“We're less than ten kilometers from that outpost,” John concluded. “Worst case scenario, we can take the ATV to the outpost and look for parts. There's likely some sort of power converter we can salvage from there, something to get us up and running.”
“Sounds like a good plan B,” Kyle threw in his two cents. “If we can't recover our own converter from the trail we left behind, then that sounds like a good backup.”
“Agreed,” Ashley said.
“OK, then we have it,” John disconnected his Ksync. “One more song for the road and then let's hit the sack.”
#
Everyone was up early the next morning. A combination of anticipation and sparse sleeping areas made for a quick start. The whole group made their way outside the duck to stretch their legs. They were greeted by a wave of humidity and smells the likes of which they hadn't experienced in a long time... if ever.
“It’s like we're camping in the middle of skyscrapers,” Stephanie exclaimed. “The trunks on the trees stretch up so high. How tall do you think they grow?”
“On Earth the giants could grow up to eighty meters tall,” Ashley answered her question. “On Mars, with the reduced gravity, they can go even higher.”
“If you look at the ones we knocked down, I'd say they're at least 60 meters or more in length,” Kyle added. “That duck was built to last that's for sure.”
John looked down the lane of fallen trees stretching into the distance.
“Kyle and I are going to find our missing parts,” John announced. “Stick to The Compromise and try to stay out of trouble.” John leaned over and touched Jessica's nose. “In your case that goes double; once for you and once for Wispy.”
Jessica poked her father back, reaching his ribs with her finger, then ran away.
The two sentinels walked beside the fallen tree line. They found it was far easier to walk under the relatively clear ground of the standing trees, then along the fallen trunks. The floor of the forest was surprisingly clear of brush or vines. The light necessary to sustain life had been blocked by foliage farther up in the canopy.
“It's amazing how tall these trees have grown in such a relatively short time,” John commented. “They must have put some serious fertilizer in the mix when they were seeding the planet.”
Kyle nodded. “There's this weird sort of background noise too. Not anything specific but you can almost feel the noise.”
“I thought that was just my headache from the crash,” John laughed.
The men continued walking for a quarter hour before reaching the rail.
“What's that?” Kyle asked as he pointed to a small tower right next to the rail.
“That my friend is one of the plasma stations that sends the transports racing down the track,” John replied. “It looks like the top of it has been blown clean off.”
Both men scoured the area around the rail looking for any sign of the power converter.
“I'm going to wager,” John surmised, “that one of those lightning strikes hit the plasma station as we were passing by. The blast must have blown us right off the track and likely blew our power converter into bits.”
“That's a heck of a lot of bad luck,” Kyle replied.
“Apparently Murphy's law and Newton's laws both work on Mars,” John agreed.
“Well, Watson, that was a wonderful morning stroll, shall we head back?” John asked Kyle.
“Quite right Holmes,” Kyle replied, recalling the reference to the great detective stories. “Let us not tarry.”
#
Jessica tried to talk Stephanie into playing hide and go seek, but of course her sister was too “busy” for games. As always, Wispy was up for a game or two and as it turns out was an expert hider to boot. Jessica looked all around the duck trying to find Wispy. Of course, the tiny companion was using its hovering ability to its advantage. Jessica looked everywhere but one place... up. Wispy simply hovered silently above her as she wondered to and fro.
Not being one to give up easily, Jessica took it upon herself to extend the search. A few steps outside the perimeter she noticed a beam of light flashing on her shirt. Looking right and left, she identified the culprit. The light was shining from the machines Lieutenant Kyle had put up around the duck.
Jessica convinced herself, "I'm not supposed to go past the light, but Wispy doesn't know that. The silly goose must be hiding somewhere behind a tree. After all, everyone knows you hide behind a tree when playing hide and seek."
As Jessica made it to the tree line, she heard Wispy's familiar beeps above her. Sure enough, she looked up and saw Wispy floating above her flashing all sorts of colors and making wacky whirs. It wasn't the sight of Wispy though that caught her attention. Up the trunk of the tree she saw what looked to be a young boy or girl about her age. The kid was somehow hanging onto the trunk of the tree at least twenty to thirty meters up in the air. Wispy floated down to Jessica's side. She couldn't believe how someone could climb so far up in the tree without help. She wasn't sure what to do. Then it came to her.
“Hi there!” Jessica said as she waved to the young teen.
If she hadn't been amazed at first, she was now as the boy opened up a pair of wings and glided toward her. He circled the tree as he descended and landed a few meters from Jessica. His wings folded up behind his back making his movements more natural.
The boy's dress was odd to say the least. He was covered by a strange combination of feathers and clothing. Both seemed to wrap together as though tailored for each other’s needs. His legs and waist were slender, but his upper body was fantastically muscled. She had never seen anyone like him.
“My name is Jessica,” she said to the boy.
He cocked his head a bit and then replied with something that could only be described as a peculiar kind of song. Unlike a song, however, the vocals were broken up into parts, as though he were trying to sing words. He gave Jessica what looked to be a smile and then took a woven cord from around his neck. Dangling from it, was a shining stone, much like the one she had been given by the nice admiral on the space station. He held the cord out toward Jessica as if to offer it to her. Jessica giggled a bit and took the necklace. It occurred to her to reciprocate the boy’s gesture. She pulled the Admiral's gift from around her neck and handed it toward the boy. He took it and placed it around his neck.
“Jessica!” a voice sounding like her mother's called from duck. In the clearing several people were spreading out and calling her name.
The boy caught sight of the adults and took a couple of cautious steps backward. Jessica noticed the sharp nails on his feet that allowed him to cling to the tree above.
“It's OK,” Jessica said. “They're my friends and my mother. They won't...”
But before she could finish, the boy leapt into the trees and spreading his wings soared into the branches above. Within a few seconds, he was completely out of sight.
Catching sight of Wispy and Jessica, Ashley jogged over to her.
“Jessica,” Ashley said, slightly winded. “You're out of bounds girl. You and your trouble-making sidekick need to get back over to the duck.”
“Okay Mom,” Jessica replied. “Mom?” Jessica thought to ask.
“Yes?” Ashley replied.
“Did you see the boy I was talking with?” Jessica asked.
“A boy?” Ashley questioned.
“Yes, he flew down to say hi to me,” Jessica continued. “I was starting to talk with him but then he saw you and flew away.”
Ashley felt Jessica's head.
“You're not running a fever,” Ashley told her.
“I'm not sick mom,” Jessica replied. “See.” Jessica took the cord out from under her shirt with the shining stone.
“Yes, Dear,” Ashley said, “that was a great gift from the admiral, cherish it forever.”
“It's not the same one,” Jessica countered.
“Sure it is…” Ashley stopped mid-sentence. Looking closely at the cord and then at
the stone, she seemed to ponder the discrepancies for a moment.
“You had a metal necklace running through your stones not cord,” Ashley remarked, “and this is just one stone. Where are the others?”
“I told you, Mom,” Jessica replied with more energy. “I traded my necklace to the boy with wings.”
Ashley stood in place for a moment unsure of what to think.
Chapter 36 Trick or Treet
The ATV stopped at the location of the MARC outpost on the nav system. It was hard to confirm the location due to the extremely low light of the forest floor. John, Kyle, Tyler and Glennay swung their way out of the tight compartment.
“Who's idea was it to fit four people into a three-seater?” Glennay scoffed as she stretched her back.
John switched on the flood lights from the ATV, driving back the darkness. An odd looking construction stood before the colonists. A metallic building, worn, battered, but clearly man-made was engulfed by a giant tree. The tree and a host of vines had apparently grown around, and in some cases through, the old building. It towered up into the canopy, dwarfing the surrounding trees in bulk.
Not sure how to take his daughter's claim of meeting a native, John made sure the four of them packed away some “peace of mind". In this case three pulse rifles, a pulse pistol and several stun grenades. Reaching into the cargo hold, each of them strapped on a weapon and took at least one grenade.
The four of them attached their Ksyncs to their belts and then activated them to light the way. As they approached the vine-wrapped building, a large set of doors was discernible through the foliage.
“Looks like their blast doors are closed,” Tyler observed.
John dimmed the lights on this Ksync and then brought its screen up to view.
“I tried researching these outposts in the admiral's files,” John explained, “but the primary files were labeled as archived and unrecoverable. The overview said something about the outpost program being shut down shortly after the planet's bio programs were put in place.”
John tried to pull up another file he had stumbled on while thumbing through the Ksync.
“Now, there's no way that this should work,” John said, “but I happened upon the admiral's planetary pass codes and with them all the previously cancelled ones from her superiors.”
“You just 'happened' upon them?” asked Glennay sarcastically.
“Well,” John replied, “truth be told, I've heard rumors of these command grade skeleton keys for a while now. It may have been one of the first things I looked for in her Ksync.”
John gave Glennay a guilty wink. He then stepped up to the sealed blast doors. Holding up the Ksync to the blast doors, he set the device to fire all known pass-codes. The screen of the Ksync displayed a timeline of codes with a bar that filled as each year’s worth of codes were sent out in milliseconds.
The Ksync stopped and flashed on a single code. As it did, the blast doors in front of the group let out a burst of air. The doors squeaked in protest ripping apart the vines struggling to keep them shut. After thirty seconds, the doors were open.
The lights of the Ksyncs revealed part of a large bay. It was filled with dust covered machines of all types. There was a range of vehicles including some with old-fashioned tank treads on them and others with giant knobby wheels. The dust was so thick any markings in the room, on the machines, or on the vehicles couldn't be read.
Scanning the room's environment with his Ksync, John nodded in approval.
“It just looks bad,” John informed his team. “Nothing toxic showing up but you might choke on some dust balls.”
Kyle slung his pulse rifle around, grabbing it with his left hand. With his right, he affixed his Ksync to the stock and set it to scan mode.
“Curiosity killed the cat, but a little paranoia never hurt anyone, right mate?” Tyler said to Kyle as he setup his own rifle.
“Age before beauty,” Glennay remarked to John as she extended her hand toward the entryway.
John wasn't used to being hit with a cryptic movie reference before he could deliver. He thought about firing back, but instead he kept his wits in the search.
John set his Ksync to a lantern setting illuminating as much of the bay as possible. One by one they entered the building.
Tyler stepped to one of the four wheeled vehicles.
“I've seen pictures of my grandfather riding these around the outback,” he chuckled.
Kyle nodded, “Yeah they ran on a refined oil called gasoline. I have an old gasoline powered Ferrari bubble wrapped in my parent's garage back home--thing's worth a small fortune.”
Tyler knocked the dust off some rags. He then used them to clean off part of the four wheeler.
“This is the outpost alright,” Tyler confirmed. “There's the MARC symbol and underneath it the designation for New China.”
“How are we going to find anything useful in all this outdated junk?” Kyle asked in dismay as he looked around the bay of antiques.
Glennay was dusting off large consoles in a corner of the bay.
“We start by looking for systems that were ahead of their time,” Glennay answered his question. “Like these consoles. They’re really just a generation old version of workstations.”
“That they are,” Tyler concurred as he moved to join Glennay in dusting off the consoles. “This tech is solid, built back in the days of microchips and processors,” Tyler added. “Hit one of these motherboards with a pulse cannon and sure, you'll fry it up good...but swap in a new component or two and your off and running. Not like this Ksync tech, you hit it with a pulse cannon and it all turns to goo.”
“So can you salvage anything useful?” John asked the two techs.
“Depends,” Glennay answered.
The two of them began dismantling the consoles, devoting their attention to the task over John's questions.
Meanwhile, Kyle had found a doorway leading to a standard decontamination room.
“Looks like I found the rest of this place,” he stated loudly enough to be heard across the bay.
John found his way over to Kyle and the two of them began to manually open the door.
“Why didn't the 'open sesame' code work on this?” Kyle asked.
“Global codes usually access primary systems of a MARC base,” John answered. “Interior doors aren't on the list I guess.”
After working up a bit of a sweat, the two men had managed to open the door wide enough to slip past it. The door on the other side of the decontamination room was already open, revealing a short corridor beyond it.
John switched his Ksync's scanner over to comm.
“Tyler and Glennay,” John paged them. “We're checking out another section of the outpost. Keep me updated.”
An audio reply from Glennay came back over his Ksync. “Sounds good, looks like we may have something here. We'll keep you posted.”
The short corridor ended with a typical base door, no access codes required. John opened the door and looked in. He had to switch his Ksync back over to spotlight mode to get a good look. This part of the outpost must have been the personnel quarters, judging by beds, dressers, and bedding strewn about the room.
Rising up through the outpost was an invasive tree trunk surrounded by massive vines. The ceiling of the room was gone. In fact the entire roof of building was broken open. John's spotlight disappeared up the twisting spiral of vines, leading into the canopy line above.
“Odd,” Kyle surmised. “Those vines form a darn near perfect ramp up that tree. That seems a bit too convenient for my tastes.”
Kyle angled his light along the vine ramp as it went up into the canopy.
“Just keep your peace of mind handy, and let's see where the beanstalk leads to,” John stated.
Both sentinels placed their rifles in combat position and slowly made their way over to the ramp. Taking a hesitant first step, Kyle led the way up the ramp. The stairway of vines wrapped its way around the great tree trunk.
/> “I don't know about you, but I'd rather not fall through this thing and land on my head,” Kyle remarked.
“You jumped off a space-station in outer space and could be floating your way to Jupiter right now, but climb up a few meters in a tree you're terrified,” John poked fun at his friend.
Taking his Ksync off his rifle, Kyle brought up the rope setting. Holding it next to the tree, he fired a small pin into the tree which in turn expanded beneath the bark. He attached his Ksync to his belt once again. A spider thin cord dangled from the tree to his Ksync.
“After you,” Kyle directed John. “If you fall, I might catch you.”
“You're all heart,” John replied as he continued up the tree past Kyle.
Up they went, climbing into the understory of the jungle. A few meters in, both men began to cough a bit.
“What's that awful smell?” Kyle asked.
“I don't know, but it reeks whatever it is,” John replied.
The ramp widened and appeared to transition into a plant, a colorful plant with multiple dangling flowers. It wrapped itself along the tree much as the ramp had.
The reflexes of the two, combat trained, Sentinels were little match for the deception of the Martian plant. The ramp flexed up and over the Sentinels, attaching to the tree above them. It had trapped them in a pod. Luckily, the MARC suits detected the lack of oxygen instantly sealing and covering their heads with a transparent bubble.
Neither man could move a muscle. The cocoon like entrapment held them with an incredible grip. Moreover, a thick green puss began to fill the cocoon.
John read the tactical display across the face of his helmet. Some sort of acidic compound was eating away at his suit. His breathing was elevated, heart racing, and his mind was working on overdrive.
“Okay John,” he told himself, “think your way out. Bring it down.”
He couldn't get to his Ksync. He held a pulse rifle in his hand, but he couldn't force his finger to the firing pin. The MARC suit was ticking off seconds until suit integrity would be compromised.
He did it again. He almost did it again, totally forgetting his ace card. His neuroband had become a pencil behind an ear or a pair of glasses left on top of a head. If he wanted to use his neuroband, then he needed a target. Unfortunately, he couldn't see anything. He thought about “ghosting” his way to Glennay, but his pulse was racing so fast he couldn’t concentrate.
Curious Sols (The Sol Principle Book 1) Page 24