“It’s a quake,” the officer said. “Perot, you need to get these people out.”
“Out!” Mindy was incredulous. “Sir, to the lifeships?”
“Yes,” the officer said. “First class citizens are to be escorted to the lifeships. Second and third class citizens are lower priorities. Ensure that first class citizens make it to the lifeships, and then escort yourself out.”
“Is there no way that these walls can resist this storm?” Mindy asked, staring forwards at the gathering storm beyond the summit of Olympus Mons. A pyroclastic flow had begun to roar down the southern peak, throwing great clouds of pumice and steam behind it as it rolled down the mountain.
“How much time do we have?” Mindy asked, as she began to back towards the door leading towards the commercial center.
“Not enough,” the captain said. “An hour, perhaps, until the ash flow breaches the walls of the colony. Less, if we’re unlucky.”
Mindy and the two officers nodded before storming out of the door and into the raging clamor of the commercial plaza.
The hordes of civilians racing from the sight of the explosion towards the officers was overwhelming.
“Where’s my dad?” she heard someone scream.
She looked back to see a small boy, maybe four or five, tottering around as he searched for his father.
“Here,” she shouted to her partner.
“Where did you lose your dad?” She asked, as three men fled between her and the boy. Between the crowds, not one person stopped to inquire about the solitary child, alone in chaos.
“I don’t know,” the kid said, and wiped his eye. “I want to go home.”
“Where’s home?” Mindy asked.
“Bakerstown,” the kid said, and Mindy picked him up and broke into a run.
Bakerstown was the most affluent of the districts within Herculaneum. Most of the Class One citizens, the members who Mindy had been assigned to evacuate to the lifeships, resided within either Bakerstown or the other three centers within the northern part of Herculaneum, closest to Olympus Mons and the lifeship port. The ships would have to launch in just a few minutes or be caught in the ash cloud, from which they could not escape.
Mindy was not even sure if the Class Two and Class Three citizens were aware of the existence of the lifeships, and aware of the existence of anything that could save them at all.
“Everyone!” she cried, as she ran into the lobby of the Bakerstown tower. “We must evacuate Herculaneum. Get your family, collect your possessions, and get to the lifeships which you have been assigned.”
A few precocious citizens had already begun to make their way to the basement level, to the lifts and the lifeships. The lifeships would have to leave in less than half an hour, whether they were flying empty seats or not.
Mindy saw a red evacuation alarm on the wall of the tower and pulled it as hard as she could. Alarms rang from the walls, and sprinkler systems triggered from the ceilings, drenching the lobby with a freezing barrage of rain.
People stormed from their apartments, soaking and livid. “How dare you?” One man roared. His bathrobe was drenched.
“Get out,” another woman shouted, and tossed a potted plant from a balcony down to the floor, where it shattered just feet from where Mindy and the boy were standing.
“These people don’t care much for their peacekeepers,” Mindy told the boy. He nodded.
“Get to the lifeships,” Mindy called, noticing that the stream of residents making their way to the lifeships had slowly begun to thicken. The evacuation was picking up steam.
Shock waves from the pyroclastic flows had begun to crack windows in the apartment complex, sending cascades of shattered glass careening towards the floor and falling in explosions on the floor. Mindy reeled, her arm sliced by broken glass. She checked to make sure the kid was okay. He was.
“Where’s your DAD?” She shouted, not aware of the volume of her voice. The kid began to cry.
“DON!” someone called from up ahead. A silhouette ran into the lobby and towards Mindy and the boy.
“Don,” the man said, clutching his son. Tears were streaming down his face. “Thank you,” the man said. “I lost him in the commercial center.” The kid was battering his father’s chest with his hands, and reaching back for Mindy.
“Try not to lose him again,” she said, looking upon him with a contemptible eye, “and get off this accursed planet.”
“I understand,” the man said. “Thank you.”
As she watched the two of them rush into the tunnel leading to the lifeships, she clutched her bleeding arm. How many more of them were there to save, and who was to be left behind to perish in the fiery cloud?
