by Jake Bible
During that week, Clay rested and relaxed in the late General’s ranch house. To his surprise, Zeus was still alive. He was missing both his left eye and left arm, but he was alive. He refused to say what the General had exactly done to him, but there were rumors amongst the servants that the woman had forced him to eat his limb as well as the eye.
Clay didn’t doubt that at all. He also didn’t ask for confirmation of the rumor.
To while his time away, Clay entertained himself by watching the instant replay of the last moments of the fight with Bunting. There was a particular part he liked to rewind and watch again and again. The moment before Gibbons’ and Clay’s mech hand had reached over the line, Bunting’s mech had exploded. It blew with so much force that a good deal of Bunting’s mech had raced past the white line at supersonic speeds, beating Gibbons’ and Clay’s mech fist by milliseconds.
It was a photo finish. After Gibbons insisted the tournament organizers study the footage a few times, there was no question. Bunting’s mech was declared disqualified, not destroyed.
The Mister had lost his shit. He threatened to kill everyone within shouting distance. He even powered up a couple of his rollers and had aimed cannons right at Clay and Gibbons. But in the end it had all been worked out. The Mister wouldn’t be bothering anyone again.
“Knock, knock,” a voice said from the doorway to the den Clay was lounged in. “A word, Mr. MacAulay?”
Sheriff Trang sauntered in, his thumbs hooked into his gun belt, making sure Clay knew he was ready to get tough if needed, but would rather not have to.
“Looks like your mech is up on both feet again,” Sheriff Trang said.
“That it is, Sheriff,” Clay agreed. “Getting ready to pack up and be on my way.”
“That is exactly what I wanted to hear,” Sheriff Trang replied, his face confirming his statement. Relief was written all over it. “As much as some folks are happy you’ve helped relieve the territory of two of its biggest problems, there area good deal more that seeyou as the problem, not the solution.”
“Story of my life, Sheriff,” Clay said. “I’ll be out of your hair by this time tomorrow.”
“Yes, about that,” the sheriff said. “I might suggest you up your departure time. Like I said, there are a might more people that would rather you hung from a mesquite branch than be hailed as a hero.”
“Yep, you said that,” Clay replied. “So?”
“Well, those folks are on their way to this ranch right now,” the sheriff said.
“They are?” Clay asked, surprised.
“They are,” the sheriff replied and nodded. “They’ll be here in rollers in about an hour. I can talk to them, which is my job, but in the end I just don’t have the men to hold them back. Your little win has created a power void in these parts and loyalties are a little loose at the moment. Once things is settled, I’ll have more sway, but right now? Not so much.”
“Mob rule, is it?” Clay chuckled. He waved a hand at the sheriff. “No need to look apologetic. I get it, Sheriff. This ain’t the first time I’ve been run out of town. Not even my second. I’ll be on my way before they get here.”
“I appreciate that,” the sheriff said.
“No problem,” Clay replied. “How is the mood towards the comunistas? They’ve taken this ranch as their own, you know. The mob gonna give them a hard time?”
“Do you really care?” Sheriff Trang asked.
Clay shrugged. “Not really. I freaking hate comunistas. But they are helping some friends of mine.”
“The undergrounders,” Sheriff Trang said and nodded. “Last I heard those folks haven’t even stepped one foot out of their caves. Smart people. Best to let the dust settle before they get back to work.”
Clay gave the sheriff a curious look. “You approve of what they’re doing?”
Sheriff Trang chuckled softly then rolled up a sleeve. He showed Clay the brand. “We all have our pasts, Mr. MacAulay. Being the law around here, I can’t outright condone what they are doing. But then I’ve been looking the other way for the Mister and General Hansen for years. I have no problem staring off in the distance for some undergrounders helping out people that just want a chance to live free lives.”
“Good to hear, Sheriff,” Clay said and extended his hand. The sheriff shook it then moved aside, indicating the meeting was over and it was time for Clay to go. “Hopefully I won’t ever see you again. So you take care, okay?”
“You as well,” Sheriff Trang said. “Safe travels, son.”
Clay nodded and stepped out into the hallway. He had stacked his things by the front door, having expected to need a quick exit, but they were gone. Zeus stood there instead and bowed slightly.
“Godspeed, Clay MacAulay,” Zeus said. “May the fates be kind to you on your travels.”
“Thanks, Zeus,” Clay said. “Hey, do me a favor, will ya?”
“Yes, sir?” Zeus replied, eyebrows raised.
“Firebomb that dungeon,” Clay said. “I’ll sleep a lot better knowing something like that is gone from this earth.”
“Plenty more out there,” Zeus said. “Just like there is plenty more bad folk. But, yes, Mr. MacAulay, I’ll firebomb the living hell out of that dungeon. Won’t no one in this territory be bothered by its horrors again.”
“Thanks, Zeus,” Clay said and clapped the man on the shoulder. His only shoulder. “My things in the mech?”
“I had them moved there when the sheriff arrived,” Zeus said. “As well as something else that was brought by per the terms of your win.”
“My revolver?” Clay asked.
“Your revolver,” Zeus said. “Mighty fine piece, that is. Glad you got it back.”
“Me too, Zeus,” Clay said. “Oh, and thanks for giving my hat to Hank. You did do that, right?”
“I may have had something to do with that,” Zeus said and smiled.
Clay stepped out onto the porch. His mech loomed in the middle of the ground. He smiled up at it, gave a half tip of his hat back towards Zeus and the sheriff, then sauntered down the steps and over to his machine.
Gibbons piloted them well around the oncoming mob, but Clay watched the rollers head for the ranch on the screen next to his seat. His legs hung over the chair’s arm and he dug into a gap between his two front teeth with a toothpick as the mech stomped its way across the desert.
“Gibbons?” Clay asked.
“Yeah?” Gibbons replied.
“Hang a right at that bluff there,” Clay said. “We need to make a stop.”
“We do?” Gibbons asked. “Is that a good idea? What if the mob decides to turn around and come after us?”
“You think they’ll try to take on a fully repaired battle mech?” Clay laughed. “I don’t.”
“You’re probably right,” Gibbons said. “Hanging a right at the bluff.”
They walked for kilometers until they came to a familiar mesa. Gibbons piloted the mech right up to the spot below the undergrounders’ cave.
“You going to go talk to her?” Gibbons asked.
“Nope,” Clay said as he took over the controls. “Just going to leave them a little present. Should brighten up Firoa’s day, at the least.”
“You sure you don’t want to kiss Nasta goodbye?” Gibbons asked. “Isn’t that what people do when they care for each other and may never see each other again?”
“Some people,” Clay said. “But not me. Too complicated. I like the simple goodbyes.”
He removed something small from the cargo hold, almost too small for the mech’s fingers to grasp between them. Clay reached up and set the small item up on the lip of the cave, waited to make sure it didn’t come tumbling down, then nodded when it stayed put.
“Time to go,” Clay said. “You’re driving for today. I’ll take over tomorrow.”
“Yeah, sure you will,” Gibbons laughed. “Lazy bastard.”
“Kiss my ass, punk,” Clay laughed back as the mech turned around and moved away from the mesa
.
Thirty-Two
Nasta watched the mech walk off across the land, on its way to leaving the territory for good. It took the giant machine close to an hour before it was lost from sight over the horizon. She sighed and put the hand down she didn’t even know she’d been holding up the entire time.
She rubbed at her tired elbow and laughed to herself as she turned away from the mouth of the cave. Something caught her eye and she stopped. Nasta cocked her head as she moved cautiously closer. She was only a couple of feet away when she gasped and put her hands to her mouth.
“What?” Firoa asked, moving to her side quickly, having been lurking in the cave’s shadows, watching Clay and Gibbons stomp away as well. “What the hell is…?”
The two women stared down at the severed head. The eyes were bulged out and the neck was ragged, like the head had been cut off with a very dull knife, but it was easy to tell who it was.
The Mister’s dead face stared back at them until Hank walked by and punted it out of the cave mouth, sending it falling to the desert floor far, far below.
The three of them faced the horizon one last time, each swearing they saw a flash of light as the sun glinted off the top of the mech. But there was no way to know for sure, it was gone for good. The last of the Fighting Iron making its way to NorthAm and a future that wasn’t theirs.
The End
Read on for a free sample of Battlefield Mars
Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres.
Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series set in Asheville, NC, the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Bram Stoker Award nominated Teen horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series for Permuted Press.
Find Jake at jakebible.com. Join him on Twitter @jakebible and find him on Facebook.
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 himself, 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. Occ
upation, 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?”