The Winds of Mars by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1995-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

13

The car shot along the tunnel like a bullet through a gun barrel. There were no windows; we might have been in space but for the sense of speed. The President sat alone on the front seat. The rest of us were crammed into rows behind him. Hector was on my lap. Our helmets made us look like bubbleheads.

Numbed by fear and lack of sleep, I didn’t know where we were going, or where we’d been, and didn’t much care.

I was wakened by a whooshing noise and a computer saying, “Eagle’s Nest. Atmosphere, normal. Security, normal.”

I was alone in the car with Hector. The hatch was open on a green-carpeted platform. I couldn’t hear a sound even after taking my helmet off. The air felt cold.

The station platform became a tunnel curving back to end in a dim, low-ceilinged space. One wall was full of electronic equipment. On the other was a window deeply recessed into the stone and so dark it may have been a periscope.

Everyone was crowded around the window, watching what appeared to be colored lights flashing outside. Officers urgently whispered to their computers.

By standing on tiptoe and peering around heads, I could see out. We were somewhere high up in the crater rim, looking down on Olympia. Then with a rush of horror I realized all the pretty lights were laser fire. Olympia was under aerial attack!

I remembered Colonel Haddad asking him to make a decision about the city when he and I walked in from that cavern. And he’d told her to “handle it.” Then he’d spent all that time talking to me while this was going on? Why? Was his android defective—or was he plain crazy? Didn’t he care about living people? Thousands were down there. Shala was down there!

From emplacements hidden in the crater rim and floor, laser cannon fired solid-looking beams of red and yellow. From the darkness overhead, the attackers shot back blue and green. If a beam hit a crystal shield just right, jewel-like sparkles went dancing across the city and up the crater walls.

“Sonar cannon!” a voice cried. “Coming in on landers!”

“They’re targeting everything but Midtown, Mr. President.”

“Try to blast the cannon before they land,” he ordered.

Then I understood: this was a command post. His urgently whispering officers were directing the defense of the city. Had our automated system been sabotaged by George Burgess or the people Shala was worried about?

In the dark the sonar cannon weren’t visible until they landed and went rolling up to their targets. We had studied these weapons in class, but I truly didn’t know what those ominous vehicles could do until they all pulsed in unison.

Within seconds sound waves too low for human hearing surged through the stone. Sound entered my feet, pushed up my legs, and socked me in the stomach. As if I were being squeezed to death, I couldn’t breathe; my heart faltered painfully before thumping into beat again. Sharp pain shot from my ears to my throat, and I groaned and staggered, nearly falling with vertigo.

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