On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (25 page)

Lt. Col. KamPen sighed deeply. Now came the duty he was dreading. He had a good idea how it would go. He activated the ERB Communications unit and established a connection with the Wright-Patterson ERB Communications unit on Earth. He then placed a real-time, secure phone call to the 88
th
.

Mission Control : 18 minutes, 3 seconds later

First the Mar-Sat display, and then three minutes later the new display were both lost and replaced by static. First there was dead silence. Ernst and Frankie fiddled uselessly with their controls. Then the room erupted.

Mission Control was once again, to put it nicely, going bugshit crazy. There was nothing Karl could say at this point, so he just sat there, waiting.

Mike

Crouching by the number five supply drop, I was wondering why the alien wasn’t still shooting at me. I had expected to have to jump up and change position, but all it did was float slightly backwards.

Then sexy voice spoke up again, “New target detected in area of compromise. New target designated target number forty, referential target number three, is a classified reference. Tracking classified reference.”

Classified what? Fraaaaakkkkkk!!!
“Command, target number three, vector and speed.”

“Target is moving north-north-east at one thousand, 200 and 300 kilometres per hour.”

Holy frak-a-doodle, that’s less than five minutes away. At that speed it could be a spacecraft, an aircraft like an Earth jet, or it could be a warhead.
Fraking alien called for fraking backup. So why is it classified,
I asked myself.

Alright, never mind, prioritize. I can’t do anything about whatever it was until it gets here. With spool up time and delivery time, a weapon from the platform wouldn’t reach the object until it was here. Oh well, I had my faith in God to look after me, and this was definitely turning into the valley of the shadow of death. Speaking of shadows … I looked up and saw the fourth stage RAD engines jettison from the PDV. The PDV was almost directly over the gray space ship, and the gray space ship was still slowly backing up, exactly where I had hoped it would. The final stage, RAD unit #5, was about to light up.

“Ummm, shit.”

Pliny-the-Elder-be-damned, I turned and ran away as fast as I could.

The Drone

The Drone was in the middle of bright red lights, there were two different, two-tone klaxons blaring, and a cabin filling with smoke. All of the rage and anger on the Drone’s face had turned to despair. The Drone’s hands were curled in a tight ball on its lap. The Drone screamed at the top of its lungs inside its helmet. Suddenly the ship screeched and slammed into the ground. The Drone saw the side of the ship buckle inwards, and then the Drone was spinning and bumping so hard it lost all sense of direction, and then all sense. For the first time ever, a Drone had been knocked unconscious.

Achael

Looking out the forward view screen Achael could now see the encounter site in the distance. She could see the habitats behind and to the left of the encounter site. She could also see the six supply drops, and the gray Eridani ship and … and … she shook her head and still couldn’t believe her eyes.

She saw the cargo ship just as the final RAD engines fired for the landing. At the moment those engines fired, the Eridani vessel was right underneath it. The force of the roaring engines caused the Eridani vessel to move sideways - but before clearing the falling cargo container, the extending landing struts trapped it against one of the engine cowlings.

The PDV smashed the Eridani vessel into the ground. The number three engine cowling exploded in bits and pieces at the point of contact, and the two landing struts trapped the Eridani vessel, snapping back upwards with more bits of metal flying. She could see the Eridani ship cave in on one-quarter, before it plopped out from under the landing cargo ship, like an apple seed in a child’s fingers.

As the Eridani ship rolled and bumped away on the ground, the now-landed cargo vessel’s engines finally extinguished, it started tilting over to the side with the broken landing struts.

Mike

I stopped running when I heard the explosion, ducked and turned sideways. The supply drop was on the ground, there wasn’t much flame, but there was a lot of smoke. I saw bits of metal, it looked like engine cowling, falling around me. I felt the impact of a few small pieces hitting me, but the carbon nano tube reinforced Kevlar fabric worked exactly like it was supposed to.

I saw the little grey ship, now deformed with a concave impact point, rolling and bumping away from the cargo drop, and rolling towards me. I stood up and was about to run but I realized it was slowing down. It finally stopped about twenty feet from me, having rolled right by supply drop #6, without hitting it.

I looked over at the supply drop billowing smoke and saw it leaning over … further … further … further … and then it stopped. The spot it had landed on wasn’t perfectly level, and the landing struts that appeared to still be functioning took its weight. It just sat there then, billowing smoke and listing about 35 degrees.

Then more movement caught my eye. I looked up and saw a triangular black piece of sky moving towards me. It was so black I couldn’t make out any lines other than the outline; but it was getting closer, fast, and doing it silently. The closest cover I had, oddly, was the small gray damaged space ship that had so recently been trying to kill me. I ran over to it and crouched, although I knew at this point it was useless.

They had me.

This small spaceship was no real tactical cover. Heck, it might even explode any minute. Hell, whatever was in it might open a hatch and come out after me. This new ship was now almost overhead, and there was nothing I could do to hide from this one. I sighed. I took a deep breath and stood up. I stepped out from around the little gray space ship into the open.

The black triangular craft was now only about five feet off the ground. It hovered there for a few minutes doing nothing. I just stood there looking at it, glancing at the damaged craft on the ground every few moments, still half expecting some hellish creature to emerge from it.

When I looked back from one of these furtive glances I almost came out of my skin. There was an alien figure standing in front of me. It was wearing an environment suit and a helmet. The environment suit was a bit bulkier than mine, but not as bulky as a proper space suit. It was orange-red, the kind of orange-red that would blend in with the Mars surface. The environment suit and the helmet looked oddly human, like something NASA would have created. The helmet faceplate was opaque black. I couldn’t see what was inside it. The one thing I did notice, as I took a single startled step backwards, was how long its arms and fingers were. Its hands hung at its knees, and its fingers were about half again as long as my own, even in the gloves of the environment suit.

This new alien stood there for a few moments, then turned toward the small gray ship and walked over to it. Not knowing what else to do I started following it but it stopped, whirled around and its left hand went to its hip. I saw then that there was a bulky piece of equipment that looked like a hand gun with a can welded around it. The alien didn’t draw the weapon, but the implication was clear, follow any further and I’d find out for real what that weapon actually could do.

Achael

Seeing the dawning realization in his eyes, Achael took her hand off of the low atmo modified Desert Eagle, and started walking to the Eridani vessel again. Reaching the damaged section, glancing over her shoulder at the earthman, she then peered inside through the damaged and torn metal. She could just see inside the cockpit, and the control system lights let her see the little gray Drone.

She turned and faced the human again. She stared at him for a few moments, trying to understand the feeling in her stomach when she looked at him. Finally, she pointed at the ground in front of him then made a “stop” hand gesture. He must have understood because he nodded his head and crossed his arms. Through the faceplate of his surface suit she could see that his face was rugged, handsome, scared… and defiant. His fear would work in her favour, for now, defiant or not.

She walked around to the undamaged side of the Eridani vessel, found the over-ride panel, opened it and then triggered the hatch. All Eridani vessels had this identical access point, and everyone on the Mars Hybrid base knew how to access them, even though the Eridani didn’t know they knew.

As the hatch swung up, she stepped back and looked around the craft to make sure the human was still where she left him. He was.

Achael then cautiously leaned inside the craft to look at the unmoving Drone. She didn’t know if it was dead or if it was playing possum. She reached in with one hand and poked it once, then twice, then a third time; each time a bit rougher than the last.

At that point it started to move around slightly. It wasn’t playing possum, it had really been unconscious. Unheard of. She had to move
fast
before it fully regained its senses.

Deftly, she flicked open the seat restraints, grabbed the Drone by the back of its own version of a space suit, and then quickly pulled it out of the craft. She bodyslammed it onto the ground, dropped to one knee on top of it, and reached behind her. She opened the pouch on her utility belt, and withdrew two plastic restraints.

When she had arrived, she had put her Dart in hover mode, and then she had to get into her surface suit quickly. Even though she was in a hurry, she had enough sense about her to make sure she fully kitted-up before activating the TransMat. It was quite by accident she wound up appearing right in front of the man from Earth.

With the Drone pinned to the ground, she pulled its suited arms behind its back and applied one of the restraints, then she half-turned and did the same thing around the Drone’s knees. She’d apply more restraint once she got him in the ship. She picked up the now squirming and struggling Drone, and threw it over her shoulder. She turned and looked around the small Eridani vessel. The human still stood there, arms folded, and it looked like he was tapping his foot. She smiled at that.

She walked towards the Dart, reached up and activated the TransMat. Inside she set down the struggling Drone, opened a supply bay, and took out a roll of duct tape. She made sure the Drone wouldn’t be able to struggle enough to get free.

Already knowing what had to be done, she TransMat outside again. She opened the service hatch under the craft, and took out a rescue toolkit. She then started pulling out a rescue cable. She pulled out enough to reach the Eridani craft, and walked towards it with the kit slung over her shoulder. The human was still standing where she had left him, arms still folded, foot still tapping. She stopped by the open hatch of the Eridani vessel. She looked inside for a connection point that would be solid enough to support the weight of the craft. She found a strut that looked strong enough and turned around for her toolkit.

The human was standing right behind her. She froze, just staring at him. After a few moments, the earthman bent down, picked up the toolkit and held it up to her.

Mike

I was tired of standing there just tapping my foot. I watched the bigger alien carry the squirming body of something small over to the triangular craft. She touched the craft and disappeared. I’m sure my surprisingly slack jaw slammed into the bottom of my helmet, but I was too shocked to really notice.

I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Was the alien savouring the moment to kill me? Was the alien going to let me live? Was the alien a friendly, instead of a support operation for the downed craft? If it wasn’t friendly, why had it restrained the smaller alien? If it was friendly, was there a bad-alien support operation on the way? Was I about to be in the middle of another fire fight? As these and other thoughts raced around my already overloaded brain, the alien was suddenly there again. I mean suddenly, as in one moment it wasn’t; and then suddenly, it was. No flash of light, no materialization beam like on Star Trek, no sudden shimmer or distortion. One moment it wasn’t there, and a single shake of a lamb’s tail later - it was simply, there. The suddenness and visual disorientation actually made me feel nauseous.

The alien went under its ship, took a small box out of a hatch it opened, and then started pulling out a cable. It then took the small box (it looked like a really expensive toolkit for outer space) and the cable, and started walking back to the small crashed ship.

Ahhhhh … retrieval. This alien was going to take the crashed ship away. I stood there while the alien walked around and out of view. I gave it a few moments, and then made up my mind. Kill me or not, I was done being the bitch of all these aliens. I walked around the small ship and saw the alien leaning inside of it. I walked up behind the alien and stood there. It stood up and turned around. I could see it give an involuntary jerk backwards, but at least it didn’t draw that ugly weapon on its hip. I still couldn’t see anything through the opaque visor so after a few beats I reached down, picked up the box that looked like a toolkit, and held it up for the alien. With the briefest pause, the alien opened the case in my hands, reached in and pulled out a 10 centimetre shackle and screw, along with a very human looking pair of pliers.