Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

"Then it leaves no other explanation. The birds are just dead," Toon replied. "There’s just no other possible reason for what we are seeing."

  "Covenant. It's Covenant, I can assure you," Francis replied. "I don’t know how, but he's up to something here, and you can bet your life on it."

  "Just one problem with all these theories, my egghead friends," Brinker responded.

  All eyes turned to him. "You folks got all these pieces of the puzzle all laid out on your table, and one piece still don't fit."

  "Ok," Peter said impatiently, "Go ahead…"

  "The Soviets," he replied. "I can smell rotten cabbage all the way over here."

  "Evidence?" Peter pressed.

  "Plenty. They called this little risky cross-country meeting and demanded we come to the party. Even a grunt like me can see it would have been easier and probably safer for them to make the trip in their SAR, but they demanded that we show up. Why wasn't a teleconference good enough? They have the birds that are all working and in good order. We didn't even bother to ask the question."

  "Why?" Kerry asked, turning to rejoin the group.

  "In the history of warfare, messengers were often used for purposes of interrogation - to ferret out information about the opposing camp. They don't want to talk to us anymore because they got what they want. They simply don’t need to talk to us anymore. Easy enough for you? The pieces all fit together very nicely on my table," explained Brinker.

  "Why didn't you warn us?" Kerry asked with a seething resentment.

  "Excuse me, but may I interject something here?" Gorteau interrupted. "There was no need for a warning because this possibility was never discussed and it was clearly not necessary. This scenario is still pure conjecture, Sergeant, and, frankly, out of place. Your comments only serve to heighten anxiety and are not based on any fact or evidence whatsoever. The joint plan we put together was very workable and quite safe."

  "Listen, Gorteau, you pay me to run security around here, and that's my job," Brinker replied, pointing his cigar at Gorteau. "Now, I didn't go to Harvard or Princeton, but I did go to some of the finest military schools in the Marine Corps, and I do believe that between you and me, that makes me the real brains on this topic."

  "Stop it, right now!" Peter interrupted, his mind processing furiously, his eyes darting about the room, focusing on nothing in particular.

  "Fabian, you’ve mistrusted their intentions from the beginning - from the first transmission. Why the sudden change?" Peter inquired.

  "Nothing has changed. And I don't believe I’ve ever used the term 'mistrust'. I only initially suggested a process of diplomatic positioning. My caveat to Sergeant Brinker is a simple prudence against starting rumors which may lead to panic and improper decisions, further reducing our life support capacity. I believe all our lives are dependent on making decisions based on fact and not wild conjecture. We must… we must deal with the situation based on quiet reason and not baseless, emotional inferences.”"

  Without even a moment's hesitation, Peter responded strongly. "I believe you’re wrong here, Professor."

  Gorteau responded with an upraised eyebrow. He was, after all Peter's chief mentor and advocate.

  "Given these circumstances we must invest a great deal of resources to security issues. While it would be nice to believe that we’ve left our savagery behind, I rather think it’s packaged in our genome. Therefore, I’ve decided to rely heavily on Brinker's instinct and security training. While we don’t have all the answers, or even a few answers, it’s obvious that something is going down. As you said, the probabilities that all these things could be the result of chance are vanishingly small. Therefore, we’ll assess together the various scenarios and prepare for what we can. I only ask you to shift your great mind into a fair assessment of possible outcomes and team with Brinker to give me a list in one hour. Bob Kerry, you’re also on their team. Brinker's in charge of this. And don't hold anything back from me - I want to see it all."

  Gorteau just nodded in resignation at Peter and glanced at Brinker who looked away, closing his eyes and sighing deeply.

  34

  uzanne knew she was dreaming.

  It was a cold dream - deeply, bitterly cold. But she also knew somewhere in her mind, that she had to be awake. There was some background understanding that she had to be alert at all times to prevent disaster and to keep herself from dying all alone. It was a powerful, forceful fear; almost a command. It consumed her mind; but she was cold - way down deep in her mind and her body and her bones. And she was profoundly sleepy. The urge to sleep was powerful, and it drew her into her inner self. She knew that she could forget about the cold and forget about the urgency if she just gave into the sleep that so seductively beckoned her. But this urge to sleep forcefully conflicted with a quiet but persistent call to urgency and vigilance.

  In the end, she could not, would not, give into sleep. There was a part of her mind more powerful than that which urged her to sleep - to give up to the cold and to the urgency and to the pain.

  It was the recollection of pain that finally forced her eyes to open. Suzanne regained consciousness with a start. Her eyes could not focus. She was trapped and could not move. She could see dim, diffused lights flashing through a haze and fog, but she could not focus. And she could not move.

  Her body was pressed forward, head down, trapped by her seat restraints. She thought she could hear a cacophony of alarms and buzzers dimly in some distant background. And she was as cold as she had ever been.

  Suzanne’s first effort was to move - move something, move anything. She could feel the strength of her muscles try to move, but she was tightly trapped in her seat. As she breathed, she could see her breath curl inside her helmet. This kept her from total panic; just being able to focus on something - anything. She realized that she could not see outside her helmet because her breath had condensed on the cold faceplate of her pressurized suit. She clearly knew her suit was intact and still pressurized or she would have been dead long ago.

  Her mind began to awaken and work more quickly with each passing moment. Suzanne understood that she must have nodded off and rammed the MAT into something. She also realized she must have been unconscious for some unknown period of time and that her suit heater was turned off. She had been relying totally on the MAT's heaters when underway, so the MAT's hull must have been breached by the impact.

  She needed heat, fast and urgently. She could not feel her feet or toes and her fingers screamed with the pain of frostbite. Suzanne raised her right hand and moved it in an arc toward her suit front. There she found the toggle for the suit heater and turned it on. Immediately she could feel the warm liquid begin to flow through her cotton skin-wear across her body, down her legs and to her feet, arms and hands. She could feel the warm air blow across her faceplate as she toggled the helmet defogger fan. In less than a minute, the faceplate had cleared and she could see again.

  The MAT was a wreck. Most of the gear behind her was now piled on top of her or pressed her forward. With as much strength as she could muster, Suzanne pushed backward and moved enough of the weight pressing onto her to have a few inches of space to leverage her body.

  She then realized that she could see clearly out of her right eye, but the left was blurred. She switched her helmet light on from her arm controls and looked at the image staring back at her reflected in her helmet faceplate. Suzanne was horrified when she saw herself. Her face was caked and streaked with blood from a cut just above her left eye. The blood had run down her face, cheek and neck and into her suit. Fortunately for her, when the impact shoved her body forward, the helmet itself, which had caused the cut, also held pressure on it while she was unconscious. Otherwise, she felt certain she would have bled to death.

  The problem with any injury inside a pressurized helmet was that it could not be attended to until the occupant could be taken to a pressurized compartment and removed from the suit. Suzanne understood that such a break would not be forthcoming soon. She si
lently prayed that between the pressure of her body and the cold that the cut was sealed and the blood would not flow again.

  Her next order of business was to get out of the MAT. She attempted to move sideways to her left toward the door. To her surprise, the seat restraint unlatched on the first try and she slid easily toward the hatch. Not able to turn her head, she reached for its latch. It was not there. Suzanne then realized that the door was not in place, so she slid all the way outside and onto the ground.

  Her legs would not hold up under the weight of her body, so she fell to the sand, face first. She then felt a wave of fear. It was still night and darkness surrounded her. She was alive, but for how long? There would not be, could not be, any rescue for her here.

  Suzanne turned over on the sand and began moving her legs, arms and feet to see if she had any broken members. Then she looked back at the MAT. The vehicle was totally destroyed beyond all repair. It had run headlong into a huge boulder, rising some seven or eight meters above her. Its shell had literally imploded on impact and both hatches lay in the sand. The solar panels lay in an unfolded heap around it and the area was strewn with bits and pieces of the MAT and the equipment that had been strapped to it. The panel lights inside glowed and flashed uselessly.

  Suzanne realized at that moment that her life was over. Her clock was simply ticking down for the final count. Her only fear was that Bob would be so upset that he would try something stupid like mounting a party to find her body and risk his own life in the process.

  She summoned all of the willpower inside her and sat up in the sand. She began to feel tingling in her feet as she moved them; one good sign, at least for the moment. Suzanne stood upright and a wave of dizziness engulfed her mind, but it passed in a few seconds. Her fingers and toes screamed with pain as circulation began to return.

  She was determined to send a message to BC1 to let them know what had happened and where they could find the precious MAT equipment much later on, if they survived the coming winter. She turned and began to pull equipment away from her seat so she could get in and cycle the transmitter, which still appeared to be operational. She sent a short message back giving the details, the position, and a brief encrypted message to Bob. Once again, she did not know that they would never receive it.

  She looked at the time. It would be sunrise in less than an hour, and she would be long overdue at the rendezvous. She determined that she would not die sitting there on an empty desert waiting for a ride from a passing UFO. At that thought, she laughed. And upon laughing, decided she was going to die with some dignity, after all. At the collective thoughts of meeting her destiny, Suzanne was surprised how well she was able to accept it.

  Her mind began to operate normally now with the heaters in the suit providing all the warmth she needed. She decided to back track on foot to wherever the MAT had veered off from following the tracks, then start following the tracks south. She would carry as much oxygen and power packs as she could and still be able to walk. She realized that the limiting agent was her carbon dioxide scrubber which she could not change without removing her helmet, which of course she could not do. When it ran out in 14 hours, she would die of carbon dioxide asphyxiation. But she did have at least 14 good hours.

  Suzanne understood clearly that the Soviet SAR would not come to her aid or even spend any time looking for her. They could never be expected to take such a risk, even if it did have the range. Her friends at BC1 could not come, of course. It was to be her last 14 hours of life, and she accepted it fully.

  Gathering up her bottles and power packs, Suzanne strapped them onto her body as best she could with tape, Velcro and a makeshift backpack. As the sun rose across the bitterly cold desert, she began to follow the MAT path backward. In just a few minutes, she found where the MAT had left following the first set of tracks.

  Immediately, she began to follow the other vehicle’s track prints south into the gathering, pink morning light of Mars. As she did so, Suzanne felt an unusual peace about her decision to walk for the few remaining hours of her life. She would have a lot to think about, even to pray about, as she trekked along this most bizarre of all places. As she dwelt on these things, she remembered a poem her mother used to have hanging on her wall called, "Footprints". After considering its verses and its meaning to her now, she had to forcefully will herself not to cry. No matter how poignant her thoughts and reminiscing turned out to be, Suzanne determined that she would not cry. Not only was weeping not a good idea in a space helmet, but when, or if, they ever found her, she wanted Bob to see that she died with a peaceful smile on her face, thinking only of him.

  35

  early two weeks had passed since the loss of communications with Suzanne. All hope that she would ever be seen again seemed absolutely lost. Brinker worked like a man demon-possessed on security arrangements and perimeter defenses, convinced that an attack on the base was imminent and would come without warning. With Peter’s blessings he posted remote security sensors at locations surrounding BC1, watching the colony’s flanks sol and night.

  Surprisingly, Brinker’s greatest support came from Ashley. As the sols wore on, she seemed to sense that her friend Suzanne was dead or captive. For the first time in her life, she began to express thoughts of effecting personal defense against an enemy. She confided in Peter that she had never considered this before in a civilization spanning two planets that seemed to struggle toward and actually attain freedom from war, one small victory at a time. And after having settled Mars, it seemed that it was entirely possible that war could actually be left behind forever; millions of miles behind. Yet now it seemed to her that war had become inevitable and that she would have to participate in their common defense or become spoil to another ideology. She stated bluntly that regardless of how much she despised war, she despised the thought of slavery and death worse. Furthermore, she fought and was losing an emotional battle of mounting anger over the disappearance of Suzanne.

  This idea quickly permeated BC1. With the passing hours and sols since Suzanne had vanished without a trace on a mission of peace, the entire colony was fully engaged in preparations for the first war of the planet aptly named for the ancient god of conflict.

  At sunset on the twelfth sol after Suzanne’s last transmission, one of the remote sensors signaled the Command Center of an incoming vehicle. The Command Center watch immediately sounded the general alarm, which blared throughout BC1. Alongside the alarm, his voice rang out over the public system, cutting the air like a knife, “This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Incoming vehicle headed our way!”

  Every colonist paused for just a half second. While Brinker had drilled them on this alarm, they had prayed they would never hear it for real. Then they sprang for their assigned defensive stations and shelters.

  Brinker and Peter shot into the Command Center at once. On the monitor above their heads, they could see the vehicle making a slow approach to BC1, just northwest of the launch tower, some three kilometers out.

  “It’s not one of ours,” Brinker stated bluntly, getting as close to the screen as he could.

  “It’s Soviet – a SAR,” Peter replied confidently. “It’s definitely one of theirs.”

  “Radio contact?” Peter fired at the Command Center watch officer.

  “Negative,” he replied. “Dead on all channels.”

  The vehicle continued to advance.

  “It could be loaded with explosives,” Brinker said. “We’ve got to stop it before it gets within range.”

  “A remotely guided vehicle? A suicide pilot?” Peter asked to no one in particular.

  “Either way, it won’t matter much if we let it get any closer,” Brinker snapped.

  “But what if it’s Suzanne returning?” Ashley asked over their shoulders.

  “Two and a quarter klicks and closing,” the Watch Officer noted.

  “What’s your plan, Brinker?” Peter asked, eying the Marine.

  “I’m on it,” he replied, racing out of t
he Command Center.

  Brinker raced to the MAT airlock, and without benefit of a suit, leapt inside the MAT nearest the door and closed the hatch. Sensing the urgency, a technician burst into the MAT/ Airlock control room and began to sidestep every procedure in the book, his fingers racing over switches and dials, trying to get the airlock depressurized and the door open as quickly as possible. He dumped the raw air of the hangar outside, a grievous violation of procedure. Brinker meanwhile started the electric drive of the MAT and inched it toward the door, impatiently slamming his right palm against the wheel while his left hand wildly gestured the technician to open the hatch. But the door was held shut by the laws of physics; pressure and the inability of the hatch to open until the safety interlocks were satisfied.

  Finally the door began its slow swing open into the darkening Martian desert.

  The whole colony watched the action unfolding from their emergency stations; every eye glued to the monitors controlled by the Command Center.

  “Open the damn door!” Brinker roared over the MAT’s radio.

  “Going as fast as I can,” the technician replied. “Don’t hit the door, whatever you do…” he added, which everyone correctly interpreted as, “There’s no replacement if you wreck it.”

  Finally, Brinker successfully inched past the barely open door of the airlock and accelerated as fast as the MAT would go into the red desert. But this had cost them precious minutes.

  “Your target is 1100 meters ahead of you,” the Watch Officer reported. “Constant bearing; decreasing range. It hasn’t deviated or slowed its approach since first sighting.”

  Brinker could see the vehicle approaching. It was definitely a Soviet SAR, with no lights showing, headed straight toward the MAT airlock. As he neared the vehicle, he cursed not having his spacesuit, which severely limited his options of whatever he was going to do when they met. But it was too bad, he reasoned. The minutes were just not there to work this by any reasonable semblance of a procedure.