Matt sighed. “What could have been worse than that?”
“Hell, that was just the tip of the iceberg,” Darian said. “Instead of asking for technical help, they became even more fanatical. Silas started to claim he was Ares personified- he said he was the God of Mars. And there were videos sent back to Earth that contained sadomasochistic rituals and orgies- to be sold on the net so that they could earn more money for the supplies they needed. Rocket crews that delivered stuff to them reported a lot of sick stuff, and soon the transport personnel would no longer pay a visit into the colony anymore- they’d just unload their cargoes at the pad and liftoff again as soon as possible.”
“I can confirm that,” Stilicho said. “Errol gave orders to his rover crews to just unload the requested supplies, and then turn right back around and head south as soon as the cargo was out the door.”
“Oh my god, that’s all disgusting.” Matt said. “If they all left then what are you expecting to find out here?”
“I’m not sure,” Darian said. “Two years ago, Karl Rossum sneaked into Mars and set out to find his son Joseph, who he believed had sent him a message from this colony saying that he was alive.”
Matt made adjustments to his pistol belt to make sure that his backup weapon was secure. “So you think either Karl or his son is out here and they’re the ones who built those killer bots?”
Darian shrugged. “Joseph was reported dead by the other cultists, including his girlfriend when I interviewed her back on Earth. Surviving out here for sixteen years just seems impossible to me, but after last night, I’m guessing anything’s possible.”
They were now less than a kilometer away. While most of the structure was caked with reddish dust, all of them noticed a white-painted satellite dish on the roof of the central module. The three instantly adjusted their smartglass visors by increasing magnification to get a better look. An old, gutted rover was parked by the landing pad, half-covered by dust.
Darian pointed at the dish and antenna set on the rooftop. “That transmitting dish looks new compared to the rest of the structures, is it from the outpost?”
Stilicho nodded. “That’s an ACE Corp dish alright. So it looks like the killer bots took it back here and attached it.”
Matt subconsciously kept his right hand on the carbine’s pistol grip. “So there must be someone alive out here.”
Darian pointed to a nearby field of solar arrays at the western edge. “About half of those solar panels are clean. There’s got to be some power in the colony.”
“And it also means that someone or something’s been cleaning them,” Stilicho said before he started tapping the side of his visor. “Maia, deploy an aerial drone and do a flyby over the colony.”
“At once, Stil,” Maia said. Almost immediately, a drone that was sitting on top of one of the cargo crates instantly powered up its rotors and flew off into the darkening sky.
“How much flight time do your drones have left?” Stilicho asked.
“I have two drones at full charge for approximately twelve hours,” Maia said.
“Okay, I want a continuous aerial surveillance,” Stilicho said. “If any killbots approaches the truck, or is in the area I need to know. I’m assuming you safeguarded your drones against hacking attempts too?”
“I have indeed, Stil,” Maia said. “The drone has finished scanning the inoperative rover and all that remains is its vehicle body. All the other parts have been removed.”
Darian could hear the conversation since Maia was using the main com-link. “Have you identified the rover?”
“Yes, it is the rover that was deleted from the colony records,” Maia said.
“Karl Rossum’s rover,” Stilicho said. “So it’s gotta be him.”
“There’s a number of other tire tracks all along the landing pad that seems to be of recent make,” Maia said. “At least two other rovers did drive over here from the northeast, possibly three.”
Stilicho nodded. “That would probably be from the first search and rescue team. Where do they lead to?”
“Towards the southwest,” Maia said.
Matt was confused. “The southwest? What the heck could be over there?”
“Nothing,” Darian said before pausing. “No way they’d bother to go in that direction. Unless…”
Stilicho looked at her. “Unless what?”
“Unless they were heading to the old Russian colony site,” Darian said. “That was abandoned too. But it’s about fifteen hundred kilometers south of here, in Valles Marineris.”
Chapter 15
They stopped the robotruck near the main airlock. All three of them leapt out of the flatbed and immediately replaced the vehicle’s battery with a fresh spare, just in case a quick getaway was needed. Stilicho had told Maia to immediately move the robotruck away if any hostile bots were spotted. Two friendly drones continuously flew overhead, their downward pointing cameras on the lookout for any potential contacts. Other than the newer satellite dish on the roof, there were no other apparent signs of activity at the colony. Since there were no windows, they had no idea what was happening inside.
Matt stood by the side of the airlock. He had one hand on his pistol while he opened a control panel beside the pressure door. Stilicho and Darian were standing on the flatbed, ready to make a quick getaway in the event of a surprise attack coming from the inside of the building.
Looking at the blinking lights on the airlock readout, Matt could tell that the door was still functional. He tried using the touchpad to get the outer door to open, but there was no response. “I can’t get it open,” he said. “I think it might be secured with a passcode or something.”
Stilicho frowned. Whoever or whatever was in there didn’t want any visitors. “Maia, can you hack the airlock control panel?”
“One moment,” Maia said. “Done.”
The outer door suddenly slid open. Matt instantly reacted by getting into a crouching position as he pointed the pistol into the dim interior. After a few seconds of inactivity, he didn’t see anything from that angle, so he took out a handheld flashlight from his utility belt and peered inside. The airlock was empty.
“Clear,” Matt said.
Stilicho and Darian got down from the truck bed and all three of them went into the interior of the airlock. Two video monitors embedded along the walls were giving out continuous readouts with regards to the colony’s internal atmosphere. There was a dust covered helmet lying on the floor near the side of the door. Stilicho bent down and picked it up. It was an old Mars First bubble-helmet, an outdated type that was no longer manufactured.
“If these numbers are true,” Darian said as she continued to look at the readouts on the wall monitors. “The air inside is breathable.”
“Let’s find out,” Stilicho said. “Maia, close the outer door and cycle the pressure.”
The outer door of the airlock was immediately sealed and a whooshing of air was heard. The indicator light above the inner door went from a blinking red to a bright green. Matt walked over to the side of it as he kept his pistol at the ready. The porthole was caked with fine dust, and he couldn’t see what lay beyond. The security officer pulled the upper and lower levers that helped to seal the door and pushed it forward until it opened, revealing a dimly lit corridor illuminated by blinking reddish lights overhead.
“Maia, can you scan the air using our suit sensors?” Stilicho said.
“One moment,” Maia said. “The air is seventy-eight percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, one percent methane, and trace amounts of other gasses. Pressure is at one Earth atmosphere.”
Matt kept his eye at the corridor. “Your AI can’t detect viruses, right?”
“Not without proper instruments,” Maia said.
“Oh for goodness sake,” Darian said. She disengaged the seal on his neck ring and took off her helmet. The air was breathable, but pungent. “There’s a rotting smell coming from somewhere, but otherwise it’s fine.”
; Stilicho bit his lip as he also removed his helmet. He didn’t want to get oxygen toxicity so he had no choice. He breathed in a lungful before he started coughing. “Goddamn that smell is foul, it’s like we’re in a freakin’ sewer!”
After seeing them Matt finally took his own helmet off and hooked it to the side of his life support pack. There were mounted lights on the shoulders of his suit and he activated it. “Okay, follow me.”
The red lights seemed to be motion-controlled, and would turn off the moment they passed through a compartment. Stilicho and Darian activated their own suit lights to improve the illumination. Assorted bits of trash were strewn along the floors, indicating that the final evacuation all those years ago was a haphazard affair. Hand-painted symbols were plastered along the walls of the first corridor they walked into. Many of the motifs resembled the male gender symbol, a circle with an arrow point emerging from its upper left side. Other marks seemed to represent ancient Greek helmets or swords.
Stilicho had put on his smartglasses and he placed a finger along the walls. “Maia, why is the male symbol so prevalent here?”
“The circle is supposed to represent the shield, and the arrow represents the spear,” Maia said. “All are classical emblems of the god Ares.”
Stilicho leaned closer to one of the symbols and snorted. “A lot of the smell seems to come from the disgusting graffiti of this place. Doesn’t look like they made this with paint, right?”
“One moment. Analyzing,” Maia said. “It is apparently a mixture of blood and excrement.”
Stilicho recoiled back into the middle of the corridor. “Jesus H Christ! Disgusting scumbag cultists!”
Darian glared at him. “Will you keep your voice down? You want to alert the people in here?”
Stilicho rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You seriously believe anybody human is still here? After all these years?”
“We’re coming up to one of the main modules,” Matt said as he positioned himself at the side of a closed pressure door. “Get ready.”
All three of them stood along the side of the corridor. Stilicho had a pistol strapped to his hip, but he didn’t know how to use it, so he kept it by his side. Darian had her weapon pointed at the door as Matt unlocked the bolts and pulled it open. A feeble, yellowish light bulb on the low ceiling began flickering to life as they peered inside. The compartment seemed to be a common room of some sort. Two long metal tables occupied the center, with upturned chairs strewn around it. Three kitchen sinks were situated along the sides of the room, along with microwave ovens and water dispensers. At the opposite end was a spacesuit that had been hung up on the wall; its limbs were splayed out, like some grotesque scarecrow of a crucified god. A grinning human skull was visible from the bubble helmet’s transparent visor.
“Oh my god,” Darian said softly as the three of them walked into the room. The reports she read about the cult must have been heavily censored, for these lurid scenes inside the colony interior were never disclosed.
Stilicho twisted his torso when he spotted a shadowy object at the side of the door. An upright skeleton of what looked to be a small dog had been propped up on a nearby table. “Maia, what in the hell are the bones of a dog doing in here?”
“There had been rumors that the Mars First members had smuggled canines into the rockets that transported them here,” Maia said. “It looks like we have a confirmation.”
“Knock off the sarcasm, Maia,” Stilicho said. “Why in the hell would they bring dogs out here?”
“The dog was used as a typical sacrifice to Ares during the time of the ancient Greeks,” Maia said. “The practice started out in Sparta as a sacrifice to Enyalius, one of the sons of Ares, and was later incorporated into god of war’s cult itself. It seems that the Mars First members took the ancient rituals seriously. I can spot a few nicks on the bones that indicate they had used knives to scrape off the flesh after they killed it.”
“So they could eat it afterwards, I suppose,” Matt said. “This is all so sick.”
Darian bent down so her shoulder lights could shine on an object amongst the mounds of trash on the floor. It was a human femur. “Dogs aren’t the only thing they ate. Look.”
The two men stood beside her as they looked down at the bones. The stench and the sight of the human and animal remains was too much for Stilicho, who gagged at first and coughed for a full minute until his throat hurt. Stilicho felt it was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything for the past few hours, or else he would have surely puked it all out.
Darian had put on her own smartglasses and tapped on the frame to activate it. “Maia, can you detect any signs of recent habitation in this colony?”
“I have not been able to notice any evidence that points to anyone having been here recently,” Maia said. “But then again, we have only gone through two modules so far. I must also point out that I will need a more detailed chemical analysis of the entire room before I could determine the exact time that elapsed when someone had last been here.”
Matt looked along the far side of the room. Beside the pressure door at the opposite end, there were small metal handles leading up to a second floor. “What’s up there?”
“These modules have bunkrooms located on their second level,” Maia said. “They served as personal sleeping quarters for the colonists.”
Matt leaned backwards for a bit so his shoulder mounted lights could see the through the hole at the top. “Is it worth going up there to check?”
“Maybe later,” Stilicho said. “Right now we need to get to the control room.”
“Okay, onto the next compartment then,” Matt said as he unlocked the opposite door and pulled it aside.
As they made their way along the corridor, Maia spoke up. “I detect quite a lot of power usage coming from the next room. This may be the central control module.”
Stilicho stood well away from the other two as they readied their weapons before opening the door. After failing to see anyone in the room, Matt stepped inside, followed closely by Darian. Stilicho figured it was all clear so he came in right after them.
All along the sides of the cabin were numerous computer workstations. A number of blinking lights emanating from the wall mounted servers indicated that some parts of the colony were still functional. In the middle of the room was a slightly raised platform, with a large set of flat screen monitors surrounding a command console. A high-backed swivel chair was situated behind it and it seemed to be occupied, but they couldn’t see who was sitting on it.
Stilicho held his breath as Matt and Darian approached the rear of the chair from opposite sides. They both led with their handguns until they were situated just behind the occupant, with several banks of servers in between them as cover. Using his other hand, Matt reached out and swiveled the chair so that it would rotate and face them. As the squeaking chair twisted and fronted over to them, Darian gasped.
Sitting on the chair was a bearded corpse. The mummified cadaver stared back at them with withered black eye-slits. Its tan, leathery skin had a waxy look to it, while the blackened nose seemed to have folded in on itself. It wore ACE Corp coveralls; the exposed hands had shrunken into talon-like claws. The open mouth seemed to be either grinning or grimacing back at them with its yellow stained teeth. A smell like that of ammonia mixed in with rotting cheese emanated from the cadaver.
“Maia,” Stilicho said softly. “Is that … Karl Rossum?”
“One moment,” Maia said. “Due to the shriveling of the skin from the mummification, I cannot be one hundred percent sure, but the facial recognition patterns on my biometric application points to a high probability that it is indeed the former CEO of RUR Industries.”
“So he’s dead then,” Darian said. “But who’s controlling those killer robots?”
“Based on the partially decrypted wireless commands I have recorded, it seems to be an automated system that’s commanding the robots,” Maia said. “It apparently initiated itself the moment your team crossed
into Chryse Planitia.”
Stilicho gave a quizzical look to no one in particular. “Say what? Are you telling me that our friend Karl here created a killer AI, and pre-programmed it to attack anyone who crosses into his territory?”
“That’s the closest analogy I can think of,” Maia said.
Matt rolled his eyes. “So we walked into an automated booby trap made by someone who died a long time ago?”
“That is an astute observation,” Maia said. “And the evidence we’ve seen so far points to that conclusion.”
Darian holstered her pistol. “Okay, how do we disable this trap then?”
“I can start to delete his files in the colony server,” Maia said. “Once that is done I can send remote commands to the bots in the area to shut down immediately. All I need for you to do is attach my wireless interface to the server jack.”
“Do it,” Stilicho said as he took out an interface stick from a pouch along his belt and plugged it into a nearby port. “I wanna get back to Earth as soon as possible. I’m so sick of Mars already.”
“One moment,” Maia said. “Oh, it seems that Karl Rossum left some video recordings hidden within the server. Shall I play it while initiating wireless communication shutdown and deletion?”
“Sure, go ahead,” Stilicho said. “Let’s see what kind of mad ramblings this crazy old man did before he pickled himself.”
The video soon started playing on the largest monitor screen in the room. It showed Karl sitting on the driver’s seat of his rover. He was keeping his eyes peeled on the road. “This is my second day out in the rover. Just before I left, I initiated a script to delete this buggy’s records from the colony logs. I’ve loaded as much food and water as I could carry. I’ve also taken two mobile carbon dioxide filters and two water reclaimers from the storage rooms and placed them into the rover, this way if one of them breaks down, I have a spare. I expect the journey to take a few weeks, so I won’t be taxing the life support systems of the rover too much. I’ve learned a lot just by reading the technical manuals in my spare time, but I’ve got no practical experience when it comes to repairing this stuff. I guess I’m lucky I took my MAIA source codes with me. But, let’s get into that later. Right now I need to stop the rover and change some batteries. There’s a charging station up ahead, so I think I’ll take a day off from driving to fully recharge the primary and all the spares I can get there. Over and out.”
The Piranha Solution: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 1) Page 19