadily toward the ground.

  `Jack be nimble," Chris said, clasping his hands tight around the steering wheel and jamming the accelerator down. He made a quick forty-five degree turn, donuting the van, and dug a straight line toward the flatbed truck and the boiler.

  `Jack be quick," Owen replied, catching on.

  Both vehicles gunned it at a dead sprint for the truck bed, which was still coming down. A pair of jeeps advanced on them from either side of their path to the boiler, intending to block them in. Chris managed to just clear them, but Owen scraped both sides of his truck against the two jeeps, squeezing through noisily.

  The van hit the back of the big flatbed truck just as its rear settled on the ground, and the bed became a ramp, launching the van over the high-burning flames of the boiler to the other side. The van slammed onto pavement, its wheels grinding up black clouds of smoke, but Chris didn't dare stop. Just a few seconds later, he saw Owen's truck soar through the flames in his rearview mirror and crunch against the ground right behind them.

  The minivan and the pickup truck passed beneath a mammoth white pipe suspended above them, and Owen threw open his side door as they passed, colliding with one of the rusted support beams that held the pipe up. The old pipe broke apart without giving much resistance, and hu
ndreds of gallons of oil poured out onto the ground, pooling and snaking until it reached the boiler that was on fire.

  "Scorched earth," Owen said over his transmitter. The fire would make it more difficult for the jeeps to follow, though it wouldn't deter them forever.

  Chris drove until he was back on Highway 10, headed west once more, and he pressed the van to hasten them away from the refinery as fast as it was capable of going. There was little point in trying to hide or stop now.

  All they could do was try to reach Houston before they were captured.

  Half an hour passed and the two vehicles crossed the state line into Texas. He and Trisha didn't dare talk over the radio with Owen for fear of being overheard. But Owen was having no trouble keeping up with Chris' breakneck pace.

  "Do you think we did the right thing?" asked Trisha, blurting out the question as if she'd been holding it in for hours. "Leaving Terry behind?"

  Chris clenched his jaw. This was not a conversation he wanted to have right now. "He left its behind. It was his decision, not ours."

  Trisha looked away, and he knew the unspoken words filling her mind, the feelings of hopelessness and concern and helplessness.

  They had to get to Houston. It was the only thing that mattered now; the only thing Chris could let himself think about. Chris' experience as a fighter pilot was screaming at him that the endgame was upon them. There was still very little about any of this that he understood, but his every nerve ending was electrified, his blood pulsing so hard he could feel his neck bulging with each thump.

  Trisha was becoming increasingly haggard with each mile they drove. As the sun began to break the horizon, Chris considered the number of hours they'd been driving, trying to escape capture or worse, and his thoughts drifted back to the toll this was taking on her.

  "Chris," called Owen through his earpiece.

  At first Burke didn't think it wise of Owen to use his name over the radio, but he knew that whoever their pursuers were, they almost certainly knew the identities of Chris and his crew of astronauts already. They would very likely not know anything of Mae, however.

  He didn't have to wait for Owen to explain why he'd radioed; a mile off to their left, the tail end of a jumbo passenger jet was sticking up out of the ground. The white plane looked as if maybe it had only just taken off from a nearby airport when D-Day struck, everyone onboard vanished including the pilots, and down it went. Now it was jammed into the ground at a sixty degree angle, its rear end sticking up into the air more than two hundred feet, looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  Chris shook his head slowly at the sight, which nearly took his breath away. He glanced at Trisha, and she was equally awed and frightened by the downed jet. It was a monument, frozen in time, commemorating whatever tragedy had caused Earth's inhabitants to vanish instantaneously.

  "Commander," intoned Owen, his voice as grave as Chris' thoughts, ,,our youngest crewmember has requested a pit stop."

  Much as Chris hated the thought of stopping, they'd been on the road for hours and even he could use a bathroom break. Not to mention how stiff his arms and legs were from driving at such a relentless pace. He couldn't imagine how sore Trisha must've been from sitting, tensed up and rigid, for so long.

  And then there were the vehicles, whose electric batteries were in danger of winding down soon.

  "Okay, Beech. We'll stop at the next available opportunity."

  "Copy that."

  The city of Beaumont was approaching. It was on their exact route so it wouldn't be hard for anyone to find them there. On the other hand, taking the time to detour elsewhere would only put more time between them and their destination.

  Chris would make it a brief stop.

  The sun shone high over the city of Beaumont as the van and the truck turned off the highway and came to a stop at a modest and rather dusty fairgrounds. There were a handful of large buildings, but a few smaller ones nearest to the road caught Chris' attention, including a snack shop and a pair of restrooms.

  The cars pulled to a stop in a small parking lot, where everyone piled Out.

  Mae walked quickly toward the bathrooms while Trisha followed slowly behind, rubbing her lower back. Chris was about to make his own way there when Owen approached.

  "How's Trisha holding up?" he asked.

  Chris was scanning the road, wanting nothing more than to be back on it. "She's having a rough time. Sitting in one position for so long leaves her pretty stiff." Chris switched to the more urgent subject at hand. "Who are these people, Beech?"

  "I don't know," Owen replied, shaking his head and following Chris' gaze toward the road. "But you're assuming they're from around here. Are they even human? We haven't seen a face yet. One thing we do know is that they're trained in war operations."

  "Yeah, I noticed. Could they be connected to this `Waveform' you told me about? The whatever-it-is you were sent to Mars with us to uncover?"

  "It does seem likely, though I don't see how that knowledge helps us right now. One observation: they seem intent on our capture-I don't believe they mean to kill us. They've had several opportunities and did not take them."

  "I don't know," Chris replied. "I don't think they were interested in a simple handshake back at the refinery. Or on that bridge." He paused, glancing at Owen, then looked away. "You killed some of them. The ones on the bridge."

  "They were the first to demonstrate aggressive behavior," Owen explained, his manner calm, "when they attempted to collide with us in that parking lot. I believe they were trying to take away our ability to escape by damaging our vehicles beyond repair. I countered by letting them know that with the survival of the world being at stake, such aggression would not be tolerated."

  `But to just kill them outright, when we don't know anything about them?" Chris asked.

  "I could have killed them all if I'd meant to."

  Burke looked at his friend again, his eyebrows raised at such a bold yet casual claim. He realized that so far he had no reason to doubt it.

  "I'm going to find something to drink," Chris said.

  Owen nodded. "This parking lot holds other vehicles that have batteries compatible with what we're driving. I'll trade them out so we won't have to stop again until we reach Houston."

  "Don't you want to take a break? Use the bathroom, grab a snack, rest for a minute?" Chris asked.

  Owen was already walking away. "No need."

  Mae stood at a sink in the bathroom, washing her hands. She didn't bother looking in the mirror. Never occurred to her really.

  Trisha, two sinks over, couldn't be more different, picking at her hair, running her hands through it and trying to put it into place. Then she splashed water on her face, using a paper towel to scrub at her eyes and nose and cheeks. She seemed particularly concerned with her eyes, which were dark and sunken. Trisha frowned at what she saw, then turned and walked toward the door.

  Mae merely stood there, taking it in. She suspected that Trisha knew she was being observed, but neither of them had said a single word while inside the restroom.

  When Trisha opened the door, she paused and looked back. "We should go," she said.

  Mae followed her out. When they rounded the corner, she nearly walked into Trisha from behind, but pulled up at the last second.

  Trisha stood still and upright, her hands in the air. A man stood opposite her, holding a gun. It was a big gun-so big he had to hold it in both hands-and there was a small knife attached to the front end of it. He wore a jumpsuit covered in gray and white camouflage. And his head and face were covered by a gray ski mask. His eyes were focused and implacable.

  "Stay behind me," Trisha said. It took Mae a moment to realize she was talking to her.

  Mae risked tilting her head to one side to look around Trisha; she had a clear view of the parking lot, and saw Owen standing there with his hands up, three men identical to the one in front of Trisha training their guns on him. Fifty feet to the right, Chris stood in the clearing between
the concession stand and the bathrooms, with two men holding guns to his chest. Chris was only able to raise one arm, because hed slipped his bad arm back into his sling when they'd stopped. A third man stood to Chris' right, and he was holding an old-fashioned walkie-talkie in front of Chris' mouth. Not one of the men showed his face. All were large, fit, and silent.

  Two black jeeps had joined the other empty vehicles in the lot.

  Mae felt smaller than she'd ever felt in her life.

  One of the men grabbed Chris' raised wrist and brought it clown in front, next to the one in the immobilizer. His wrists were fastened together there with something Mae couldn't see.

  "Speak," said the man with the walkie-talkie to Chris.

  Chris cleared his throat and looked at the radio in the man's hand. "Who are you people?" he boldly asked.

  The walkie-talkie squawked and the static cleared.

  Am I speaking with Captain Christopher Burke?" asked the voice on the other end. It was a man's voice.

  Chris made an odd face at what he'd just heard. But he replied, "That's right."

  "Captain Burke," replied the walkie-talkie. "It's an honor. Know that I have no interest in hurting you or your people. But your actions could undermine everything I'm trying to accomplish, and I can't allow that."

  "I want to know who you are," Chris repeated.

  "My name is Colonel Mark Roston, of the United States Army. And, Captain, at this moment I'm holding a gun to Terry Kessler's head."

  THIRTEEN

  Chris blinked in the darkness.

  His only remaining source of light-a floating, tiny ball of light he could not explain-was moving away of its own free will, and expected him to follow.

  Certain he was still lying on the ground somewhere back in the tunnel and this was just a lucid dream while he took his final breaths, he slowly got his feet moving and followed the light deeper into the tunnel.

  Coming closer to the orb, he again got a good look at the strange symbols emanating from it, arranged in neat lines. If he blurred his eyes, they almost looked like words or sentences, like text scrolling out of the orb from every direction. Only when he was close enough to touch it could he see the strange shapes of these symbols. Chris wished he would live long enough to discover what they were, and what they meant.