Offworld (32 page)

The soldiers around Chris were thrown off guard by Owen's sudden movement, and Chris saw his opportunity. He lunged forward
into the man holding the radio, and the soldier's thumb slipped off the
microphone button. Landing on top of him, Chris thrust his bound
hands sideways and connected with the man's face.

He rolled off. The rifle lay on the ground between him and the
soldier, but rather than go for the handle, Chris brought his hands
down over the bayonet knife and sliced through the zip-tie.

"Drop the rifle," Owen ordered the man with his neck against
the blades.

The man did as he was told.

Owen immediately turned and fired a single shot at the soldier
holding Trisha and Mae at bay. The bullet was dead-on, popping the
man in the shoulder. He let out a yell and fell back, the rifle tumbling
from his grasp.

"Get his gun!" Owen shouted.

The soldier reached for it where it had fallen at his side, but Trisha
got her hands on it at the same time. He tugged hard, and she toppled
to the ground but didn't lose her grip on the weapon.

Mae surprised everyone by whipping out the switchblade she'd
told Terry about at the lighthouse and jamming it into the soldier's
calf. She left it there and jumped backward away from the fight. The
new pain shocked the soldier enough to turn loose of the weapon
for just a second, and that was all Trisha needed.

She trained the rifle on him as she stood to her feet.

"You two okay?" Chris shouted, pointing a gun of his own at
the three men nearby on the ground. His arm was no longer in its
immobilizer, which was wrapped tight around one of the soldier's
necks. He was sweating and his face was tight and angry.

"We're good," Trisha replied.

"Report," squawked Roston's voice through the radio now abandoned on the ground. "What's happening?"

Chris leveled the gun on the three men with his bad arm and
snatched up the radio with his other hand. He held it to the masked
mouth of the same man who had previously done the same for
him.

"Tell him we tried to escape, but you overpowered us," said
Burke.

The man looked at him but said nothing.

Chris got a tighter grip on the rifle and pressed it into the man's
chest, right over his heart, until it pierced straight through his camouflaged shirt and mashed against his flesh.

"Say it! "he shouted.

The man hesitated, but finally said into the radio, "We had a situation, Colonel, but its under control."

Chris clipped the radio to his belt, then turned back to Trisha.

"Search that one's pockets!" Chris ordered.

"What are we looking for?" Trisha called back as she watched
Mae scour through the soldier's pockets.

"Keys," Chris called back.

"Got 'em," Mae said, jingling the keys in front of her face.

Chris turned to Owen. "Bring those three over here!"

Minutes later, the seven soldiers were sitting in a circle on the
ground, facing outward. Chris and Owen had used more of the zipties to bind them with their hands behind their backs, and they'd
intertwined the ties so the men couldn't pull themselves apart from
one another. Owen finished tying their feet and stood to join the
others at one of the enemy jeeps.

But Mae waited right behind him, and when he turned around,
he nearly knocked her over.

She stood her ground, her arms folded, a frown on her face. And
though she was more than a foot shorter than Owen, she stared him
down cold.

Owen got the message. Loud and clear. He put his hands up and
bowed his head, relenting.

"This mean you don't hate me no more?" she asked.

"I never hated you," he replied. "I suspected you might be involved
in the cause of D-Day."

She pursed her lips. `And now?"

"I was wrong."

Mae dropped her arms to her side, seemingly satisfied.

"You're still a mystery, though," added Owen.

"What'd you call me before? A flight?"

"The fly in the ointment. You still are. Just maybe not in the way
I thought."

She offered him a patronizing smile, then turned to walk
away.

The two of them joined Chris and Trisha at the jeep, where Owen
seated himself in the driver's seat and opened his laptop so all four
of them could see.

"Their radios are short range. Roston's not far," Chris said, his jaw
clenched. "Where are we? Can you zoom in?"

Owen complied by gradually, shot by shot, bringing the camera closer and closer to Beaumont, Texas. The town was tranquil with
no movement of any kind. But something caught Chris' attention in
the southern part of town.

"There they are," he said, pointing at the image. Owen zoomed
in more until they could see a line of black jeeps moving steadily
southward on Highway 10 like a row of ants. There were more than
Chris expected and moving slowly. As Chris and the others watched,
the jeeps stopped altogether. The lead vehicles were astride a small
bridge that ran just above an old railroad line.

Who are these guys?

"What're they doin'?" asked Mae.

"Waiting," Chris replied.

"For what?"

"Them," responded Trisha, glancing back to the men sitting in a
circle on the ground in the middle of the plaza.

Owen nodded. "Roston thinks his men succeeded here. He's
waiting for them to return, with us as prisoners."

"Let's round 'em up, Beech. I want to throw them in the back of
the second jeep."

Mae was troubled by this turn in the conversation. "We ain't
leaving?"

Chris' eyes were ablaze as he shook his head no. "We're just
getting started."

"Chris..." Trisha chimed in, in a reluctant tone. "We're outmanned
and outgunned. Leaving would be the safest option."

"You heard him on the radio," Chris replied, angry and almost
yelling. He nodded at the empty fairgrounds, a hollow place representative of the entire planet. "He did this. This man is the reason
we came home to an empty planet."

"He attacked us," added Owen. `And he'll do it again."

"So the answer is to retaliate? Against a superior force?" Trisha
said, incredulous. "Chris, this is crazy."

"No," said Chris. "This is war."

Traveling now in the two black jeeps they'd commandeered,
Chris and the others followed the curve of westbound Highway 10
as it became southbound Highway 10. Two lanes expanded to three,
and then four, making navigation around the abandoned vehicles
increasingly easy. Noon was approaching, and the clear weather held,
the sun's oppressive heat bringing out perspiration at the slightest
provocation.

Chris drove with Trisha and Mae in his jeep. Owen followed,
having dispensed with the prisoners.

Roston and his small army were less than a mile up the road,
but Chris decided not to take a direct route. Surprise was the only
advantage they had, and Chris didn't want to give it away. Instead,
they turned east off 10 for several blocks until they hit North 11th
Street, a two-lane thoroughfare. The road ran parallel to the highway
and would bring them close enough to Roston to approach on foot.

They parked at Central High School, just a few blocks from the
highway, and right next to the east-west running railroad. It was the rail
line that Chris decided would take them to Roston and his men.

"Don't like this," Mae complained as everyone piled out of the
vehicles.

"Neither do I," Trisha singsonged softly.

"First rule of being a soldier: you don't have to like it to do it,"
Chris replied as he took off his shoulder sling for the last time and
tossed it aside. `Just remember what you're supposed to do, and
you'll be fine."

Mae's expression told him what she thought of her chances.

Trisha and Owen joined him, and the three of them set off walking at a crisp pace down the railroad tracks, automatic rifles slung
over shoulders or gripped in both hands. Chris still had the enemy
walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.

Halfway there, Chris could see the outlines of Roston's jeeps on the bridge up ahead. There were a handful of men pacing back and
forth over the bridge. Chris picked up the pace; they had to get in
position before Roston decided to leave or send someone to check
on the men, which by now he had to know were missing.

A high-powered train was stopped at the station just ahead on
the right, and Chris pointed the others to move behind it, blocking
the enemy's view of them. From here, they could sneak closer to the
bridge, undetected.

When they were two hundred feet from the bridge, Chris directed
them to stop next to a gap in the train cars.

He turned to Owen. "Go do what you do."

Owen left.

Then he turned to Trisha, lowering his voice. "You all right?
Physically, I mean?"

She nodded affirmative, but he could see how hard she was
leaning against the train car for support. "I was just thinking about
Roston. He called you `Captain' Wasn't that your rank when you left
the Air Force?"

Chris nodded. "No one's called me that in a long time."

"Do you know him?"

"No. I'd remember. He makes a lasting impression."

"Does he know you? From the war, maybe?"

Chris merely shook his head.

"Hm" was her reply. "This plan, are we sure it's going to work?"

"Not remotely," he replied, almost laughing at the very idea. He
checked the ammunition in his gun in preparation for what was about
to happen; then he took a deep breath. "I need you to cover me."

She let out a long, slow breath of air, steeling herself.

He crept carefully through the gap between railcars, and Trisha
followed. She leaned against the car opposite of Chris, her back to
the bridge. Chris faced the bridge, but stood back within the gap far
enough that he wouldn't be seen. He dared to lean out just far enough
to catch a glimpse of the activity atop the bridge.

He pulled out the radio and turned it on.

"Colonel," he said.

There was a noticeable delay before Roston replied. "Burke?"

"That's right," said Chris.

`Are my men dead?"

"They're fine. They're safe," replied Chris.

As Chris peeked again around the railcar, he saw the silhouette
of a man pacing the bridge. His build, visible against the bright blue
sky, was a few inches shorter than most of the other soldiers. He held
something small enough to be a radio in one hand, and he stopped
walking, spun in place, and looked all around, silently pointing his
men in varying directions.

He knows we're here.

Suddenly, the highway buzzed with activity, men scattering across
the bridge top, scanning everywhere for signs of Chris and the others.
Chris hoped Owen stayed out of sight.

"It would he foolish of me to assume I could find them back at
the fairgrounds," Roston offered.

"That would indeed be foolish," replied Chris.

"Where are they, Captain?"

"I want to talk to Terry. I can see you've pieced together that we're
close by and watching. So I want Terry on the eastern edge of the
bridge where I can see him. Then we'll talk about your men."