The fugitive in yellow fled across the Martian desert, and the marshal followed.

Towering massive metal structures bobbed up and down on the surface of the sand, casting shadows as long as the width of Noke'la. They whizzed by Tracy so fast, his mind had little time to register them for what they were; cranking pumpjacks on revolving pistons drawing oil from deep below the Martian surface. Their low rumble reverberated so deep, Tracy felt the tremors throughout his whole body.

Chasm followed the dust wake that Roy's speeder left behind. Only Tracy's goggles and respirator kept him from blinding suffocation. Herds of startled camels bolted, leaving the sparse cactus they munched on, running away from the fleeing speeder and the chrome steed that followed. Madness must have gripped Roy to trespass on Arab oil country.

Anger, frustration, despair, all swirled around within the lawman, muddled—as hard to comprehend as seeing Roy through the sand he kicked up. How could he be so stupid to let Roy escape? Why did he let Roy get away with Cora and her son? How desperate was Roy? There was no telling what he would do now. This wasn't going to end pretty.

Roy swerved, changing his trajectory every few hundred meters, making more daring choices with each passing moment. He sped under the downward plunging pumpjack between two dropship-sized pistons. Even on his nimble steeder, the lawman couldn't anticipate the reckless navigating and had to race around the pumpjack, letting Roy break away.

Cora's words echoed in his mind.

I'm being put at risk, which means you're putting my son at risk.

My son is everything to me.

Guilt bore down on Tracy. He'd promised Cora that nothing would befall her, and implied that nothing would harm her son.

Roy made a liar of him.

Roy would pay.

Except Tracy could not make him pay. He had to capture him alive, and bring him back to Earth. Otherwise his whole mission was a bust.

Two streaking blurs cut across the sand, racing after Tracy. Security for the oil rigs. And they weren't carrying tasers. Perfect.

The single-thruster, single-rider sandboards surfed the dust dunes with precision, able to travel much faster even than Chasm. Gun blasts scored the path in front of the galloping steeder. Tracy ducked low in the saddle. He had no qualms with these men just doing their jobs. But if he didn't return fire, they'd slay him, no questions asked.

His goggle HUD locked onto the sandboarders, even when his steeder crested a high dune and descended on the other side. The holosights projected at the end of Jury. He exhaled, waiting to see his pursuers crest the dune. Their silhouettes popped up. He pulled the trigger twice, shifting his aim once between shots.

The armed security pulled their triggers too. One shot pinged off of Chasm's flank, going astray. The other grazed Tracy's leg. Stinging pain ran along his calf, but it was only exterior.

The guards had no opportunity to return fire though. The marshal's magnetic projectiles found new homes in the thrusters of each sandboard. Two bursts of light proved Tracy hit his marks. The guards were flung from each exploding board, tumbling headlong in the sand.

Tracy allowed himself a short chuckle, but it was suffocated by the weight of the task that lay ahead.

Roy cut a hard turn, almost doubling back from the direction they came. Closer and closer Roy drew nearer to Noctis Labyrinthus. The great cracks scoring the planet reached out in all directions, like tendrils seeking prey to ensnare. Roy followed a downward path, one that descended into a narrow valley. As when he'd left Tharsis, rugged bedrock walls rose on either side of Tracy. This time, firing his revolvers was not an option. A mother and child held fast aboard the speeder, hostages of a madman.

Try as he might, Tracy could not get thoughts of Hina out of his mind. Images of Hina cradling her round belly overwhelmed him. He cherished them, but did not need the distraction at the moment. Like his wife and unborn child, Cora and her Ashton had trusted him to do his job, but he'd not just failed to complete his duty. He'd failed them .

Lower they descended into the rugged crevasse, the gradient array of colors in sedimentary bedrock layers shifted to darker shades of gloom as they delved deeper still. Light seemed to retreat, not able to seep this far down, as if nightfall came swiftly.

Roy came to a fork and took the direction that penetrated further still into the maze of gorges, valleys, and canyons. Massive support pillars sprung from the ground floor shot up and overhead, supporting a man-made viaduct, stretching back to Noke'la, cutting a straight line through the natural maze. In the back of Tracy's mind he recalled his Faro game. This must be the bullet railway the tycoon was constructing. He caught glimpses of its scope as the fugitive braided between the support beams in attempts to lose Tracy or cause him to crash.

How could he stop Roy without bringing harm to the fugitive or Cora and her son? Trailing eternally behind Roy wouldn't cut it. He mashed the button, morphing Chasm into a hovercycle. The exhaust pipes roared as he throttled the steeder, lurching forward with greater speed. The wind howled, deafening his ears.

They came to the end of the railway, passing a construction site. Roy ran out of obstacles by which to lose the lawman, and so grew desperate.

As he neared Roy, the crazed criminal turned and fired out of the open-top cockpit, lobbing lazy shots at Tracy from his own coilgun. They were mere warning shots fired at random in Tracy's general direction. Even Roy knew that he had to keep his focus on driving the speeder.

Tracy's only option was to get close enough to board the hovercraft and force Roy to a complete stop. Ducking beneath Roy's wild shots, Trace did just that.

At the same time the walls of the canyon grew narrower, and the pathway wound sharp, weaving through the Martian layers. The labyrinth's sharp turns forced Roy to navigate the canyon at dangerous and reckless speeds if he wanted to escape.

The walls fell away as they shot over a natural rock bridge. A lethal gulf hung on either side of them, a bottomless trench reaching down to the planet's core. Tracy forced himself to think only of capturing Roy, but the thought of falling to his death over the edge compressed his heart in a vice of terror. He turned his thoughts to Hina, combatting the fear with hope.

Tracy opened Chasm's menu, thanking the Maker he'd had the foresight to assign a quick command. Locking onto Roy with his goggle HUD, he aimed the hooklasso and fired. The line shot out like a chameleon tongue, wrapping around Roy's torso. Tracy pushed another button, and the line retracted, zipping back into the steeder until it grew taut, catching on Roy's weight.

Tracy's heart thumped in his chest. He had one chance at this.

Rising in the saddleseat, arms outstretched for balance, he waited for the right timing, and leapt from Chasm. For a brief, terrible moment he thought he would bite the dust, tumble over the ledge and be lost forever. Weightlessness made his stomach sink as he flew through the gap between Chasm and the hovercraft.

Then his chest hit the back of the speeder, knocking the wind out of him, but his hands latched onto the headrests of the back seats. A wild shot scorched the speeder in front of his face, blackening the paint job. Though the lasso entangled him, Roy managed to hold onto the gun and point his wrist out, firing from the hip through the thick hooklasso. Tracy held on for dear life, legs dangling off the back of the speeder, like flags flapping in a strong wind. Seeing that they could crash and die, Cora reached across the dash, snatching the controls. Roy spun to kick her.

"Whoa, boy," yelled Tracy.

Chasm's throttles reversed, arch flames spewing out of the front thrusters of the steeder. Roy's eyes widened, his pupils dilating. The retracting line and the slowing steeder ripped him clean out of the driver's seat. One moment he was there, and a blink later, the fugitive flew over the lawman's head. A booted foot caught Tracy's mouth, smacking the grin of triumph off his face.

He shook off the pain and clawed his way to the front, wrestling the throttles for control of the speeder.

Cora screamed in his ear. Ashton's hysterical cries reached shrieking decibels. The natural rock bridge veered off in a new direction. They had no time to match the turn. Tracy pulled the throttles back as far as they would go, as if straining on the oars of a boat, throwing his back into it. He gritted his teeth, eyelids squeezed shut so tight, stars sparkled behind them.

The reverse thrusters burned, slowing the speeder dramatically, but tilted the nose forward. They'd come to rest, balancing on the edge of the stone bridge, playing seesaw with death itself.

Tracy did not even want to exhale. Cora quieted herself, but Ashton remained inconsolable.

"On the count of three," whispered Tracy, "I'm going to climb out of the back. Grab my hand, okay?"

Cora's face paled several shades as the speeder tilted forward still. The lightest breeze could have puffed it over the edge. Without waiting for her reply, Tracy hopped atop the speeder, thankful the foolhardy fugitive had snagged an open-top hovercraft. Even with his tall stature and weight, he only tipped the scales ever so slightly. A single misstep and the speeder would plunge over the edge.

"Give me your hand."

Cora grasped her son, frozen in place.

The next moment the speeder's hover thrusters gave out. Tracy had burned them up, pushing them to their limit to come to a complete stop. They needed a few moments to recalibrate, but those precious moments were going to cost Cora and Ashton their lives. The speeder groaned an ear-piercing wail as it grinded against the edge, sparks flying as rock scored metal.

"Grab hold," he commanded, yelling above the scraping.

Cora thrust her arm up and Tracy latched on with his flesh hand. The speeder tilted completely, nosediving, Tracy had to trust his muscles had the strength to hold himself and two other souls while his alloyed fingers ripped into the speeder exterior, crumpling it like paper under his borg grasp. With every ounce of strength he had left, Tracy jumped off the end of the speeder, yanking Cora with him.

His body collided with stone. All wind fled from his lungs.

He swam in a sea of lightheaded brain funk.

Panting, chest burning, arms and legs limp as noodles, the lawman lay gathering his breath.

He couldn't open his eyelids. Didn't want to know if anyone besides him survived. But Cora's panting tickled his ear. He blinked. She cradled Ashton, both mother and son experiencing waves of adrenaline, even as Tracy himself did.

Tracy got to his knees, helping Cora to hers, and checked to see if the boy was alright. Aside from the scare and a few scratches, they'd be fine. Chasm trotted up to greet them with his snorting exhaust pipe. He tugged a hysterical dust-covered Roy behind him.

The reverend's maniacal howls echoed off the canyon walls, sending shivers down Tracy's spine.

The lawman quieted him with a steel-toed boot to the ribs. Then a few more for good measure. And several more, just because.