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Chapter 21

Zach Croft: 2053

Zach wondered if he was dreaming. He walked a few feet forward and sat on the crater’s edge. Mabel approached him from behind. She breathed heavily into the intercom as she asked, “Is that…?” before trailing off.

After a moment, Zach finished her sentence for her. “Irogen.”

Light refracted off thousands of blue and purple crystals, sending rays in all directions. The crystals covered every last inch of the crater, growing at all angles and in more sizes than Zach could count. Some were long and narrow, reaching up the walls of the crater. Others were crowded in small, crystalline clusters that reminded Zach of giant sea urchins. The light streaming through them was so brilliant that Zach could barely look at them.

Erik’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Shit.”

Ryker turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“The irogen tank is on the other side, in the mine.”

“So, fuck the tank,” Ryker said. “We’ll just take the crystals.”

Zach joined Ryker and nodded in agreement. “I agree. Let’s do this the easy way and get the hell out.”

“We could,” Erik admitted, “but it might not be enough.”

“Why not?” Mabel asked.

Erik gestured to the jagged remains of the mining operation. “The whole point of this place—of Prescott—was twofold: irogen mining and processing. The mining is just the first part. The processing is what extracts the fuel from the crystals. The crystals themselves are useless, and they take up a ton of space. One tank of liquid irogen has probably a hundred times more fuel than a tank full of crystals. It’s like the difference between a barrel of firewood and a barrel of jet fuel.”

“We should get as much as we can while we’re here, right?” Mabel asked Zach rhetorically. “Unless we’re planning on coming back for more.”

“No, you’re right. That makes sense.” He motioned to the field of glittering crystals. “Let’s just drive over the crystals. The rover can handle it. We’ll get the tank, load it up, and go.”

“That’s a great plan if you don’t mind exploding into a billion tiny pieces.” Off of Zach’s confused look, Erik continued. “Irogen is UV reactive. Enough solar radiation and it goes boom.”

Zach looked at the dim, orange sun through the murky sky. Ryker did, too, then said what Zach was thinking. “So, why haven’t they exploded? The sun’s right there, Erik.”

Erik breathed a smile. “The crystals absorb the UV. But if you crush them by, for example, driving over them with a rover…” Erik looked up at the dust-streaked dome overhead. “They’ll be scraping chunks of us off the dome for a month.”

“So, what do we do?” Zach asked.

“Hang on,” Mabel burst out, her eyes turning angry and shifting to Zach. “You’re asking him for a plan?”

“Do you have one?”

“What would we have done if we hadn’t found Mr. Convict over here? Just blown ourselves up?”

“I’m not a convict,” Erik remarked bitterly. “I’m a scientist. I only stole food to feed my kid. And you would have done the same.”

Ryker put his hand on Erik’s chest to calm him down. “Hey, relax. Let’s just wait until the sun goes down. Would that work?”

Before Erik could answer, Zach tapped the oxygen readout on his sleeve. “We can’t wait that long. We don’t have enough oxygen.”

Mabel threw up her hands in disbelief. “This is nuts! So what, do we just leave?”

“We’ll clear a path,” Zach replied, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “For the rover.”

“Will that work?” Mabel asked Erik doubtfully.

“It—” Erik’s voice snagged. “It’s a bad idea. If one of those crystals breaks, we’re going up in flames.”

“We’re going up in flames no matter what,” concluded Ryker. He bent down and carefully wiggled an irogen crystal free from the crater’s edge. “Might as well get started now.”

“We’ll be careful,” Zach assured Erik.

“Oh, you’ll be careful? Why didn’t you just say so?” Erik declared, fiddling with the belt of his suit. “I was all worried for nothing.”

Zach watched Erik in the corner of his eye. “Are you going to help or not?”

“I…” Erik opened his mouth to speak, then quickly shut it and scanned the crater. He squinted at the crystals, likely searching for a path through them. His eyes shifted to the sky. “I guess I’m not getting home if you blow yourselves up.”

Zach located a slope leading into the crater and led the way. The group spent the next hour carefully clearing a path to the mines. They plucked crystals from the ground one at a time, inspecting each for cracks before setting them in a neat pile next to the ramp.

After clearing a route through the forest of glowing spikes, they returned to the rover and drove it down the slope until they faced the path head-on. It was crooked in places, pock-marked with footprints and divots from the plucked crystals. Ahead of them, the dark and unwelcoming mouth of the mines threatened to devour them. At various points around the crater, other mouths opened into other parts of the mines. But according to Erik, the one just ahead housed the tank.

Craning his neck, Ryker inspected the path immediately in front of the rover. Then, he slowly pressed on the gas, remaining hunched over the wheel as the vehicle crept forward. Zach and Mabel kept their eyes on the sides, warning Ryker when he veered too far to the left or right.

Through the slit windows, it looked like they were driving through a crystalline forest. The spikes of irogen rose six, seven, even eight feet into the sky, with thick, translucent undergrowth filling in the gaps between the larger crystals. Zach could imagine a crystal bunny or squirrel curving between the pikes, burrowing into the soil underneath, or skittering into the road.

After a few tense minutes, the rover halted before the hollow socket at the end of the crater. The darkness inside was flat, textureless, and all-consuming. It seemed to absorb the light outside and cast a shadow on the blood-colored sand, turning it a demonic crimson. Broken rails extended a few feet from the opening, an iron tongue flanked by teeth of warped metal. Swirls of dust rose as the darkness exhaled red powder on the rover. Zach swore the mine snarled at them.

“This thing got headlights?” asked Erik, leaning between the front seats with his hands clamped around both.

“Yep.” Ryker reached under the steering wheel and flicked a switch.

In succession, two bright beams shot from either side of the rover and punctured the dark opening of the mines. Inside, the metal walls were twisted and broken, with jagged rock protruding from underneath. A few feet in, a pair of lightbulbs swung from a corroded wire, taunting a third that had fallen to the ground and shattered years ago. All over the floor, bits of litter and scrap metal jutted from the sand. Farther down, Zach could see intact steel floors and cross beams that weren’t sagging and pocked with holes.

Only fifty feet of the long corridor were visible with the light. Further down, the tunnel grew dimmer and dimmer until Zach was once again left peering into the darkness.

“Let’s get this over with,” Zach said, then opened the rover door. Dust whooshed around his boots as they landed in the sand, forming a cloudy haze that spiraled up his frame before dispersing into the surrounding air.

With the help of Erik, Zach unloaded the oil drums from the back of the rover and carried them carefully to the mouth of the mines. Then, Ryker shut off the rover’s headlights to save energy. When the blackness reemerged, so did Zach’s dread.

“How far in do we have to go before we reach the tank?” inquired Ryker.

“Not sure,” Erik answered and flicked on his helmet light.

The others quickly followed suit, and before long, they had picked the drums back up and plunged into the wicked tunnel before any of them could think twice.

Columns of light streaming from their helmets illuminated the dusty air. As they looked around, the columns clashed and crossed one another, haphazardly flitting from the floor to the walls to the ceiling. From the sound beneath their boots, there were still partial metal floor panels in this part of the mine; a thin layer of sand had simply blown in from the crater. Before long, the sand seemed to thin out, revealing the solid floor underneath.

Patches of crystals sprung up along the edges of the walls in irregular intervals. In the tunnel’s darkness, the spikes faintly glowed, vibrated, sang. Zach didn’t know what made the crystals glow or why they grew like weeds in the cracks of a sidewalk, but boy were they beautiful.

“Where is this damn tank?” Impatiently, Ryker walked a few meters ahead of the group.

“Slow down,” said Zach in a firm tone.

“We’re moving too slow, all right?” Soon, all that remained of Ryker was his voice on the radio. His footsteps grew more distant and faint before they seemed to cease altogether.

Mabel dragged her hand along the steel wall, slowing down a bit. “See anything…?”

Ryker didn’t respond. It was as if the darkness had eaten him alive.

“Ryker?” Mabel asked shakily. “Do you see anything?”

“You all right?” Erik called out over the radio.

“I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ll tell you what I see.” Ryker coughed. “A fucking disappointment.”

The others caught up to him a hundred feet up and looked upon a sudden gap in the floor. It spanned maybe ten feet across, jagged and wiry around the edges and opening into a lower floor of the mines. A pool of broken glass and red sludge completely coated the ground below.

“That’s it,” Erik said in a deflated voice. He strode away as if too disappointed to look. “Floor must’ve given way.”

“And no explosion?” questioned Ryker.

“There’s no sunlight.”

Zach groaned. “Okay. New plan. We’ll harvest crystals here—where it’s safe—then Ryker and Mabel, you can shuttle the drums to the dropship. By the time you get back, Erik and I will be ready with more.”

With their joints aching and their lungs heaving, the quartet did their best to pluck crystals from the ground and deposit them into the drums they had lugged down the tunnel. The crystals here seemed to have deeper roots than the ones outside and required massive force to rip each out.

As Zach dropped an armful of crystals into one of the drums, they rattled like gumballs before settling in a glowing pile. Sighing, he turned his head to the ceiling, where he spotted a crooked air vent. He could barely make out a subtle purple hue behind the grate.

It took half an hour to fill up the first drum. Then, they worked together to carry the loaded canister back to the rover. Luckily, Mars’ low-gravity environment, combined with the low density of the irogen crystals, made it relatively easy to move.

Once the rover was loaded, Zach clapped Ryker on the shoulder and sent him and Mabel off to the dropship. As they drove away, Zach bent over his knees and tried to catch his breath. His eyes found Erik, who was dusting sand off his gloves. Zach felt a strange pit in his stomach. Erik had spent the longest time in cryo of any human in history. He was a man out of time. Zach could hardly comprehend the fact that he was real. He was a living, breathing man, probably born around the same time as Zach’s father. And there he was, the same age as Zach. Zach felt torn between treating Erik as an elder or as an equal. Where was the manual for this sort of thing?

“You gonna stare at me, or are you gonna help me pull more crystals?”

Feeling called out, Zach sniffled and returned to work. After a bit, he broke the awkward silence. “Did you ever see me as a kid?”

Erik paused with his hands fixed around a particularly stubborn crystal. “Once, I think.” His brow tightened. “That retreat… back in Big Bear. You were with your blonde friend too.” Erik nodded toward the opening of the tunnel.

Zach tried to recall seeing Erik but couldn’t quite remember. He nodded silently to himself, then turned and said, “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Erik dislodged the crystal. “What’s your stake in this whole thing anyway? I’m sure you’ve got things to lose. And taking one look at this place,” Erik scanned the tunnel, “it doesn’t seem like there’s much to gain.” Zach started to answer, but Erik stopped him. “I mean you personally. I get the whole world ending thing, but why you?”

“Having things to lose isn’t an excuse to do nothing.” Zach rolled a crystal in his hand, feeling its heft, then placed it in the single drum that remained behind. “If I had nothing to lose, I’d have nothing to fight for.” Zach thought of Cora. He thought of his work. His colleagues. Hell, he even thought of Carver.

The tunnel fell silent, and they spent the next half hour harvesting crystals without another word.

“We’re on our way back,” Ryker said over the intercom. “Maybe ten minutes out.”

“Sounds good—” The ground under Zach wobbled. Dust rained from the ceiling in a single, fluttering burst, coating his visor in a thick haze.

“What the hell…?” started Erik. A second rumble knocked them both off their feet. Then, a third shook the walls. Erik made eye contact with Zach, jaw clenched, and swallowed. “Explosions.”

They looked at the tunnel entrance a few hundred feet back, then hastily got up. Sweat poured down Zach’s back, making his skin sticky against the rubber interior of the suit. “Ryker, did you run over a damn crystal?” Zach tried to keep his calm.

“Huh? Of course not.”

Erik breathed an angry smile. “You sure about that?”

“I— I—I don’t think so, but…”

“We don’t have time for buts!” Erik yelled. He looked firmly at Zach. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

A boom sounded above them. A few rocks fell from the ceiling. “Look, if the crater’s exploding, we can’t go through there!” Zach shouted.

“This tunnel’s exploding, too, and I don’t see another way out! Come on!” Erik pushed Zach toward the exit.

“What about the crystals?” Zach pointed back at the nearly-full drum next to the hole in the floor.

“Screw the crystals! We have enough!”

“I’m not leaving without them.”

Erik looked at Zach with burning eyes, then bit his lip, cursed under his breath, and shoved Zach in its direction. “Get it, and let’s go!”

An explosion in the wall sounded, and a pair of panels flew free. The rock behind the plates disintegrated, revealing a crawlspace full of crystals.

Zach hurried to the barrel and wrapped his arms around it. Dropping to a squat, he channeled as much force through his legs as gravity would allow and attempted to lift it. After hoisting it a few inches into the air, he dropped it with a thud. “It’s too heavy!”

Erik grunted in frustration and ran to Zach’s aid. Angry veins bulged in his forehead, looking as though they, too, would explode any second. Together, the two men lifted the drum and started for the exit. Then, another explosion in the wall threw them both to the side. The drum toppled over, and all the crystals spilled out. Several cracked, dripping red ooze into the sand. Zach looked at them with wide eyes, breathing heavily, then got to his feet and pulled Erik up. “Screw the drum.”

They ran for the exit with the ground rumbling beneath them.

Boom.

A large chunk of the ceiling came loose and crashed down behind them. Sunlight poured in, chasing them as they ran in the opposite direction.

Boom.

Boom, by Zach’s ankles.

Up ahead, Zach could see a series of explosions in the crater bordering the path they had paved. It seemed comical that they were running toward the detonations, but what else could they do? As if the planet had a beating heart, the ground, walls, and ceiling thumped, releasing a constant mist of blood-colored sand.

“What’s going on in there?” Ryker’s voice suddenly penetrated Zach’s intense concentration. “We’re coming now!”

“Are those explosions?” Mabel yelled. “Are you guys out of the tunnel?”

“No, no, we’re not. Get as close as possible, and we’ll come to you!” Zach shouted.

Boom.

BOOOOOM!

A truck-sized boulder fell from the ceiling and crashed down onto the ground. A cloud of dust erupted in the tunnel as Zach stumbled forward. He landed on his palms, the world blending into flat shapes and colors around him. He slowly rose to his elbows and looked back, uttering Erik’s name.

Zach crawled to where the boulder landed and grabbed hold of something rubber. A glove. No, no, there was a hand inside of it too. In an instant, Zach registered he was holding Erik. The dust cleared around him, and Erik’s unconscious form appeared, lying still in the sand. The boulder leaned against the wall, with Erik’s leg pinned beneath it.

Zach located Erik’s helmet and tapped it a few times. “Hey, hey, buddy. Can you hear me?” Nothing. “Come on! Can you hear me?”

“What happened?” called Ryker.

“Erik’s pinned! We need your help! Get down here!” Zach slapped Erik’s helmet a few more times. “Please, come on, wake up. Wake up, come on.”

Erik gasped awake, choking on air. He clutched at his chest, attempting to regulate his breathing, before he leaned back and exhaled. His eyes rolled in his head.

“Just stay put!” Zach said. “They’re coming to help.”

Boom.

Two booms overhead.

A muffled blast deep in the mines behind them.

A roar from beneath the crater itself.

At that moment, Zach saw a grim future laid out before them. That last explosion came from a lower level of the mines—the same mines that ran under Prescott. In order for irogen to have spread to the surface, it must have filled up the mines and run out of room to expand. That meant there were probably crystals underneath the entire colony—and the colony was about to explode.

Erik looked down at his crushed leg and began to wail in agony. His cries filled the intercoms, sickening Zach. Not knowing what else to do, Zach took Erik’s wrist—where his suit’s control board was—and disabled his intercom. Even then, his voice was still audible through the visor, through the dust, and through Zach’s labored breathing.

The rover sped through the crater, caring little for the crystals it ran over, and continued straight into the mines. It stopped just in front of Zach and Erik. Ryker and Mabel emerged from it, ran over, and crashed down beside Erik’s squirming body.

“Is his suit breached?” asked Mabel.

“I don’t know,” Zach answered.

“He’d be dead if it was.” Ryker eyed Erik.

Mabel gave Zach a pained, sympathetic look, then jumped back to her feet. “We have to move the boulder.”

Erik swung his hand and slapped his opposing wrist. Gurgling, he said, “Leave me,” and gritted his teeth in pain. “Get— get out of here!”

“We’re not leaving you,” said Zach.

“Come on, let’s do this,” barked Ryker from beside the boulder.

Zach got his footing and joined them next to the boulder. They all dropped to a squat, burrowing their fingers beneath the rock, and drove up with their legs.

The boulder didn’t move.

“We have to push it, tip it, something!” Ryker yelled.

Boom.

Boom, at the mouth of the mines.

“If we push it, it might rupture his suit and kill him,” said Mabel, as calm as she could.

“We’re all dead if we don’t!” Ryker retorted.

Mabel looked at Erik, then back at Ryker. “Fine.”

As a particularly heavy explosion rumbled the ground, all three of them assumed pushing positions around Erik. They dug their heels into the ground, pressed their palms against the rock, and pushed as hard as they could. At first, it didn’t move in the slightest. But then, it wobbled a bit, teetered, then rolled backward and released Erik.

As the rock tumbled away, Zach thanked low gravity and turned his attention back to Erik. With the boulder dislodged, Erik’s leg was entirely in view. The rubber exterior of the suit seemed intact, but the leg itself appeared flattened and twisted. It was as if every bone in Erik’s leg had been broken, melted in a three-thousand-degree oven, and reformed like Play-Doh.

Working together, Zach, Ryker, and Mabel lifted Erik and transported him to the rover. Taking his seat, Zach stared off vacantly through the front window. The engine started, and the rover rolled forward.

It wasn’t until they were nearly free of the tunnels that Zach realized their path was now covered in sharp, dripping, bubbling crystals.

Zach Croft: 2030

“We’ve got to get a handle on this,” Quinton said, cupping his face in his palms. “We’ve already lost six people.”

Through a crack in the medbay wall, Zach could see a doctor sitting beside his father, fidgeting with a pen. “The symptoms all seem to be related. Bumps under the skin, bruises, sores.”

“Plus, internal bleeding,” Quinton added grimly. “Coughing up blood. Crying blood.” Quinton got up and seized a file on top of a cabinet, flipping through it. “It’s got to be some type of hemorrhagic fever.”

“You think it’s a virus? Like Ebola? Or Marburg?”

“Maybe, but here? On Mars? How?”

Zach leaned back against the outer wall of the newly rebuilt medbay. If his father didn’t know what was causing the illness, nobody did. Which meant more people were going to die. A lot more.

“Think it’s airborne?” the other doctor asked.

“Seems unlikely, or more people would have gotten sick. All of us, for that matter.” Right. They were literally under a dome. “It could be transmitted by touch. Or food, maybe? Is there something the sick have in common that they ate?”

“Possibly. But that’d end the same way. We’re all eating the same diet.” The doctor stood and paced across the room. “Let’s just look at the facts. We’re on Mars. There isn’t much in terms of life other than us. That means we must have brought whatever it is with us from Earth.”

“Then, why weren’t people getting sick right from the beginning? Or even before, on the Gateway.” Quinton washed his hands at the faucet. “No, this had to have been here.”

“What about the meteor?”

Quinton furrowed his brow. “What about it?”

The doctor continued. “The outbreak didn’t start until after the meteor hit. Maybe it brought something with it. Some kind of, I don’t know, xenobacteria.”

“Right, right.” Quinton paused for a minute as he considered the possibility. “But even if it was that, how would this xenobacteria have gotten into the colony? Nobody’s been out to the crater.”

Zach gulped. He’d been in the crater and had brought back those crystals. When he had tracked down Ryker and pressed him for the backpack, Ryker claimed he had tried to dispose of them in the crater first—as Zach had assumed he would—but when he saw the guards, he kept the bag on him until he figured out something else. He went to the rover garage, drove around a bit, then went home.

Zach nearly had to wrestle the bag from Ryker’s hands when he said it was time they turned them in.

“Are you crazy?” Ryker had said, bear-hugging the pack. “We’ll get in trouble!”

“Trouble, no trouble. Why does it matter? It’s better that it happens sooner than later.”

He’d wanted to come clean because the repercussions would surely be less severe. But with this new information from Quinton, it seemed like Zach’s fun day trip could be the cause of the outbreak. He couldn’t sit idly by while colonists were dying, and the doctors didn’t know why. He looked at the glowing pack beside him, wondering if it was the root of all this.

“Let’s check the security footage,” Quinton suggested. “See if anyone has been in the crater.”

This was it; the time to reveal the truth. Zach psyched himself up, taking a deep breath and wrapping his hand around the bag’s strap. He didn’t know what good showing the crystals would do—they were just irogen—but they could prove that Zach had gone into the crater. At the door, Zach considered walking away. After all, how could he have brought this ‘sickness’ back with him? Wouldn’t he be ill too? Zach was suddenly unsure of whether this was his fault.

He sighed. Turning himself in was the best thing he could do. Even if this wasn’t his doing, he could get it off his chest once and for all. Looking down at the spikes of blue and purple one last time, he pushed the entrance open and fielded a confused look from Quinton.

“Zach? What are you doing here?” His father’s eyes narrowed with concern. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m okay. But can I talk to you in private? It’s important.”

Quinton glanced at the other doctor and said, “We’ll finish this later.” Then, he got down on a knee and beckoned Zach over. “What’s on your mind?”

“Um, I…” Zach hesitated. “Can we sit down?”

“Sure.” Quinton brought him to one of the hospital beds and hoisted him onto it. Quinton sat next to him. “Continue.”

“I don’t know how to say this right, so I’ll just say it.” Zach conjured up his last bit of will, his gaze flitting around the medbay. “I went into the mines. Me and Ryker. A few days ago.”

Quinton studied him briefly as if to tell whether he was joking, then slowly rubbed his brow with two fingers. “Oh, Zach…”

“I know. You told us not to, and…”

“You could have gotten seriously hurt.”

“I made a mistake. Really.” And Zach truly meant it. Going into the crater was wrong, but he had the right intentions. To cheer Ryker up. To be a good friend. “I’m really sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Quinton sighed. “I’m disappointed in you.” He looked like he wanted to say more but fell silent instead. Then, his eyes found the backpack. “What’s that?”

Reluctantly, Zach peeled it off his shoulders and handed it to his father. “We—we brought this back with us.”

Quinton pulled the zipper and froze. “How deep were you? In the mines.”

“I don’t know. It said level 13.”

Quinton quickly sealed the bag and placed it behind the bed. “Christ. This stuff is explosive. Not to mention that those mineshafts could have collapsed at any—!” He stopped himself before getting too heated. “Look, that was a dangerous thing you did. You could have gotten not only yourself, but a lot of other people hurt too. If these exploded…”

“I’m sorry. I had to tell you,” Zach confided in him. “You said people are getting sick, and… and… I’m worried it’s my fault. Because it only started happening after we went there. Is it my fault?”

Quinton pulled Zach in. “We don’t even know why people are getting sick. Until we do, nobody’s at fault.” Zach relaxed a bit. “But I’m keeping my eye on you. And Ryker. I mean, going into the crater? I wasn’t lying when I said it was dangerous.”

“I understand.”

Quinton swallowed. “We’re going to fix all this. In the meantime, let me know if you’re not feeling well, okay?”

Zach thought about the symptoms he had just heard his father and the other doctor discussing. Coughing up blood? Crying blood? That sounded a lot worse than “not feeling well.”

That sounded like dying.

Zach Croft: 2053

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Mabel yelled, clutching the shoulder of Ryker’s seat as the world exploded around them. The ground spat sand and dislodged rocks like the planet was a pod of whales breathing through blowholes.

The rover crashed through a fluttering tent, taking a piece of canvas with them before skittering onto the main road. The street rumbled as more and more tunnels below Prescott exploded.

So, this was how Prescott would fall. A chain of unstoppable explosions would destroy every hab unit, every tarp, every piece of equipment, before leaving the colony in a cloud of dust. For years, Zach had believed Prescott fell in 2030, with the Red Plague. But looking around him—at the skeletal buildings collapsing, at the sinkholes opening in the ground, at the webs of cracks forming in the regolith streets—Zach knew he was watching the actual downfall of Prescott.

Propping Erik’s head up in the back of the rover, Zach stared out the foggy window and wondered how it had gone wrong so quickly. They were collecting crystals in the mines, and then—BOOM!

Zach dared to look at Erik’s crumpled leg, which was shielded only by the rubber EVA suit. He felt his throat close up. Erik was dying because Zach wanted to return for the second drum of irogen. It was Zach’s fault.

“Is he breathing?” Ryker called back in a raspy, weathered voice.

The flower of condensation that periodically appeared on Erik’s visor confirmed that he was. But what would Zach do if he stopped? It’s not like Zach could pull off Erik’s suit and give him CPR.

BOOOOM!

The rover swerved, barely avoiding an explosion a few feet in front of them. Sand rained down on the glass. Ryker craned to see through the few clean parts left, cursing wildly. “I can’t see anything… I can’t fucking see anything!” he yelled.

They continued on regardless, speeding down Prescott’s abandoned streets, armed only with their will to live.

Boom.

As a child, Zach had often heard munitions testing from the nearby military base. He remembered the hollow thud in the air, as though god was knocking on a mountain-sized door. He remembered hiding under the covers as his dad promised the blasts were no danger to them.

What would his dad say now, as they drove blind through a minefield?

Zach shook away the thought and focused on the danger at hand.

“I think that’s the exit!” Mabel yelled, her visor pressed against the small window in the door. “Turn right!”

The rover veered, sending anything not strapped down slamming against the left wall. As Zach collided with it, he extended his arms to ensure Erik wouldn’t meet the same fate. Gasping, Zach stared at Erik’s closed eyes. The man looked worse than he had a minute ago. His skin was pale, dark rings had appeared around his eyes, and he shuddered periodically. Still, he remained asleep, his back rigid and his arms straight at his sides like poles.

Boom.

The dust on the front window thinned a bit, revealing the gaping airlock to the colony a few hundred feet ahead. The road here was less defined, covered mostly by sand, yet it was the most beautiful thing Zach had seen in a long time. They just had to follow it, staying perfectly straight, and they’d be okay.

The buildings were also more intact, at least when compared to the piles of molten scrap in their rearview mirror. That was a good sign. Clearly, fewer crystals were detonating beneath them. Not zero, but fewer. They were almost out of the woods.

But how far did the mines under Prescott extend? Could the tunnels have reached all the way to the dropship? Had their only means of escape already been blown up?

Boom. A tower of dust jumped up to their left. As it fell, a hole expanded in the ground, drawing surrounding rocks and sand inside. A narrow watchtower tipped over and fell onto it, the weight of its center causing it to snap in two. The dual halves then disappeared into the ground.

Boom. The ground cracked behind them. Several fissures appeared, forming a crumbling web that seemed to chase the rover as it fled. A few faults connected with the hole that had consumed the watchtower, and more of the ground sank in the tunnels.

BOOM. The rover shuddered, creaked, and whined for help. It began to slow as a mechanical chug vibrated the floor beneath Zach.

“What happened?” Mabel yelled.

“One of the wheels blew out!” Ryker yelled.

No, no, no, no, Zach thought. They were too far from the dropship to walk with Erik. The rover was their only way out.

“Is there a spare?” Mabel asked.

“Do you want to get out and change it?” retorted Ryker, slamming his foot on the gas. The rover sputtered forward, rocking from side to side. “We’re still moving!”

They passed through the airlock of the colony, officially leaving it behind. As they chugged along, Zach resisted the urge to blink for fear that in the split second it would take to do so, a hole would open up in the ground and swallow the rover. In the distance, he spotted a ridge line. The one that reminded him of Arizona. Yes, that was the one. Just beyond it was the dropship.

“We’re slowing,” Mabel said frantically. “We’re slowing. Are we slowing?”

The chug in the floor got louder and shakier, causing the rover to bounce slightly in one corner.

“We’re fine!” Ryker yelled with enough conviction that Mabel closed her mouth.

She did not, however, appear to stop worrying. She leaned forward in her seat, eyes scanning the red landscape for explosions, as she white-knuckled the handle beside her.

Boom. One to their left.

Boom. One behind them.

This continued for the next minute, each explosion getting gradually closer to the rover. In response, Ryker swerved the vehicle wildly, creating a zigzag in the sand. Soon, they reached the ridge line. Sluggishly, they crawled up the rocky incline.

“No, no, no,” Ryker bashed his foot on the gas, but the rover slowed to a crawl. “We’re gonna have to walk the rest of the way!”

“What? No!” yelled Mabel.

“Shit! Get us to the top, and we’ll go on foot.” Zach looked at Erik, wondering if he and Ryker could support the injured man. But as he stared at him, Zach registered that the flower of condensation in Erik’s visor, the telltale sign of his vitals, had disappeared. “He— he’s not breathing!”

“We have to get out now, then,” declared Ryker.

“No, it’ll take too long! We have to drive.”

“With no fuel?”

Zach fell silent. Then, an idea struck him. “It’s downhill after this, right?”

Ryker shot a look back. “Yeah, why?”

“Then we don’t need fuel.”

Clearly conflicted but proposing no alternative, Ryker banged his head against his seat in frustration and kept his foot on the gas until they reached the top.

As he glared at the steep incline of the ridge, Zach gulped. The dropship seemed like it was still at least a half-mile away. Ryker tapped the fuel meter, alerting Zach that it was nearly zero. This was their only option.

“Do the brakes work?” Zach asked. He looked at Erik, who was becoming more discolored by the second.

“Haven’t tried them,” answered Ryker cynically.

“Now’s a good time to start.”

Ryker sighed, shaking his head. Then he used the last of their fuel to send them barreling down the ridge.

They descended quickly, wheels turning so fast Zach was sure it would be impossible to stop. The rover shook wildly. It rocked and forth, going airborne every few seconds, before crashing down on the sharp and misshapen surface. When they reached the bottom, the rover quickly leveled out and flew toward the dropship.

They were going so fast. Too fast. What if they drove right into the spacecraft and blew up?

Five hundred feet.

Two hundred feet.

Ryker slammed on the brakes, prompting the vehicle’s ancient gears to creak and whine. The rover began to turn slightly to the left, likely because of its impaired wheel. Or was it wheels after their journey down the ridge? Zach couldn’t tell, nor could he think clearly enough to figure it out.

A hundred feet.

Fifty feet.

Thirty.

Twenty.

Ten.

The rover came to a stop a mere five feet from the dropship. Immediately, they all flung their doors open and jumped out. Zach and Ryker pulled Erik from the rover and divided his weight between them. Together, they ran up the ramp. Mabel pulled the airlock release, they all scurried inside the ship, and the blast door closed behind them.

Right away, Zach yanked off Erik’s helmet and moved aside as Mabel prepared to do CPR. Ryker assumed his place in the pilot’s chair, flipping switches and pressing buttons. Zach sat down next to him. He growled with anger as he wiped his sweaty hair off his forehead. Anger at himself. Anger at Prescott. Anger at the universe.

Behind him, Erik gasped awake. He sat up briefly, then recoiled back as the pain in his leg subdued him. Mabel reassured him that he would be okay, then glanced up at Zach with a pleading look. She shifted to Ryker. “Get us out of here.”

Ryker took the control stick and jammed it forward. With a jolt, the thrusters kicked on and lifted the dropship a dozen feet into the air. Ryker turned a dial, flicked several more switches, then pressed the single blue button in the center of the control panel.

As they shot into the sky, Zach watched the Prescott Mining Colony sink into the ground.

Next Chapter

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