“The bioputer has selected an LZ. Directional motors online. Impact in Four. Three. Two. One.” His voice a study in mixed emotions, Don took his hands from the controls and crossed himself in a silent prayer.
With a lurch and a resounding thud, Slinker touched bottom, skipped off the flat, muddy seabed and shuddered to a rocking halt within seconds. Ooze gripped the hull.
“All off. Everything. Including life-support.” Lauren wondered at how detached, almost clinical she sounded. Like in a virtual training session. She had plotted a textbook response to an eminent threat, but terror nonetheless wrapped her soul. Every muscle, every sinew, clamped until she felt her body would implode. This was it. Her life poised to end on the bottom of the Pacific, taken by a force of alien origin. Of that, she was now certain.
The gentle flow of warm air faded. Owen’s deep baritone boomed through the stillness. “All systems going offline.”
In systematic order, programs shut down until only Farrell’s vid provided the dimmest of illumination. Farrell reached for the manual override, but the screen blinked out, leaving them in total darkness.
Two miles above, the sea erupted. Its thunderous roar swept over Slinker, batter her until Lauren was certain the tiny sub would rip apart. She covered her ears and opened her mouth, expecting a rapid change in cabin pressure that failed to materialize. Dread clawed anew when, barely audible amidst the tumult, Don began reciting the Lord's Prayer.
Slinker groaned and creaked and rocked, but the monstrous forces assaulting her hull failed to destroy her, failed to dislodge her from the cloying sludge. Long before Lauren thought it would end, the undersea storm peaked and weakened.
*****
Though the uphill trek had winded George, the short break had restored him. He hefted his backpack onto his shoulders, and for no reason he could explain, he grabbed up Heather's too. She quick-stepped over to him and took the pack away before he knew she was doing it.
"I'm a big girl, George."
"I can see that." He smirked and looked her up and down, then ducked.
Heather feigned a slap at his head. "Stop ogling me."
"You going to call in your back-up?"
"No, I can..."
“C’mon.” Baider pocketed the comset and jerked his thumb toward the building George had indicated. Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he trudged off, pointedly scanning the growing darkness, his lasrifle at the ready. Unbidden, Wendell shouldered George’s lasrifle, his own slung beneath his arm, the safety off, and trailed Baider. George and Heather followed several yards back.
The atmosphere suddenly rippled, like wind being torn, followed by four thunderclaps that sounded ominously like a jet aircraft breaking the sound barrier. Waves of pressurized air washed over them, whipping treetops into a frenzy and snapping off branches. Dry leaves and debris swirled upward.
Pointing west, Heather cried out, all but unheard in the mounting din.
A huge, black domino swooped from the heavens, pushing through the thick haze. Its sides trailed enormous, billowing white clouds. Roaring like a thousand runaway freight haulers, the huge vessel screamed down upon them, looking like it would crash at the very spot they stood, but it leveled off and hurtled out to sea.
At the edge of the horizon, columns of steam a mile wide lunged skyward in the fading light and swallowed the domino ship. George stood with mouth agape. A wall of superheated water exploded shoreward in a great fount, vaporizing so rapidly in took but moments to reach the coast. Instinctively he dropped on his belly and covered his head, hoping the others were doing the same. He kept his mouth open to equalize the pressure, screaming his defiance as the wall of blistering steam slammed into the headland. Ancient walls crumbled. Mighty oaks and lofty pines whipped and snapped. The wind howled in demonic rage.
Desperate to stay rooted on the leeward side of the wall, George grabbed hold of clumps of tall grass and dug his boot toes into the frigid soil. He braced himself with all his strength, but a powerful surge peeled him from the ground and thrust him against brick, bruising shoulder and hip. He sucked in a deep breath, buried his face and tucked knees to chest while the gale pummeled and pushed him slowly along the wall. Alarm gave way to fear, but a strong hand gripped his ankle and stymied his slide. Just when it seemed he could take no more, the storm abruptly eased. The wind faded to a whisper and the chill returned, chafing his reddened skin. He uncurled and sat up.
Slumped beside him, Baider nodded and grinned, brushed debris from his arms. "Hell of a kick. Some kind of sonics maybe..." Calm, yet reproached with awed reverence, Baider rocked and heaved himself up, then turned and offered George a hand.
"You're red and you've got a blister over your left eye." Dazed, George could think of nothing else to say. He grasped the proffered hand and rose, damned glad they were okay, but uncertain how to express it.
“You don't look pretty either, Cap." Baider chided. "What in the hell was it?”
“An alien ship, I assume. You seen anything like that before? Boiled off millions of gallons of sea water in seconds.”
Baider's grin faded. “No...and nothing in the works that I know of. You seen Heather?”
He whirled about, lasrifle powered and aimed. Wendell, then Heather appeared from the ruins, wind-lashed and red-faced. Wendell was shaking, but both appeared okay.
Baider lowered his weapon. "Uh, sorry..."
The boom of a large caliber projectile weapon sent them scrambling for cover. A second shot ricocheted off the polyphalt inches from Heather, eliciting a sharp cry. She flattened herself against the pavement.
Baider jerked her to her feet and shoved her through a jagged wall opening. He leaped in behind and shrugged off his backpack. Wendell tumbled in beside him, then George. Fiery-eyed, Baider unsheathed his .45 and unloaded half a clip at the muzzle flashes.
George peered around the edge of the crevice, but the dim glow of the setting sun failed to reveal the shooter. He took cover and checked his handgun load, holstered it, then checked the energy setting on his lasrifle and clicked off the safety.
Grim faced, Baider scrambled over to a window opening and fired twice more, then ducked.
Sharp reports from a small caliber weapon answered. A bullet tore through George’s backpack as he peeled it from his shoulders. Another round sparked off the wall, showering him with brick shards. He reached over, shoved Heather to the floor and squatted beside her, his breath coming in deep gasps.
Against the wall, Baider held his lasrifle over his head and fired three stout bursts. Grass and weeds sizzled and popped, and ignited. Close by, the bushes exploded in flame and an agonized cry split the silence, faded to a whimper. Hungry orange flames licked at the brush, but diminished to faltering flickers.
“You hit someone,” Wendell whispered, trembling.
“Wendell, get over there.” Back-dropped by a dim orange glow riding the edge of the horizon, George, his back to cold red brick, pointed to a peaked section of the opposite wall, “Heather, over there." He indicated a banked wall of shattered brick beside a jagged gash in the connecting wall.
As surreal as their surroundings were, George chided himself for not taking the holoimager’s warning more seriously. He squeezed his eyes shut and blocked out the self-recriminations. Time to think like a soldier, take stock of the situation. With the remnants of daylight fading, he could just make out Heather crouched beneath the aperture, clutching her automatic to her chest with one hand wrapped around the barrel and a finger on the trigger. She was scared and probably couldn’t aid in their defense. Wendell wouldn’t hesitate to fire, but could he hit anything? That left he and Baider to deal effectively with any threat. Bringing Heather and Wendell along now seemed like a bad idea.
Baider set his lasrifle aside and pulled out his .45.
"I'm going out there." He chambered a round. The harsh double-klatch startling in its clarity. In a crouch, he scrambled over to Wendell and whispered, “Cover me, but don't shoot me in the back!�
�
“Sure...Baider...sure.”
George knew the seaman was no stranger to confrontation, but more often at the hands of the sea or a drunken sailor than actual combat. Among his citations was a service medal for the Afghan Wars, though he had been at sea, hundreds of miles from the conflict.
“What do you expect to accomplish?” George whispered harshly.
“Going to bring back a hostage...or a body. See what we’re up against.”
“Keep your head down.” A veteran of the Vladivostok Incursion, George had seen men risk their lives for less, but he was also certain Baider would ignore him if he tried to stop him. There was little point in facing that scene.
“Aye, Cap.”
Guttural and tinged with irony, Baider’s retort did nothing to calm his fears. The seaman slipped through the crack and was gone.
In a squat, George shuffled over to the crack and peered beyond the broken down walls of the small, square ruin. A gentle sea breeze sprang up, stirring the long grass. The fire died out, leaving a faint burnt odor in the air, and a thin frost filmed the bricks and dampened his uniform.
He was relieved to hear Heather’s breath steady up, but Wendell was another matter. He could picture the young black man pressed hard against the wall with legs splayed, lasrifle clutched to his chest, and terrified. Disarming him, before he accidentally shot someone, was worth considering.
A yelp and a thud close by. A child’s scream, cut short. George pushed back from the crack and aimed into the darkness, finger firmly on the trigger. The decision to fire would have to be made in a split-second. But even the sea's effervescence was now as muted as the heavens. With only fleeting shadows to decipher, the risk to act could be as foolish as waiting.
“Coming in.”
George let slip a sigh and eased his finger from the trigger. A whimpering bundle hurtled through the opening and fell at his feet, Baider’s hulking shadow a step behind.
“She needs medical attention,” Baider growled as he slid down the wall beside George. “Her leg.”
Heather gasped. “Oh my, she sounds like a child.”
“Left one.”
“Wendell, hand me the medkit, would you please.” The fear in her voice dissolved. “I need a light.”
“No,” Baider said.
“Why not? You expect me to treat her by feel?”
“They know we’re here,” George said, sliding his feet from under him and sitting against the wall. “A light won’t change that. Go ahead, but keep it shrouded so you don’t destroy our night vision.”
“Thank you, George. At least somebody has some compassion around here.”
A litemate blinked on. Wendell focused a weak, narrow beam on the girl's leg, then the medkit. At the sight of the wounded youth, Heather holstered her gun and scooted over to the captive. The child pulled her legs under her voluminous coat and let out a small cry.
Heather reached out to her and the small, furry bundle burrowed further into herself.
“I won’t hurt you. Let me treat your injury. I’m a doctor.”
“Ain’t no doctas no mo.” Muffled beneath animal fur, her little voice was fearful and defiant.
“Could have fooled me.” Heather smiled indulgently, laid out a tube of antibacterial ointment, bandages and medstick, pushed back the girl’s coat and examined the injured limb. “Looks like she was hit with a lasrifle...not a bullet. Lucky for her you only grazed her.”
“She was moving...and armed.” Baider produced a small silver revolver, popped open the cylinder and emptied six brass cartridges into his palm, then tossed them to George.
Three shells were spent.
“Why would she be armed?” Heather accepted the litemate from Wendell and ran the narrow beam down the child, hesitating when it passed over her partially concealed face. “She’s a kid. No more than...than...fourteen.”
“Twelve,” the waif corrected.
“See? Must have been carrying for protection.” Heather looked up. “Wendell. Come hold the light.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” In a crouched, Wendell slid across the floor. The girl jerked her leg away from Heather and burrowed deeper into her coat.
“Holt-it right dere!” A masculine voice, deep and resonating. “Nex won a yews move an’ I be blastin yew.”
A lantern glimmered to life and the next moment rifles and pistols were aimed at them from every point. A dozen, George figured. At least a dozen. He raised his hands as the speaker stepped into the small circle of light. He jerked George’s lasrifle away. Two men in brown and black-streaked gray furs and knee-high blackened leather boots entered and disarmed them, then forced Wendell, George and Baider together against a wall with angry motions.
“Lookylike weuns got somethin’ ta talk ‘bout. Doan we?”
Chapter Four
13:08 Hours, July 12, 2057 - Mars
“There’s the ship, Colonel.”
Lost in thought, O'Brien took two steps before he realized what Clapton had said. He jerked to a stop and looked up, expecting to see the Mars Explorer right before him. It was still a hundred meters distant. The only sign of life was a dim rectangle of light above the bold, black vertical letters – NASA -- nestled between the twin ion tubes.
Seeing the shuttle like that, plastic smooth and pure white: a squat and powerful bullet cast in the crater's shadow, exuded a certain majesty. He smiled, unable to suppress a boyish thrill, nor quell a sudden uptake of breath and quickening of pulse. How many times had he stood in awe before a rocket and dreamed of seeing for himself if there were little green men on Mars? The smile faded.
He turned to his small group of survivors. “Everybody okay? Myer?”
Doctor Myer shuffled to a stop and straightened. “Fine...Colonel. I’m fine...just tired.” Eyes glassy with shock, tear streaks cut the sheen of her flushed cheeks.
O'Brien nodded. Her colleagues, her friends, had perished within arm’s reach of her, and only intuition had saved her life. His glance shifted to the others.
Strung out along an ankle-deep dust path behind her, his men halted. Their white envirosuits were thick to the knees with reddish-black dust. Long, thin shadows lanced out across the Martian soil from where they stood, mere caricatures of the living beings encapsulated against the inhospitable clime. He noted with a measure of satisfaction that their shields were clear.
“We’re with you, Colonel.” Despite the neutralizing effect of the comsets, Sergeant Doomes’ voice boomed with the steadfast assurance of a man who had witnessed far worse, and found this situation no more impossible to conquer than any other.
“Keep an eye on our backs, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
O’Brien's gaze returned to Myer, the only civilian among them. It had taken great courage for her to travel millions of miles through empty space, hoping to authenticate the first hard evidence of extraterrestrial life. Instead, she bore witness to an attack that could very well portend the extermination of Mankind. He and the others were soldiers, trained and biogenetically altered to face the unknown, the unforeseen, the unbelievable. Her psyche was unprotected, her emotions painfully raw.
“Hang in there, Doctor Myer. The worst is over, for now.”
“Call me Linda.” She attempted a smile, but her eyes brimmed over with tears.
“Okay, Linda it is.” An unusual gesture for him, he offered her his hand.
“Thank you.”
With unexpected firmness, she grasped his hand and came close enough for their suits to touch. Her eyes met his and for a moment, O’Brien felt closer to her than he had felt towards anyone in a long, long time. Static in the comset robbed him of the moment. If there were to be anything between them… The thought lingered, tempting, provocative, yet at the moment as alien as the world they stood upon. He released her hand, nodded to the others and faced the ship. Their survival demanded he stay focused.
“Captain Garson, you read me?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
�
�Are we cleared for approach?”
“I see you five-by-five, your team is cleared for approach.”
Already several meters ahead, Major Clapton trudged on, leaving a trail of shallow footprints in the loose red dirt. Black dust burst from his footfalls and coated his boots, but faded into the red dirt moments after his passage.
A quick glance to the crest of the crater and O’Brien followed. Signs of their passage would remain, possibly for days. Would the aliens return to look for survivors? What motivated them to do what they did? Troubled thoughts tumbled, one on another until he forced himself to focus on the one thing that really mattered. The long, hopefully untroubled, journey to Earth. He refused to speculate on what they would find when they got there.
It took a dozen minutes to reach the ship and twenty minutes to pass in pairs through the airlock. Doomes and O’Brien were the last to board. While they waited, O’Brien looked to the sky. With any luck, the heavens would hold nothing for them but stars.
With the first phase of their escape behind them, O’Brien’s immediate concern became the Mars Explorer. Fuel tanks and a pair of ion drive reactors consumed the bottom two-thirds, and beneath, landing struts and shielding plates concealed twin launch motors. The upper third consisted of four decks and could support thirty passengers and crew. Recently updated, it was very fast, but nothing like the intergalactic war machines depicted in Hollywood vids.
“I’ll not miss this rock, Colonel.”
It took a moment for O'Brien to respond. “Uh, nor I, Sergeant.” His tenure at Mars Base had fallen into a daily routine, but breath taking vistas and the opportunity to explore an uncharted world mollified the pedestrian nature of administrative command. The alien attack quelled his ardent fervor for the red planet and his desire to find its little green men. The galaxy had suddenly, and without warning or justification, become a far uglier place than even the worst metropolitan slums of Earth.
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