“At the door!” Annis had taken up position right at the interior airlock door. She had the look of a warrior, the long knife held at the ready. Jann looked around to find that Nills and Gizmo had disappeared. “Where’s Nills?”
“Fuck him, we don’t need him. This is our shit to sort out. Are you ready to do this Jann. Because if you’re not then we keep him in the airlock and watch him die.”
Jann raced over to the door and steeled herself. “Okay, ready.” They heard the whirr of the pumps as it started to depressurise. The alert indicator flashed red as the exterior door opened and in stepped Commander Decker. It was a tentative step at first. Like a wild animal sniffing out a strange box in the forest. Driven on by scent, held back by fear, uncertain of its surroundings. The door automatically closed behind him as he spotted Jann and Annis through the interior door observation window. He raced forward and crashed into it. They jumped back. Jann was shaken by the ferocity of the attack. He banged at the door several more times and then paused.
“Jesus, he’s pretty pissed. I say we just go with plan A and keep him locked in there until he runs out of air.”
“Do you know how to switch off the air?”
They both realised that they didn’t know. The only one who did was Nills and he had gone back into hiding. “Shit, no.”
“What’s he doing?”
Annis peered through the little window again. “Just standing there, wait a minute I think he’s taking his helmet off.” Jann came back to the window and joined the observation. His face was blotched red and scratched. Blood had congealed along his forehead and matted his hair. He looked at them but didn’t move. He seemed to be in pain and his face contorted as he brought his hands up to cradle his head. He mouthed a scream and dropped to his knees, he shook his head like he was trying to get something out that was gnawing away at his brain.
Jann looked on in horror at this forlorn figure. A pale and tormented shadow of the Decker that commanded the ISA Mars mission. There was no rethinking this. She needed to help him if she could. Somewhere inside that tortured creature was still the soul of a human, one that needed to be saved, not killed. She looked over at Annis. The first officer was ready to kill him, to save the mission. It was simply a matter of calculating the odds with her. The mission came first. The human second.
Jann readied herself. Time to do this. “Okay, let’s open the door now he’s down. I’ll stick him in the neck with this and that should take him down.”
“You really want to do this?”
Jann nodded and placed a hand on the door release. She held the hypodermic high, ready to stab down at the first opportunity. Annis stood to her left, ready to end his life if needs be.
Jann hit the door release and slowly began to ease it open. Then something must have clicked in Decker’s tormented brain because he lunged at the door with tremendous speed. Jann was sent tumbling backwards across the floor with the force of impact. The syringe fell from her hand and skidded under a mound of workshop parts. “Damn”.
She tasted blood in her mouth, her face hurt like hell and her right eye was closing up. “Fuck”. Annis failed to counter Decker’s attack and he grabbed her knife-hand at the wrist, the other on her throat, pinning her down onto a workshop table. She kicked and fought but it had no effect. Decker was simply too strong and too crazed. “Shit, where’s the syringe?” Jann got on all fours and tried to find it. She had better hurry or Annis would be dead. She spotted it, picked it up and bounded over to Decker. He saw her coming, turned and literally threw Annis at her. In one-third gravity she sailed through the air like a rag-doll, Jann ducked as Annis crashed down across a pile of machine parts. Decker grinned. Jann stood her ground. They faced off.
He lunged. But it was primal, there was no fighting skill there. Simply the wild flailing of a rabid animal. Jann, on the other hand had skill, kick-boxing. It was a hobby, a way of keeping fit, nothing more — until now. She saw the way he moved, his momentum. She twisted sideways and brought the needle down on his neck — except she missed, the needle hitting the metal neck rim of his EVA suit. Decker careened past her and crashed to the ground. He slid along it with the force of his own momentum. The needle was broken.
“Shit.” Jann rummaged in the pockets of her flight-suit to extract another one. But Decker was already on the attack. Again she dodged but this time she swung a kick and caught him across the side of the head. He felt it because he crashed face down on the floor and took a moment to recover. Annis was now back on her feet and looking for the knife. Before Decker had time to get to his feet proper, Jann swung another kick to the head and again he went down. Annis found the knife and was ready to dispatch him when Jann finally jumped on Decker and jabbed him in the neck with the hypodermic. He looked at her with a kind of shocked surprise, then his eyes closed and he slumped to the floor.
Jann rolled off him, breathing heavily and shaking with adrenalin. Her face hurt like hell. Annis came over and offered her a hand. Jann grabbed it and pulled herself up. “Where did you learn to kick like that?”
Jann shrugged. “I work out.”
“You’re one real bad ass — respect.” She patted Jann on the shoulder.
The two of them looked down at the forlorn Decker. “That bastard nearly killed me.” Annis kicked him hard in the gut a few times. Decker didn’t move. “Is he dead?”
“No, but he’s out for the count for a few hours. Come on let’s get him tied up before he comes around. Drag him into the Medlab.”
Paolio, still unconscious, occupied the only bed in the Medlab. But his injuries paled in insignificance to the torment that afflicted Decker, so Jann had no qualms about relocating him to the floor, while Decker took up residence in his stead. Fortunately, the Medlab operating table had restraints built in. Why, Jann didn’t know, nor did she care. They laid him out, strapped him down, and double checked. Then Nills showed up.
“Well, where the fuck were you? Hiding in your hole, no doubt.” Annis was pissed.
“It’s served me well in the past. In case you haven’t noticed. I’m the only one left alive in here. I see you have managed to incapacitate the afflicted crew member.”
“No thanks to you,” replied Annis.
“Enough,” said Jann. Her face hurt when she talked. She was exhausted — mentally, physically and emotionally. She sat down, grabbed a mirror and brought it up to her face. It wasn’t too bad. Not as bad as it felt. Just a lot of bruising. Could be worse, much worse — she could be dead.
Annis sat across from her rubbing her neck. “You know — I need to get a report back to mission control. They’ll be wondering what the hell is going on up here.”
“We’ve no comms unit, remember. Decker smashed it to pieces.”
“I’ll do it from the HAB.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“No, it’s got to be done. I’ll take the mule, let it drive me.” She stood up and stretched her shoulders. “Let’s hope Decker hasn’t trashed the HAB.”
CHAPTER 14: CAVES
Jann set up an IV drip to keep Decker sedated — to keep his violence in check. He was comatose and she hoped he would stay that way until she got a handle on the cause of his psychosis. And if she didn’t, then what — let him die?
“Come, I’ll show you where you can sleep.” Nills beckoned to Jann from the Medlab entrance. Gizmo gently lifted Paolio off the floor. They weren’t going to leave him here, not on the floor and certainly not with Decker. The doctor was beginning to come around, he moaned and cried out as Gizmo carried him. Jann held his hand. “It’s alright Paolio, we’ll get you comfortable.” They all moved off to an accommodation module and the Medlab was locked down — just in case.
There were several of these modules dotted all over Colony One. Nills had powered a unit up just off the main common area. It was designed for twelve. They put Paolio in one of the bunks and settled him in.
“There’s a shower in here, if you want to freshen up.”
Jann slumped down on a bunk opposite Paolio. “Thanks Nills.”
“Okay, we’ll leave you alone now. If you need anything, I’ll be in the bio-dome.” He left, Gizmo trailing after him.
“Malbec?” Jann pressed the headset closer to her ear; the signal from Annis was distorted. The Colony One radiation shielding was playing havoc with the comms.
“Annis, yes, I’m here.”
“The HAB is trashed. That crazy bastard has wrecked the place.”
“How bad is it?”
“He must have gone berserk inside, smashing things up. It’s still got integrity, life support is okay. Mostly it’s just the equipment inside, things strewn everywhere. The coffee machine is history.”
“Paolio’s not going to be happy to hear that.”
“Well that’s the least of our problems. The comms unit is dead.”
“What?”
“We’ve no way to contact mission control.”
“Can it be fixed?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to run some tests and do an audit on the damage. I’ll touch base with you in the morning.”
“Are you staying in the HAB tonight?”
“Damn right. I’m not spending any more time in that colony than I have to. If you want to stay over there and play mommy that’s your problem. I’ll see you in the morning — assuming you’re still alive.”
The comms disconnected. “Jesus,” thought Jann, “a whole new level of obnoxiousness — great”.
Her sleep was fitful as her mind spent most of the night contemplating the malaise that had turned Decker into a homicidal maniac. She rationalised the obvious first. It manifested itself as an altered mental state, probably due to a chemical imbalance within the brain. This could be caused by drugs, but she thought that unlikely. The other possibility was an infection, viral or bacterial. Either one could theoretically cause an imbalance. Nills had intimated that it was bacterial. But this was not based on any scientific analysis. It was simply an assumption on his part. Of course, Jann couldn’t rule out the possibility that it might be of alien origin.
“Dr. Malbec, wake up.” Nills shook her gently. “Dr. Malbec…”
“Eh… what…” Jann opened her eyes and stared up at the strange figure. As her sleep fogged mind cleared, she remembered where she was. “I fell asleep, how long was I out?”
“Eight hours. I was going to wake you earlier but you looked so peaceful so I left you.”
She sat up rigid. “Decker?”
“Still there… still comatose.”
She sighed, relaxed a bit and then realised Paolio was also awake. He was alert and sitting up in the bunk talking to Gizmo — in Italian.
“Paolio!”
“Jann, you’re still alive I see,” he smiled. He was in good spirits, gone was the deathly pallor of the previous day. He was anxious to learn all that had happened, so they talked for a time. Nills and Gizmo had left them to it, but returned a short while later with a home-made, motorised wheelchair.
“Here. This might be useful. We made it… eh… for Marcella, I think. Long time ago now. She injured her ankle doing some stupid low-gravity stunt… can’t remember what it was exactly. Anyway, I checked it out and it still works pretty well.”
Jann lifted Paolio out of the bunk and helped him into the wheelchair. She found the low-gravity tremendously empowering. To lift such seemingly heavy weights just couldn’t get old for her. Paolio’s broken leg was kept extended by virtue of a metal truss attached to the seat. He played with the controls to gain some familiarity with its function.
“I should go check on Decker,” said Jann.
"I'm coming with you."
"You should really be resting, Paolio. Not taxing your body any more than necessary."
He looked up at her and smiled, "who's the doctor here? Anyway, I think I’ve got the hang of this thing, let’s go. Lead the way.” He tapped the joystick and followed Jann to the Medlab.
The commander was still strapped on the operating table where they had left him the previous night. His life drawn out on the monitors in green and blue phosphorescent waves. Paolio spent some time examining him and checking his vitals. “Well, he’s not going anywhere for a while,” he said when he had finished. “How do you think we should proceed?”
“Let’s start with bloods, that might give us some clues.” Jann looked around the Medlab. “This place is reasonably well equipped. It’s got everything we need to make a start. And then there’s that Research Lab, on the other side of the facility. That may prove useful if it can be brought back on-line. I wonder what they were doing in there?”
Paolio shrugged his good shoulder and gave a smile. “Research?”
“Greetings.” Gizmo whizzed in. “Nills has requested you join us in the common room for some breakfast — at your convenience, of course.”
Jann looked down at Paolio. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Come on then, Decker’s safe enough here for now. Let’s get some food.”
Nills and Gizmo had been busy. They had set out an array of food on the main table in the common area. Standard colony fare; fresh fruit, salads and fish. There was also a good supply of Colony Cider. Nills sat in a battered chair eating a bowl of porridge.
“Just so you know,” said Nills between mouthfuls of food, “the bodies of your deceased colleagues have been stored in an exterior unit, where it’s sub-zero.”
Jann sat down and put her head in her hands. Paolio leaned over and patted her back. She grabbed his hand with both of hers, pressed it against her cheek and sobbed. It had finally sunk in, the tragedy of it, she couldn’t control it, and it all came flooding over her and her body shook.
“Dr. Malbec?” Gizmo’s voice was surprisingly low as if the little robot could somehow sense the emotion of the moment. Jann lifted her head, released Paolio’s hand and rubbed a moist eye. “Yes?”
“Would you like some tea?”
She managed a smile and nodded. “Sure, thanks.”
“Make that two,” said Paolio, he too was visibly emotional. The death of Lu was particularly hard for him. He patted Jann’s back one last time as the moment passed and they both regained some composure.
“Tell us what happened here Nills. You’ve seen all this before, haven’t you?”
Nills put down the now empty bowl and scratched his chin. “I have, seems a long time ago now. It’s what destroyed the colony — well almost.”
“So what the hell is it, we need to know, two of us are dead and our commander is a raging psycho. What do we do?” Jann’s frustration was bubbling to the surface.
“There is nothing you can do — except run and hide.”
Gizmo arrived with mugs of tea and Jann took a tentative sip. It was surprisingly good. She relaxed, got some control of her emotions. She needed to get the story out of Nills, and it was evident he would only do it in his own time. There was nothing to be gained by pushing him. Nills sipped his tea, took a rolled up cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He blew the smoke out in a long satisfying plume. He offered it to the others. “Fancy a toke?”
Paolio reached over and took the joint. Jann looked over at him. He waved a hand and shrugged his good shoulder again. “Hey, pain, you know.”
Nills opened up. “It started after the second phase of the colony was built, after the Research lab. We don’t know why it happened or what caused it. But some of us just started going off the rails. In the beginning it was like… just one or two people. The symptoms were a type of psychosis that affected just the individual. I mean, they had no desire to kill anybody. The first colonist to die was Peter Jensen. He suffered very badly from this illness. And then, one day, he just walked into the airlock without an EVA suit and depressurised it. It took us days to clean him off the walls.”
“Days, really?” said Jann.
“Well, no. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”
Paolio coughed and passed
the joint back. Nills took another drag, blew out the smoke and continued. “COM knew all this of course, but they were at a loss as to what was causing the colonists to go stark raving mad. Eventually it got so bad that a few of them decided to decamp to the mining outpost.”
“The one over at the far side of the crater?” said Jann
“Yeah.”
“But I thought that had only minimal life-support?”
Nills scratched his chin again and looked from one to the other like he was considering something. “I don’t suppose it matters now so I might as well tell you.” Nills waved a hand in a vague direction. “The mining outpost is around ten kilometres north east of here. At the base of a cliff over by the crater rim. It is a vast, mineral rich cave system. However, it had a relatively small entrance so over time it was sealed with an airlock and pressurised. Once that happened, people began to stay there and eventually we moved a lot of equipment and many of the modules over there. It was quite impressive. We also had this crazy idea that if anything happened to this place we could survive there.”
“How come we didn’t know about this?” said Jann. Paolio was coughing again as he passed the last of the joint back to Nills.
“We kept it secret.” Nills inspected the butt. “You have to understand, that back then, living here was like living in a fish bowl. Every single microscopic detail of our lives was broadcast to a million different digital media channels back on Earth — twenty-four seven. No one had a private life. So, we just kept it quiet; no cameras, no intrusion, it was our private space.”
“Are there still people there, maybe someone’s still alive?” said Jann.
“No, definitely not. They’re all dead.”
Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1) Page 10