Read The Last Run: A Novella for Free Online

weak, and he half-sat, half-collapsed into his chair as alarms began to wail.
    ***
    “ O NE T RUCK, THIS IS H ARMONY. Over.”
    Mulligan was surprised by the voice over the radio, not because Harmony had the audacity to communicate with the rig during a training exam, but because the transmission was coming across the emergency channels that were heavily encrypted and reserved for high priority traffic. CJ had just started picking her path across the broken landscape, and the SCEV rocked slightly as it slowly trundled across the leading edge of the rough terrain.
    “Harmony, this is One Truck. Go ahead. Over,” Mulligan answered.
    “One Truck, you need to return to the base ASAP. Lockdown is underway. This is no drill. Over.”
    Mulligan frowned, and he slowly pressed down on the SCEV’s brakes, bringing the rig to a gentle halt. CJ looked over at him from the right seat, a questioning expression on her face. From the second compartment, Mulligan heard metallic clicks as Peter hit his harness’s quick release. An instant later, he was standing in the cockpit doorway, looking down at them.
    “Harmony, One Truck. Say again. Over.”
    “One Truck, Harmony. Don’t know how to make it any clearer, Sergeant Major—you’re ordered to RTB immediately. This is not a drill, this is a real world event. Over.”
    “Motherfucker,” Mulligan said gently. He then seized a hold of the control column on his side of the cockpit. “Okay, my rig,” he said.
    “Your rig,” CJ said, releasing the copilot’s controls.
    Mulligan backed the SCEV away from the broken terrain ahead, and Peter grabbed for one of the padded handholds bolted to the bulkhead. Mulligan kept his eyes rooted to a display that showed where the rig was headed, and once he was far enough away from the destroyed earth to make a safe turn, he did so.
    “Harmony, One Truck. We’re rolling—can you tell me exactly what’s going down? Over.”
    “One Truck, this is Harmony. Looks like the Russians have finally decided to escalate. We’re tracking multiple inbound warheads, including sub-launched MRVs. It’s Judgment Day, Sergeant Major. Over.”
    Mulligan’s heart skipped a beat. A nuclear attack? Are the Russkies fucking crazy ?
    “Roger that, Harmony,” was all he could say as he started the rig rolling forward. The vehicle elevators were over six miles away. That would take ten minutes overland, even if he went balls to the wall. The SCEVs had a top end of around sixty-five miles per hour, but the local topography was rough enough to deny them much in the way of excess speed. And then there was his family to worry about…
    “CJ, your rig,” he said.
    “My rig,” CJ said, taking a hold of the copilot’s controls. Once she had positive control, Mulligan reached into one of the cargo pockets on his duty uniform trousers and pulled out his smart phone. He hit the speed dial for the house, but all he got was a fast busy signal. He checked the phone’s display, and there were three bars of signal, even out here in the middle of nowhere. He redialed, and got a computerized message informing him that all circuits were busy, and that he should try his call later.
    “Pete, do me a favor?”
    “Name it,” Peter said. He was wearing a radio headset as well, and he had heard the radio conversation. He knew what was headed toward them, and his voice was very small.
    Mulligan handed him his phone. “Keep dialing my family. I can’t get through.”
    “You got it.” From the corner of his eye, Mulligan saw Peter immediately redial. He held the phone to his ear, then redialed again.
    “I have the rig,” Mulligan told CJ. He took the control column in his left hand and pushed it forward, urging the SCEV onward. Its twin, variable-speed turboshaft engines roared, and the vehicle bounded across the grassy plain. At the same time, he reached out and tapped the face of the multifunction display before him. The nav chart came up, and the GPS told him all he