A kilometer from the ravine, the ground levels out again, enough for me to see more than a hundred meters ahead. I slow down and look to my right. Off in the distance, eight or nine hundred meters away, I see a lone ATV speeding across the rock-strewn plain, and I let out a small sigh of relief.
Out here, the surface is flat enough that I can see the outskirts of Olympus City on the horizon, fifteen kilometers away. I check my TacLink screen and determine that I should be in data range in another five kilometers. I mark the last-known location of the Lankies we ran into so the computer can upload the data to the tactical network the second I get a link.
Behind me, the Lankies I dodged continue their climb up the slope of Hill 1818, slowly and steadily, as if they have all the time in the world. I put the ATV back into gear and open up the throttle. Maybe I can make it back into data range quickly enough for some nearby air support to see those orange icons pop up on TacLink and ruin the Lankies’ day.
I’m just a little over ten kilometers out from the spaceport when two bad things happen almost at once. I spot another troop of Lankies coming out of a ravine and walking across the plains toward Hill 1818, and my ATV lurches as the power output of the electric engine fluctuates. My full-throttle speed drops to thirty kilometers, then picks up again to fifty. When it drops again, I am rolling along at a mere twenty-five kilometers per hour, not enough to outrun a Lanky, and three of them just popped up on the plateau not two kilometers in front of me. I don’t know if they’ve sensed my presence yet, but even if they haven’t, their current course to Hill 1818 is going to take them right across the patch of ground where my ATV is currently starting to barf out its electric innards.
I know that Sergeant Crawford is a few kilometers to my northeast and going all out at fifty kilometers per hour, but there’s a small crest cutting our line of sight, so she won’t see me even if I make noise and wave like an idiot. I steer the ATV to my right to get out of the Lankies’ line of advance, but I make it barely two hundred meters away from my original straight course before the electric engine simply quits without noise or drama. The sudden absence of electric drive whining is quite loud. The oversized tires crunch in the Martian gravel as the ATV comes to a stop.
My TacLink shows a lot of air traffic taking off and landing on the spaceport’s runways and VTOL pads. With my comms online, I could call in close fire support from a drop ship or a flight of Shrikes and wipe the approaching Lankies off the map, but all I have is a data link, and TacLink transmissions only reach eight to ten kilometers in ideal conditions. I am just outside the maximum range for the near-field data link to connect to the nearest NAC units, and most of the air traffic is going out away from me, toward Orange Beach. I want to shout for help, but I don’t have a voice that will reach far enough for anyone to hear me.
I get off the ATV and unlash my rifle from the backseat. Crawford had the good sense to take a MARS launcher, and I curse my judgment for not packing one myself. Just one silver-bullet rocket would help even the odds against the three Lankies ambling toward me across the plain, now a kilometer and a half away and closing in without hurry. But I only have the M-95 rifle and a few magazines of ammunition, and that will have to do the job.
I rest the rifle on the seat of the ATV and point it in the direction of the Lankies, towering over the ochre-colored gravel field even at this distance. Then I chamber a round. My radio is busted, and the data link is reduced to the near-field transmitter, but my suit’s environmental controls still work, and the ballistics computer is online as well. I let the targeting software sort out the maximum effective range based on air pressure, gravity, temperature, and a dozen other factors.
“OUT OF RANGE,” my computer display informs me.
“Not for long,” I reply.
There’s a small box of emergency gear mounted on the frame of the ATV underneath the saddle. I let the rifle rest on the seat and pop the emergency box open with some fumbling. Inside, there’s a first aid kit, a thermal blanket, a two-liter bladder of water with a standard suit adapter, and a flare gun with five rounds of high-intensity pyrotechnic signal munitions.
“DISTANCE 1,258M,” my helmet display reads, the rifle’s targeting reticle firmly on the first of the approaching Lankies. They walk in their usual unhurried pace, heads swinging slowly from left to right, covering dozens of meters with each stride. They’re not yet close enough for me to feel the vibrations from their steps, but I know it won’t be long.
If I start shooting signal flares, it’ll be like lighting a huge billboard over my head, a blinking arrow pointing straight at my location. But in a few minutes, they’ll be close enough to spot the ATV anyway, and there aren’t many terrain features out here to hide in.
I decide I won’t be stomped flat while I’m running away from those bastards, and if the close-air units notice my flares, a drop-ship or attack-bird pilot may decide to give the area a closer look. I pluck the flare gun from the box, load it with one of the signal cartridges, and aim it roughly at the area between Sergeant Crawford’s line of travel and the spaceport. Then I pull the trigger. The flare round arcs into the sky and explodes in a dazzling red burst of pyrotechnic wizardry. There’s a sound component to the flare round as well, a sharp thunderclap that rolls over the Martian landscape like the report from a small artillery shell. I know that the flare also has components I can’t see—an electronic signal flare that will pop up on every TacLink screen within a ten-klick radius and a radio noisemaker that’s noticeable on comms gear even further away. I take the other four shells out of the emergency box and shoot them into the darkening Mars sky one by one. The cracks from the charges echo back from the nearby mountainsides.
The Lankies, now a kilometer away, react to the detonations of the emergency flares by swinging their heads toward the spot in the sky where the brilliant colors of the charges bloom, impossible to miss in a five-kilometer range unless you’re blind and deaf. However they make sense of their environment without eyes, they can sense us and our mechanical and chemical toys just fine. They alter their strides, quickening their pace, and shift their course slightly over to my right. With the flare gun empty, I toss it aside and kneel behind my propped-up rifle again.
“DISTANCE 944M. OUT OF RANGE.”
The anti-Lanky rounds have ballistic nose caps over the nasty-looking penetrator needles, but they are heavy and don’t have a massive propellant load, so they can’t reach further than about four hundred meters in direct fire if you still want to hit a Lanky, as big a target as they make. I keep my aim pointed on the lead Lanky and watch the skies for friendly air support that may have spotted the flares.