5
Archard had once heard the Martian landscape described as ‘spectacular,’ and as ‘vistas of pure wonder.’ But the people who made those claims, he’d noticed, had never been there.
Mars was pretty much a cold, barren wasteland. There were mountains and valleys and plains, but without a speck of life anywhere.
Even the outlying farms were bare of life. The growing took place in underground habitats. There weren’t any tiled fields, no rose gardens, no trees.
The Zabinski farm was typical. From a distance, it was as unremarkable as the ground it stood on. There was a standard house module, prefabricated in sections on Earth, and a couple of sheds. Plus the agripod that led down to the growing area.
Sergeant McNee activated a screen on the dash, and frowned. “No sign of anyone, sir. No heat signatures anywhere.”
“Where can they be?” Archard had been trying to raise the family the whole ride out. That they weren’t responding didn’t overly worry him. They might be down in the horticulture habitat, which could interfere with reception.
“You’d think they would be waiting for us,” Private Everett remarked.
“I hope their kid is okay,” Private Pasco said.
Sergeant McNee let out an oath and braked sharply without being ordered to.
“Why did you stop?” Archard demanded.
“Are those holes?”
The tank was winding down a grade to the homestead. Below, the terrain was essentially flat for a good distance.
“I don’t see…” Archard began.
“The house, sir,” Sergeant McNee said. “Get a load of the house.”
Domicile Modules, as they were called, were well-nigh indestructible. They had to be, to resist decompression. An ICW could punch a hole in one with a 20mm High Explosive round, but not much else could make a dent. Yet to Archard’s amazement, there were several holes in the side of the house. Fairly large, too.
Private Pasco gasped. “If anyone was inside when that happened…” He didn’t finish.
“Get going,” Archard said to McNee.
“Should I man the maser, sir?” Private Everett asked, with a bob of his chin at the bubble above the bay.
“No need for that,” Archard said. The maser was for use against enemies in combat, and on the Red Planet, humans didn’t have any enemies.
The ring of power poles that formed the security fence appeared intact. Blinking lights on the poles on either side of the dirt road that led into the farm warned the fence was active.
“Helmets,” Archard said, and sealed his. Unbuckling his safety harness, he moved to the airlock. “Is everyone reading me?”
“Affirmative,” Sergeant McNee replied.
“Clear as a bell, sir,” Everett said.
“Yep,” Pasco said.
“That will be ‘yes, sir,’ mister, or I’ll have you on report,” Sergeant McNee snapped.
“Yes, sir!”
“Everett, you’re with me,” Archard said. “Sergeant, keep monitoring. If you pick up their heat signatures, let me know immediately.” Opening the inner door, he stepped in, waited for the pressure to equalize, then opened the outer. It was annoying to have to go through the procedure every time, but otherwise the vehicle would decompress, with disastrous results.
Hefting his weapon, Archard waited for Everett. He happened to glance toward the distant volcano and spied a large shape silhouetted against the Martian sky.
And it was moving.
6
Archard quickly increased the magnification on his helmet display while zooming in on the exact spot. All he saw was bare crater rim. A trick of light and shadow, he decided.
Private Everett had emerged, his weapon at the ready. Never much of a talker—unlike Pasco, who could talk rings around a tree—Everett was the best marksman in their unit. He even outshot Sergeant McNee.
Archard went to the ‘gate,’ which wasn’t any such thing in the conventional sense. It merely meant the power poles to either side were spaced further apart to allow vehicles through. He could hear their slight hum.
A little known fact; sounds on Mars didn’t travel as far as they did on Earth. The atmosphere was so thin, a blast from his ICW would only be heard a hundred meters away.
Archard had long been puzzled by the government’s requirement that every settler erect a security fence. What did the settlers need one for when there wasn’t anything on Mars that could harm them?
Thankfully, in case of emergencies, the U.N.I.C. could shut any fence down with an override code. Archard entered it into the access panel. The LED lights on the posts dimmed, and he walked through. “Take point.”
“Sir,” Private Everett acknowledged, and hurried past.
“Sergeant McNee,” Archard said, “let us get forty meters in, then bring the tank. Sensors at max.”
“Understood.”
Private Everett’s faceplate was glued to his targeting scope.
“Make sure your helmet is on full spectrum sweep,” Archard ordered. Usually reserved for combat situations, full sweeps included everything from infrared to ultraviolet.
“Already is, sir.”
Archard took pride in always being thorough. When he went at something, he went at it one hundred percent. You could say it was his dominant trait. In fact, when he underwent the psyche profiling administered to Corps volunteers, the psychiatrist who examined him made a special mention of his ‘intense focus.’ It was his focus that accounted for Archard excelling at every aspect of his training. It was his focus that accounted for him being on Mars.
The wind picked up, creating little swirls of dust. Archard’s helmet display registered gusts to 80 kph. On Mars that was nothing.
Private Everett abruptly stopped and lowered his ICW. He was looking down, and gave a slight start.
“What are you…?” Archard began, and saw for himself. The ground was pockmarked with dozens of peculiar impressions. He enlarged them on his helmet holo. They averaged nine centimeters in diameter, and around the edges were little points he couldn’t account for.
“Call me crazy, sir,” Private Everett said, and there was an unnerved quality to his voice that Archard never heard before, “but I think they’re tracks.”
Archard knew that Everett was from the United States, from a place called Kentucky, and that their marksman had done a lot of tracking and hunting back among the green hills of Earth. But if Everett was right, it begged an unthinkable question.
What made them?
7
More tracks were near the house, clustered under the holes.
Archard clicked his mic. “Sergeant McNee?”
“Sir?”
“Bring the tank up but don’t get out. Continue full scan. Be alert for…” Archard was reluctant to say what common sense told him was obvious, “…anything anomalous.”
“Anomalous, sir?” the non-com repeated.
“Out of the ordinary, Sergeant.”
Settlers were required to provide the U.N.I.C. with copies of their thumb prints, which were the standard access keys. Archard brought up Josep Zabinski’s on his wrist screen, held it to the airlock reader, and the outer door slid open.
“Shouldn’t I go first, sir?” Everett said.
“I’m not one of those officers who leads from behind.”
Entering, Archard waited as the airlock cycled, then swept inside in a crouch.
The place looked as if an Earth hurricane had hit it. Or, to be precise, explosive decompression. Furniture was shattered or upended, objects scattered, broken items everywhere.
“It’s a shambles,” Archard said.
Everett had followed him in and was looking around. “I don’t see any bodies, sir.”
Stepping over a busted chair, Archard crossed the living room to the kitchen. Cupboards had been ripped open, dishes smashed to pieces. A flour bin had burst, showering flour over everything. And there in the flour on the floor, as clear as in the dirt outside, were more
of the bizarre tracks.
“We’ll check the agripod next,” Archard said.
“Let’s hope it’s not in the same shape.”
Archard was through the airlock and waiting for the Kentuckian when his comm-link buzzed.
“Sir, I think I’m picking up something on the motion sensors,” Sergeant McNee reported.
“You think?”
“It’s faint. From off toward the volcano. Could it be the Zabinskis, do you think?”
Archard doubted it. “What would they be doing on Albor Tholus? Keep monitoring.”
The airlock was taking forever. At moments like this, Archard missed the simple doors on Earth. Open them, go through, close them. Easy-peasy. Not on Mars. Airlocks were notoriously slow, sometimes irritatingly so, yet essential.
When Bradbury, the first colony, was established, some civilians complained. They wanted the government to come up with a better way. Then a freak glitch caused both doors to an outer airlock to open simultaneously. Eleven people lost their lives, and half a block was destroyed, before the emergency override resealed the dome. No one had complained since.
Finally, Private Everett emerged.
Archard gestured, and they spread out and approached the agripod. Once again, they had to endure an airlock.
The first thing Archard noticed on entering was the complete and utter silence. With Everett at his back, he warily descended the stairs. At the bottom, he barely had time to take in the sight of a lake of blood mixed with viscera when something flew at him from out of the shadows, screeching wildly.
8
Archard reacted instinctively. He pointed his ICW but instantly jerked his weapon down and shouted, “Hold your fire!”
“Good God,” Private Everett blurted.
It was the boy, Piotr Zabinski, in a child’s EVA suit, covered with blood. His features were twisted in unbridled terror the likes of which no child his age should ever experience, his wide eyes filled with the fire of near madness. But it was what the boy held that shocked Archard most. For clutched to Piotr’s breast was the severed head of Ania Zabinski, his mother. Her own eyes were glazed testimony to the horror she had felt at the moment of dying. Her mouth was agape in her death scream.
“Good God,” Everett said again.
It brought Archard out of his shock. “Piotr?” he said, and reached out.
The boy bounded back and shook his head, uttering inarticulate sounds.
“Piotr? Do you remember me?” Archard said. “I was here once. I’m Captain Rahn. U.N.I.C. I had coffee with your father and mother? Do you remember?”
“Mom,” the boy said softly, and gave a violent shake. He looked at the grisly head, tears trickling down his cheeks. “They…they tore her apart, like they did Dad. They…”
“We’re here to help,” Archard said soothingly. “I can take that from you if you want.”
“No!” Piotr cried, and clutched the head tight. Sniffling, he said in a barely audible whisper, “They didn’t tear me apart. That one, it just…it just…” He quaked some more.
Archard waited. To try and pick the boy up would only aggravate matters.
“Sir, did you see this?” Private Everett said. “What the hell? I mean, what the hell?”
Keeping one eye on the boy, Archard half-turned. The remains of the parents were about ten meters apart. Their arms and legs had been torn off and placed on either side of their bodies. Internal organs had been ripped out and piled in the cavities. Everything had been removed; their hearts, their gall bladders, their spleens, kidneys, livers, and more.
“What could do this?” Everett said in bewilderment.
“They did it,” Piotr said.
Archard shifted so he blocked the boy’s view. “What were they? What did you see?”
Piotr whimpered, hugged his mother’s head, and said fearfully, “Monsters.”
9
Archard’s helmet shrilled.
“Movement, sir,” Sergeant McNee reported. “No doubt about it this time. Along with faint sounds I can’t identify.”
“Infrared?”
“No heat signatures. How that can be, I have no idea.”
“On Albor Tholus?”
“No, sir. About a hundred and fifty meters from the farm, heading toward the volcano.”
A tingle of excitement rippled through Archard. He turned to the boy. “Piotr, would you like to catch the things that did this to your parents?”
“Yes,” Piotr sniffled. Then, more fiercely, “Yes!”
Archard scooped him into his arms. He was tempted to try and wrest the head away but time was critical. “We’re coming out,” he barked into his comm-link. “Be ready to roll.”
By the time they cleared the airlock, Sergeant McNee had brought the tank close to the agripod. The moment he was inside, Archard carried Piotr to the bench in the bay and set him down. “This is Private Pasco. He’ll look after you for a while.”
The Spaniard smiled and nodded. “Si. I mean, yes, sir, I am happy to.”
Archard claimed his seat. The holograph showed ripples where the long-range sensors detected motion.
He honed in, on visual, but only saw flat ground and a few boulders. “Odd.”
“Maybe they’re invisible,” Sergeant McNee joked.
“Let’s find out.”
At top acceleration, the tank could do 70 kph. It was a lot faster than civilian rovers, but for Archard it wasn’t fast enough. He was eager for a glimpse of the ‘monsters.’
“I couldn’t believe your helmet feed of the farmer and his wife,” McNee said grimly.
“The boy,” Archard said quietly.
“Oh. Sorry, sir.”
The tank neared the far side of the fence. Except for the ‘gate’ out front, the poles were a lot closer together.
“The tank is too wide to make it through,” Sergeant McNee pointed out the obvious. “Do we stop and go on foot?”
“I want these things, whatever they are. The fence is off so it won’t damage the tank.”
“Understood,” Sergeant McNee said, then called out. “Brace yourselves.”
There was the mildest of jolts as the tank plowed a pole under.
Private Pasco let out a whoop.
Archard put his nose to the windshield. The sensors said there was movement so there had to be something up ahead, but for the life of him he still didn’t see anything.
Sergeant McNee indicated the holo. “We’re losing them.”
The ripples were fading in and out.
“Faster,” Archard urged.
“Too bad this thing doesn’t have thrusters,” McNee muttered.
The ripples blinked a few times, and were gone. Archard checked that the sensor gain was boosted all the way, and it was.
“They’re gone, sir,” Sergeant McNee said.
“Stop the tank. Everett, you’re on me.”
Once through the airlock, Archard scoured for signs of life, for more of the bizarre tracks, for anything at all.
“It’s like we’re chasing ghosts,” Everett remarked.
“Ghosts don’t tear off arms and rip out organs.”
“What now, sir? Do we head back to New Meridian?”
“We do not.”
“Then where, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Where do you think?” Archard rejoined, and jabbed a finger at the extinct volcano.
10
It didn’t take a tactical genius to deduce that Albor Tholus must harbor the answers they needed. That large thing on the rim. The creatures that attacked the farm hurrying toward it after the attack.
First, though, Archard needed to warn New Meridian. He piped through to the Chief Administrator’s office. Winslow’s assistant balked at relaying his call, claiming the C.A. was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Archard said he would count to three, and if Winslow wasn’t on the line, he would take the assistant into custody when he got back for obstructing a U.N.I.C. officer in the performance of his duties.
“This is Levlin Winslow. Who is this? What is so important that—?”
“Captain Rahn,” Archard cut him off. “We have trouble. I need you to listen. If you’re with someone else, have them leave.”
“I don’t know if I like your tone, Captain,” Winslow said archly.
Archard had forgotten how full of himself the man could be. “You have one minute.”
“Now see here…”
“Winslow, the farmer and his wife are dead…”
“What?”
“Killed by entities unknown, we’ll call them for now.”
“What?”
“My unit is in pursuit.” Archard paused. “Are you alone yet?” He heard muffled voices and a commotion, and the C.A. came back on.
“Run all that by me again, would you?”
“First things first. Under Article Three, Section B, Subsection N, paragraph four of the United Nations Colonization Protocols, as head of security for New Meridian I formally declare a state of emergency.”
“Now wait just a damn minute.”
“You are required to follow my instructions. Any breach of protocol and I’ll have you brought up before a tribunal.”
“Hold on, hold on. All this is going too fast.”
“Catch up,” Archard said. “I’ll repeat this only once. Josep and Ania Zabinski are dead. We’re going after the creatures that killed them.” Archard thought to add, “Their boy is safe and in our custody.”
“What was that about creatures?”
“That’s all I can tell you for now. It’s all we know.”
“You can’t mean Martians?”
“Animals, possibly, Chief Administrator,” Archard said.
“The government’s official policy is that Mars doesn’t have indigenous life forms.”
“Tell that to the couple the indigenous life killed.” Archard remembered the boy was listening, and frowned at his blunder.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a mishap of some kind? You might be jumping to the wrong conclusion. No one has ever reported anything like this.”
Battlefield Mars Page 2