Now she saw. Now she knew. Now she understood why Serengeti loved the stars so.
But Oona was a child still, and in the way of children, her interest soon waned. She looked around and spied the forest of solar panels standing close by the bow. She pointed, babbling out a staccato burst of overexcited chatter, and then took off, all but dragging Tilli with her as she raced over to take a closer look.
That left Tig to follow after. Again.
He took his time, letting Tilli and Oona speed ahead, enjoying the sight of them surrounded by all those stars. Tilli slipped into teacher mode as they moved along the racks of solar panels, explaining the science and engineering behind it all so Oona would understand how the solar array worked.
Tig listened for a bit and then split off, turning away from the solar panel forest as he headed for the massive metal tower a short distance away. He rolled over to it and stopped at its base, tilted his head backward and stared up and up and up.
The antenna had grown over the years: dishes added, longer lengths of girdering bolted on in places, a hodge-podge of odds and ends tacked on wherever they could be fitted, transforming the makeshift sniffer into a massive communications device—a gnarled, crooked finger pointing at the stars. A finger that, with each new addition, reached a little bit further, expanding their listening range out into the dark.
Serengeti designed the original but this…the additions were all Tig’s. That and the relay he’d cobbled together, a primitive thing that sent a pulse across the channel shared between himself, Tilli and Oona, notifying them instantly if anything noisy drifted into range. He’d designed it, built it, but to this day he didn’t know if it actually worked. After all, nothing had ever come into range to test it on. At least, as far as he knew. And if something had…
Best not to think about that.
Tig and Tilli busied themselves around the ship, fixing things, teaching Oona along the way, but they always made time to come out here and tap into the tower, using a cable snaking from its base to connect themselves directly to its listening array. Tig loved it out here, with nothing but the darkness and the stars. He stood on Serengeti’s hull, listening through the comms tower, dreaming of days long gone, hoping each time he plugged into hear a pop or a fizz, a squawk or crackle, something, anything that even remotely resembled interstellar communications. But weeks passed, months and years, with nothing and nothing and yet more nothing.
And still Tig came. Day after day, year after year. Because to do otherwise, was to give up hope. And hope was one of the few things they had left.
Tig moved a step closer to the tower of misfit pieces and plugged himself in, dialing his receivers all the way up.
Silence at first, just as he expected. And then…something. Something that wasn’t quite sound. Something felt more than heard that was surprisingly familiar.
Tig panned his head around, searching the stars, tilted it back and examined the empty stretch of space above him. Nothing to see, nothing but stars. But that something, that feeling kept getting stronger, setting his pathways to humming, reverberating with sound that wasn’t quite sound.
“Beep,” he muttered, face lights frowning in concentration. And then, “Beeeeeeep.” Tig’s eyes widened as a dark void formed—inky black nothingness bending and twisting as it blotted out the stars.
That too was familiar. He’d seen that nothingness a thousand times and more, knew that void was a buckle—a spot of unstable space, the precursor to hyperspace transit.
“Tilli!” Tig twisted around, waving excitedly, but Tilli and Oona were deep inside the solar panel forest, unable to see him from here. He tapped into the robot comms channel and babbled like an idiot, trying to get her attention. “Tilli come see! There’s something—”
“In a minute,” she said, and shut the channel down.
“Bugger.” Tig wonked in annoyance and faced back around.
The buckle widened, darkening as it resolved. A shimmer as it sucked inward and flared bright, silver-white. A flood of communications poured through the breach, filling Tig’s brain with the grinding sound of electronic signals as a sleek-sided shape appeared, sparkling in the starlight.
More flashes, more breaches forming and resolving, silver-white flashes popping off like fireworks all around that first shape. Each new arrival threw more noise into the ambient, cluttering up the once-empty section of space with a vast ocean of sound that washed over Tig like an electronic storm. He focused in, listening intently, leg wrapped around the metal girders of the antennae to boost the signal that much more. A flash of face lights as he parsed through data, filtering the chatter until one voice came through clearly—louder, stronger than all the others. A voice he remembered from long, and long, and long ago.
Tig whooped with joy and spun in a circle, legs ends flailing the air around him. “Sechura,” he called, dialing up his comms, making his small voice loud as possible. “Here! We’re here!”
A brief delay before a response came back. “What of Serengeti?”
“Here! She’s here. Sleeping, dreaming, waiting for you, all this time.”
Another moment of silence, and then the mass of ships turned and glided toward Serengeti, starlight twinkling along their hulls.
Tig bounced up and down, waving his legs excitedly, calling out to Tilli and Oona, telling them to “Come-come-come! Come see, come see, come see, Tilli! Sechura is here!”
Sechura. Sister ship. After all these years, the Valkyries had come to bring Serengeti home.
Read on for a free sample of Battlefield Mars
1
Ten-year old Piotr Zabinski was almost to the airlock when his mother said, “Hold it right there.” She came over, knelt, and inspected his EVA suit.
“I want to go out,” Piotr told her, fidgeting.
“Hold still.” She checked the readout, and nodded. “Everything looks to be in order.”
“I know how to suit up, Mom. I’m not five anymore.”
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek, even though she had to know he couldn’t feel it through the faceplate. “You’re growing up much too fast. It seems only yesterday I was pushing you in your stroller.”
“Mom,” Piotr said impatiently.
“All right.” She stood and tapped the code for the airlock. “What are the rules?”
Piotr sighed.
“The rules,” she said again.
“Watch my air. Watch out for sharp objects. Watch the sky. Come right back in if the alarm goes off,” Piotr recited.
“What else?”
Piotr had forgotten the last one. “Don’t go too near the fence.”
“Because?”
“Can I please just go?”
“Because?” his mother said in that irritating way she had.
Piotr hated being treated as if he were dumb. “Because if I touch it, it will short out my suit.”
She raised her thumb to the pad, a green light glowed, and the inner pressure door hissed open. “Off you go. Have fun.”
Piotr went through the ritual of waiting for the inner door to close and the outer door to open, and at last he was outside. He gazed up at the orange-red sky, then at the barren expanse beyond the fence, which wasn’t really a fence at all but a series of poles that projected an invisible barrier.
Piotr never understood why they needed it. There wasn’t any life on Mars, other than the people from Earth. Yet settlers who lived outside the New Meridian dome were required to put a fence up.
Piotr began a circuit of their house module, looking for something to stir his interest. To the north reared Albor Tholus, an extinct volcano. Ever since he first set eyes on it, he’d wanted to go there to explore. One day, his dad had promised, they would.
The rest of the scenery consisted of rocky ridges, scattered boulders, and a plain. He’s seen it a thousand times. Nothing ever changed. Just all that rock and dirt, with no vegetation, no water. Compared to Earth, Mars was boring.
Grinning to him
self, Piotr picked up a small stone and threw it at the security fence. It was against his mother’s many rules but the stone wasn’t big enough to set off the alarm, and he liked the crackle effect.
Piotr debated going to the agripod and down into the horticulture farm to watch his father work. Instead, he drifted toward the fence. He was halfway there when he happened to glance down, and stopped in surprise.
There were marks all over the dirt. Puzzled, he squatted and examined them. Each was the same. About half as wide as his hand, with a lot of small points around the edges, as there would be if his mom poked her knitting needles into the dirt.
Piotr wondered what made them. It didn’t occur to him they might be tracks until he realized a trail led toward the fence. He followed it, and was dumfounded to see a hole where there had never been a hole before, rimmed by freshly dug Martian earth.
It dawned on Piotr that something must have come up out of the ground, roamed around, and gone back down again.
Piotr grew excited. His mother and father never told him about anything like this. He started to turn toward the agripod to go let his dad know but the hole piqued his curiosity.
About the size of a tractor wheel, the opening went in at an angle. Piotr couldn’t see much. Kneeling, he placed his hands flat, and peered in. He heard a slight sound, and something moved. Before he could do more than gape in amazement, the thing was out of the hole—and on him.
2
Captain Archard Rahn smothered a yawn. If there was any work more boring than filing his daily report, he had yet to come across it. He glanced at the clock and saw it was only ten a.m. He needed to come up with something interesting to do for the afternoon.
Leaning back in his chair, Archard stretched. On the wall to his left hung the United Nations Interplanetary Corps banner. On the wall to his right was a map of Mars that showed the east and west hemispheres in bas relief. Near the door hung a large image, taken from space, of a bright blue pearl in the dark abyss of space
“Mother Earth,” Archard said aloud. God, how he missed her. Missed being able to go outdoors without a suit. Missed being able to breathe actual fresh air. True, New Meridian’s dome enabled people to do both, but only under its protective shell. And the air was artificial, supplied by the oxygenator and other components of the Atmosphere Center.
His desk phone chirped and he answered.
“Captain, this is Levlin Winslow.”
Archard sat up. It was rare for the Chief Administrator to ring him up. “Sir?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the C.A. said, sounding slightly embarrassed that he had. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Sir?” Archard said again. As head of security, it was his job to protect the colonists and maintain the peace. Neither required much effort, principally because there was nothing to protect the colonists from. Mars was lifeless. In the century and a half since the first colony was established, not a single indigenous life form had been discovered. As for lawbreakers, crime was as nonexistent as alien life. Not surprising, since every colonist went through a rigorous screening process. Those with sociopathic and/or psychopathic tendencies didn’t make the cut. Mars would never have its very own version of Jack the Ripper.
“Do you know the Zabinski’s?”
Archard brought up the personnel file on his screen, typed the name, and recited, “Family of three. Husband, Josep. Wife’s name is Ania. Occupation, farmers. One child, a boy, Piotr.”
“You’ve met them, then?”
Given the size of the colony, one hundred and twenty-one souls, Archard knew many of the people by sight if not by name. In this instance, “I went out to their farm when they first moved in to make sure their fence was up, as required. Small place. Two or three modules, the house and some sheds. Underground hydroponics. The usual.”
“Well, the mother called here about, oh, an hour ago, saying their boy had disappeared—”
“Disappeared?” Archard interrupted, suddenly all interest.
“The kid went out to play, apparently. A while later the father came in and asked the mother where the boy was, and she didn’t know. They both went looking and couldn’t find him so the mother buzzed my office.” Winslow paused. “My assistant took all this down.”
“Why did they call you and not the Security Center?”
“Probably because I’m the head of the colony, and the colonists all look up to me and respect me.”
Archard let that pass.
“At any rate, I wasn’t in. My assistant told them I would return their call as soon as soon as I got back. Which I just did a few minutes ago.”
“And?” Archard prompted when Winslow didn’t go on.
“No answer. Could be they’re still out looking.”
Archard frowned. Military EVA suits all had comm-links. Civilian suits weren’t required to; an oversight, in his judgment. But then, except for farmers and geologists and the like, few colonists ever ventured out into the real Martian environment.
“Was their fence down when the boy went missing?” Archard wondered. Sometimes a fence had to be shut off for maintenance or what-have-you, and if that was the case, the boy might have wandered off.
“The mother didn’t mention anything about that,” Winslow said. “Anyway, I have to go. Council meeting. Will you check this out and report back to me at your earliest convenience?”
“Of course.” Archard was willing to bet a month’s pay that it was nothing. Kids would be kids. Even on Mars. Still, it was something to do besides paperwork. He saved his daily report to finish later, and turned to the communications console. “Heads up, people. Where is everyone?”
“Sergeant McNee here, sir. I’m in the armory.”
“Private Pasco, sir. The sarge has me mopping floors.”
“Private Everett. Target range.”
“Gear up, men,” Archard commanded. “We’re taking the tank out.”
“Some action, at last,” Pasco said excitedly.
“Don’t get your hopes up, buddy,” Private Everett said. “It’s not like we’ll get to shoot anything.”
3
Ania Zabinski was beside herself with worry. She and her husband had searched their entire farm from top to bottom and hadn’t found Piotr. Now, leaning against a corner of their house, she panted as much from fear as the running around they had been doing.
“Stay calm, will you?” Josep said. “The boy has to be somewhere.”
Ania didn’t care for his tone. “Of course he has to be somewhere.”
Josep scratched his helmet as if it were his chin. “This makes no sense. The fence is working. The boy has to be in one of the buildings.”
“Or lying out behind a boulder,” Ania said. The terrain around the house was flat and open, but to the north, in the direction of the volcano, it was broken and rocky.
“The boy wouldn’t go that far,” Josep said. “He knows the rules.”
“Then where?” Ania nearly wailed. She was close to tears. It was her fault they couldn’t find him. She’d let Piotr go outside unsupervised, which wasn’t an issue in itself. But then she had become busy with her analysis of the chemical effects of a new fertilizer they were experimenting with, and lost track of time.
Josep rubbed at his helmet. “We search again. Don’t worry. Help is on its way from the colony.”
“I hope they come quickly.”
“We’ll try the agripod again,” Josep suggested.
It made sense to Ania. They’d been down there once and shouted Piotr’s name but hadn’t gotten an answer. Now they would search the acres and acres of plants. Nodding, she followed her hulk of a husband, taking two strides to each of his.
As was his wont, Josep thought aloud as they went. “The boy wouldn’t stray off. He knows better. He wouldn’t have tried to go through the fence. He knows it would damage his suit. He wasn’t in the sheds. He has to be underground, in the fields.”
Ania recalled that back on Earth, fields were always on
the surface. Yet another of the many differences between their own planet and this red one. “Could he have taken a tool and hurt himself?”
“Unlikely. The boy wouldn’t take one without permission. But I’ll check when we get down there, just the same.”
“Maybe he fell and hit his head on a seeding tray or a bin.”
“Stop your fretting. He was wearing his helmet. It would protect him.”
“He might have opened it. The fields are pressurized,” Ania reminded him. The artificial atmosphere was as close to Earth’s as possible.
Josep unexpectedly stopped and pointed. “Look. More of those strange marks.”
Ania didn’t care about stupid circles in the dirt. She would try to figure them out later. Right now all she cared about was their son.
The agripod airlock was larger than most to accommodate some of the equipment they used. A flight of stairs led down.
Before them spread the glory of their farm; wheat and oats, corn and potatoes, and more. The corn stalks were the highest.
Ania decided that was where she would look and took a step, only to have Josep grab her wrist.
“What in God’s name?”
Ania’s blood went cold.
Not two meters from the stairwell, a wall that should be solid had a dark hole, maybe a meter across, in the center.
“What could have caused that?” Josep said, sounding dazed. He went toward it.
Ania was more bothered by deep scratches in the wall below the hole. “What are those?”
“Eh?” Josep bent, then caught himself and pointed off across their fields. “Look! The corn! It’s moving!”
Sure enough, the stalks were swaying as if to a mild breeze.
Ania put a hand to her throat. “Piotr!” Certain it must be their son, she raced down the center aisle. Josep called her name but she didn’t stop. All that mattered was Piotr. She flew past waist-high wheat and then the oats. Josep uttered another cry, not her name but something she didn’t catch. “I must find Piotr!” she shouted into her mic.
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