Apollo's Outcasts (37 page)

Then I looked away from the dome and felt my heart stop. Where Ag Dome 2 once lay, there was only a big, black hole surrounded by debris. The blast had badly damaged the dome, but it had completely destroyed one of the colony's farms.

The one where Melissa worked.

"Put it down, Gordie." My mouth was dry. "Put it down and let me get out."

"
Can't do that, Jamey.
" His voice came to my headset from the cockpit. "
I've been instructed to land near the industrial park. The landing fields aren't safe, and...
"

"I mean it, man. Put it down
now!
" I was already reaching beneath the seat for my helmet. "I need to get to Ag Dome 2. My sister was there. She..."

"Jamey...stop." Nicole's voice was quiet but insistent. "You know he can't let you get out on your own. We'd have to depressurize the whole module."

She was right. After the Pegasus lifted off from Cabeus, Gordie had repressurized the passenger module so that we could remove the injured Rangers from their suits and tend to their wounds. They lay upon stretchers on the module floor; a blood bag was suspended above one of them, and the other guy was so heavily bandaged that he could barely move. Getting them back into their moonsuits was out of the question; we would have to wait until a bus came to pick us up, so that we could carry them straight to Apollo General.

Once again, my gaze involuntarily turned toward the tarp-covered forms that lay in the back of the module. Logan, Mikel, Greg, Toji, the two other Rangers who'd perished at Cabeus...they were all back there, silent fellow travelers. Gordie had wanted to leave the bodies at Cabeus, if only temporarily, saying that we didn't have time to load them into the Pegasus. Nicole wouldn't have it, though; we'd take our fallen comrades back to Apollo, not leave them with the Ball North mercenaries who'd killed them. Colonel Thahn had volunteered to take custody of Eagle, Sparrow, and Raven until someone at Apollo figured out what to do about them; it didn't seem right to leave behind six dead Rangers, too.

"Yeah...okay, sure." Tearing my gaze away from the bodies, I looked over at Mahmoud. "Anything more from MainOps?"

Mahmoud was huddled over the shortwave transceiver, its headset clasped against his ear. "Only what Gordie just said," he replied, shaking his head. "The landing fields aren't safe, so we're to land east of the park and wait for a bus to pick us up."

I nodded. The shortwave had become our sole link with Apollo, and even then we hadn't been able to use it until we were within a few hundred miles of Ptolemaeus. Under interrogation, Eagle had reluctantly told us that Ball North's strategy had included taking out the ISC lunar communications satellite, thus severing Apollo's
long-range radio link with anyone who might be at Cabeus. This would happen just before Liberty Two, Ball North's second Cyclops team, attacked Apollo, which was timed to be simultaneous with the assault on Cabeus Station.

Fortunately, we still had the emergency transceiver as a backup. Whoever was handling communication at the Main Operations Center wasn't telling us very much, though. They were probably worried that our transmissions were being monitored. If so, that could only mean one thing: there were enemy forces on the ground, and they were still capable of doing us harm.

The Pegasus banked left as Gordie made a port turn. Through the window, I saw Apollo pass beneath us, and noticed that sun window had gone dark. Apparently the reflector ring had been knocked out, leaving the solarium--whatever remained of it--in darkness. Then there was a rumble as the VTOLs kicked in, and a vibration passed through the hull as the transport made its final approach.

We had a rough landing. Gordie came in fast, and the Pegasus slammed down on its landing gear so hard that Hans Geller, the unhurt Ranger tending to the wounded, swore at him through the comlink. The ceiling lights flickered and went dark, replaced a second later by the amber glow of the emergency lamps. A moment later, the steady hiss of the air vents suddenly ceased as well.

"
Killing all power until the bus gets here
," Gordie said. "
Don't want to give their mortars something to lock onto.
" Then there was a click as the comlink went silent; he wasn't taking chances with the radio either.

Gazing through the windows, I could see the clustered domes of the industrial park. Its floodlights had been turned off, and nothing moved near it. On the other side of the Pegasus, Apollo loomed as a vast, dark wall, its outer windows blacked out. Over the past few months, I'd become accustomed to the constant bustle of men and machines around the crater. Now it was as if I was looking at a dead city, lifeless and abandoned, populated only by ghosts.

I was just beginning to get spooked when I spotted a bus
approaching us from Loop Road. Bouncing upon its tandem wheels, it came toward us faster than I'd ever seen a lunar ground vehicle move before. Just behind it was an open-top rover, with two Rangers carrying carbines hunched behind the driver. Once the two vehicles were within ten yard of the Pegasus, the bus fishtailed around until its rear was pointed toward the transport. As it began to back toward us, the rover came to a halt. The Rangers jumped out of the back and trotted alongside the bus, carbines raised and ready to fire.

A hard jolt as the bus connected with the Pegasus's port side, and barely ten seconds later the hatch sprang open. The last person I'd expected to see was Mr. Garcia, yet that was who was standing on the other side. The Chief wore a skinsuit, its helmet faceplate open, and he was in no mood for small talk.

"C'mon, c'mon...move it!" he snapped. "Hustle!"

Nicole and I didn't bother to pick up our helmets or carbines. Instead, each of us took one end of a stretcher and carried a wounded Ranger aboard the bus, with Mahmoud and Hans bringing out the second stretcher. Once the wounded were aboard, the Chief told Nicole and me to go back and fetch our helmets and guns. She and I grabbed our gear as fast as we could; as soon as we returned, Mr. Garcia slammed the hatch behind us.

"Get us out of here!" he yelled to the driver. "Go west on Loop Road. That'll keep the crater between us and the snipers."

The driver was Ed Tolley, the guy who'd picked me when I first landed on the Moon. He put the bus in gear, and we barely had time to take our seats before it sped away from the Pegasus, bouncing across rocks and craters as it made a beeline for the road. I was about to tell him to stop and wait for Gordie and Sam, but then I glanced through a window and saw them climbing into the back of a rover along with the Rangers.

"We're going to have to take the long way back," the Chief explained. "The bad guys have taken up positions in the hills east of town so they can take potshots at anything coming out of the garage.
We managed to catch them by surprise when we left, but now that they know we're here, I doubt we'll be so lucky going back." He pointed to our helmets. "Put 'em on. If we draw fire, you'll need to close your helmets if the bus collects a bullet."

I picked up my helmet and shoved my head into it. "What about them?" I asked, looking at the two wounded Rangers. We'd left their moonsuits aboard the Pegasus.

"They're just going to have to take their chances." Mr. Garcia caught the look on Nicole's face and shook his head. "Sorry, but that's just the way it is. We can't stop to..."

"I know that, sir," she said. "But we also left behind the...the people we lost, I mean. They're still in the transport."

"I'm aware of that, and I'm sorry to have to leave them there, but there's nothing we can do for them just now. Bringing them aboard would have cost us time, and the snipers might have drawn a bead on this bus if it had remained there any longer." He gave her hand a brief squeeze. "When this is over, I'll send someone out back here to get them...I promise."

"All right," she said, staring him straight in the eye. "So long as you pick me."

"Fair enough." The Chief turned to Mahmoud. "All right, Mr. Chawla...let's hear your report. What happened down there, and why did you return?"

As quickly as he could, Mahmoud told him about the battle at Cabeus. He skipped a few details for the sake of brevity, but the gist of it was there. The Chief listened carefully, asking questions every now and then but otherwise remaining quiet. When Mahmoud got to the part of the story where PSU soldiers from Moon Dragon came to our rescue, the chief's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then Mahmoud told him that the enemy wasn't the US Marines but rather Ball North mercenaries, and Mr. Garcia stared at him in disbelief.

"I'll be damned. I would've never thought she'd stoop that low." He sighed and shook his head. "That colonel...Thahn, did you say
his name was?...was probably right. President Shapar probably gave the order to send private soldiers. That way, her administration would have plausible deniability if there were civilian casualties and put the blame on...well, who knows?"

"Yes, sir," Mahmoud said, "but Colonel Thahn also raised another possibility...that Ball North was hired because the Marines refused to take on this particular mission."

"Marines refusing a direct order from their commander in chief?" The Chief gave him a skeptical look. "I rather doubt that...but if it's true, then Shapar could be in serious trouble." A grim smile. "We can only hope that your friend is right."

By then, the bus had made the turn on Loop Road that brought us within sight of the remains of Ag Dome 2. I stared at the blackened hole that had once been the farm; on the other side of the bus, the others were gazing at the massive rip in the lower part of Apollo's dome.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The first wave of the attack came from space," Mr. Garcia said. "The
Duke
was outfitted with a missile launcher. Just before it landed, it fired six missiles at us. Fortunately, none of them were nuclear-tipped...I guess Lina Shapar wants Apollo intact, more or less...and when we saw them coming, we had just enough time to sound the evacuation alarm."

"But didn't the
Blitzgewehr
...?"

"The
Blitzgewehr
managed to take out four of the missiles before they hit. But it couldn't track all six at once, so two got through. The fifth missile destroyed the
Blitzgewehr
, and the sixth destroyed Ag Dome 2." The Chief pointed to the remains of the ag dome. "When it hit the farm, some of the debris ripped through the solarium ceiling. We were lucky, though. Almost everyone made it to the shelter, so there were few casualties. But we still lost some people..."

"Sir...what about my sister Melissa?" I tried not to stammer, but wasn't very successful. "She...she worked in Ag Dome 2. Was she...I mean, did she...?"

"She managed to get out. Your sister is safe and sound. But..." Mr. Garcia hesitated. "We lost one of our friends. I'm sorry."

I stared at him. "Who?"

"Eddie Hernandez," he said quietly. "He was in the farm when the missile hit."

The bus had barely reached the Depot Road entrance ramp when it came under sniper fire. There was a loud tap against the vehicle roof as the vehicle turned onto the ramp; I didn't recognize the sound for what it was, the ricochet of a bullet, but Mr. Garcia did. He yelled for Tolley to step on it, and he responded by flooring the accelerator and sending the bus down the ramp at breakneck speed.

I glanced through the rear windows to see that the two escort Rangers had jumped off the rover. Crouched beside the ramp, they raised their carbines and returned fire, covering our escape. Gordie and Sam were still in the back of the rover, and it looked as if Gordie was trying to find a gun of his own when both vehicles hurtled into the garage. Its doors were already open, and they shut as soon as the Rangers ran down the ramp behind us. Nonetheless, no one breathed easily until the dust scrubbers kicked in.

A med team was waiting for us in the garage. As soon as the bus came to a halt, Mr. Garcia opened the hatch and let them aboard. I half-expected Hannah to be among the medics who carried away the stretchers, but she wasn't. Which was probably just as well; I'd lost too many friends today, and wasn't quite ready to see her again.

"Get out of your suits and leave them here," Mr. Garcia said as Nicole, Mahmoud, Hans and I climbed out. "We'll have someone carry them back to the Ranger ready-room. I want the four of you to go straight to the shelter. Find your families, get a bite to eat, grab a nap. You'll be back on duty soon enough, and I want you rested by then."

I couldn't even think of doing anything except finding my sister, but I nodded and followed the others from the garage. Since the solarium had been sealed off, the elevators were no longer operating; we went up a short flight of stairs, then through a pressure door leading to one of the mooncrete corridors that honeycombed Apollo's underground levels. The corridors were crowded with loonies; it seemed as if everyone had urgent business of one sort or another, and none of them paid much attention to four exhausted, battle-weary Rangers making their way to the storm shelter.

The shelter was packed. What had once been an immense room seemed to have shrunk, now that nearly a thousand people were living there. The floor was lined with plastic cushions arranged in uneven rows, with translucent curtains hung from the low ceiling to provide a modicum of privacy. Some people lay upon their makeshift beds, reading or trying to sleep; others sat with their backs against the walls or simply wandered about as if looking for somewhere to go, something to do. Families clustered together, while individuals had found friends or coworkers to keep them company. The air was thick with the stench of too many people bunched together, and hundreds of voices speaking at once produced a cacophony that was almost deafening.