Battleground Mars

Chapter Five


The journey back to Huygens’s crater was uneventful, but not because there were no Taurons trying to block their way. Far from it, they were there, watching from the distant peaks and cliffs. Every man, driller and militia, was aware of them. There were small signs, movement where no movement should have been. Small dust clouds. On one occasion they’d seen a pair of them in the distanced. They were standing next to one of their own peculiar shaped drilling rigs. Each ignored the other, as they weren’t here for a fight. This time they took a different approach, heading south through the Plain of Xanthe, turning before they hit the bewildering maze of Mariner Canyons. Then they turned east along the Meridian Steppe until they came to the deep crater in which the Eastern Star laid, in its final resting place. Damian and his men stayed at the top with the two buggies, Rahm led the rest of them down into the crater and through the still-open hatch of the ship.
“How deep would you estimate the cargo hold is?” he asked Kacy. She was the technical expert, with the ship’s plans stored in her tablet.
She looked at the schematic. I’d guess it’s two decks below where we’re standing.”
She walked around the nearby cabins. “Yeah, that’d be about right. Two decks down.” She pointed to a hatch. “We need to make a start through here.”
Saul stepped forward and unclipped the steel lever and swung it open, just as Rahm was shouting, “no, leave it, wait!”
It was too late, a cascade of dust and sand poured through, leaving them knee deep. Nathan Wenders stepped forward with a spade.
“I guess this is where we start.”
Brad and Kaz followed him and shoulder to shoulder they worked to remove the debris that blocked the way to the hold. Kacy found pieces of alloy sheet from the broken internal walls and used her tools to fashion a chute. Saul and Rahm helped her to form a continuous, downward trough that led out of the airlock door and down into the crater. When they’d finished, they started to shovel the debris that the others had moved into the chute where it slid downwards in to the depths.
Every twenty minutes Rahm patrolled around the ship, making sure that it was still stable. His concern was that removing the weight of sand would unbalance the wreck and cause it to tip and slide downwards into the bottom of the crater. There’d been one or two bad moments when it gave a tiny lurch, but so far nothing to give any cause for alarm. He went back inside and continued shoveling. It took them six hours to clear the sand through to the cargo hold and there they had their first piece of luck. The airlock doors to the hold were largely undamaged, when the broke through they shone their torches down into a cavernous space that had not been invaded by the sand. The alloy crates containing the air scrubbers were tumbled into a huge heap, mixed together with the rest of the ships cargo.
“Was she carrying anything else that may be useful to us, Gabi?”
She swung out her tablet and checked through the datacard.
“There’s just the usual stuff, drilling equipment going back for repair. Oh yeah, they were carrying the surplus supplies of thermite explosive, I don’t think that would be any use to us. They stopped using that stuff years ago, it’s too dangerous.”
Rahm and Packer exchanged glances.
“Am I thinking what you’re thinking?” Saul asked. “It would be just as dangerous to the Taurons as it is to us?”
Rahm nodded. “We’ll take the thermite too. Kacy, make sure you identify all of those crates so that we only take out what we need. I don’t want to drag a load of unwanted stores back to Mars Base.”
They all laughed, remembering the story of the relief ship had had brought in twenty cases of baby milk. The transport cost from Earth would have made that the most expensive baby milk in the universe. When they’d stopped laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and the fate of the fool who had messed up their stores, the cooks had taken charge and merged the milk into their daily meals. For several months, everything they ate had the sweet taint of baby milk.
They spent two valuable hours carrying the crates up the ships ladders to the outside, where they were stacked. Rahm checked with Damian again, but there was still no sign of any Taurons. Saul tried to laugh it off.
“Maybe we’re going to get away with it, Rahm. They can’t cover every inch of the planet.”
“Saul, you know that they check out drilling sites to see what kind of yields we’re getting. That means they will be over at the Schiaparelli Crater. How can they be over there and not notice us here? They always send out patrols to sweep the area around their operations. No, what worries me is that they’re here and we haven’t seen them.”
“Damian’s people will keep a watch for them, they know their business.”
He nodded. “They’re good, I know that. But so are the Taurons.”
Only a few miles away, Granat watched the human activity around the Huygens Crater. He was stationed at the top of the Tyrranha Plateau, where he would sweep the area with his high-intensity optical scanner. He knew about the wreck inside the crater, of course. They’d watched it go down several years ago. Surely it was beyond repair, what could they be doing with it? He thought for a few moments, made a decision and summoned one of his troopers to him.
“Bakkar, I want you to go down to the Huygens crater and snoop around. Try and see what the humans are doing and beam images back to me here.”
“Yes, Sir,” the soldier acknowledged. “If they discover my presence, do I have permission to shoot my way out of trouble?”
“Only after you have sent the images, Bakkar, not before. A firefight could prevent you from getting your mission completed successfully. No shooting until after you have sent the images.”
“And if they shoot first in the meantime?”
“You will continue filming the inside of the crater and make sure you send the images back to me. Understood?”
“I understand, yes, Sir.”
They both understood. It was a suicide mission, in the best and finest traditions of the Tauron warrior caste.
“Goodbye, Bakkar.”
The trooper nodded and trotted off.”
Back inside the crater, Kacy had rigged up a block and tackle to hoist the crates to the top. There were twenty crates in all, fourteen with the Kettler-Hughes equipment and six with the thermite charges. Each crate took fifteen minutes to haul up to the lip of the crater and load onto the buggies. Five hours before they would be finished, so far, they were only half way. Rahm watched the eleventh crate begin its journey to the top. Saul was looking on anxiously.
“It’ll be dark before we’re done, we’ll have to watch our backs on the journey back. Thank God for these portable scrubbers, we’d have been out of air before the job was done.”
Rahm nodded. Buggies always carried tanks to top up when they were out on the surface, but there was no air to be had other than what they carried. He caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. When he looked around there was nothing, but he had to be sure.
“Saul, take a look at the lip of the crater, about five hundred yards from where we’re standing.”
“Taurons?”
“Could be. We need to check it out. Go over the rim and a few yards down the other side, work your way around him. I’ll wait until you’re in position and take him from the front. I’d sooner they didn’t know what we’re doing here.”
Saul nodded and slipped away. Rahm waited ten minutes and then started towards the place where he’d seen the movement. Halfway there, he drew his weapon and made sure it was ready to fire. Nearer and nearer he walked, forcing himself to keep going on. If there was a squad of alien monsters hiding on to of the crater’s rim, he could expect them to start shooting at him at any moment. So far, there was no sign. He drew nearer and nearer, still nothing. Maybe he was mistaken. Then the ground seemed to rear up as the monster leapt up in front of him. The Tauron had a Flakka fighting knife in his hand, aimed directly as Rahm’s guts. He twisted to avoid it and saw it whistle past his stomach, missing his pressure suit by no more than millimeters. He stepped back a few inches to give himself space, for a ripped pressure suit could be fatal. They had enough problems with air shortages without him creating any more.
He leveled his gun and saw his opponent hesitate for a moment, then lurch forward. They were incredibly fast, and he barely had time to get off a shot before the creature was almost on him. He fired again, but the shots were only slowing it, not stopping it. On the ground beside the alien was some kind of scanning equipment and Rahm realized instantly what it had been doing – sending pictures back to their base camp of their activity in the crater. Had he managed to get it working before he came up on him? He’d have to assume that he had. That meant they’d have company before long, he had to warn Damian Hacker. But before he could do anything, he had to deal with the monster that was coming at him again. He fired, three shots in quick succession, the creature staggered and then flung itself forward. It caught his hand holding the gun and the weapon was sent spinning out of his hand. He stood his ground and drew this knife, facing the monster in the most primal way. Man to man, knife to knife. The creature lunged and he twisted away again, slashing with his knife at the scaly throat that appeared in front of him, but it was like trying to cut steel. The blade merely glanced off and he had to dance back again to stop the Flakka knife from plunging into his pressure suit. As he moved his foot touched a loose rock and he felt himself stumbling, the long, slow motion fall in low gravity to the crater rim. The Tauron stood over him, its lips drawn back in a very human looking expression of cruel triumph. He prepared to throw himself to one side when the knife blade flashed down, but the creature stopped, stiffened and then crashed forward. He had to roll out of the way to stop it dropping on top of him. The body had a huge hole in the back of it, above it stood Saul Packer.
“I thought you might need a hand.”
Rahm nodded. “Thanks, but I’d got him where I wanted him, overconfidence was about to make him make a mistake.”
“Yeah, I could see that.”
They both smiled. In truth, both men knew how close it had been.
Granat watched the scene from Tyrranha Plateau. He’d seen it all, the images of the crates being hauled up from the ship, the approach of the human, the fight with Bakkar and the cowardly shot that had killed him. He’d died a good death, one that any of his comrades would be proud of. More importantly, Granat now knew what they had retrieved from the wreckage of the ship. Some of the crates carried explosives, and he ignored them, for they were just another mining tool. But the others contained air scrubbing equipment. His portable console had interrogated the markings and discovered the nature of the machinery. That was interesting. They wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble if they hadn’t been desperate for the equipment. So they were short of air. How could he exploit that particular problem? He’d have to give it some thought. The humans were even more reliant on air supplies than the Taurons. They’d experimented with captured air bottles and found that their enemies breathed a similar combination of oxygen and nitrogen. One of his warriors had even volunteered to breathe the mixture to see how it affected them. He’d died, of course, but not before they learned valuable lessons about their enemies. He keyed the combinations that would send the recording back to their base camp and then across their superfast transmission to Tauron. Once the technicians and scientists had analyzed it they would be able to offer suggestions for how to exploit the human weakness. Perhaps it would be enough to rid the planet of them for good. He carefully packed up his own equipment and started back to the drilling site at Schiaparelli Crater. If it was as productive as they’d thought, they’d exceed their quotas. That would give them time to put together a major offensive against these human lice. The instructions from his home planet, laid down by none other than Tabor, Lord and Dictator of the Universe, were clear. They needed trevanium, at whatever cost. Nothing was to interfere with the flow of the precious mineral. Nothing was to stop the quotas being fulfilled, and they'd made it clear that the penalty for failure was an ignominious death. But afterwards? Ah, that was different. Afterwards, they could slake their thirst on the blood of these inferior creatures who’d dared to lay claim to what his race was entitled to by right.
Rahm helped them load up the last of the crates. He and Saul had smashed the alien scanning equipment to little pieces, so they wouldn’t use that again to spy on them. Then they’d gone to urge the others on to greater speeds. The proximity of Taurons was a powerful motivator, they almost ran up and down the crater slope in their rush to finish the job and get back to Mars Base. What they carried was too precious to take any chances with. They could live without food for a long time, water for a short time. But air was something else. Without it they were lost. They returned without further incident, everyone was waiting for them when they drove into the garage. Fechter was at the front of the crowd.
“You got everything?”
“We did, yes. It’s ready for the engineers to take to the cave and start installing it. Gabi will go with them, because she’s the only one here with any knowledge of this machinery, how it all works and goes together.”
“I’d appreciate that, Rahm, if it’s ok by you.”
He wondered what the manager meant, then remembered that they all knew about her sleeping in his quarters. Did they think she was his property?
“Jacques, it isn’t my decision. You need to run it past her, not me.”
“Yeah, sure, I will. Good work, again. This could save us all from disaster.”
“Right. Another thing, we killed a Tauron scout. The probably know what we’re up to.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not stupid! Did you think that just because they look like funny monsters they haven’t got any brains?”
“No, I guess not, but they’re not like us. I mean…”
Rahm felt an overwhelming sense of weariness. History was packed with tales of men who had drastically underestimated their enemies. They all suffered the same fate, overwhelming defeat.
“Look, they’ve developed faster than light travel, so that they can travel from their home system of Alpha Centauri. That’s a huge leap, one that we’re still centuries away from making. They’re much cleverer than we are, and much more powerful in terms of their physical strength. They also appear to have a warrior cult, they’re prepared to fight and die for what they believe in, for their race. That makes them the most formidable and dangerous enemy the human race has ever met.”
Fechter’s face had drained as Rahm forcefully drove home the points, one by one.
“So you’re saying that they’ve got us beat?”
“No. We can beat them, but we have to remember that they’re clever and tough. As long as we keep that in mind we can do it. We’ve got something they haven’t a human consciousness, a history and a tradition of developing a just and fair society. We’ve got checks and balances, and we’ve got principles, trust, and a lot of things that go far beyond their blind, martial obedience. We need to play to our strengths, that way we can give them a good kicking every time it comes to a battle. We fight it the human way, not the Tauron way.”
Fechter nodded. “I’m not sure I agree with everything you’ve said, but it’ll do for now. Most of it makes sense. So what do you suggest we do next?”
“Kick their alien asses all the way back to where they came from. But first, let’s get the scrubbing machinery installed so that we can all breathe properly.”
Just then the alert sounded, and the overhead speaker system began blaring out the details of the attack.
“Warning, alien attack imminent, enemy massing five miles from Mars Base.”
Rahm looked at Fechter. “How did they get this close, Jacques? Why didn’t you have militia guards posted?”
“I thought we needed to conserve air, I brought the sentries in,” he replied weakly.
“How the hell did they get that close, I thought you were supposed to have militia guards posted out there,” Rahm snarled.
“I was, but I brought them in to conserve air,” Fechter replied weakly.
They rushed to the militia control room and eyed the screens. In fact the enemy was nearer to four miles away, there were almost a hundred of them. They looked to be well armed and well equipped. And they were setting up a defensive perimeter ready for a siege.
Jacques Fechter had the look of a man who had already lost the battle. Rahm ignored him. Gabi stood close by. He turned to her.
“Gabi, would you go and round up the engineer’s team to get out to the cave and install that new equipment. Find Dan Weathers, he’ll know what to do.”
She nodded and ran off. Damian Hacker bustled into the room.
“What gives?”
“You’ve seen our friends out there?”
“Yeah, I was just doing the rounds of our defenses.” He turned to the Base manager. “Jacques, what’s the plan?”
The man looked confused, tired and beaten. “You’d better ask Rahm,” he said.
“Sir, I’m your second in command, if anyone is to direct operations on Mars Base it should be me.” They looked around so see that Tobin Ryles had appeared, like the evil genie. Fechter walked away and left them looking at each other uncertainly. Ryles adopted a determined expression.
“Right, that puts me in charge. Damian, what are you dispositions for your militia?”
The military man looked at him with contempt. “F*ck off, Ryles, and stop being such an ass. You wouldn’t know a military disposition if it bit you on the bum. Rahm, I suggest we put together a plan before these ugly bastards get any nearer.”
Rahm nodded, the little deputy manager ignored and forgotten. “I’d suggest you set up a defensive line, I’ll organize the engineering party to get out to the caves. We could do with a couple of your men to look after them. We don’t know what we’ll find out there.”
“It makes sense, but if those bastards attack I’ll need every man. Can you send a couple of your men with them? Someone who knows their way around a laser rifle.”
He nodded. “Right, I’ll send Saul and Kaz. They’re the best I have. We’re not doing any drilling, so I guess it won’t make any difference.”
They split up to make a start. Ryles watched them go with a look of smoldering anger on his face. Hacker noticed it and made a mental note to warn Rahm. Without doubt, the guy was planning on causing trouble. In Mars Base, with the Taurons outside and their air running low inside, it could be a recipe for disaster. Then he went looking for his men, it was time to prepare to kick some alien ass.
Dan Weathers barked orders to his engineers and they loaded the crates into their maintenance buggy. They suited up and climbed aboard, Gabi made to join them. Rahm stopped her.
“Whatever happens out there, Saul and Kaz will keep their eyes out for you. They’re the best, you can rely on them.”
She smiled. “I know, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine. We’ll install the new equipment and get straight back here.”
“Do you have any idea of how long it’ll take?”
“We’ll have to work through the night, so we’ll be back by about midday tomorrow. I wish I could kiss you before I go.”
He grinned. “I’ll take a rain check on that one. Just come back to me.”
“I will.
She climbed aboard. Kaz and Saul went past him. “She’ll be fine,” Kaz said.
“Yeah, I know.”
The buggy drove into the airlock and the inner door closed. The air equalized with the outside and they drove out onto the Martian surface as the outer door opened. Then the doors quietly closed, sealing them away from the hostile Martian environment. He also felt a sense of loss. That Tauron spy on the edge of the crater made him feel more and more uneasy. Without doubt they’d seen what they were doing, the nature of the cargo they had recovered. That meant that they guessed they were running low on air. They weren’t stupid, as he’d told Jacques. They’d put two and two together, working out that the cessation of mining operations and the mission to recover the air scrubbing machinery told of a desperate and dangerous plight. They must know that if they could stop the humans from repairing their air scrubbers, the planet would almost certainly be there’s. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. Until he couldn’t take any more inactivity and he went to find the rest of his crew.
They sat around the table, Rahm with Brad, Nathan and Kacy while he explained his fears.
“Are you really sure about this?” Nathan asked. “I would have thought the best thing would be to go to Jacques Fechter, he’s the Base manager. He’ll need to take action.”
“Jacques has given up. I would guess it’s some kind of a mental collapse.”
Kacy sighed. “So all that’s left is that little creep Tobin Ryles to run things around here?”
“That’s about it.”
“So what do we do?”
“I want to mount a pre-emptive strike against the Taurons that are out there. If we hit them before they hit us, it’ll keep their minds away from what we’re trying to do with the air scrubbers.”
“You think they suspect?” Kacy asked, appalled.
“I’m sure they do.”
“Jesus Christ. They’ll go after the engineering crew. Isn’t Gabi with them?”
He nodded.
“Is that the reason, Rahm? Why you’re so worried.”
“If they hit that crew for any reason, we’re all finished. So yes, I care about Gabi, but it’s more than that. They could do enough damage to kill us all, and then we’ll just run out of air.”
“I guess you’ll need more people then, Rahm.”
They looked around. Josh DeVries had come up to their table, together with his crew.
“You’re ready to throw in with us, Josh?”
He old driller nodded. “If those lizard-heads attack the engineering crew before they get the air scrubbers back on line, we’re all dead, isn’t that what you said?”
Rahm nodded.
“Well then, we ain’t going to sit here and wait for the end. We’re with you. We’ve still got the laser cannon mounted on the buggy from when we came in from that last operation. I guess we could put it to good use. Where are Saul and Kaz?
He told them.
“So you’re two men short, all the more reason you’re going to need us. We’re in.”
He thanked them and they began making preparations for the foray. Night was drawing in and they decided that they’d have to wait for daylight. In the dark they could easily blunder into a Tauron warband, they needed to see where they were going. He had a couple of shots of Bourbon, but kept his consumption to a minimum. Whatever else, he wanted a clear head to the morning. He woke to a clamor in the Base, people were running along the passageways and the alarm was sounding its strident warning. He rushed out and grabbed the nearest passer-by.
“What the hell’s going on? Is it a Tauron attack?”
The man turned a frightened face to him. Rahm ignored him and rushed ran into the control room. What gives?”
Josh DeVries was already there. “They tracked the engineering crew part of the way out to the cave. They’ve shifted half of their troops in ambush, they’re cut off.”
“Are they still safe?”
“So far, yes, but they can’t complete the job.”
“Jesus Christ, why not?”
For a moment he had nightmare images of Gabi having been killed or wounded.
“The scrubbers require grafilek crystals to complete the process. When the old machinery broke down the old grafilek gradually decayed. Without some new supplies they can’t bring it online.”
“Do we have new supplies here on Mars Base?”
Josh looked nervous. “A little, but not enough. The only place we have any more, anything like enough to make it work, is…”
“The portable air scrubbers.”
Josh nodded. “Exactly.”
Jacques walked into the control room and there was silence. He’d obviously had a night’s sleep and looked much better. Probably the doctor had given him something too. He shouted for their attention, although he had it anyway.
“Listen up. We have a situation here. The engineers…”
“We all know the situation, Jacques. The question is how we resolve it.”
“I’m sending an armed squad to force its way through, they’ll take all the grafilek we have. I’ll have to have those portable units, Rahm.”
They looked around as Damian Hacker entered. Rahm walked over and brought hi up to date with what had happened. The security chief squashed Fechter’s plan flat.
“You send out the last of our grafilek, Jacques, and you’re risking everything on one throw of the dice. We need to engage the Taurons and get the material through to the engineers as a separate operation.
“But, that’ll divide our forces, I can’t possibly agree to that.”
“It’s that or die, my friend.”
“We’re going out there, Jacques,” Rahm said quietly. “Whether you like it or not.”
When the arguments died down, Fechter finally agreed to the sense of their plan. Damian Hacker was to lead a squad of twelve men, drawn from his militia and those miners who had military training. Rahm would lead the squad that made for the cave with the last of their grafilek. They handed out the portable air scrubbers to those men going out on the surface, there were pitifully few left to cannibalize for the remaining crystals. They carefully took them to pieces and extracted the crystals and put them in a sealed container with their reserve supply.
“Will it be enough?” Josh asked. “It doesn’t look very much.”
“It’ll have to do,” Rahm replied. “Are you ready to go?”
“Let’s suit up and do it.”
When they were ready they were forced to wait for the attack team to go out first. Their mission was simple, to divert the Tauron’s attention so that Rahm’s team could slip by with their precious cargo. They watched the troopers leave and waited twenty minutes. Hacker’s intention was to drive straight at the enemy, all guns blazing. When that had their attention they would vector away towards the Plain of Araby, aiming for the Cassini Crater. On the way there was a small, little known and uncharted area of deep, shifting sands. With luck, they’d lead the enemy into the shifting sands and leave them floundering in its depths. There, they could pick them off at will. That, anyway, was the plan. Inside Mars Base they heard Hacker’s troop open fire and the sounds of a pitched battle raging. Rahm made a last minute check. Then he turned to his force.
“Let’s roll!”
They traveled in the opposite direction to Hacker, along narrow channels in the Martian surface. They were probably what had once been thought of as canals. They kept their buggies away from the skyline as they drove towards the cave. They were almost there when one of Josh’s men called over the intercom.
“I can see Tauron sentries, two of them. About five hundred yards ahead.”
The stopped their vehicles and dismounted. Two Taurons stood on the surface, about ten yards from the channel. It was enough to block their path. They were engaged in some kind of a curious ritual with their weapons. Perhaps like martial arts katas, they were whiling away the time by practicing their skills.
“Josh, stay here. Brad, we need to hit them hard and close, I don’t want any messages going out over their communications net. Can you manage to dismount and bring that cannon?
He nodded. “There’s a tripod mount in the buggy, you bring that and we can assemble it closer to those sentries.”
Rahm took out the alloy structure and together they crept carefully along the base of the channel until they were only fifty yards from the Taurons. They could hear their grunts now as they engaged in their fierce martial games. They set up the tripod and mounted the huge cannon and Rahm made the final adjustments. He nodded, “when you’re ready,” drew his pistol and waited while Brad sighted on the aliens. Brad fired and effect was spectacular. Both monsters disintegrated as they were hit with the massive burst. Where once there had been two huge, threatening monsters, there were now only two corpses on the ground, broken and bleeding the peculiar green blood.
Nathan brought up their buggy, driving behind Josh DeVries. They climbed in next to Kacy and the two vehicles traveled the rest of the way to the cave. The entrance was concealed, large enough to accept their buggies so that they were out of sight. As they drove inside, Gabi was waiting for them. She smiled with relief when Rahm appeared. Josh’s men piled out and covered up the entrance, and then they walked through to the machinery cave. Dan Weathers was waiting for them.
“Did you bring them?”
Josh handed over the small box of grafilek. Dan looked inside.
“This is it? This is everything you could find?”
“We ripped out the portable air scrubbers, after we found there was a small quantity in the stores, so that’s every crystal we have. Apart from what’s inside our own portable scrubbers.”
He was thoughtful for a few moments. “Well, I’ll try it. The machinery is all installed ready to go. As soon as we feed in the crystals it’ll tell us is there are enough.”
He went to a control console, flicked some buttons and a small hatch opened next to him. He tipped the crystals inside, pressed a button and the hatch closed. Another sequence of keys and the machinery started to work.
“That’s it?” Rahm asked. “Is it working ok?”
Dan smiled. “Not quite yet. It’ll process those crystals, and then run them through to the main air scrubbing mechanism. There’s an indicator here,” he pointed to a digital readout. “As soon as there is enough to recycle our air the bar goes into the green. At the moment it’s in the read, because it’s empty. As the crystals are processed, the bar will creep towards the green.”
“And if it only goes halfway and stays in the orange?”
Dan sighed. “In that case, our air will only be partially scrubbed. It’ll still be full of poisonous carbon dioxide. Better than no air at all, but if we breathe it for too long we’ll die.”
“Right.”
They watched the line creep up, slowly. Gabi came to join him and he looked at her.
“You ok?”
She smiled, but it was strained. “I’ll feel better when we get back to Mars Base.”
“Yeah, I’ll feel better when we get back to Earth. I’d give ‘em my bonus in return for a few mouthfuls of clean, sweet mountain air.”
She was about to reply when Dan called over to them.
“It’s not enough.”
The joined him at the console. The line had stopped.
“What now, Dan?”
The engineer looked at Rahm. “It’s as I said, it’ll help, but the air will be poor quality. The only way to improve things would be to use more grafilek. If we stripped out every last crystal from the rest of the portable scrubbers, that would probably do it.”
“And leave us with no backup if the system goes down again.”
He shrugged. “Those are the options. We can’t have it all ways.”
“There is another way.”
They all looked at Rahm. Josh smiled, “hey, if you’re holding out on us, let us know your plan.”
“It’s this, Josh. We have to take precautions in case the Taurons hit us hard again and they could even find their way to this place. I’m suggesting we finish those bastards once and for all. This planet is hostile enough, let’s reduce the odds.”
“Kill all of the Taurons? Are you crazy? They wouldn’t let us get near them.”
“We could do it. They’re tough and they’re clever, but they’re not human. That’s our edge.”
They were all thoughtful. Dan picked up the handset to communicate with Mars Base.
“First off, I’ll let them know that they’ve got some air over the main system, it’s better than what they’re managing with at the moment. Then I suggest we get back. It’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say about your plan.”
The climbed into the buggies and started back for Mars Base. They stopped briefly next to the two dead Taurons and Rahm stripped off the one surviving breathing set. In answer to their questioning glances, he said, “I just want to know what makes these bastards tick. It could help us.”
They headed back to Mars Base. Rahm kept looking down at the Tauron breathing equipment, as soon as he could get it into the workshop he’d dismantle it and see it if could help them. Was it possible that the Taurons breathed a mixture similar to their own? Possible, yes. Likely? No.
“You want us to what?” Tobin Ryles eagerly laughed down the proposal. “We’re here to mine trevanium, Rahm, not start a f*cking war. Have you lost your brains?”
He ignored the man and spoke directly to Fechter. “Jacques, we didn’t start this, they did. They keep hitting us and putting us on the back foot. I believe if we hit them hard enough we’ll either finish them for good or give them such a bloody nose that they leave us alone. We’ve got a crappy life support system that still won’t allow us to carry on drilling for the mineral. Either we hit them or we go to bed and watch old movies until the relief arrives. Or the Taurons hit us again and next time do some damage that we can’t repair.”
The argument raged, and Ryles was against any kind of action, as were a few of the miners, who wanted to opt for the so-called ‘safe’ option. The rest of them were heartily sick of letting the alien monsters call the shots, and clamored for the chance to go out and finish them for good. It was the manager, Jacques Fechter, who would have the last word. Once more he retreated into a shell of indecision.
“We need to think about this, men. I don’t want to do something that’ll make our problems worse. We’re still waiting for Damian Hacker’s men to come back from their raid. Let’s see how well they do. I’m not saying that I feel we should sit and do nothing. I need to think about it.”
The meeting broke up when someone shouted through into the crowded room.
“Damian’s people are coming in now”
They swept out of the room and along the passageway to the garage.
The buggies came through the inner airlock door and parked in the garage. Rahm counted the men, there were two missing. Damian climbed down from the vehicle. He looked exhausted as he removed his pressure suit. At first he looked solemn. Then his face split in a wide grin.
“We kicked the shit out of them!”
The crews cheered, and there was pandemonium for a few moments. Finally he held up his hands and shouted for quiet.
“I’m not saying it was easy. I lost two of my best men and we took a few hits. What I am saying is that if we attack them in the right way, surprise them with tactics they’re not expecting, we can beat them. That means we can clear their ugly asses right off the surface of the planet and carry on with our mining operations.” He looked around, noticing that they were not using breathing masks. “Does this mean what I think it means? You’ve fixed the air scrubbers?”
He looked at Dan, who shrugged. “Yes and no, my friend.
He explained about the partial fix, the machinery repaired yet short of enough crystals to operate it at full capacity.
“So we’re still in lockdown?”
Fechter stepped forward. “Not lockdown, Damian. We can move around freely and do as we want inside the base. But it means that we can’t undertake any drilling outside, there just isn’t enough air.”
None of them saw Rahm walk away, except for Gabi. She followed him to the Base workshop. He clutched the breathing mask he’d taken from the Tauron.
“What gives, Rahm? What are you doing with that thing?”
She looked closer. “There’s something wet on it, something green. Ugh, my God, it’s their blood.”
He grinned at her. “I’ll wipe it off. As to what I’m doing, there are about a hundred and fifty Taurons on Mars, give or take a few. What if their breathing equipment is similar to ours? If we manage to beat them, that’s an awful lot of breathing equipment that we could use. It could get our mining operation back on course.”
She took the mask off him. “Let me dismantle it. I’ve dealt with lots of similar things back at training school.”
She stood at the bench, stripping it down to its component parts. Rahm admired her as she worked. She was slender, yet with the strength of one who made there living from working with both their hands and their brain. Her body reminded him of a long distance athlete, or even a ballet dancer, with that inner steel surrounded by an outward grace. He remembered he in bed, her warm flesh pressed against his own, and her athletic agility that made the act so memorable. He grinned inwardly as he felt himself becoming aroused. He needed to keep his mind on the job. Not the other job. She was peering at the readouts on here analyzer and didn’t look up as she spoke.
“If you need to take a cold shower, I can wait.”
His grin surfaced. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
“Because I’m a woman. Now concentrate. The Taurons use oxygen and nitrogen to breathe in a similar way to what we do. I guess that it’s a prerequisite for life on any planet. The difference is in the proportions. They use twice as much oxygen as we do. As well as that there are some trace gases that are not present in our own air on Earth.”
“Does that mean…?”
He stopped. There was an enormous explosion and the overhead lighting failed. They were in pitch black for a few seconds while the emergency lights switched in. They walked out into the main complex.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the Taurons. They hit our main power generators. We’ve lost our electrical power. We’ve lost everything.”