On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (23 page)

Achael sat in the pilot’s seat of the craft, and then placed the palms of her hands on the touchpads of the controller units, on the arms of the chair. The advanced Eben control system then read a combination of her body’s electrical system, her finger movements, and her brain waves to pair with her; much like a blue tooth device pairing. From that point on, until she exited the ship, it would respond to her thoughts and hand motions instantly; whether she was in the seat or not, with the lag time being measured in a very small number of microseconds.

Riding its antigravity field, the scout ship, the “Dart” as they called it, moved out into the central transit corridor, and rapidly accelerated towards the hangar bay doors. As she had started moving the ship, she had commanded the doors to open. Cutting it hair close by tilting her ship a few degrees sideways to reduce its profile width, she accelerated through the gravity curtain, barely missing the hard doors. She emerged into the deep floor of Shalbatana Vallis (7.33 degrees North, 317.91 degrees East), and then pulled up into a steep climb, going almost straight up before doing a turning overhead roll resulting in a vector almost due north. Since she needed to get there fast, but wasn’t sure if the drone’s scout ship was alone or not, she decided to come into the human colony site from about 100 kilometres out. She used the Folding Drive to move her almost instantly 5,000 kilometres north of her base, and then back at normal dimensional speed, she rapidly accelerated to just 1,200 kilometres per hour; almost one and a half times the speed of sound on Mars (879 km/h at the Martian datum). She wasn’t wasting time.

Like Mike, Achael had also completely forgotten about the PDV arriving in a few more minutes.

Mike

As the alien ship moved overhead and into a new position, the Priority Message indicator came up in my HUD.
Damn it, what now?
I thought to myself.
The alien ship trying to kill me is the real priority here, but if this message is what I think it is, I really need to read it
. Then it dawned on me. Dammit, I forgot about the voice interface in the suit’s COM system. Squatting by cargo drop #5, I looked down quickly to the controller attached to my left arm, and pressed the VOX button three times. I heard the soothing and calm, perhaps even a bit sexy, female voice in my helmet.

“VOX activated. Awaiting Command.”

“Priority Message, Display” was my response as I lifted my head and scanned around for the alien ship. A bolt of energy passed between cargo drop #3 and #4, and I barely got my head out of the way. As the ground was exploding behind me, I was up once again and skittering around to the other side of the cargo container. The HUD displayed the message for me, “PLATFORM ACTIVATED”

“Oh Frak No!”

“Command not recognized. Please restate you command,” her soothing voice said.

The alien ship wobbled a bit, and moved side-to-side. As it started to transit around the large cargo drops, I waited for it to hit a blind spot and then ran to the opposite corner of drop #4.

“Castle Cellar, Status,” I said urgently. The message on my HUD was from Ernst. He had obviously activated the weapons platform so that a weapon could be fired. Castle Cellar was the term the VOX recognized for the weapons platform. I knew immediately there was no way I was going to bring a Thermobaric down on the area of the supply drops. Even though the Habitats were outside the 300 metre projected blast radius, I still wouldn’t take that chance. It was still too close for my Earth-oriented mind. There was too much in the cargo drops that I needed to set up the colony properly, and to survive here.

The alien ship moved left and right, I guess it was trying to decide which side it wanted to kill me from. I kept jigging left and right in the opposite directions, while crouched behind the cargo drop. I was really thankful at that point I had an Activity Suit for the surface, and not a regular Space Suit. With all this running around and sliding on the regolith, the Kevlar outer jumpsuit had already paid for itself.

I still had the two large rocks in my hand, and decided it was time for Grog the caveman to rage against the machine. I stepped out from behind cargo drop #4, cocked my arm and threw the first rock at the shimmering alien vessel. It went so wild in the low-g that I won’t even describe it. Suffice it to say, the next throw would have to be a lot different. It also, unfortunately, revealed my location. Another blast from the alien tore out a chunk of the nacelle skirting, and the side of the container of cargo drop #3 behind me. I turned and ran back around the ship, stopped and reversed my course. I had succeeded in fainting him out. I threw the second rock, it hit the shimmering spot of air. The sexy voice said “Platform Activated. Target Engaged. Bay number one is open. Thermobaric device number one is in prelaunch ready state. Your options are Hold, Safe and Release.”

“SAFE! SAFE!” I screamed as I ducked back down, and ran behind cargo drop #4.

“Safe Command is recognized. You must authenticate.”

“AUTHENTICATING, ALPHA KILO FIVE TWO SEVEN, AUTHENTICATE!” I said, running cross wise for drop #5.

“Command Authenticated. Thermobaric number one powering down. Launch bay closing,” then after a brief pause, “Platform secure.”

I watched the alien ship bob up and down a couple times, and do its own herky-jerky jig. Maybe the alien was just taunting me. As I ran back towards the cargo drop I had just been hiding behind, the ground exploded almost under my feet. I went flying forward and hit the ground hard. I didn’t hit my head, thanks to the helmet, but the concussion of the impact still winded me. I shook my head and started to lift myself up. I froze, watching the green-and-white baseball cap, being drunkenly blown by the wind, flipping and flopping towards my helmet. I reached out and grabbed it, looking at it with disbelief. This was the baseball cap that Carrie’s son,
Hindrik, had given me on my last birthday before leaving Terra. I remembered the smile on his face. I had always grabbed his baseball cap from him whenever he was wearing it. For my birthday, he used his savings to buy me my own. I remembered the warmth of both of her boys hugging me, one at a time, wishing me
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag.
That baseball cap was one of the things I had brought with me. I had worn it at almost every day while in transit. I thought it had been lost forever in the explosion. I squeezed it, and looked at it. No burn marks, no soot, just a lot of red dust on it. The baseball cap had survived. I finally realized that after running from the pain for so long, I
wanted
to survive. I
wanted
to live. Enough maudlin distractions, time to put my head back in the game. I jumped to my feet, caught sight of the shimmer of air coming around to bear on me again, and then ran to the other side of the cargo drop I had been heading for.

I rolled up the baseball cap and stuffed it into a pocket on my jumpsuit leg. Crouching down, I took a moment to look around quickly. I figured if there was one, there might be two. Nothing else had fired at me; but then again, I didn’t know alien battle tactics. If this had been Terra, the OpFor would have probably gone for some shock and awe. It struck me, that the fact I was only facing
one
of these alien bastards was … disrespectful.
Hmpf. Frakers
.

“Command. Targeting system. Target designation.”

Her silky smooth voice replied, “Target number thirty-eight engaged. Target lock confirmed.” Thirty-eight? Oh yeah, it used a sequential target designation system.

“Command, use referential targeting designation.”

“Command confirmed. Target number one engaged. Target lock confirmed.” I had a bit of a chill for a moment. This appearance of the craft was number thirty-eight. The one earlier in the day would have been number thirty-seven. So what the hell were the other thirty-six … and when were they? I’d only been here two days!

The alien ship wasn’t a shimmer any more. I could see it plainly. It was round-ish, gray and about the size of a cargo van. There was a little nubbin thing sticking out of it like a small pitot tube. I rightly assumed that it was the business end of its weapon. The alien ship seemed to regain control. It buzzed forward over me, then suddenly lost altitude, bounced once hard on the ground, and then lifted back into the air. It swung around behind the line of supply drops, and I lost sight of it. It seemed to be moving a bit slower. I decided right then there would be no retreat. Hell, I just got here. There was no way I was leaving Mars, figuratively or literally. I thought that maybe this alien was sucking me into a trap; but maybe, just maybe, luck, providence, and certainly God were on my side.

I did the hockey-run towards cargo drop #6, the drop closest to the alien bastard. There are two kinds of run that work on Mars. We had worked these out in training, and I confirmed their effectiveness when I sprinted from the cover of Big Dawg. The hockey-run was something I came up with, being Canadian and all, eh? Because of the low-g it’s easy to go ass over tea kettle if you try to run on Mars like you are on Terra. The hockey-run was simple. Lean forward until you were starting to fall forward, then turn your feet outwards so the inside edge of your boot was in contact with the regolith, and then skate-run like you were trying to get back over the blue line while your puck carrying teammate went for net. I certainly couldn’t afford to be offside today. This precarious running position used forward momentum to keep you from falling. Without the high centre of gravity, you didn’t have to worry as much about tripping or momentum imbalance as you would with a normal run. The hockey-run was much more exhausting than the gazelle-run; but it was much faster for short distances, and you were less likely to trip.

“Command, Target Count.”

“There is currently one target. Target is engaged.”

“Activate new target voice notification,” I wanted to know if anything else came up to the site while my back was turned.

“Please state area of compromise.”

“Area of compromise is 100 kilometres”.

“New target voice notification engaged. Area of compromise is 100 kilometres. Known target has entered area of compromise. Designate target number two. Target number two is tracking.”

“What??”

“Target number two is a known target. It is a scheduled supply mission that is in de-orbit deceleration. Second RAD is in burn.”

Shit, I’d forgotten all about the PDV. I looked up at the flaming RAD engines coming down far up in the sky. As I looked at it, the RAD assembly cut out, jettisoned and another RAD assembly fired up. That would be the third of five. I looked at the round gray ship, almost in the right spot. I looked down, then started picking up rocks and throwing them. There was one possibility in my favour and suddenly I had to be a gambling man.
Tempus fugit
and I had to act fast. I guess this situation was of the same perilous outcome Pliny the Elder faced when he stated, while rescuing survivors of Pompeii,
fortes fortuna iuvat,
“fortune favours the brave”. It was time to be brave, as well as bold. The stakes were my life; and I finally cared about seeing tomorrow.

The Drone

The human had no weapon with it. The human was throwing rocks. The Drone continued to burn with anger, and continued to seethe.
HUMAN WANT TO KILL DRONE; HUMAN TRY TO TRAP DRONE; STUPID TRAP; NO WEAPON; HUMAN MISTAKE; HUMAN MAKE MISTAKE; HUMAN DIE; HUMAN DIE NOW; SHOW HUMAN; SHOW HUMAN SUPERIOR RACE; SHOW HUMAN MASTER BETTER THAN HUMAN; SHOW MASTER DRONE LOYAL; SHOW MASTER DRONE LOOK AFTER MASTER; DRONE KILL HUMAN; KILL HUMAN.
The vessel lurched.

As the Drone fired its next shot at the human, the human managed to avoid being fried and vaporized yet again. The rage boiled over in the Drone, and the Drone started pin-wheeling long grey arms in a haze of frustration and anger with small, but solid fists pounding on instruments and control boxes. A drone would never normally react this way, but this particular Drone was already far off the scope of what was expected from drones. The Drone screamed and screamed with anger and frustration inside the helmet. Even though the Drone didn’t have pain receptors in the pin-wheeling arms or hands, the Drone’s hands and forearms started to feel numb from the repeated impacts. Finally the tirade stopped, and the Drone got a hold of raging emotions. The small vessel had been bobbing around as a result of the pounding on flight controls; but that was the least of the Drone’s problems now.

Achael

Mars’ surface raced underneath her unnoticed. Achael was forming attack plans in her head; attack plans for the Eridani ship, contingencies for other Eridani ships if that became necessary. Forming complex battle tactics on-the-fly came like breathing to the Eben. She was also running the political angels of what she was going to do, and what would lessen the impact on the detente.

The cabin filled with Hlef’s voice from the Comm Unit, “Achael, stop.”

Achael let out a sigh, she didn’t realize she had been holding in. She was so very happy to hear Hlef’s voice, to know she was okay, “Sis, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Come back Turkey,” said Helf, using her pet name for Achael. “The Base Commander is ordering you to return as well, if that matters.”

“And who is going to look out for the human? He’s out there alone, under fire, if he’s not already dead.”

There was a slight pause, “I feel ya Sis, but orders is orders, know what I’m …”, she had been cut off. Achael started in her seat, and looked at the Comm Unit.