World War Mars

by Isaac Stone

  Harlo’s own family had the syndicate that managed a large school of Alaskan King Crabs. Not easy work, quite dangerous, but they never had to worry about the size of the harvest. The governments made certain the big crustaceans were plentiful and never over-fished. Any fishing boat from another power block risked a direct hit from one of the naval security syndicates. The plan worked for a long time and had every expectation to continue far into the future.

  “So what do you think about the war lasting longer than another month?” Nea asked Harlo as they watched the pylon spin by on their way to the bottom. “I think it’ll be resolved pretty soon.” He was careful what he said as the radio was monitored.

  “Hard to say,” Harlo told him. “Did you see they were asking for recruits to help out with the Force?” The Force Syndicates were the closest thing Olympia had to a regular military.

  “What are they offering?” Nea asked. “Any mention of how long you’d be gone?”

  Harlo shrugged and shifted his gaze as they continued their descent.

  The algae was the prime crop used in the aquaculture of Olympia. It was easy to produce and served as a staple of the average citizen’s diet. It was genetically modified to resist bacterial infestation and to produce the right nutrients. Algae production was so productive the government used it as a free supplement for food. It was the bread that fed the empire.

  Algae could be cooked, it could be used as toast and it could be turned into a spread. Algae was grown in all manner of places in the ocean and processed by large ships that showed up every day to collect it. The algae production was crucial to the survival of Olympia and the one shining example of what the syndicates could accomplish when they worked together.

  However, the government was concerned there was too much dependence on the algae. Several research projects were underway to reduce their dependence on it. The top elders in the aquaculture syndicates worried it had the potential to create a famine if a severe bacterial infection broke out and spread through the crops. Harlo and Nea’s dive that day was to check on the experimental crops grown at lower ocean levels.

  “I hear they’re offering a huge stipend to anyone who signs up,” Harlo mentioned. “Didn’t you see the notice posted in the commissary? It sounded pretty sweet. You can build up a nice nest egg if you go there for a month. Doesn’t sound too bad to me. Beats scrapping green goo from the sides of the pylons.”

  “I don’t know about that. We’re not soldier boys. We were brought up to swim around and herd fish, not gun down people. Let the Force handle it.”

  Harlo tried to scratch a hard to reach place in his suit. “I could do it. Living off the land, nice uniform, get to shoot a real gun. Hell, those assault suits they wear on the front lines don’t look much different from what we have on right now.”

  “And all you have to do is let people you don’t know shoot at you. Sorry, I’ve heard about what those rail guns and plasma cannons can do. Count me out.”

  “You’re probably right, but still,” Harlo smirked as he stepped onto the rail of the elevator as it travelled down. “This could be the chance of a lifetime. I don’t think the Force ever asked for recruits from other syndicates until last year.”

  “That alone should keep you worried. Why do they want people to enlist all of the sudden? I think because the government is in over its head. Too many people who can’t back down, too many generals out there who want to fight the revolution all over again. Seriously, when was there a war the last time? A hundred and fifty years ago?”

  “Maybe it’s time for another.”

  “This is what they want you to think. Nope, ain’t going to sign up unless the Z-boys show up on my front door.”

  They shared a laugh that ended when the elevator came to a stop. Time to go to work.

  Harlo didn’t like this part of the ocean. It was filled with strange creatures that had a taste for human flesh, as his supervisor warned. In spite of the harmless algae eaters who swarmed around the pylons, there were plenty of sharks and worse. The platform maintained detection systems, which was supposed to track anything deadly in the proximity of the algae drifts. But they didn’t work a lot of the time. Last week, an apprentice diver was snatched by something big and hungry from the underwater fields.

  They didn’t even have a clear picture of what took her. Sharks left a mass that was easy to track and pursue, but the cameras didn’t pick up a thing when this diver vanished. All they showed was a body jerked away by a mysterious something. The other divers whispered that some sea monster had risen from the depths and took her, but no one had the slightest idea what it could be.

  The older, experienced divers had stories about people whom ventured out too close to the water on moonless nights and were never seen again. Something was out there that grabbed people, but the syndicate board refused to listen to anyone who complained. The last thing anyone wanted to be accused of was making too many complainants. The deep divers liked to think of themselves as tougher than the rest of the population, and that persona kept them paid.

  Every one of them had experienced the bends at some time in their career and told of the unbearable pain it caused. Surfacing too quickly could kill a diver as the bloodstream nitrogen began to bubble. The usual method was to keep the person in a pressurized chamber, but it wasn’t always effective.

  Other divers spoke of the krakens, giant squids that were bigger than any ever photographed. They supposedly lived at the lower depths and surfaced in search of prey when it was too hard to find at the bottom. Tentacles with barbed protrusions could easily turn into chainsaws if they grabbed an unsuspecting victim. If the algae attracted so many fish, might the kraken not be attracted too? No one knew.

  “Isn’t your family pretty high up in Neptune?” Nea asked Harlo as the continued downward. “Did you piss someone off to be assigned to this part of the ocean?”

  Harlo was quiet. In fact, he’d been caught with the daughter of one of the other aquaculture syndicates at naval school two months ago. The elite who ran the syndicates didn’t want their offspring messing around with mere barnacle scrappers. It was all right and fine for the lower syndicates to be stuck with more children than they could support, but not for the upper echelons. At that level, marriage and the minnows it produced was the product of careful arrangements and genetic checks.

  Word spread about his indiscretion and Harlo found himself sent far from the populated shore. His parents told him before he shipped out that this would provide him a valuable lesson. Other than how to scrape algae Harlo still wasn’t sure what that was supposed to be.

  Chapter 3

  Harlo thought a lot about the way he was shipped off to a scrub operation when his status demanded something better. The only women around this place were the master divers and he didn’t dare to mess with them. Hormones needed to wait until shore leave and, at his level; one might not be available for another three months.

  He thought about that recruitment poster in the gallery. It didn’t seem such a bad deal. How many other men had the chance to travel off planet? True, Mars was a destination for tourists, at least until the latest hostilities broke out, but most people couldn’t afford to travel there. Even with the mass drivers, it took four weeks to reach Mars on a standard starliner.

  The moons of Jupiter were much further away and involved a trip of at least a year. Few people could afford that much time off, which is why the colonies never tried to promote tourism.

  News about the state of the war on Mars drifted slowly to Earth. The government clamped down on most information from the red planet, but it did reach the populace from time to time. The problem was, no one knew what to believe. Was the gallant troops of Olympia on the offense, or were they being slaughtered by the combined forces of the other empires? It all depended on what you used for a source. The official government coverage was always positive. But the whispers from the people who’d been there told something else.

  Veterans returned with body
parts missing, if they returned at all. They tried to keep a low profile. When they talked, it was about the stalemates and constant low-grade warfare on the front lines. No one knew how long the conflict would last and there was no attempt at any parties to talk it out. Olympia made too many demands on the Zhong Republic and the Sultanates would support their allies. The size of the battles were larger than anything the generals imagined and this didn’t help much either.

  From where he stood, four hundred feet down and deeper by the second, Harlo didn’t think it was such a bad arrangement. Learn to shoot a rail gun, fire a plasma cannon, and stay out of the way. If this conflict dragged on, why not get in on the glory? He figured anyone who came back with battle stress played too hard while they were there. Find a position and work it just enough to keep himself out of harm’s way. Then he could return home with enough money to finance the career he wanted and plenty of stories to tell on deck.

  Every few years, the government allowed a few franchises to go up for sale. There was always the possibility they might expand the number of aquaculture syndicates. They were expensive to buy and more so to run, but the payoff was vast. If your syndicate didn’t pass standards within a year, it could be pulled. Harlo dreamed of his own franchise and an operation big enough to support several families. All he needed to get started was the money. A tour of duty as a Force Volunteer might provide that money.

  The elevator stopped as they reached the level where the collection was supposed to begin. Harlo unhooked the security cable and drifted off from the elevator. He waited for a few minutes and Nea did the same. It was black as the inside of a block of coal at their level with no light from the surface to reach the algae. The light needed for the growth was provided by an array of LED’s which extended in all directions. It wasn’t much light, just enough for the crop, so the divers had lamps attached to the outside of their deep-water suits.

  The algae were bioluminescent, even if their dull glow only served to make the seascape more alien looking than illuminated. Different crops glowed different colors, which helped in the harvesting of it. Harlo took with him the sample containers they were provided to gather random specimens for the technicians on the surface. They wanted to ensure no bacterial outbreaks were in progress. Each collection cylinder had a series of pressure sensitive screens where they could tap out the location of the collection. The pylons where marked by different illuminated codes to make the identification easier.

  At least my suit is pressurized, Harlo thought as he moved in the cold water of the depths. The syndicate experimented with different suits years ago that used oxygenated water, but the transition from breathing air to water was too great for most people. They decided to stick with pressurized suits. This made the wearer forced to deal with the outer shell for long periods of time, but it was just another day on the job for most divers.

  “You see the section where we are supposed to begin?” Nea asked him over the radio. The suit radios weren’t much good over long distances, but worked fine close between divers.

  Harlo swung around the nearest pylon and felt through the green mass until he could locate a rectangular object. He wiped the growth away until a set of numbers were revealed. This was the one where they supposed to begin the samples. They were supposed to only stay down for an hour this time. Only master divers were allowed to stay down longer. At these great depths, the slightest suit malfunction meant instant death.

  “Found it,” Harlo informed his friend. He unhooked his collection cylinder and began making notes on it.

  “Be with you in a second,” Nea told him as he drifted through the green luminescent haze. The whole algae field resembled something out of a dream.

  “Okay,” Nea stated, “I’ve got my collector out too, let me record the location and we can start. I’d like to be back up on top as soon as….”

  His words ended as a very long and thick tentacle whipped out of the green fog and wrapped itself around his suit. Harlo almost dropped his contained when he saw it. The tentacle was a light grey in color and marked with a diamond pattern. It glowed with its own bioluminescent haze.

  Harlo kicked off and swam towards Nea as he slid his dive knife from its sheath. No sooner had he reached his partner, before he could lower the knife, the tentacle tightened up, displaying a sudden burst of speed and power that took both divers by surprise. Before his eyes, Harlo watched Nea’s suit crack and implode from the grip of the tentacle. Nea didn’t even have a chance to scream.

  One second later the tentacle pulled back and took its trophy with it into the darkness.

  Harlo had enough sense to attach a towline to the pylon before he went after Nea. It was too easy to lose your way inside the algae, even with the background light provided by the bioluminescene. He swam in the direction the tentacle had pulled Nea, but found nothing. Ten minutes after he plunged into the mass, Harlo was forced to conclude whatever grabbed Nea was gone.

  By now, the radio link to topside was screaming at him. The dive supervisor demanded to know wat happened and why had Nea’s vital signs went blank. Harlo ignored them until it occurred to him that whatever grabbed Nea might be on its way back for another meal. He pulled his line back to the pylon and entered the elevator. The door closed quickly on the cage that surrounded him.

  “Get me up! Fast!” he yelled into the radio. “Something grabbed Nea down here. I saw his suit implode; don’t know where it took him. Just get me up before it comes back!” He almost cried for joy when the elevator began to ascend up the pylon toward the surface.

  Harlo underwent interrogation by three sets of experts over the next three days. The syndicate even flew in their expert on fish in the region. He wanted a complete description of the creature that grabbed Nea. All the interviews were recorded or videoed. Sometimes both.

  “It wasn’t a fish!” Harlo insisted. “It was a goddamn tentacle! One of those krakens got him. We keep telling you they’re real! You need to do something about them before anyone else gets eaten!” Harlo shook in his chair while the expert asked him to describe what happened. He asked. him the description several times to get it right

  While he was drinking coffee between interview rounds, Harlo noticed the poster for the Force Volunteers on the wall. He walked over and looked at it with care. Could death by a plasma bolt be any worse than being crushed and eaten at the bottom of the ocean?

  By the end of the day, he’d made up his mind to enlist.

  Chapter 4

  The induction center was situated in the nearest land mass. It was close to the chain of pylons and platforms where Harlo had worked prior to seeing his friend Nea eaten by a kraken.

  The review board refused to believe a giant sea creature of such immense size existed that far down in the ocean. This was in spite of Harlo’s sworn testimony and that of others who’d seen people snatched from the pylons while working in the algae crops. There were subtle hints that Harlo and the other interviewees might have conspired to have their coworkers killed for some kind of bond money. Harlo didn’t care what they thought at that stage of the process. He’d made up his mind to sign up with the Force Volunteers. The moment the investigative committee made its findings public- no evidence of mega squids around the pylons, the divers witnessed mistaken Great White sharks for them- Harlo packed his sea bag and took the first helicopter transport to the induction center.

  He sent a letter to his parents in advance. Harlo told them he wanted to do his syndicate duty to help fight for Olympia. In fact, he wanted to get away from the underwater pylons and water submersible horrors they attracted. He knew there would be another time down there for him and he had no desire to perish in a deep diver suit nearly a thousand feet underwater. The better bet was to shoot it out with a Zhong or Sultanate trooper. At least they didn’t have tentacles.

  The helicopter transport dumped him and the other passengers out on a beach that faced the setting sun. Harlo, dressed in casual shorts and a light shirt, grabbed his bag as it was toss
ed to him from the chopper. He needed what was inside. The Force would never accept him as a recruit unless his paperwork was in order. He’d talked to his syndicate representative before leaving and she thought it was a risky idea, but didn’t discourage him from enlisting. The government leaned hard on all the syndicates to send young men into space to help the colonists on Mars fight the threat from the other two major powers.

  “Everything seems in order,” the recruiter said behind the desk at the transportation hub. “I see you have your trade pass and up to date medical reports. You just made the quota for your syndicate, I’m sure they’ll be glad to know it.” She handed some paper work back to Harlo and pointed down the line in the corridor.

  “You’ll find the final induction center over there,” the recruiter told him. “I’ll see you in a three months when you get back.” The recruiter, a woman in her fifties shook Harlo’s hand and watched him walk away.

  “I wonder if he’ll make day one,” the recruiter said to herself. The latest news from the front wasn’t good, but she was forbidden to talk about it.

  “Welcome aboard, son,” the desk sergeant said to Harlo as she stepped through the door of the induction center. Harlo seemed puzzled, as he’d entered a waiting room lobby.

  “Yes I have, sir,” Harlo told him as he handed the man the paperwork. “I thought this would be larger. Where is the training center?”

  The man, who wore a uniform of the Force Syndicate, looked over the signed paperwork and went to his desk where he filed it. There were a few other young men sitting on chairs. He returned to Harlo and motioned to him to sit down. Harlo seated himself next to another guy.

  “Shuttle to the orbiter leaves in fifteen minutes,” he explained. “You’ll be headed up with forty guys from the other syndicates. When you reach the orbiter, they’ll give you new clothes and start the training. Take a good, long look at Earth; it will be awhile before you see her again.” He pointed at a window to one side of the office.