A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence)

by Robert Taylor

  Hamilton had known of the dome. It was also in the data packages he’d given to everyone. He hadn’t included the history lesson, though. That was something Johnson had found out herself at some point. That Jones hadn’t read the information properly was a little annoying, but it gave him a way to defuse things further.

  “I suppose,” He said to Jones pointedly. “That the next thing you’ll ask us is ‘What’s that big building?’ when we’re stood outside of the Science Institute?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jones scowled.

  “It means you should pay more attention to the information I gave you! I suggest you review it whilst you’re sat inside your pallet on the way to Olympus!”

  “Ah! That was in there?” Jones muttered. “Well, there was a lot of information. I….”

  “Just review it!” Hamilton growled.

  “Alright! Alright! I will!” Jones frowned. “You don’t have to shout, you know!”

  Hamilton glared in general manner at all concerned. He felt a little bad at going off at Jones, but it had served a dual-purpose. Getting everyone to forget about Johnson and, hopefully, getting Jones to read the information.

  By the time they were done arguing, the city had slid away behind them and ahead, the sprawl of the starport loomed.

  Eager to keep their attention, Hamilton spoke to LeGault. “You have any idea what the vicinity of the landing area is like?”

  “Sure.” LeGault answered. He adjusted a nearby display panel which changed to display an aerial view of part of the starport. “We land here. It looks like a small terminal. Has a slideway for cargo that runs right up to the landing quadrant. The cargo goes into this handling facility, here. From there it looks like another slideway takes it to the main sorting deport. From there it goes to the maglev freight dock and on to a train bound for Olympus. After that, who knows.”

  “Doesn’t matter much after that. Freight security will be non-existent once we’re out of the starport.” Hamilton said.

  “How will we know when we’ve arrived? I mean, when to climb out?” Johnson asked.

  “Everyone stays in their pallets until I or Klane give a signal on the comms.” Hamilton answered. “No comms traffic until we’re out of the starport unless it is an emergency. You’ll know when you’re out by the whine of the maglev motors. Keep your stunners to hand. If you get discovered, sing out on the comms and lay about you with the stunner.”

  “Where are we planning on getting out?” Carl inquired.

  “That depends.” Hamilton said. “I doubt the automation will last beyond the freight terminal at the Olympus end of the maglev line. That means human handling from there on. If we hit the freight depot late in the day we might leave there once the workforce has left. If it’s during the main shift, we’ll have to stay hidden until we’re loaded onto vehicles bound for our final destination, then either escape whilst en route, or wait until we reach our destination. Personally, I think en route is our best option.”

  “How do we get off a moving vehicle?” Jones asked. “Jump?”

  Klane scowled at him. “Wait until it stops at a junction then get off, idiot!”

  Hamilton nodded. “Then we find a place to wait for a couple more days until the other mission is ready to begin.”

  “It all sounds so easy when you put it like that.” Jones muttered, glaring at Klane.

  “Hopefully we can find somewhere with a data feed you can plug into to learn the lay of the land, as it were.” Hamilton added. “So we’ll need to keep the suits. Don’t leave them behind when you leave the pallets but, equally, don’t go walking around in them. We’ll have our normal clothes on underneath, so it should be a matter of just rolling them up into a bundle and putting them in the carry-alls they came with.”

  “You know it won’t go that smoothly, right?” Jones grumbled.

  “Are you gonna start freaking on us again?” Klane growled. “Because we can do without this crap!”

  Jones shook his head. “No! No! I’m good. I just got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Well, save it.” She warned him. “We’ve already accomplished the impossible. Don’t jinx us on the home stretch!”

  “I’d say we’re running to third, about now.” Johnson pointed out. “Home is a long way off yet.”

  Hamilton reflected that, if she made less odd comments, it probably wouldn’t mark her as something out of the ordinary. Even he had no idea what she was talking about this time.

  “Baseball?” She sighed. “Oh forget it!”

  “I get that you mean we still have a long way left to go.” Jones nodded. “Too long, if you ask me.”

  “Jones!” Klane warned and he subsided.

  “How long until we touch down?” Carl asked LeGault.

  “A couple more minutes, no more. We’ve got clearance and everything. Freight movements aren’t so strictly regulated, especially regular runs like this one. We shouldn’t have any problems.”

  *****

  Landing was, as LeGault had predicted, without formality or much in the way of procedure. He put them down in the landing area that they had been assigned. Although the area had space for four ships, theirs was the only one presently berthed. LeGault landed the Seraphim as close as he could to the end of the slideway that led off to the terminal.

  By the time the engines were off and the ship made safe, the slideway had started up, ready to accept their cargo. LeGault received confirmation from the port that they could begin off-loading and relayed the message to the others.

  After that it was several hours of tedious unloading for Klane, Hamilton and Carl. The Seraphim’s planetside loading and unloading was accomplished via an extending ramp that slid out from some recess in the freighter’s belly. The same lock was used as had been attached to the freight terminal in orbit. The whole freighter, after landing, settled lower on its landing gear to make the ramp’s slope less pronounced.

  Whilst the three of them attending to the unloading, LeGault sorted the ship out while Jones and Johnson checked on the prisoners. They were allowed water, but no food, since the water could be given without having to untie their hands. There was a single bathroom break allowed each of them and they gave no trouble. After that, they were re-secured. It would be a couple of days before the relief crew found them. They’d have to cope with the indignity until then.

  As for the ship, LeGault set it to lock itself down tight when Hamilton left it. The relief crew would find it hard to get aboard when they turned up for their shift. Hard, but not impossible. It would probably require the assistance of an engineer or two. It all gave Hamilton and the others that little bit of extra time before they had to worry about the authorities looking for them.

  If they had known how long it would take them to get to this point they might have delayed their journey at some point along the way. But not knowing and effectively playing things by ear, meant they had to take the opportunities as they arose.

  As a result, there would be a one day discrepancy between the official commencement of their joint mission with Rames team and the discovery of the freighter crew. For that day, there would no doubt be enhanced security in Olympus. Hamilton had no doubt that hijacking a ship would cause a major security panic. Who the hijackers were, what they wanted and so on would cause a lock down of certain areas and vigorous security checks at others. It was a headache he hadn’t fully figured a way around yet. But he found the simple exercise of unloading the cargo to be somewhat relaxing, allowing his mind to come up with a number of possible scenarios. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he and the others were slowly creeping into a bear’s den, past any number of sleeping occupants. Occupants that, once one was awake, would all quickly come awake to impede their exit.

  He focused on the task at hand, getting into the city. They would have a couple of days once there to plan their exit and scout out the Science Institute.

  It took nearly four hours to finish unloading all but the last six palle
ts. Jones, Johnson and LeGault were already in their suits and climbing into the pallets. They all looked a little nervous, clutching their stunners as if they expected to use them within minutes. LeGault had already informed the port that their unloading would be finished within a half-hour, so there was nothing for Hamilton to do once he was the last one left, other than closing the ramp and jumping out.

  As Carl finished wrapping the first three up and Klane began unloading them, Hamilton took a last look around the now almost empty cargo bay before helping Carl into his suit, then his pallet and wrapping him up. Klane returned and unloaded his pallet, then quickly returned, climbing into her own suit and pallet. Hamilton made a hasty job of wrapping it, then jumped into the pallet claw to deposit her on the slideway.

  His own pallet he unloaded carefully. The slideway obediently stopped whenever the pallet claw approached the end of it, starting up whenever it left. He deposited the pallet on the slideway, then reluctantly disengaged the claw from it and then raced the claw back up into the cargo bay. However, racing in a vehicle whose top speed was probably six miles per hour was a tedious and entirely unsatisfying process.

  Jumping out he raced to the lock exit, punching in the macro code LeGault had set up, then sprinted down the ramp and after the moving pallet.

  Behind him, the lock closed quietly and, ten seconds later, the ramp began to retract. LeGault had set the vessel to go into a quarantine mode, allowing no one in or out. Given time, that could be worked around, of course, but for now, the ship was effectively sealed against unwanted intrusion.

  As he chased the pallet down the slideway, Hamilton looked around, expecting to see people pointing and wondering why he was running. But the landing field was deserted. This was a small cargo terminal. No one, it seemed, cared much.

  The slideway did not go terribly quickly and Hamilton reached his pallet in moments. Jumping onto it, he pulled himself up on top and removed the mostly empty box that sealed his little refuge within. A last glance around to make sure no one was looking, then he dropped inside, pulling the box back down into the gap. They’d glued a square of the packing film to the outside of the box to give the illusion that the pallet was properly wrapped and sealed but it was a half-hearted measure. If anyone really looked, they’d noticed it. But they were relying on no one bothering.

  Inside his pallet, Hamilton concentrated on struggling into his suit in the cramped, dark space available to him. Familiarity with suits in general and a lot of practice doing things sight-unseen helped him immensely. Even so, he nearly managed to head-butt the box above him loose on a couple of occasions. But he managed to get the suit on and secure within minutes. Sitting down awkwardly in the narrow space, he pulled his helmet on and secured the seals.

  At once, the projected display came alive with data and information. Although he had cautioned the others to not use the comms, there was no real reason for them not to, other than keeping them from fiddling and inadvertently broadcasting openly. Even then, there was only a small chance anyone would be monitoring the frequencies that the suits used, so the risk was minimal.

  However, the suits provided all kinds of telemetry on their users and their surroundings along with access to whatever tools and data had been pre-loaded into them. Hamilton took the time to check on everyone. So far, apart from slightly elevated bio-functions due to the stress of the situation, everyone was holding up fine, even Jones. The former thief was fine with tight, enclosed, spaces. It was open, infinite, ones he had issues with.

  “Klane?” Hamilton called on her private channel. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine. You made it then?”

  “Yeah. No problems.” He told her.

  “Good. Everyone seems okay so far. Providing no one gets discovered, this should be a boring journey.”

  “Let’s hope so.” He agreed.

  *****

  The suits had a fiber-optic probe built into them. The idea was that the Marines could use the probe to look through holes, under doors and so on, gaining a view of what was ahead of them before they entered an area.

  Hamilton used this to allow him to see out of the pallet. As they had discovered, the pallets went first to a local freight depot. However, the depot was empty of people or other cargo and the pallets literally went straight through it and out the other side, on their way to the main sorting depot.

  The journey along various slideways was one of nearly two kilometers. Their six pallets were strung out in three groups. The first three, then Carl and Klane, then Hamilton a little way back. It took the slideway nearly an hour to get them there, winding its way between buildings and across landing areas. By the time they reached the depot, the light was failing as night approached.

  The main depot was mostly automated, but there were a few people on hand to help out as needed with problems. As each of the pallets entered the depot it was scanned to determine its destination and then routed to the appropriate loading bay to await the maglev freight train’s arrival.

  That was a short wait and also the first problem they encountered.

  The maglev ran constantly, pausing for only ten minutes at the freight terminal to take on new cargo. The automation ran smoothly, loading the pallets aboard quickly and easily. But at ten minutes, all loading ceased and the maglev headed off towards Olympus, regardless of whether there was further freight still to be moved.

  The reason for this was the maglev was just one of several such trains running in a loop on the same line. The trains paused for ten minutes at the starport and ten minutes at Olympus’ own depot to allow for loading and unloading.

  Hamilton gathered it was a relic from the very busy days of the Martian colonization effort, when there had been so much freight that they had instituted this constant movement idea regarding the freight trains.

  Under normal circumstances a maglev arrived every twenty minutes, leaving a ten minute gap after departing before the next one arrived. If there was a problem then the whole maglev system was shut down.

  Hamilton reviewed the information he had on the system as he and Klane sat on the loading bay and watched as the maglev train departed, taking the other four away. The gaps between the last few pallets had apparently made the difference between them all being on the same maglev and not.

  “How long before they notice, do you think?” Klane asked him on the private channel.

  “Not long.” He answered. “They have access to the same telemetry we do. I’d better let them know.”

  He opened the general channel. “Listen up everyone. The maglev loading has left Klane and I at the freight terminal. We’ll be on the next train, but for now the rest of you are on your own. Keep calm and sit tight. The freight handlers at the other end will see there are two pallets missing from the consignment. They won’t send you off on a truck until the rest of the shipment arrives. It won’t make sense for them to do that. Hopefully they’ll park you in a corner of the depot until we get there.”

  Klane added. “Keep your heads down. We’ll be there in about twenty minutes. We’ll be out of comms range for a while, most likely, so don’t panic if you don’t hear from us for a bit.”

  “What should we do if we’re discovered?” Carl asked. He was the next closest thing the others had to any kind of leader. LeGault was happy to follow orders and neither Jones or Johnson was really the take charge type, so it fell to the Enjun to take the lead.

  “Use your best judgment.” Hamilton told him. “Just remember we want to get in un-noticed, if possible.”

  “Just don’t let yourselves get captured,” Klane added. “At any cost.”

  “Any cost?” The Enjun sounded dubious.

  “Any cost.” Hamilton agreed, though somewhat reluctantly. They couldn’t afford to let any of them fall into the hands of the authorities. The Imperials would interrogate them and throw them in prison as terrorists, which would draw the attention of Walsh and his alien friends. No doubt they would be very curious to find out what the group wa
s doing on Mars.

  “Do you understand what we’re saying to you?” Klane added, but there was no reply. Carl and the others had already moved out of range of the suit comms. The telemetry had also failed.

  “Great.” Hamilton muttered. “Let’s hope they don’t freak out.”

  “You think they understood what we meant?” Klane asked.

  “Probably. But it’s different for you and I. We have a sort of military background. They don’t. They may understand what we mean, but whether they can carry that out, if it comes to it, is another matter.”

  “Well,” She sighed. “They’re on their own now, at least for the next twenty minutes. Not even Jones can get himself into trouble in that amount of time.”

  “I think you underestimate him.” Hamilton muttered.

  *****

  Ten minutes later the next maglev train pulled in at the depot and they were loaded aboard. For ten minutes the train continued to load other cargo from other landing areas, before it set off again, rapidly accelerating to its chosen speed of sixty kilometers per hour.

  “We won’t get back in contact with them for at least fifteen minutes.” Klane pointed out. “The range on these suit comms is minimal.”

  “Yeah, that’s how they were designed. Low power to avoid detection. They’re only meant for boarding actions, really. Not what we’re using them for.” Hamilton agreed.

  She sighed. “I know. Use what you have available. I did most of the same training as you, remember? Even so, not knowing what’s going on is annoying.”

  “The fog of war.” He quoted.

  She was silent for a long time, then. “I’m glad we worked together again. No matter how all this turns out. It was good to see you again.”

  There was an awkwardness in her tone that was uncharacteristic of the woman who was always so self-assured. He knew the source of that awkwardness.

  “We…err…we parted under less than ideal circumstances before.” He managed to get out.