Martian Dictator

by Øyvind Harding

  ◆◆◆

  A moan of passion escaped her lips as I moved in her, and she closed her eyes. I smiled as I closed in on my climax, teeth glinting in the ambient lighting of the room.

  Victory.

  ◆◆◆

  She could feel him coming, a shudder running through his body as he finished. She felt her own body shudder in revulsion as an answer, and he came to a rest on top of her. She let her head fall to the pillow and her arms let go of his back, falling to her sides.

  And her fingers closed on the syringe she had placed there the day before.

  ◆◆◆

  Her body shuddered in pleasure as she gave herself to me in my moment of victory. As she fell back to the bed I could see the future unfolding, so real that I felt I could just reach out and touch it. Our union would cement the colony as the only viable option for survival, we would thrive and prosper, and we would colonize Mars. And she would have my children. I rose on my elbows and put a hand on her stomach. I knew this was all it took, I could feel it. This encounter would leave her pregnant.

  I smiled, and was about to tell her how clever she was to finally accept me, when I felt the sharp pain of a needle entering my buttock.

  ◆◆◆

  A smile was forming on his lips, and Anna opened her eyes. The real Anna. And she was furious. She plunged the needle into his bare ass as hard as she could, prepared to pump him full of the most potent sedative she had available. She could have killed him, had almost done so, mixing a slightly different solution that would have stopped his heart almost instantly instead of leaving him breathing. But she needed him alive. Through him she had learned the value of theatrics.

  And to take control she would need to put on a show.

  ◆◆◆

  I reached down and grabbed her wrist with my free hand, squeezing it, desperately trying to hold her thumb so that she could not pump me full of whatever it was in the syringe. Pain flared from the tip of my fingers to the nape of my neck, my badly healed wrist shouting its presence. I gritted my teeth, forcing strength through the pain, but it was in vain. The position was awkward, and the strength just wasn’t there. The damage to the nerve had left me weaker, and I could not hold against her determination. With a cry of victory, her thumb slammed home and I felt the ice entering my body.

  The hatred flared in her eyes just as I felt my consciousness begin to slip. I had miscalculated, badly. My fingers groped for her throat, but I had no strength left in me. I could feel her rolling me off her as my vision narrowed. The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was her smile of victory, teeth glinting in the fading light.

  25. The Endgame

  Dr. Anna Stokes took in the view with a certain amount of fatalism, but also a growing sense of optimism. The Billionaire, looking for all the world like he knew what was coming, prone, drugged, and tied on the table in front of her. The scientist, standing idly at his side, eyes staring into infinity, not daring to even so much as glance at the knife resting in Anna’s hand. Nadia, cradling her baby, looking like she might be sick but holding it together. The rest, transfixed on the scene in front of them, displaying expressions that ranged from wild disbelief to hatred or confusion, to that of those who might try to stop her if they actually thought about what was happening. They had seen the footage, heard her evidence. They would not stop her.

  Anna raised the big bowie knife high above her head, knuckles white as she squeezed the handle with both hands. The tip trembled, the knife seemed to hover for an eternity, and a small tear worked its way slowly down her cheek.

  And she brought it down, with all her might.

  ◆◆◆

  The knife seemed to hover over me for an eternity, and as it hung suspended high above my heart, I held her eyes and made sure she could see my gaze as it travelled down. Down past her nose, down past her chin, her neck, her small breasts, and finally settling on her stomach.

  And I smiled, all teeth and viciousness.

  The knife came down with all the force her little body could muster, and I felt the cold steel enter my body, tearing my heart.

  So. One of the last deeds I did in life was to ensure the continuation of my line and also provide the nourishment needed for a growth spurt.

  Not bad for a dead man.

  Epilogue

  "How bad is it?"

  Anna stood with her back straight, arms folded behind her, looking at the setting sun. She could smell the acrid stink of burnt clothing inside her suit, but she refused to acknowledge the significance of the odor. Problems were to be dealt with, not dwelled on. Besides, it wasn’t as though she had actually been hurt in the events of the previous day.

  “It’s pretty bad, but not disastrous. The fire destroyed over ninety percent of the greens, but it didn’t touch the seeds and most of the root systems are ok. The dome was not breached, but all of the equipment is useless, either destroyed by smoke or by fire. Nothing we can’t replace given time, though. The real fuck up is the loss of the previous harvest. We never should’ve stored it in the same compound as the greenhouse.” Robbie turned from the ruined shell of a small globe connected to the greenhouse by a tight airlock and walked over to stand by her.

  “How can it not be a disaster if we lost all of our harvest and all of our vegetables?” Still she did not turn, but Robbie could hear the weariness in her voice. Her mental condition had been steadily deteriorating for the past few years, and situations that increased stress always made it worse.

  Robbie ticked off the points on his gloved fingers, making a point of holding up his fist so that Anna could see it. “Well, we could have lost the entire greenhouse. The fire could’ve spread through the air vents to the living quarters. Our stoned-out genius of a botanist could’ve been sleeping off his high right in the middle of his precious plants, as he usually does, instead of in his girlfriend’s room. For that matter, you and I could’ve been sleeping in the middle of the tomato patch, drunk out of our skulls on glorious potato booze if Nadia hadn’t been forced to cancel her babysitting.”

  “Well, when you put it like that.” She finally allowed herself a little smile amidst the chaos. “Speaking of babysitting, how’s our little lump doing?”

  “No problems there, he’s with Nadia now. Roger was still there when the alarms went off, and when he took off like a rocket she came to our place to pick him up. They’re in their place, and last I heard our guy and her princess were eating. She’ll probably go nuts if she has to entertain those two monsters for more than a couple of hours more, now.” Robbie unconsciously reached for his wrist where his pad was tied with a couple of makeshift knots. “But they’re fine, haven’t heard anything, so they’re fine.” He made an effort, and declined to give Nadia a call.

  “How about Roger? Is he still in the greenhouse?”

  “Yeah, last I saw him he was just standing there in the ruins, sifting through the ashes. Everybody’s giving him a wide berth after he went ballistic when Tom tried to help him.”

  “Yes, well, best to leave him alone for a while. He has practically lived either there or at Nadia’s for the past three years. Even though he won’t admit it right now, he’s one lucky bastard. It was at best fifty-fifty for him to die last night.”

  Robbie shrugged and half-turned to the greenhouse again. “Some people are just born lucky, I guess.”

  “Yeah, well, we need more than just luck to pull us out of this one. We need more food, and we don’t have any. We need more and better firefighting routines, and we don’t have any. And last but not least, we need better security. I’m not fully convinced that the fire last night was an accident.” Anna turned to face Robbie. “We need better control.”

  Robbie looked at Anna, a small figure standing with the setting sun silhouetting her against the horizon. Nodding once, he turned, and in tandem they walked back to the colony. There was work to be done.

  ◆◆◆

  Roger sifted his life through his fingers. The air had been returned ab
out an hour ago, and the ash was still lukewarm as it swam through his fingers only to return to the grey sea at his feet. Ruins. It was all in ruins. His life was in ruins. Everything he had worked for, everything he had accomplished, everything he had built. Gone. Nobody knew what had started the fire. Roger did not care. What he cared about was in ashes at his feet. He dug his toe into the pile in front of him and watched his foot disappear. As he pulled it out he could see the black and brown smear of fresh dirt at the tip of his boot.

  All was not lost, though. Where there was dirt there was life. But he had been weak. He had let his mind wander, his purpose waver. He had let himself be lured by a softly spoken word and the promise of a tender touch. It had been nice for a while, no doubt about it. Nadia was everything he had dreamed of, and more. But he could never shake the feeling of inadequacy that accompanied their time together. She had been the captain’s woman, then the Billionaire’s, even though nothing physical had ever happened between them. How could he ever measure up to the lost giants? They had both taken on an almost mythical aura amongst the crew already, the great adversaries of Mars. He was nothing compared to them.

  Besides, he had gradually come to realize that his true love in life was not anything resembling a Russian blonde, but was green and red of appearance and thrived best in shit-layered soil. Again, he knelt in the ruins, and again he sifted the ashes through his fingers. But this time with purpose, this time with energy instead of apathy. He would rebuild his greenhouse. And yes, it was his greenhouse. Nobody else had put as many hours into its construction and maintenance as he had. Nobody else knew the exact number of tomato plants in row 4F, or rather, how many there had been. Nobody knew the amount of water that disappeared in the crack between the beds for the cabbage and the broccoli. And nobody knew that he himself had created that crack to siphon off water for his own special plants.

  He would rebuild, he would reseed, and he would never leave this place of power ever again. He would live here, he would eat here, he would sleep here. And he would not touch that pathetic excuse for nutrition that the Billionaire had introduced and the equally treacherous Dr. Stokes had carried forward. He would continue as a vegetarian as he had done so far, and he knew of at least a couple of the crew who would gladly join him. People he could trust, people that knew the value of the Green. And, of course, the value of a good, fat joint.

  His hand had unconsciously dropped to his pocket, and instead of ashes, his fingers were now sifting through seeds. Part of the last batch of crop seeds. They would need those for the replanting. But not all of them.

  Roger popped a handful of seeds into his mouth, and as he chewed thoughtfully he contemplated that he had probably just condemned an unknown number of people to die of starvation.

  He could not have cared less. There was work to be done.

  ◆◆◆

  Nadia was tired, but it was the good kind of tired. Oliver, Anna and Robbie’s little boy, was sleeping side by side with her own daughter. They were skinny, more so than the kids she could remember from back home. Skinny and tall. But that was the norm throughout the colony. The kids were healthy but thin, and the diet that sustained them did little to fatten them up. But they were strong as horses. Not that they would ever know what a horse was.

  She leaned back in her chair, watching the children sleeping. The aroma wafting from the cup she was holding was strong, and it had an immediate calming effect on her. Roger had mixed it up for her when she had asked for something to help her relax in the evenings. She had been very explicit that she did not want anything to do with drugs, and he claimed that the tea he had provided her did not contain a single trace of the weed he had been pushing to a select few of the colonists on the side. Whatever the contents, it worked. She sipped the tea and felt her muscles lose their iron grip on her shoulders. It was hard work, watching after two overactive three-year-old kids in a confined space. But again, it was worth it. She loved children, and if her suspicions were correct, in about seven months she would add to the colony’s growing number. Roger would make a good father, no matter his insecurities. She just hoped that the accident from the previous day didn’t take too much out of him. She hadn’t seen him since he sprinted from her room, barely able to turn the corners in his haste to get to the greenhouse.

  Unconsciously she stroked her stomach as she watched over the kids. Even though it was a hard life, it was also a good one. Food, shelter, people that loved her. Children. She would have to make sure that they got their part of the little food that was left before the new crops were ready. It would be all too easy to let the little ones starve just a little bit to stretch the food that much longer.

  She put down her cup and went over to pull the covers over the sleeping beauties. She would see to their welfare, she would protect them. A colony this size needed somebody to really look after the needs of the young ones. Every adult had something to do every waking minute of their day, and the children couldn’t run around with the adults on the surface or in the construction tunnels. She turned, and pulled a makeshift cot over to her chair. It needed a bit of repairing if it was to hold Tom’s little kid when he or she arrived sometime during the next month.

  With a look of concentration, Nadia bent over the cot. There was work to be done.

  ◆◆◆

  Slowly, I released my grip on the suited figure beneath me. There was no movement, no breathing. No wonder, my knife had pierced the suit in a clean line from the upper left part of the chest to the tip of the shoulder. The lack of breathable atmosphere had killed my victim in seconds. Although plans were in motion to make better suits, these were still patched-up leftovers from the original ones. The best suits were reserved for the day crew on the digging teams, and my blade was sharpened to be as near a razor as it could ever be. The Billionaire’s blade. It had been like cutting through the proverbial warm butter, and poor Tom had never stood a chance.

  Just a thin strip of blood was left on the upper edge of the knife. Good. With a little work with the iron bar I had brought, the accident I was about to stage would look believable. I knelt, shifted my weight, and dropped my backpack on the ground, disturbing the red dust that had accumulated around the broken structure in front of me. I pulled out a vicious-looking iron bar with a serrated edge, clearly a broken piece of scaffolding from a lander. And indeed, it was. Just not this lander. I wedged the bar firmly in place between two plates and carefully bent it down so it was partially hidden and pointing out at the right height. An easy hoist under the shoulders of Mr. Dead Guy, a shove with just the right amount of force, and Tom impaled himself on the bar. As he slid to the ground I did a quick check to see if the damage to the suit looked adequate. Perfect.

  He had been a part of the problem and now he was a part of the solution. Lately there had been a stirring among the colonists. “Why do we continue the desecration of our friends when we have enough vegetables to sustain us?” “This is an affront to God!” “We don’t have to do this any longer, the greenhouse is enough!”

  They just did not see it. The vegetables would never be enough. There would always come a time when somebody had to do what needed to be done, and if they stopped eating the dead we would not be ready when that time came.

  The sheep were getting restless. Time to remind them that wolves still lurked in the shadows.

  I admired my handiwork for a minute, then turned in the direction of the colony. The firebomb I had whipped together three nights ago had done its job marvelously, destroying all the plants and all of the produce, but leaving the seeds and the roots. Regrowing the crops to a sustainable level would take time, and in that intermediate period we would need food. Nutrition. Meat.

  The Billionaire had shown us the way, and I would provide. I strode off towards the colony, purpose in my stride.

  There was work to be done.

  The End

  Notes from the author

  I wrote a book. Holy fucking hell, I actually wrote a book. And published it. W
hile I never entertained the thought that I wouldn’t finish it (eventually), it is strange to be able to say, ‘I’m done’. So, I won’t. I’m not done, not by a long shot. This is just the beginning. I’ve included the first couple of chapters from my next book; ‘The Smuggler’. If I don’t succumb to a serious case of I-don’t-give-a-fuck, it will be done by December 2018. Go on, give it a try. You will not be disappointed, I promise.

  Some thanks are in order! The number one prize goes to you. Yes, you. Since you’re reading this it probably means you finished the entire thing. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

  Thank you to my family, for being there.

  Thank you to my friends, for being who you are.

  Thank you to my copy editor, Christopher Hoffman, and my cover designer, Rikke Jansen. Check out her work at www.artstation.com/mulm

  All my favorite authors. Without you, my world would be a lesser place. In no particular order (and also a list of authors you ought to check out if you haven’t already): John Scalzi, Neil Gaiman, Hugh Howey, Peter F. Hamilton and Brandon Sanderson. And Joe Abercrombie. Read Abercrombie. Then read everything again.

  Until next time, don’t do anything stupid. Or if you do, make it the good kind of stupid.

  Oh, and you can subscribe to my newsletter. Or order my next book - The Smuggler. Or drop me a line. Or buy me a nice Convalmore if we pass in the night. Yes. Do that.

  www.authorharding.com