Lance guessed that it was filming the scene from a height of about 50 meters. “How fast are they moving?” he asked.
“According to our calculations, the rover can do about twenty kilometers an hour, but the tracked vehicle isn’t as fast, and it’s slowing down the column,” Mike explained. “The drone is following them. They are about twenty-eight kilometers away.”
“Still about two hours off,” Lance estimated.
“Yes,” Mike agreed.
“They didn’t bring a crane along,” Sharon said. “Do you think the tracked vehicle poses a threat to us?”
Lance studied it. It was significantly slower than the enclosed rovers and seemed to be optimized for freight transport across uneven terrains. It could presumably scale hills, but a 90-degree wall would obviously be too much for it.
“I don’t think it’ll be able to get out of our ditch,” he said.
“I agree,” Mike said.
“Alright, you experts, let’s just wait and see what they do,” Sarah said. “How large of a contingent do you think they sent?”
“Five men per vehicle?” Mike replied.
“They only sent ten men to attack the MfE base, but if you’re right, that means they’ll outnumber us five to one.” Sharon asked.
“They clearly think we’re more dangerous because we’re professionals,” Mike said.
“We’re professionals?” Sharon laughed. “NASA didn’t even provide us with a single gun.”
“Under normal circumstances, we would’ve left for home a long time ago,” Mike said.
“And what’ll happen if they get to our side of the ditch?” Sarah asked.
“If they follow the pattern they set at the MfE base, they will take Lance and me as collateral,” Mike replied.
“You think so?” Sharon asked.
“Absolutely. They’ll discover that we have a water source, and that alone will make our base invaluable to them. Our facilities will need to be maintained, which means they’ll have to leave someone here,” Mike said.
They followed the convoy’s progress on the screen for a few minutes. Then it became tiresome. Lance was frustrated. They couldn’t do anything. The ditch, their version of a city wall, was their only defense. But was it secure? Lance shook his head. The ice wall would hold up against a random rambler who came upon them, but not against 20 assailants who were determined to overcome it. They wouldn’t even need a crane.
“Left or right?” Sarah asked.
“Right,” Lance replied, tapping her on the right arm.
They hadn’t come to an agreement yet about who would take care of Michael when the enemy arrived, so they were drawing straws, proverbially speaking. Sarah had been holding both hands clenched into fists behind her back. She slowly brought her right arm forward and opened it—empty. Lance stamped his foot in frustration. He was supposed to watch from inside while the others defended the base?
“Show me your other hand,” he said. Sarah opened her left fist. He saw the hair pin.
“Sorry about that,” Sarah said. “Just take good care of Michael for me.”
“And you take care of yourself! Michael shouldn’t have to grow up without his mother.”
“Don’t worry about that. I want to see him grow up.” Sarah stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I won’t take any unnecessary risks,” she said.
“Waaaah.”
There it was again, that unmistakable sound. Michael needed his parents close by. Lance gently brushed his fingers across Sarah’s right cheek before turning around and entering their joint quarters, where Michael had just awakened.
“Shhhh-shhhh-shhhh,” Lance said softly before starting to hum an old melody—the lyrics for which he could no longer remember—while rocking Michael in his arms. He was sitting in front of the large screen. He and his son were the only people still inside the subterranean bunker they so proudly called their base. Mike, Sharon, and Sarah were planning to defend their outer perimeter. Lance had so wanted to join them, and until the last second, he had tried to first convince Sharon and then Mike to agree to watch his son.
The attackers’ vehicles were no more than a kilometer away. Nobody had tried to contact them yet. The NASA crew had likewise maintained radio silence. Mike had recalled all three of their drones, which were now patrolling the perimeter of their base.
Lance kept switching back and forth between the three drones’ video feeds until he found one showing his colleagues. He zoomed in closer. It had to be Sharon or Sarah. In their amplified suits, which Ewa had stolen from the Spaceliner supply ship, they would probably be hard to distinguish from their enemies. However, the suits fit tightly enough that it was easy to tell the difference between men and women. Now a man was approaching. That had to be Mike, and then another woman came into view. She was somewhat taller than the first figure, so it had to be Sharon. The three of them sat down on the Mars surface. Good. That way they would conserve their strength.
He switched over to the feed from another of the drones. It seemed to have locked in on the enemy’s lead vehicle and was tracking it. From its perspective, the base looked very close.
“Mike, they’re here,” Lance warned the others.
He watched as his three colleagues got to their feet. The drone’s video stream showed how the two rear vehicles were fanning out from the convoy.
“The column’s separating,” Lance said.
“How exactly?” Mike asked.
“Just a sec.”
The two rovers in front were steering straight for the base, while the other rover and the tracked vehicle were now veering toward the left.
“Two are coming from the north, and the other two will reach the base from the northeast,” he said.
“Thanks.”
The three defenders conferred briefly, and then Mike set off for the northeast, while Sharon and Sarah head due north. In the meantime, Lance switched back and forth between the drones. He stopped in fear. The two rovers coming from the north must have separated. The video feed from the accompanying drone showed only one vehicle.
“Watch out! It looks now as if someone might be coming from the west,” he warned his NASA teammates.
A female form darted through the picture. He couldn’t tell who it was. Sarah and Sharon had probably separated, and one of them was going to tend to the vehicle from the west. The enemy knew that they had the NASA group outnumbered. It was a smart move to split up their limited force. If the enemy noticed that there were only three defenders out on the surface, the Spaceliner assault force would win.
Lance searched for a drone that had a view of the eastern area. He was right. The tracked vehicle and the rover had parted ways over there. The rover was now driving around the base to the south.
“People, I have bad news. They’re also coming at us from the south,” Lance said over the helmet radio.
“We’ll handle it,” Mike replied.
But how would that work? Lance considered simply leave Michael behind, crying. If he jumped into his spacesuit, he could be outside in five minutes. He gazed at his son, who stared back at him. They communicated without saying a word. No, Michael, I won’t leave you alone down here.
“Watch out! Something’s going on at the northern edge!” he called over the radio.
The drone’s camera image showed three men on top of their rover’s roof. They were climbing up on each other’s shoulders. Suddenly, a man appeared above them. That had to be Mike. He shoved the person at the top of the tower, and the formation tumbled down.
“Sarah, Sharon, they’re climbing up the wall where you are, too,” Lance warned.
“I’m on it,” Sarah replied.
Lance called up the feed from the drone to the east, and a woman with a long pole came into view. She looked like a modern knight, and she was in the process of knocking down another human tower.
“Bullseye,” Lance said.
One of the attackers fell to the ground, about three meters straight down.
However, this was less dangerous than it looked, thanks to Mars’s low gravitational pull. The man stood up and dusted off his spacesuit, then climbed back up onto the roof of the tracked vehicle to join his colleagues. He took his time doing this. The attackers didn’t seem to be in any great hurry. They probably knew that over the long run, they would have the upper hand. Or they knew that they were only facing three defenders. But that would mean that someone from the MfE had given them this information. Lance couldn’t imagine that being true.
“Sharon, how are things where you are?” he asked.
“I just had a little altercation with someone,” she replied, breathing heavily. “But the guy is now where he belongs.”
“How are they equipped?”
“They seem to be unarmed,” Sharon said. “Summers must really want us alive.”
“That’s comforting,” Lance said.
“Most of them are wearing normal spacesuits, not the special models that Ewa brought us,” Sharon said.
“Good,” Lance said, “then this will level the playing field somewhat for you.” Nonetheless, he had a nagging bad feeling. The rover that headed to the south! Unfortunately, they only had three drones.
A muffled pounding resonated through the base. Someone was banging forcefully against the outer door of the airlock. Michael woke up and wailed. Now they had roused his son! It was strange what got Lance the most riled up these days. It wasn’t the fact that some strangers wanted to break into their base, but the fact that now they had disturbed Michael’s sleep.
“This is the security team from Mars City,” he heard announced. The attackers seemed to have some kind of megaphone. It had to be amazingly loud considering that he could hear it down here. “We have the right to access your base because you have harbored a criminal. Open your airlock immediately, or we will be forced to destroy it.”
A shiver ran down Lance’s spine. If they followed through on that threat and destroyed the airlock, the base’s breathable air would be released. He could protect himself inside his spacesuit, but there would be no way to save Michael. The pigs were willing to kill his son! And the worst part was that the only way he could save Michael was by surrendering.
“Sarah, Sharon, Mike, can you hear me?” he spoke over the radio. “I have to open the airlock. They’re threatening to cut off our air down here. I’m so sorry.”
“Copy that,” Mike replied. “It’s clear you don’t have a choice. We’ll surrender up here as well.”
Lance tightened his arm around his son, stood up, and walked over to the airlock. He opened the external hatch via the control panel. The enemy could now enter the base, though only one by one. He considered fleetingly if he shouldn’t perhaps bash in the head of whoever opened the internal door. They deserved that. But they wouldn’t be that stupid. If the first intruders stopped communicating, they would destroy the airlock anyway. Then Michael would suffocate in great pain. No, he couldn’t do that.
He stepped back from the airlock and heard a rumbling in the lock chamber. Lance sat down at the table, his son still pressed against his chest. Michael was awake but silent. He must somehow sense how dangerous the situation was.
The light on the inside of the airlock door changed from red to green. The door opened with a hiss. A man in a special spacesuit stepped onto the bridge. He looked around, nodded, and removed his helmet.
“Hello, Mr. Leber. I’m Rick Summers, Administrator of Mars City. I’m glad you chose the sensible option and invited us in.”
He should have bashed the man’s head in. Lots of people would have been grateful to him if he had.
Michael started wailing again, as his father grimaced in despair.
Each armed with a pistol, two intruders stood against the back wall of the bridge and observed the scene. Summers had asked—ordered, to be honest— the four NASA astronauts to take their seats around the table. Sarah was holding Michael. The administrator pulled a tablet out of his pocket.
“Just so you see that everything is in due order,” he said, “I have here an arrest warrant for you. You are being charged with hindering the course of justice and with aiding and abetting several criminal acts.” He swiped his finger through several documents. “Here is the search warrant. We don’t want anyone to be in a position to accuse us of acting arbitrarily,” Summers said, tapping his finger repeatedly on the screen.
“This matter seems to be quite important to you, if you came all the way out here yourself,” Mike said.
“Indeed, it is. I think it is crucial for law and order to be upheld.”
“I see,” Sharon said.
“I also have the authority to rescind the arrest warrant, at least to a certain degree, if you support us in our search for the culprit.”
“To a certain degree?”
“It’s very simple,” Summers declared. “Anyone who helps us will remain a free person. Just tell us what you know. My offer goes to the first person who comes clean.”
“Divide and conquer,” Lance quipped.
“I don’t see it that way. It’s an offer, a reward for cooperation. We will eventually find the culprit either way, but this would speed things along for us. We would save resources, and you would profit as a result.”
“That is very generous, Ad-min-is-tra-tor.” As he enunciated the title, he emphasized the last two syllables. Lance tried to pack into it every bit of disgust he felt at the sight of Summers. The man’s face confirmed that he’d hit his mark.
“I advise you to not try our patience,” Summers said bitingly.
“Ex-cuse me,” Lance drawled.
“Mr. Summers, we would really like to help you,” Mike interrupted sweetly, “but we have no idea where the person you’re looking for is right now.”
“We will turn over every stone here,” Summers threatened.
“Do whatever you have to, Administrator,” Mike replied. “But I need to be frank with you. You won’t find Ms. Kowalska here. She up and vanished on us, just like that. She didn’t say a word to any of us.”
Summers didn’t look convinced, but he also didn’t send his two armed guards off to search the base. He seemed to be weighing his options, but then his face brightened. “Would you be so kind as to show me her quarters?” he asked amenably.
“Sure enough,” Mike replied. “Lance, would you please accompany the administrator to Ewa’s room. I’d hate for him to get lost.”
He was now supposed to take this bastard on a tour of the base! What was Mike thinking? Or was this an order to break every last bone in the guy’s body while they were in Ewa’s room? Lance liked that idea even though he wasn’t really a violent person. But how would the two guards react to that? He had to think about Michael.
Lance stood up. “Follow me.”
There was no way he was going to be even a little friendly. Rick Summers turned toward him and nodded with a smile. All that was lacking was him tucking his arm into Lance’s! Before that idea might occur to Summers, Lance set off. Ewa’s quarters were in the newest part of the base. It should still look just like it had when she left it.
Lance opened the door and led the way inside. It was slightly stuffy. It was evident that no air had moved inside here in the past two days. Ewa had made her bed neatly, and the room was orderly-looking.
Summers walked through the tight space. He pulled aside the curtain in front of the improvised closet. Several pieces of clothing were hanging along a bar. He went through each one of them. Was he hoping to find some of Ewa’s underwear? The man probably had no idea how basic astronaut underwear actually was.
Summers turned around and stepped toward Lance. Beside the bed, he knelt down suddenly and peered under the bed.
“Damn it, now you’ve found her,” Lance said.
The administrator didn’t react. He stood back up and dusted imaginary dirt from his knees. “Has she taken anything that didn’t belong to her?” he asked.
Lance shook his head. Ewa’s ‘borrowing’ of the enclosed ro
ver was none of the other man’s business.
“I’m simply asking because that would make you one of her victims. You could join the upcoming trial as a joint plaintiff.”
“I thought she had already been sentenced.”
“No, the trial is still in process.”
“But you called her a culprit.”
“Please excuse me, Mr. Leber. That wasn’t correct. Of course, Ewa Kowalska is only an alleged culprit until the trial has been concluded. Everything proceeds by the books where we are concerned. We honor the state of law, and the judge is impartial and independent.”
“Naturally,” Lance said.
“Yes. That’s why I can’t simply rescind the arrest warrants, and leave you here in peace.”
“Of course you couldn’t do that.”
“Unless you tell me more about Ewa. It’s just the two of us here. Do you really want to stand by your claim that she simply marched off into the sunset with only her spacesuit?”
The man was trying to bribe him. Him, Lance Leber! “Yes, that seems to be her MO. I’m sure you’ve seen the logs from the Spaceliner from when she broke in there. She showed up in just a spacesuit there, too.”
“That’s... true,” Summers agreed.
“See!”
“Mr. Leber, you have a young son. Do you want him to grow up without his father? Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t take him along, or do you have a spacesuit for a baby? And I have to carry out the arrest warrants. I’m really sorry about that.”
Lance stuck his hands inside his pockets to keep them from pounding the other man. Was the man actually threatening to leave Michael here all alone? That would be a death sentence.
“You’re staring at me as if you think I would simply abandon your son here in this station. That isn’t my intention. For humanitarian reasons, I’ve rescinded the arrest warrant for his mother. He will be cared for. What’s his name?”
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