On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1)

by Jim Melanson

  I see, thought Blitowyn at him. With the painful expression of logic not coming easily the Voiya continued, if there are no life forms around it, why don’t we just claim it as junk, haul it into the base, and open it up?

  The Vesna Mahal put his elbows on the table in front of it, folded its hands, and rested its head against them. It was a very human like movement. He wished for a moment he had been born a Trigla, they didn’t have to go through this type of thing. The Mahal looked up at Blitowyn and gave him one thought, because it might contain Molyak Berries.

  It took another moment, and then the light went on again. Oh, I see what your concern is.

  As I knew you would Master.

  Let’s just blow it up then and be done with it.

  The Vesna Mahal worked at keeping a stunned expression off his face as he took another moment to process this latest bit of shocking lack of comprehension. Sometimes the sheer stupidity of these overly self-inflated narcissistic cretins just completely surpassed all understanding. The Mahal sat there motionless, staring at the Voiya long enough that it became uncomfortable again. Finally, with a deep breath, the Mahal explained

  Master Voiya, if we blow it up and there are humans on board, the human governments will declare us in violation of the détente. If there are no humans on board, but it is a support post for the current human mission under way, then they may also see that as an attack on the present mission and also declare it a violation of the détente. If there are no humans on board and it’s not part of the colony mission, they may well still see the destruction of their craft as an attack on humans in absentia and still claim it’s a violation of the détente. We cannot bring it here, we cannot destroy it there; unless of course, you actually do desire to go to war with the Eben, the hybrids, and the humans.

  Blitowyn stood up and paced back and forth a few times. The Vesna Mahal sat there and silently observed him, wondering if there was still a vacancy in the propulsion research facility at Proxima Beta Orionis.

  Attend me.

  The Mahal stood and began to pace back and forth behind the Master Voiya. He was being careful to stay out of the way of the Voiya’s big feet in the heavy combat boots. They looked ridiculous, but they were the latest fashion amongst the Voiya males.

  Mahal, I require you to maintain observation of this lone ship. Do so at a distance, and without interference. I want daily reports on the matter.

  As you wish Master, the Vesna Mahal breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes it was easier to just let them think they were being original. At least he was done with the stupidity.

  The Master wasn’t done though, he went on, Mahal, was it not reported earlier that the design of this ship was of significant difference from the larger human colony ships?

  The Mahal paused a moment, a curious expression on his plain and pale face, yes, Magnificent One, that was so reported.

  The Voiya Master paced a few more feet then turned to look at the Vesna with an expression of taxed and overworked mental processing on his face, then perhaps we don’t have to worry about the human colony after all. Perhaps the humans will take care of their own, as they so often do.

  The Mahal was thunderstruck. That thought had never occurred to him. It had not occurred to his work pod or any of the other Vesna pods in the loop of the reports. If this was indeed a rival Earth nation, perhaps they would indeed kill the human in the colony site for them. The Eridani would be rid of the interloper, and neither the human governments nor the Eben could claim a violation of the détente. Brilliance. And it was from the mouth of a mental babe. The fact that there would still be the interloper that had killed the other interloper had, for their immediate consideration, gone unrecognized by both of them.

  The Eridani Master, Master Blitowyn of Chernasai, feeling quite superior for his lucky stroke of brilliance, walked to the sideboard and drew a large mug of the cold, golden, frothy, tongue tingling beverage they imported from Earth. He didn’t understand why they called it bear, it had no correlation to that large and impressive predatory animal in their northern climates. Since the Mahal was here, might as well get on to the important business.

  You have the humans’ main colony site under observation still?

  Yes Master, the still stunned and a bit more respectful Mahal responded.

  We are going to proceed with the plan worked out with my house-brothers. We are going let the human provoke us to defense by attacking us.

  Attack us with what Sire?

  The Master Voiya just looked at the Mahal, and then continued, do we still have only one Drone on picket?

  Three Drones, exalted One.

  Make it five.

  As you wish, Master.

  Make sure the drones are properly briefed and that they clearly understand my Order of Action for this. I don’t want any inconsistencies. He would never say “like the last one”, because that would be admitting that a drone had failed to follow a Master’s orders. That was something the Voiya, still, would never do.

  Yes Sire. As you wish.

  Repeat the Order of Action to me. I want to make sure you understand it as well.

  That ended the Mahal’s feeling of appreciation for Blitowyn’s recent mental hurdle. The Vesna were usually unflappable about such things, but this Mahal had been dealing with this jackass so long he was more often finding it difficult to maintain his temper around him, promising future or not. Still though, he would have swallowed the acidic taste that would have been in his mouth if the Vesna actually had oral salivary glands, which they don’t.

  Master, your Order of Action has five parts to it Sire: one, that the drones observe and record all exterior activity at the human colony site; two, that they do this close to the colony site; three, that they do so without concern for being detected; four, that they harass and annoy the human when he is outside his habitat without taking any action that may be construed as an advance or an attack, and finally five, that they attempt to cause the human to fire a weapon at them, rather than merely throwing rocks, so that we can claim justifiable defense in obliterating the unwanted interloper.

  Supply Drop #3

  I arrived at the damaged supply drop and spent a few minutes looking at the support struts holding up this Martian leaning tower of Pisa. It seemed to be holding its canted position, but I wasn’t sure if that was by design or by prayer; perhaps a bit of both.

  Walking back to supply drop #3, I could finally take a careful look at the chunk taken out of its north side. The missing piece was about three feet high, two feet deep, and covered an area about 20% of the circumference of the cargo ship. There was a bit of metal and ejecta on the ground, but most of it had been vapourized by the intensity of the alien weapon’s blast. Supply drop #3 had hydroponics equipment, as well as an inflatable Kevlar Quonset hut to house the equipment. This was only a test system. It was supposed to supply me with fresh vegetables and greens; enough to survive on with a vegetarian diet. The future full colony version was going to connect to a utility access system so that we wouldn’t have to suit up to get to it. For the purpose of my proof of concept mission however, I would have to suit up twice daily to go to the structure.

  I had my exterior helmet camera in live feed mode. That meant the signal was going back to the W-Hab controller, and immediately sent on its way to Terra. I also had the hand camera recording the angles that the helmet camera couldn’t. I did a close up inspection of the almost perfectly incised hole itself, to start with. I had expected jagged pieces of metal upon upclose inspection, but that wasn’t the case. The entire outline of the hole looked like someone had melted it, and then smoothed it out. There were some spots on the edge of the hole that looked like the metal had turned to slag and dripped down to the exposed interior decking. With my gloved hand I pinched and pulled on this smoother, melted edge, and it broke away like brittle glass for about 8 centimetres from the edge. Then it toughened up again. I was able to do this same thing in several places around the recently added opening. Wh
atever that weapon was, it seemed to have altered the entire chemical, or possibly, the molecular make-up of the metal right around the perimeter of the hole. I shuddered at what it might have done to me. I looked over both shoulders at that point, having a wee case of the willies, but didn’t see anything. I slipped the energy beam rifle from one shoulder to the other.

  Peering inside, I couldn’t see much either. This side of the cargo container had been where the inflatable Kevlar Quonset hut was packed. A great chunk of the material was missing. I could see several layers of the inflatable structure, so I knew right away that it was useless. It would have several great gaping holes in it when unrolled. The Kevlar walls of the structure were 80 millimetres thick. On the inside of the structure were inflatable tubes to create a rigid frame. These inflatable tubes were 20 centimetres in diameter, with 10 millimetre thick walls of the same material, spaced every 60 centimetres. I could see some of those tubes had been damaged as well.

  The process to install the Quonset hut would have been simple. Step one, clear the installation site area, 15 metres by 5 metres, of any rocks and debris larger than pebbles. Step two, unroll the Quonset hut structure, orienting the structure so that the rounded end faced the prevailing winds. We knew the prevailing winds at our colony site were North-North-East. Step three, with the help of Little Dawg and Big Dawg, install the ground pin system to secure the structure in place. These pins, plus the weight of the interior should (I stress “should”) keep the structure from blowing away. The full system yet to be delivered would actually be installed partially below grade, to assist with its stability and wind resistance. The 80 millimetre carbon nanotube reinforced Kevlar shell with the inflatable structural support tubes, and the inherent flexibility of fabric would, I had been assured, withstand impacts up to 310 joules or newton-metres of energy. That would be approximately a one kilogram meteorite travelling at 90 km/hour. It would also withstand dust devils up to a certain, unspecified size. Step four, use the accompanying Mars Atmospheric Air Compression System (MAACS) to inflate the interior 20 centimetre wide inflatable support struts. Step five, install the graphene reinforced flooring panels. This included moving all of the necessary equipment into the Quonset hut. Step six, install and activate the airlock system. Step seven, hook up the atmospheric system. This procedure included steps to tie it into the AtmoGen, and then run the scrubbers to slowly replace the Mars atmosphere admitted during the installation. It would only take about three hours to remove the Martian atmosphere, and replace it with human breathable, and therefore plant breathable, Terran-similar air.

  The system designers promised a three-day installation time frame. The mission planning team had changed that to a five-day installation time frame. Alas, it would be a zero-day installation time frame until they delivered a new inflatable structure. I was sure that this was already in the works, back home. The next launch window for supplies opened in sixteen months, lasting from July to September. They had more than enough time to get it ready. It just meant that I’d be eating protein bars, and drinking protein shakes a lot longer than anticipated.

  I thought of Loreena. I thought of Carrie and her boys. I thought of the salvaged green-and-white baseball cap, now sitting on my bunk. I thought of the camping trip Hans and his family had invited me to tag along with. I thought about my son and his wife. I thought about Mary. I looked around at the nothingness. I looked back at the damaged cargo drop. This was my life now. I had chosen it. Those other things were memories. I’d just have to try and create some new ones here, by myself, until Colony 1 arrived in about six years’ time. Neither Loreena, my Dad, or my Mom would have wanted me to dwell on the past when there was so much living left to do in front of me.

  Holding the strap of the energy weapon slung over my shoulder, I turned around to scan the sky. I thought I saw a shimmer in the air, but it was almost in the exact same direction as the sun, West-South-West. It could have easily been the sun playing tricks on my eyes through the inevitable lens effect of my helmet’s face plate. I moved around a bit, but couldn’t make the same shimmer reappear, so I chalked it up to nerves. In fact, there was a cloaked Eridani scout vessel there, hovering about 600 metres away, and keeping itself in the line of sight against the sun. I didn’t know that at the time though.

  I walked around to the other side of the cargo ship #3 to the main cargo hatch. All of the supply drops were oriented so that the cargo hatch was facing south. I opened the small access panel, punched in the unlock code, and then turned the unlock handle. The door opened a few centimetres on its own. I grabbed the seam of the door, and pulled the right side hatch open first; using the cable attached to the inside to anchor the door open at a hardpoint connection that hadn’t been vapourized. I opened the left hatch and secured it in a similar fashion.

  I gave the hand signal sequence to Big Dawg and he came over dutifully, following my hand commands to stop right in front of the open hatch. I did a slow motion hop up onto Big Dawgs’ cargo deck, feeling a bit like the Six Million Dollar man, and then stepped up onto the cargo deck of the cargo ship. Everything was packed tightly inside and secured against the horrendous mechanical forces of Terran launch and Mars descent. Nothing was out of place. The rolled up Mars Quonset hut was large enough that no light was apparent from the hole on the other side of the ship. There was no light visible around the remainder of the inflatable structure, packed tightly inside. Everything else looked secure and intact. The hydroponics equipment, exterior lighting packages, and the small lighting power generator all looked intact and ready to be used. I took a moment to record an in-helmet video for Mission Control, confirming the observations I had made on the inside of the cargo ship with what the camera was showing. I let them know that it looked like they would only need to replace the inflatable structure. Of course, waiting as long as I would have to, they would have to replace the seed stock as well. For now though, the remnants of the inflatable Quonset hut were packed tight enough against the opening on the far side that I felt the contents of the damaged cargo ship would survive the Martian winter.

  With nothing else to do on my work manifest at the present moment, I thought about unpacking some of the lighting equipment. I could take out what was necessary to string up around the W-Hab and the L-Hab, and activate the lighting supply generator (wind powered with solar backup for battery charging). I could leave the rest of the lighting equipment in place until the other supply drops had been moved.

  Supply drop #2 had a small, but powerful, electrically powered tractor inside it. It was for the water mining jobs primarily, but would also serve as an equipment mover. It was powerful enough to move the supply drops, fully loaded, with the assistance of the supply drop cargo ship under-carriage train wheels. It could move them without that assistance if they were empty. Supply drop number six also had a small flatbed trailer and a crane attachment, both designed to work with the small tractor.

  I figured I should probably go off script and set to work unpacking the tractor, and then the crane and flatbed. They would be of more use to me at present than the lighting would. The lighting wouldn’t really be in need for another six weeks or so. I would definitely need the tractor and crane attachment to salvage the last supply drop that arrived. I turned around and jumped down on Big Dawgs’ cargo deck, then moved him out of the way. I unsnapped the securing line on first the left hatch, then the right hatch, and sealed up the doors on the cargo hatch. I turned around to head over to supply drop #2, and froze in my tracks. I was looking at four shimmering orbs hanging in the air between where I was standing, and the Habitats.

  As I stared at them, a fifth one moved into place. That fifth one’s movement unfroze me. I crouched down onto the ground, crouching behind Big Dawg. I pulled the energy weapon off my shoulder, pressed the VOX button three times on my forearm control unit, and brought the energy weapon up to my shoulder.

  I didn’t even wait for sexy voice to tell me she was awaiting my command. I simply began talking to her, “C
astle Cellar, ready weapons platform, ready weapons one, two and three. Hold weapons one, two and three. Authenticate alpha kilo five, two, seven, authenticate. Activate referential targeting system, target unknown, hostile contacts one, three and five. Confirm.”

  Sexy voice now had her chance. After a few seconds pause, she responded. “Weapons ready. Weapons one, two, and three in a ready state; and at hold condition. Referential targeting system engaged. Thermobarics one, two, and three targeting unknown hostile references one, three and five. Confirmed.”

  I popped my head up with the weapon aimed, and saw the five shimmering spots of air in front of me. I pulled my head back down quickly, and waited for the ground to explode behind me but it didn’t. I popped back up for another quick look, and the shimmering spots of air were still there. That was weird. There were five of them. They could have vapourized the entire cargo row, and me along with it. Why hadn’t they?

  I popped my head back up, and they were still there in place between me and the Habitats. I stood up quickly with my energy weapon shouldered. I stood there with the middle shimmering spot of air centred in the reticule of the targeting eye piece.

  I stepped out from behind Big Dawg, and they didn’t move. I kept the weapon trained on the centre small ship for no other reason than, the others would be equally far away from it.