Battleground Mars

Chapter Six


Granat waited on a low hill close to Chryse Gulf. He watched his team go in. Five of his warriors, they were all young, all desperate to prove their bravery and loyalty. At first it had been difficult to persuade them of the new concept of warfare. His race was brought up to the glories of warrior combat, of men face to face with their enemy, fighting to the bitter end. Until one died and the other lived. This was something new, but so were the humans that they fought. How could a race that was do weak, so primitive, so lacking in the technology of the Taurons become such a formidable opponent? Yet they managed to surprise his forces again and again. The message from Tabor, Lord and Dictator of the Universe, had been unequivocal. They were falling behind in their quotas of trevanium. There was criticism of Granat for squandering too many resources fighting the humans when they should be mining for the precious mineral. The message ended with a typical, brief command. Finish the humans once and for all and bring home the trevanium. No matter what tactics you use, it is essential that you ensure that our ships return to Tauron with their holds stocked to capacity. Otherwise, he would hold Granat responsible. End this foolhardy and petty squabbling now! Or else. He’d pondered the message and decided to waste five of his young warriors to destroy the human’s power installation. They approached with the explosives strapped to their bodies, and each had a trigger on their belt. They were to attempt to place the charges and leave, detonating them as they went. If anything went wrong, they would blow themselves up for the glory of Tauron. It would also save his reputation, of course, but that was incidental. These humans had to pay for all the trouble they’d caused him. The rest was easy, as soon as his warriors were near the building he’d used the remote detonator. He chuckled, it was so easy to arrange. Now these humans would cower in their Mars Base until they died from failure of their life support. It was perfect, at last he’d dealt them a blow from which they’d never recover. They’d die, here, no the surface of Mars. He stood at the top of the hill, proud and erect. He shouted his defiant cry, and the eerie tremolo echoed across the barren surface of Mars.
There was almost a panic in the canteen, men were running around and shouting for help. Fechter, for once, was working hard to control the panic.
“Men, listen. Go to emergency lockdown procedure. Dan Weathers is looking at it now, Damian Hacker is reviewing the security situation, and we’ll know what to do when they report back.”
They ignored him. For several minutes more crews were hunting in vain for ways to bring the electrics back on line. Eventually, Dan Weathers came in and shouted for them to listen. Fechter and Damian Hacker joined him.
“It’s like this,” the old engineer said in a voice pitched to reach all around the room. He was as aware as any of them of the dangers of uncontrolled panic. “Our first estimation was correct. The Taurons managed to destroy to our power generators. They managed to get a suicide team close to the power house and set off their charges.”
He was about to go on when Tobin Ryles snapped, “How long to fix it, Dan? We can’t last for long without it.”
“Fix it? We can’t fix it, because we don’t have the spare parts we’d need to make a repair. It’s kaput.”
“Damn.” Jacques Fechter swore as he looked wildly around the room as if for inspiration. “You know what this means? All our plans are on hold, we can’t attack, and we can’t continue the drilling. We’ll just have to sit and wait it out.”
There was a collective groan in the room, but Dan stopped them by holding up a hand.
“No, that’s not the situation, Jacques. It’s a lot worse than that.”
“What aren’t you telling us, Dan?”
“I hadn’t finished. What I’m trying to say is that all that work we did on the air scrubbers was in vain. They need power to operate. Now that we’ve lost it, we can write them off. Not only that, we used up all of our reserve portable units.
“So what do we do?” Fechter asked. His voice had taken on a whining note. It sounded shaky and frightened.
“Nothing. There’s nothing we can do, Jacques. In about three weeks we’ll run out of air.”
The entire complex went silent as the considered the enormity of what he’d told them. In effect, it was a death sentence. The relief ship was delayed, so at best they had eight months to wait. Yet all they had was air for three weeks. A driller ran up to Dan and made to attack him, two other men had to drag him off. The noise of panicked shouting started to rise again. Rahm stepped forward into the middle of the room.
“I’m going home!” he said in a voice that was loud enough to reach every corner of the room. “Those green eyed lizards aren’t stopping me and anyone that wants to come with me.”
“How? How are you going to do it?” Fechter shouted desperately. “There’s no way, we’ve…”
“Shut up, Jacques. Here’s what we do. We keep to plan, we go out and attack those bastards and put an end to them once and for all.”
“Now hang on,” Dan said. “I agree we shouldn’t let them get away with it, but it won’t help us.”
“Why not, Dan? We can seize their equipment and modify it for ourselves. Tell them, Gabi.”
She stood squarely and faced the tough miners, a tiny figure that looked almost absurd. What could she do about anything, she was just a kid? But when she spoke, her voice was confident and strong.
“It’s true. Their systems are similar to ours, so similar that we can adapt them for our own use. They’ve destroyed our life support system, so it’s only fair that we take what we need from them.”
They were doubtful at first, but she patiently explained to them the technical composition of the different air supplies and the modifications necessary to make them usable. By the time she’d finished speaking, they were clamoring to go out and do battle.
“Everyone, listen.” Rahm waited for quiet. “We need to organize this properly, if we do it right we’ll take them by surprise and finish them. The first problem we have is air. We only have a few portable scrubbers left. Until we can liberate some of the Tauron equipment, we’re going to be limited to about fifteen men on any one raid. So I suggest we start with guerrilla type operations and hit their drilling teams. Each time we’ll reclaim their breathing gear and bring it back for modification. And as we get the equipment converted, we can mount bigger and bigger raids.”
“What if they manage to beat your guerilla group?” Ryles said with a sneer. “That’ll mean you’ll have lost several portable air scrubbers for nothing. We’ll have even less here to maintain life.”
“So, you’d only have air for two weeks instead of three? Is that what you’re saying, you’d sooner die a lingering death than go out and fight like a man?”
Ryles flushed. “I’m trying to take a balanced view, that’s all.”
They ignored him once more and went to the garage to prepare. Ryles returned to his quarters, he had a lot of thinking to do. They’d humiliated him too much, it was time he found a way to repay them. They’d realize that he wasn’t a man to cross.
Rahm and Damian held a council of war in the garage while crews rushed around to prepare the buggies. They had a chart of the surface fixed to the wall. Both men looked at the current Tauron operation. Rahm put his finger on a point to the south west of Chryse Gulf. The Harmakis Valley.
“There. That’s where we can hit them first.”
“It’s a long trip,” Damian objected. “They could see us coming.”
“We’ve never traveled that way before, though. They won’t be expecting us. Could you estimate the number of miners they’ll have working here?”
Damian was thoughtful. “This chart is from one of our orbital overflights, of course. The infra-red returns suggest at least five, anything up to ten of them working at any one time.”
“That’s perfect. Why don’t we go straight out there and hit them before they even realize we’re on the warpath?”
The militia leader nodded. “Good, I agree. Let’s do it.”
“I’m coming with you.”
They looked around. Gabi Aaronsen stood there, a smidgeon over five feet, she reminded Rahm of a pocket Amazon.”
“Gabi, this is going to be a nasty, fight with plenty of blood and death. We’re going in fast and hard. We could easily take casualties.”
“You’re also desperately short of air. Who else can jerry-rig the Taurons masks for us to use on the journey back?”
“You can do that?” Damian asked.
Rahm smiled. He knew when he’d lost.
They travelled across the south of the planetary surface, eight of them packed into one buggy. Their capacity to recharge the power packs was severely diminished and it was decided that to use two vehicles would be too much of a drain on resources. Damian drove, Rahm was next to him in the front with Gabi. Behind him were Saul Packer and Kaz Yasan, his two best fighters. There were two of Damian’s militiamen squeezed in next to them, with Brad Haakon manning the laser cannon. They were all heavily armed with sidearms and laser rifles. Rahm reflected that out of all of them, these were the best men available. If they couldn’t do the job, no one could. Each of them had one of the precious portable air scrubbers. They needed to know they had enough air to get there and back if they were going to have the confidence to go into the fight and expect to win. In short, they had the best that the depleted resources of Mars Base could offer. The buggy plunged south, through the Aonia Desert, crossed the Sirenia Desert and skirted the Cimerian Desert. The only landmark of any note was the Kepler Crater, other than that the landscape was flat and empty. Just an endless, rolling series of deserts. They left the area of the Kepler Crater and begun to see the landscape change. They were coming up on Harmakis Valley. Each man was plagued with the thought that if they failed, they’d shorten their comrade’s lifetimes by several days. Even though they might die anyway, it was an awesome responsibility. Not one that any of them cared to saddle on their way to do battle with the enemy.
“Target in sight,” Brad called down from his elevated gun position.
Rahm scrambled up to the top of the buggy frame to check. He had to use his imaging scanner, but he was able to make out a typical Tauron drilling operation. He switched to infra red, and counted eight heat sources. Eight monsters for them to deal with. He’d have preferred it to have been less, but they’d have to cope. They had to win.
“We’ll need to go in on foot,” Rahm said, almost to himself.
“It’s one possibility, but they’re a long way away. I’d estimate two miles. We could drive straight at them, top speed, hit them while they’re still gathering their wits and take them out as we go past.”
“You mean like a drive-by shooting?” Gabi asked.
The men exchanged smiles. “Something like that,” Damian replied. “But I think we’ll use a little more finesse than your average street gangster.”
“Let’s do it, straight in and tear them to pieces.” They looked at the diminutive technician.
“You’re after some Tauron blood, eh?” Damian mused.
“As long as it isn’t Tauron air supplies, yes, I am. Just make sure you all aim low and don’t damage their breathing sets.
They checked their weapons. “All set, Brad?” Rahm called to their gunner.
“Just say the word, boss. I’m ready to fry those green bastards.”
“Hit it, Damian.”
He hit the accelerator and the buggy surged forward. They held on tightly as it bumped across the rocky terrain. For the first mile they felt it unlikely that they’d be seen. Buggy engines were electric and the thin Martian atmosphere made the passage of sound difficult. The most likely giveaway would be the unexpected movement. When they were halfway, Rahm spotted a shallow ravine that led to almost to the drilling site. He pointed it out to Damian and the militia chief pointed the buggy’s nose over and into the shallow channel. The base of the ravine was pocked and pitted with holes, between them were large rocks, large enough to tip them over or smash their underside. Damian fought the wheel while they hung on to stop themselves being pitched out onto the rocky ravine floor. He stopped once and got out to make a visual sighting, then climbed back in.
“I used the targeting indicator to check their distance. They’re exactly three hundred and forty two yards ahead of us. Two hundred and ten yards further there’s a ramp that leads out of the ravine and onto the plain where they’ve got their rig. We go up there and charge in, all guns blazing.”
“Aim low” Gabi reminded them
“Yeah, aim low, that’s right. Let’s go.”
He jammed his foot on the pedal and they surged forward again, almost at once they were swerving up and over the lip of the ravine and on the surface, dead ahead, lay the Martian drilling rig. Damian heads straight for them, only veering away at the last instant to give his people a chance at an uninterrupted field of fire.
The Taurons were sitting ducks. Tough, clever, sitting ducks but they were unable to respond. The buggy shot past them, all guns blazing. Brad used the heavy cannon to devastating effect. The laser rifles prevented any of the Taurons from physically jumping at the hurtling vehicle while the cannon shredded armored, scaly flesh and bone. Green blood poured out onto the Martian surface, Damian swung around for another pass but he stopped as they drew alongside the drillhead. Five of the monsters were dead, and three were writhing in agony from the heavy fire they’d sustained. They walked around with their rifles and finished them off at point blank range. Gabi stripped off their breathing masks and put them carefully in the buggy. There were five serviceable ones and three that had sustained damage, but she hoped to be able to cannibalize them to make one more useful set. Rahm noticed her shudder as she worked to remove the breathing sets. It was not pleasant work, as the Taurons were gruesome enough in life. In death, shattered by continuous heavy laser bursts that split their bodies apart, they were ghastly. But she made no protest and finished her task.
“Is there any of their other equipment we could use?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. We have more than enough drilling equipment, it's not that. The problems we’re facing are insufficient air and power.”
She stopped and thought for a moment. “Of course, they use power. I wonder if it bears any similarity to ours.”
She walked over to their transport. The vehicle was similar to their Martian buggies, but much larger. It was also armored, so that it could be used as a troop carrier as well as a vehicle to transport miners and the ore the wrested from the depths. A cable led from an allow casing inside the vehicle to the drillhead.
“This is it, it powers the drill. It’s some kind of a generator, I suggest we take it back to us and examine it. We could find a way to adapt their technology to ours. It’s not likely, but if we did, we could get the power back on at Mars Base.”
Saul Packer looked inside the transport and laughed. “Gabi, this thing’ll weigh a ton. We’re already overloaded. We can’t take that back too.”
“So why not take the transporter back with us too? They haven’t got any more use for it.”
She indicated the wrecked bodies on the ground. The men looked at each other. Their expressions were more than sheepish, they were plain embarrassed.
“Well, yeah, of course. That’d be a good idea,” Saul said. “I’ll work out the controls and drive it back.”
Before we go, we need to do something,” Rahm said. “I brought along some thermite explosive. I want to destroy this lot, bodies, drilling rig, everything.”
“Why?” Saul asked. “We’ve put it all beyond use. They can’t get this lot working again.”
“I want to hide the fact that we’ve taken their breathing masks. If they know that, they’ll know we’ve got problems with our life support and they’ll try and hit us again where we’re vulnerable.”
He nodded his understanding and left Rahm to place the charges with a timed detonator. Damian’s men piled the bodies around the drillhead so that there was one, large pile that could be destroyed beyond recognition.
“Gabi, you and I had better go with him, I’ll bring the rifles and you can check out the technical side in case we have any problems.”
She nodded and climbed aboard. The unfamiliar vehicle was strange, and the first oddity they noticed was that there were no seats. Apparently every Tauron traveled standing, even the driver. Saul started working out how to operate the controls. At one point they were nearly thrown out onto the surface when the transport lurched forward, but Saul hastily reversed the control to where it had been and they stabilized. He nodded at Damian and the buggy went gently ahead. Saul jerked and stalled several times but got the hang of it and after the first two miles was able to follow without problems. They increased speed and raced across the surface, and arrived back inside Mars Base without mishap.
Gabi worked through the night on the breathing sets. Rahm and Damian waited in the canteen, if she was able to adapt a set for their use, it would change the whole equation. There would be air on Mars, all they had to do was go out and take it. The level of the bourbon bottle went lower, but they couldn’t do anything other than wait. Finally Gabi came into the canteen. She was wearing a Tauron breathing mask, with the face plate modified and bent into a shape that followed her facial contours.
“Are you really breathing through that thing?” Saul asked in wonderment.
She nodded. “Yep, just this, and nothing else. It works!”
Her eyes were shining in triumph. She deserved her moment too, Rahm reflected. She’d performed a wonder.
“So all we need to do is take enough sets from the Taurons and we can keep our air supply running,” he said to her.
“It’s more than that, Rahm. They use small quantities of grafilek. If we can get to their main source, the scrubber that processes all of their air, we can use it for our own system.”
“If we had enough power to make it work.”
He cursed himself as he said it. A shadow came over her face and he saw the tiredness in her eyes. “Yes, if we had the power,” she muttered. “I’d forgotten about that.”
She took off the mask and wiped her eyes.
“Rahm?”
He looked at her. “Yes?”
I’ve had enough for one day. Take me to bed.”
So she’d forgiven him for his remark about the power. “Sure thing, Ma’am.”
They made love in a much slower and tenderer way than the first time. It was as if they’d both decided that this relationship was going to last. They’d passed the one night stand phenomenon and had each decided to trust the other. Rahm reflected on the sheer, stunning excitement of their first time. But this was something more, they gloried in each other’s bodies, caressing each other, stroking and exploring, finally surging to a mutual climax that sent them into the dizzying heights of the most exquisite passion. Yet afterwards, neither of them was tired anymore. They lay together, quietly, until she spoke.
“You’re like a different man when you fight, you know. Like tiger. I can almost see your back arch, your chin goes up, your eyes kind of slit and you take up a stance that looks as if you’re ready to take on the world.”
“Mm, I guess it’s the adrenaline, I believe it can do that.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s who you are, what you are. Tell me, what happened on Earth?”
He was instantly alert. “What do you mean?”
“In Afghanistan. You were attacked and they murdered most of your people. I gather that you froze. Why did you freeze?”
He was silent for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But finally, he did.
“I never knew what happened, Gabi. Did I freeze? I guess, yeah, I did. Ok, yeah, I froze. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“I already knew that, Rahm. It’s in the files, besides, it’s in the news reports from the time. But that wasn’t what I was asking you, was it? I asked you why? Do you know the reason?”
“No, I do not,” he replied shortly.
Again, there was a long silence.
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“Not really, no.”
He felt the room growing colder. It wasn’t just the lack of power for the main heating systems, as they still hadn’t cooled too much. He wanted her to stop, to shut up. He wanted her to go. To leave him alone.
“I want to help you, Rahm. This is a ghost that won’t go away, so you need to deal with it.”
“I deal with it fine,” he snapped.
She was quiet for a moment. “Share with me, please,” she whispered eventually. “Why won’t you have a simple scan when we get back on Earth? You’ll know then what the problem is when you get the result. It’ll take a few minutes, that’s all.”
He struggled to control his anger. Didn’t she understand why not? Damn her, why couldn’t she drop it. Finally, he burst out, “and if the scan came up negative? I’ll be branded a coward, which is crazy. I’m not afraid of anything, when the time comes to fight, I’ll fight. I’ll always defend my people, always. Period!”
“But you’re afraid of taking a brain scan.”
He was silent again, thinking. Yes, it was true. He was afraid. Not of the scan, but of it coming up negative and by association branding him a coward. He thought back to that raid, the raiders smashing into the complex, looting, raping and murdering. Afterwards, there was blood. So much blood.
“It’s ok, Rahm. I think I understand, but one more thing, I know you want me to drop this. Before I do, you should know that there are hundred of reasons why someone can suddenly freeze up. Most won’t show up on a scan, but they don’t mean you’re less of a man, less of a person.”
“Look, forget the damned scan. It happened, and I have to live with it. That’s it!”
“Ok, sure, you’re right, I shouldn’t have said anything,” she replied quickly. “It’s finished, ok?”
But he knew it wasn’t finished. The stain was still there for weasels like Tobin Ryles to hurl in his face. It was his cross to bear. At least he’d lived, when the others had died.
When he woke up, she was gone. He washed in cold water, for there wasn’t enough power for the shower, either to heat the water or to pump it through the shower head. He decided not to bother with a shave and dressed in yesterday’s underclothes. There would be nothing cleaned until the power was restored, and that didn’t look to be anything they could look forward to soon. There was no sign of Gabi in the canteen so he went looking for her. He found her in the workshop. Her eyes were red with lack of sleep.
“I’ve been working on the alien power source,” she said in answer to his question.
“What, all night?”
“Yes, I couldn’t sleep. We’re close to getting over our life support problems, but you’re correct, until we can fix the power, we’re not going anywhere.”
“Can’t Dan do anything about the main system, surely it can be repaired?”
She shook her head. “The monsters did too good a job on it. All that’s left is twisted, broken alloy, plastics and polymers.”
“Doesn’t electricity come from dynamos driven by motors?”
She giggled. “Now I know you’re a dinosaur. Yes, it used to. These days it’s a more complicated process, part of it is a chemical reaction between some of the elements we mine here on Mars with and rare metals that we brought with us from Earth. It’s very complicated and rather fragile, I’m afraid. That’s why it was so utterly destroyed.”
“But surely, we could make some power by using the old system, a motor that drives a dynamo.”
She smiled again. “Sure, it could, in theory. The trouble is that all of our motors here on Mars are electrical. We’ve no energy to charge them.”
“What about the Tauron motors?”
She looked puzzled as she tried to remove a component from a piece of alien equipment. “What about them?”
“They run fine, after all, we drove back in that transport. I mean, their motors drive the wheels, just like ours do. Why can’t we use their own transport motors to power up dynamos to give us some power?”
She shook her head to clear it. “Hang on, let me work this out.”
She jotted down a few notes, muttering to herself. Finally she looked up, this time she looked triumphant. “It could work! My God, we’ve got power, it's a step forward. I think there must be enough in that transport to keep us going for some time. Rahm, you’re brilliant.”
“Not brain damaged then?”
She aimed a playful punch at him. “That too. Let’s go and talk to Dan and see if he can make it work.”
Dan Weathers was old but he was not blind. He grasped what she meant even before she finished speaking. “Gabi, you’re a genius,” he exclaimed. He kissed her on the cheek, and then called for attention. “Men, I want that alien transport stripped down to the bare machinery so that we can install a dynamo.”
“It wasn’t me that thought of it, Dan. It was Rahm.”
“Really? Well, that was well done. But I couldn’t kiss Rahm, so it’s best that I thought it came from you. We need more transports, it we can make this work we can station one in the air scrubber cave and get the equipment working again. It’ll be even more limited than before, but still, we’ll have air circulating around Mars Base.”
Jacques Fechter, attracted by the noise, joined them. There wasn’t much cheering around Mars Base at the moment, he was puzzled as to the reason. Tobin Ryles trailed behind him.
“What can we do, Dan? How can we help make this work?” he asked his chief engineer.
“Get me more equipment to play with. I need a transport to power a dynamo for the scrubbers and several more to give us more power sources inside Mars Base. We still don’t know what makes them tick, but we don’t need to. As long as the motor turns, we’ll use it to power our dynamos and generate electricity. Oh, and we need as many breathing sets as you can gather, now that Gabi has managed to convert them.”
The manager nodded. “That’s what we’ll do, then. Tobin, run and fetch Damian, we need to send out another team to hit their drilling teams.”
“I’ll go out with them again,” Rahm said.
“I appreciate that,” Jacques said. “Tobin, hurry, you need to find Damian and get him here, pronto.”
The man walked quickly away and they fell into a discussion about where to mount the next mission.
“It needs to be a long way from the last one,” Rahm said. “They may think we have a team in that area and are prowling around looking for targets.”
“Lyot Crater.”
They looked up, Damian Hacker had appeared with a chart tucked under is arm. There was no sign of Ryles.
“I’ve been checking the most recent overflights. That information is all we have to go on now that the systems are down. It’s not so far as the last raid, we can drive up through the Sea of Acidallia.”
“It’s damned cold up in those latitudes,” Jacques observed. “Those monsters don’t seem to feel it.”
“With skin like leather it’s no surprise,” Damian replied. “We’ll have to manage with what we have. We can wear plenty of thermal clothes inside our pressure suits and turn up the internal heating to full. We have to have that equipment.”
They went to prepare the two buggies to drive up to Arctica, a part of the Martian surface they had avoided so far because of its environmental problems. Each man wore three sets of thermal underclothes and checked out the heating system of their suits. They climbed aboard the buggies and prepared to drive out through the airlock. Gabi stayed in her workshop.
“I’m needed here, there’s a lot of work to do on rigging up the new power and air systems. Besides, Kacy is much more knowledgeable than me,” she murmured as he leaned over to kiss her before putting on his helmet.
“But not half so pretty,” he grinned.
“She’d better not be, buster. Good luck. Come back safe.”
He nodded, put on his helmet and boarded the buggy. The rest of the men were aboard, Saul was driving their vehicle. He drove forward and into the airlock, muttering, “time to kick some alien ass.”
They were still grinning as they drove out across the Martian landscape. Saul was looking forward to the coming battle. Rahm examined his own thoughts; for some reason he felt that something was wrong. That wasn’t unusual, since so much had gone wrong on this contract that the only surprise would be if something wasn’t wrong. But this time, he couldn’t be sure. It was something that was almost internal, not a threat from the outside, the harsh environment, the constant threat of the monsters. He experienced a twinge of fear. Oh Christ, no, let it not be that. Not again, not now.
Even through their thick clothing and the heated pressure suits they could feel the Martian chill descending on them as they drove across the vast plain of the Accidalian Sea, nearer the Arctic region. Lyot Crater lay on the edge of plain, about five miles distant on the cusp of the planet’s surface that lay between the less cold center and the freezing Arctica. The pressed on as fast as the surface allowed until in the distance they saw the eruption on the surface that marked the Lyot Crater. At a sign from Damian Hacker, they came to a stop and climbed out.
“We need to agree a plan of approach,” he said when they were all gathered around him. “The first question is whether they’re looking for trouble. If they’ve got sentries posted, it’ll cause us problems.”
“I would have after the last time,” Rahm murmured.
“I agree. So we’ll act on that basis. The first job is to take out the sentries, then hit them with everything we’ve got.”
Rahm looked ahead to the Crater. It loomed high and dark in the distance. He felt a twinge of, something. What was it? He realized he was breathing in shallow gasps, a sure sign of fear. He had to overcome it.
“I’ll go ahead and deal with the sentries,” he heard himself saying.
“I’ll go with you,” Saul added promptly. “We could use the laser cannon again.”
“If you can carry it,” Damian said in a tone of voice that suggested he didn’t think it likely. Saul turned to Brad. “Unmount the gun. I’ll carry it with me.” As Brad went away, Saul looked around to Rahm. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, of course, I’m ok, why?”
“You look pretty red inside that helmet. I can hear your breath, you’re panting, is your air supply working.”
“Yes! Damnit, Saul, I’m fine, let’s get this done.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
They started on the long hike to the Crater. Saul had decided not to use the tripod, he wanted to use the heavy firepower of the laser cannon to knock out the sentries, not mount a full scale attack. That meant using speed and stealth.
“We were lucky last time, but I didn’t like the cannon stuck up on the tripod. If they’d seen us setting up, they’d have been on us straight away. I’ll handle it.” He peered inside Rahm’s helmet. “You sure you’re ok?”
“For f*ck’s sake, Saul. I’m fine, now leave me alone and get on with it.”
“Right.”
They walked fast for the first four miles, and Saul carried the big gun as if it weighed no more than a pistol. Rahm found the going harder and harder, his chest hurt, he had to fight to take every breath. He recognized the beginnings of panic, the onset of that chilling, freezing feeling that would make all movement next to impossible. But no, he couldn’t allow it. He would fight his way through it this time. People were relying on him, he wouldn’t let them die. Not again. Then they spotted the sentries. There were two of them, luckily they were looking south, towards the Sea of Araby, the direction that they would have expected them to come from. Saul led the way carefully forward, darting from rock to rock, they found a narrow fault ravine which they were able to slide into and make their way forward by crawling on their stomachs. Rahm thought he would pass out, but he pushed on, fighting his way forward, dragging his body along. He fell further and further behind, by the time he caught up Saul had reached within a hundred yards of the sentries and was setting up the gun. He turned around as Rahm struggled along behind him, he was about to say something but he closed his mouth. Then he turned to him again.
“As soon as they’re gone, you need to signal Damian for them to bring those buggies here as fast as they can. I don’t think the drilling crew will hear the noise, you'll recall that sound doesn’t travel well on Mars. If they do, it’s too bad, so we’ll have to deal with it. You ready?”
Rahm nodded, too choked to speak. Saul stood up, aimed the cannon and fired several short bursts. The sentries were both hit.
“Go, go! Tell them to get moving, Rahm.”
But he couldn’t move. He lay there in the dust, unable to speak, to get up, to fight. Saul’s eyes narrowed. He snatched the communicator from him and made the call.
“This is Saul, the sentries are down. You need to come in fast before they notice anything. Don’t forget what Gabi said, to aim low. We need those breathing sets.”
“We copy that, Saul. Is Rahm ok?”
“Er, yeah, I think so. He hit his head, but he’s ok.”
Saul’s lie was the last thing he remembered before he passed out.
He returned to consciousness lying on the deck of the buggy.
“What happened?” he asked weakly.
Saul was sitting next to him. “You passed out, my friend. We’re not quite sure why, maybe you were running low on air. I don’t know, look, we’ll have to wait until we get back and ask the medic to check you over.”
“And the Taurons? Did you have to abandon the attack?”
“No.” Saul grinned. “It all went like clockwork, and we killed nine of the bastards. None of us were hit, so it was total success. Kacy checked out the breathing sets and brought back most of them, seven, I believe. One of Damian’s people is driving their transporter back.”
“You did well,” Rahm said. What he didn’t say was, ‘without me’. But he felt it. Once more, he’d fallen prey to the demon that had blighted his life on Earth and had now followed him to Mars. They reached Mars Base and drove through the airlock. A crowd of miners was waiting for them, Rahm managed to sit up and climb wearily out of the buggy. Gabi ran over to him.
“You look terrible, were you hurt?”
He shook his head. “No, just a small problem. I passed out.”
“What!” She looked at Saul. “What happened out there?”
He told her everything while Rahm slumped wearily against the body of the vehicle.
“Unconscious? You need to get yourself checked out, I’ll go with you.”
“No, I’m fine, really.”
He made to walk away from her, but his legs gave out and he felt the blackness descending on him as he started to fall. Saul stopped him before he hit the floor.
When he came to again, he was lying on a gurney in the tiny base hospital. Although he’d recovered consciousness, he felt worse than ever. Before, he’d simply frozen. Now it seemed to him that the presence of overwhelming danger had pushed him beyond the stage of a one-off attack. He was crumbling under the pressure. Maybe they were right; maybe he was not up to it, not able to perform a mission when he was under maximum stress. In which case, what was he? At that moment, he hated himself for the weakling he had become. He swung his legs to the ground and stood up. Already he felt better. Well, sure, he was back inside the safety of Mars Base. He knew they’d never trust him again to go out on a mission. Never trust him even to go out with the drilling teams for any reason, there was no place on Mars for men who couldn’t overcome the difficulties of the hostile environment and complete the job they were paid to do. He walked out of the hospital and along the deserted passageways to his quarters. He went inside and lay on his bunk. His life had effectively ended, and he knew what he had to do. He wasn’t going to carry on here and put everyone else’s life at risk. All he was now was a drain on their air. Well, there was one way that he could put an end to that. He thought of Gabi. He felt sorry for her, he was sorry the way things had turned out. He pulled out a pad and pen and started to write a note. This was something personal that had to be done by hand, not left on a tablet. When he’d finished he sealed it inside an envelope and addressed it to her. He looked at a half empty bottle of Bourbon on his desk. Why not, one last taste before the end. He took a long pull, then got up and went out to the garage.
The suit felt strangely different. It was as if he hadn’t worn this model before. He felt the material as it enclosed his body, the weight of the helmet when he locked it over his head. The tightness and constriction that he knew would ease as the suit adjusted to his body proportions and did the job it was supposed to do. He’d taken a portable air supply that was almost finished. The air was depleted, what was left was mostly carbon dioxide, someone else’s breath. He wouldn’t take a useable supply, they would be needed by people who could function, who could do their work without falling unconscious out of fear. Or maybe something else, maybe it wasn’t fear, it could be some kind of anomaly in his brain. The trouble was, here on Mars there was no room for that kind of a luxury. It was hard and harsh, cruel and unforgiving. He had to be as hard on himself as the environment was to all of them. Rahm pressed the button that activated the inner airlock door, as if in a dream he saw it hiss open. He walked in, firmly, proudly. This was one thing he could do as a man, not as a weak-kneed coward. He closed the inner door, equalized the pressure and opened the outer door. Then he stepped out onto the Martian surface for the last time. He started to walk. Step by step he drew further away from the building that had been his home for the past year and a half. His breathing was difficult, and he started to see stars he knew were caused by the excess amounts of carbon dioxide in the breathing set. He could manage that, as he had no need to do anything other than keep walking. When the air finally gave out, when the carbon dioxide overcame the oxygen and nitrogen he would just fade into the black oblivion. It was the only way to give his comrades a chance to live, by removing a drain on the air that was so vital for them to live. He started to hear voices as his senses left him for the last time. Strange, they sounded familiar.