The train jolted violently.
Mel was thrown sideways. She only stopped her face from hitting the window by slamming her cuffed hands against the glass. Brakes screamed from beneath them as the force of metal upon metal tried to stop the train.
Deverau jumped to his feet and craned his neck at the window to try to see what was happening.
The male MSS guard, who she had overheard being called Officer Jeffries, ran down the aisle and slammed his hand against the intercom by the side of the connecting door. “This is MSS in the central passenger carriage – what’s going on?”
The female guard, Officer Okoye, left her post and rushed to join Deverau. “Can you see anything?”
Mel, still sitting, watched the panicking MSS officers with the increasing realization that, if something serious had happened to the train, they would care more about saving their own skins than thinking about protecting hers.
The train lurched again. Deverau fell backwards and hit his head hard on the metal frame of a seat as he went. Jeffries was catapulted into the door, but remained standing. Okoye managed to make a soft landing on a seat, but Mel was hurled onto the floor.
She skidded along the aisle on her elbows and knees. The friction burned her skin. Her momentum stopped at the soles of Deverau’s shoes where he lay on the ground. He was conscious but groaning from the fall. Deverau put his hand to the back of his head. When he removed it, there was blood on his palm.
Mel kept still, ignoring the stinging in her elbows and knees, denying the notion that she should be afraid. Thinking of how she could take advantage of the situation.
“Inspector!” Okoye shuffled off the seat she’d been thrown into and knelt down beside Deverau’s chest. “Are you all right?”
As he groaned a noncommittal reply, Jeffries raced to the window. “The train’s come off the track.” He pressed his hands up against the glass as he tried to see more. “One of the carriages is hanging over the edge.”
“What?” Okoye jumped up to look too, leaving Deverau to recover on the floor.
Which was when Mel noticed the flap of his unfastened jacket, laying at the side of his body, revealing his inner pocket. She pressed her grazed forearms into the floor, silently wincing at the grit pressing into the wounds, and shuffled subtly forward.
The carriage shifted suddenly. Mel took in an involuntary sharp breath. The short jolt was enough to imply they were resting in an unstable position.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jeffries yelled at Okoye. “Your body weight’ll tip us over the edge!”
“It wasn’t me,” Okoye insisted, backing away from the window.
In the commotion, Mel reached out for Deverau’s jacket pocket. Finding the presence of mind to focus, she slipped her cuffed hand inside. Her fingers touched something as smooth and small as a pebble. Scrabbling it into her palm, she withdrew her clenched fist. Glancing up to see Deverau emerging from his dazed state, she held on tightly to her prize and shuffled away from him.
•••
Alex clipped his harness onto the climbing wire and hit the control. The mechanism propelled him up the side of the tower holding the elevated rail above the rugged Martian landscape. He took one last look at the incredible view before glancing above him as the harness automatically slowed his ascent as he reached the top.
Ivan was already up there, standing beside the rail on a narrow ledge never meant for people to walk on. He pressed himself against the body of the train, partly obscuring the letter T of the painted Martian Rails logo. Ivan reached out an arm to Alex. As he grabbed it, Alex felt the strength of his friend’s grip which gave him enough reassurance to release himself from the climbing wire. Nevertheless, he was relieved when Ivan secured him to the safety line.
“Both up,” Ivan reported to the others waiting on the ground.
Alex looked along the line of the stricken train, with the carriage precariously hanging over the edge. There was an eerie stillness about it. Like it was sitting securely on top of the track, held on by its connection to the rest of the train, while at the same time, it was prepared to fall with the slightest movement.
If it did, the safety systems would uncouple and sacrifice the one carriage to save the rest. Which meant Alex and Ivan should be safe enough in the less precarious sections. Until the emergency services reached the scene – and they had every intention of being gone by then.
The bombs may have damaged the rail and possibly blown holes in the body of the train itself, but from where they were standing, there were no obvious points of entry. Just an outline of sealed emergency doors cut into the steel fabric which could only be opened from the inside.
“We’re going to have to blast our way in,” said Ivan.
He reached into his backpack to retrieve the last of the bombs.
“Are you sure there’s no one in there?” said Alex.
“No windows means it’s a cargo section. I told you, a train like this is going to have a maximum of three members of staff on board. They’ll most likely be up front with the steward or at the rear. Don’t you think I made sure of all this before we stuck six bombs under the train?”
“I only wanted to check.” He felt embarrassed to have even mentioned it.
Ivan edged his way along the ledge and shimmied past the S and the L of the logo to where the line of a door was cut around the letter I. He placed the bomb on the center, the magnet held it in place, and he began to shuffle back.
A sudden blast sent puffs of escaping air out into the Martian atmosphere. The door panel was blown off and tumbled end over end towards the ground. The force of it knocked Ivan off his feet and his body followed the falling door.
“Ivan!” Alex yelled.
Ivan fell a meter before his harness snagged on the safety line. He was left dangling on the line attached to his waist, slowly spinning as his arms and legs struggled to regain control. Beneath him, the door landed in a cloud of dust.
Alex breathed out a silent thank you as he tried to work out what had gone wrong.
His first thought was the bomb had gone off too early, but it was soon obvious the explosion had come from inside and was too small to have been a bomb. Someone had triggered the emergency evacuation procedure. An escape slide, bright green to show up against the red of Mars, burst out of the hole created by the discarded door and unfurled like a giant tongue down to the planet.
So much for there being no one inside.
A rad-suited figure emerged from the train and sat on the evacuation slide. The inflated cushion of air bounced a little as gravity took them and the figure slid safely down to the planet’s surface.
Alex waited a moment, but no more members of Martian Rails staff followed.
Ivan had managed to grab hold of the safety line to stop himself from spinning and pull himself up vertical to sit in the harness. He was breathing heavily over the comms and Alex made a conscious effort to keep his own nervous breaths away from the microphone in his helmet.
Alex double-checked his safety line and pressed himself against the body of the train. He edged his way along, as he had seen Ivan do. When he was close enough, he crouched down to reach out a hand. Ivan took it with a firm grip and Alex helped him climb back up.
“Here we go,” said Ivan. He moved back along the train and stepped through the opening.
Alex followed, waiting until the last minute to unclip his safety line before slipping his foot inside and jumping down into the carriage.
Turning, he saw what they had come for: boxes and boxes of food supplies.
•••
A pre-programmed female voice spoke clearly and calmly from speakers hidden in the carriage. “The train has stopped as a safety precaution. All passengers are asked to prepare for evacuation. There is no danger at this time, but passengers are advised to carefully make their way to an evacuation pod. Rad-suits are supplied for emergencies only. Please do not stop to put on rad-suits unless instructed by a member of staff.”
Green arrows flashed on the floor, lighting the way to the front of the train.
Officer Jeffries picked Mel up by the arm. Roughly tugging at her ligaments so her feet barely touched the ground, he dragged her back against the direction of the arrows and threw her onto her seat.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
He immediately turned his back on her and she considered running. But with no plan or place to run to, she elected to appear quiet and compliant while waiting for her moment.
Okoye helped Deverau to his feet. The inspector swayed a little as he grabbed hold of the frame of the seat he had hit his head on. A drop of blood from his wound dripped onto his white shirt.
Two overhead compartments above the seats where they were standing popped open and the arm of a rad-suit dangled down like it was reaching out to them. The pre-programmed voice repeated its message. “The train has stopped as a safety precaution…”
Behind her, the door to the next carriage slid open and a man dressed in the green of a Martian Rails uniform ran in.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted at Deverau and the officers. “Didn’t you hear the announcements?”
“What’s going on?” said Deverau, still woozy.
Air rushed past Mel’s shoulder, being drawn through the open door into the next carriage where the same pre-programmed voice was making a different announcement. “The integrity of this compartment has been compromised. You are advised to evacuate immediately. Environmental conditions approaching safety limits. The integrity of this compartment…”
The voice became fainter, the air seemed in less of a rush and a glance behind confirmed to Mel the door was closing to seal off the breach. She had less than a second to decide whether to take the risk.
She decided to run.
Mel jumped off her seat and caught hold of the closing door before it met the frame. Pushing with her cuffed hands, she forced it back until there was enough space for her body to slip through.
She was in a cargo hold with beige fiber boxes of supplies stacked on either side of a narrow walkway. A single line of flashing green arrows told her to go back the way she had come. The cold was biting. The icy air clawed at her throat. She realized she was taking in faster and deeper breaths. Her lungs were working harder to find oxygen as the atmosphere in the carriage leaked out.
“Environmental conditions approaching safety limits. The integrity of this compartment…”
She needed to do something about the leak. The cargo hold wasn’t meant for people, there were no overhead bins containing emergency rad-suits because there were no seats. But beside the door was a white cabinet with black and yellow hatchings around the edge. Very welcome red lettering on the front read: Emergency Rad-suits.
Mel pulled at the cupboard handle and it opened with little force to reveal four suits packed neatly inside, complete with helmets and air tanks. She yanked at the nearest one and it unraveled at her feet. But to put her arms into the sleeves and secure the helmet, she needed her hands free.
Mel fumbled in her pocket with her right cuffed hand and grasped the smooth, round fob which Deverau had used to lock her wrists together. It was a simple device with a number pad and a main enter key.
She pressed her thumb onto the enter key and wriggled her wrists. The jaws of the cuffs bit into her skin as tight as ever. Refusing to accept the rapidly advancing realization that the fob required a code to activate, she hit the enter key again. And again. The handcuffs remained locked.
She peered through the glass at the carriage she had escaped from. Deverau and the officers were still with the member of staff. At her feet, flashing green arrows urged that she return to them. The strain on her lungs, drawing in huge breaths to find enough oxygen, told her she didn’t have much longer. The pain in her wrists reminded her she was not free.
She watched Deverau turn to realize the seat where Mel had been sitting was empty. He looked towards the door and she felt the chill of his anger as their eyes met through the barrier of the closed window.
•••
Deverau stared at his prisoner, separated from him by the reinforced glass panel of a closed door leading into the next train carriage.
Furious that he had taken his eye off his charge, he rushed to the door and slammed his palm on the control. A display on the panel informed him the door was locked.
Jeffries and Okoye ran up behind him with their shockguns drawn.
Deverau must have communicated his anger at their incompetence because they both looked suitably embarrassed.
“Deverau!” It was Mel’s voice over the intercom. “I’m running out of air in here. I need to get out of these to get into a rad-suit.”
She held her hands up to the window to show the handcuffs locked around her wrists.
“Open the door!” he shouted into the intercom.
“No,” said Mel. “Give me the code.”
She twisted her fingers around to reveal the electronic fob she had stolen from him.
Deverau, in panic, plunged his hand into his left jacket pocket to find it empty. Embarrassed at allowing himself to be pickpocketed, he checked the right jacket pocket just in case, but there was nothing there. He slapped his hand angrily against the door release.
The panel defied him. The sign continued to state it was locked.
Deverau turned to Jeffries. “Can you shoot it open?”
Jeffries shook his head. “With a mechanism like that, a shockdart’s more likely to fuse it shut.”
The man in the Martian Rails uniform shouted from behind them. “We need to get off this train! The carriage is stable for now, but I don’t know how long that will last.”
“I’ll take ‘for now’,” said Deverau.
“It’s not up to you. I’m putting myself at risk to make sure you’re safe.”
“You can leave if you want,” said Deverau. “But first, I need you to get this door open.”
The man frowned, maneuvered warily past Jeffries and Okoye’s shockguns, and pressed exactly the same button as Deverau had done. “It’s locked,” he said.
“I can see that – get it open!”
The microphones were still active between the two compartments and he could hear Mel’s labored breath. She had activated an air tank on one of the rad-suits and had wedged the helmet under her arm so she could keep dipping her face into it to breathe some of its oxygen-rich air. It would buy her some time, but it wouldn’t keep her alive for long.
“The carriage has been breached, it’s locked for safety reasons,” said the man. “She needs to open it from the other side. It’s to stop people going the wrong way in an emergency.”
“There must be an override! What if someone was injured and incapacitated in there?”
“A rescue team could gain access or it can be overridden from the steward’s cab.”
“Do it!” ordered Deverau.
The man ran up to the intercom on the other door. Mel tapped the fob on the glass. “Code!”
“Come in here and I’ll give it to you,” said Deverau.
Mel shook her head. “No way. If I have to face trumped-up charges at Noctis City, there’s no telling if I’ll ever get out.”
Deverau glanced behind him. The train man was getting no answer to his calls. He was running out of options.
“Come on, Deverau,” said Mel from the other side of the door. “Where am I going to go? We’re in the middle of the Martian plains.”
Deverau swore. He suspected she was bluffing, but he couldn’t know for sure. Swallowing his pride, he reeled off the set of memorized numbers. “Four, four, eight, nine, seven.”
With each word, Mel pressed the corresponding number on the pad. At the last one, a massive grin formed on her lips as the cuffs opened, slipped from her wrists and clattered to the floor. She turned from the window and Deverau lost sight of her.
The man returned from his fruitless attempt to raise someone on the other intercom. “There’s no reply, the steward must have evacuated. Like we should have done minutes ago.”
“Inspector,” said Okoye. “We need to get to the evacuation pod. You shouldn’t put yourself at risk for her.”
Deverau turned to the man. “You have evacuation chutes, don’t you?”
“Every other carriage,” he acknowledged. “But passengers are supposed to go to the pod. You need rad-suits to use the chutes and most members of the public haven’t used one since training at school. People in a panic don’t always put them on properly and you end up killing more passengers than if everyone had stayed on the train.”
The man’s unhelpful attitude was infuriating. “Do I look like a member of the public to you?”
Angry, with his pounding head adding to his irritability, he turned to Okoye and held out his palm. “Give me your shockgun.”
“What?” She blinked in confusion.
Deverau clicked his fingers. “Your shockgun. Now!”
Okoye passed it over.
Deverau examined it. It was primed with five darts. More than enough to overpower his fugitive.
“You and Jeffries get to the evacuation pod,” he said, reaching up to the open overhead bins and pulling down two rad-suits. “Train guy – whatever your name is.”
“Liam,” said the man.
Deverau looked at both suits, found the emblems which indicated one was more suitable for Earth-borns and the other more suitable for Mars-borns and chucked the larger suit over to Liam.
“Liam, get suited up, get to the steward’s cab and get that door open,” he said, kicking off his shoe and placing one leg in the smaller suit. “I’m going after her.”