Orphans of Middle Mars: Book One of the Chronicles of Middle Mars

by CJ East

  Viktor sauntered with slow and deliberate steps towards Kinch. His eyes were cold, blue steel as they searched his prey. Kinch performed a quick check for weapons. None, this was going to be intimate. Viktor stopped at arm’s length in front of Kinch. Brzezinski followed close behind. He felt Zhukov crossing the room.

  “Look, Brzezinski does well in a pack. So about Russian mothers.”

  Viktor made his move with lightning speed. His right fist flew from his side towards Kinch’s head. Kinch stood frozen, eyes locked to Volkov’s and yanked the dagger from its home, sacrificing his face for the kill shot. Viktor’s huge knuckles crashed into Kinch’s nose with an explosion of pain. Kinch lunged the blade forward with all the thrust momentum he could, but the force of Viktor’s punch knocked him backwards.

  The sharp edge tore through Viktor’s coveralls and sliced through his left side, ripping skin and muscle. Kinch bent down, his eyes gushing with tears, spun his blade towards himself, placed his hand on the pommel of the dagger hilt and thrust backwards as hard and far as he could. No resistance - a miss. Zhukov wasn’t yet in range.

  Viktor spun from the ripping wound and landed his back hard against the stone wall. Brzezinski leapt around Viktor. Kinch shifted the hilt to his left hand and swung upwards to Brzezinski’s head. Brzezinski pulled his shoulders and head back as the long blade whizzed through the air and crashed into the rock wall with sparks and shards of stone flying into Viktor’s face.

  Too close for a big weapon, thought Kinch as he spun and slashed a downward stroke at the wide-eyed Zhukov behind him. The Russian boy moved an instinctive parry with the metal bar he intended to bludgeon into the back of Kinch’s skull. The dagger’s point caught the solid aluminum bar and sliced through it as if through a sapling, the continuing downward arc inches from cleaving the Russian boy in half.

  The blade again struck stone and bit deep into the floor. Kinch careened forward, his shoulder tilted into Zhukov’s mid-section, hitting him heavy and hard. Zhukov fell backwards and Kinch followed in a loose tuck position, rolling over Zhukov. He came to a stop on his haunches facing the battle.

  Brzezinski spilled out of the passageway in haste, hesitating when he saw Kinch crouching over the frightened Zhukov. Kinch slid the blade flat onto Zhukov’s throat, lightly cutting the skin covering his jawbone and causing the blood to flow.

  “Get up!” he barked.

  The boy scrambled to his feet with Kinch pulling him up by the hair. Viktor staggered through the passage holding the knife wound in his side flowing with blood. He produced a six inch blade from his pocket as he walked towards the boys.

  Kinch narrowed his eyes, raised his head and snapped the hilt in a crisp movement, flipping the blade edge into Zhukov’s throat as a warning to advance no further. Kinch fished through his left pocket, searching for the remote. Viktor halted with a sudden fury.

  “Enough of these games!” he shouted at Kinch. “Arjun! Bring the girl!”

  Sashenka was pushed into the garage, her hands bound behind her and a cloth gag in her mouth. Arjun followed behind her, the metal bar in both hands pushing Sashenka forward. She wore an expression of anger at her captors. She shook her head side-to-side when she saw Kinch, a signal telling him not to surrender.

  Volkov circled behind her and lifted her bound wrists high on her back, causing a yelp of pain as she rocked forward.

  “You see Mr. McGrath, there is no negotiation, you have no leverage. So let’s hurry this along. Drop the dagger, and the C-9 now. If you don’t, our little pet will begin to lose body parts.”

  Sashenka strained forward to see Kinch, silently pleading with him to detonate the explosives. Kinch felt a tangible link to her emotion, he didn’t hear the words, but understood the message she was sending.

  He felt a bridge forming between them and pleaded with her, “No Sashenka, don’t give up. We’ll get out of this.”

  She responded, “It was decided. No matter how this ends Kinch, there will be an accident. You’re a danger to Viktor. He is going to kill you.”

  Kinch did not hesitate, “When I start, kick Arjun in the side of knee. Knock him to the ground and kick him in the face until he stops moving.”

  Kinch lifted the dagger over Zhukov’s head and let go of his hair. He placed his hand on the flat side of the blade and shoved it hard into Zhukov’s shoulder blades, propelling him so hard forward he almost skidded on his face. Kinch tossed the dagger between Viktor and himself.

  “The C-9, Mr. McGrath.”

  Kinch slid off the pack and threw it towards his dagger.

  “The remote. It is in the pack then?”

  Kinch had palmed the remote in his left hand. He chucked it onto the pack.

  “Now your pockets,” Viktor sneered.

  Kinch pulled a packet of C-9 from each side pocket and set them on the ground in front of him. He stood and said, “That’s everything.”

  Viktor stepped over the pack and knelt to pick up the heavy dagger. He rolled it in his large, calloused hands. “Very impressive Mr. McGrath. You were able to circumvent the audit process. I am afraid I have underestimated you, which I tried not to do.”

  “Is that why you have brought the girl, Viktor? Let her go. I’ve done what you’ve asked.”

  Viktor studied the Latin inscription along the blade, “You have been most cooperative in your surrender. Arjun, take the devochka back to the bio lab and hold her there. We will not have any more trouble, will we Kinch?” He looked up from the dagger, still kneeling.

  “No, we won’t have any more trouble,” grumbled Kinch. He stared long at Sashenka connecting with her thoughts. “Go Sashenka, everything is going to be OK, don’t worry.”

  “They’ll kill you Kinch! They will say you resisted. No, you can’t!”

  Sashenka spun away from Arjun’s grip, twisting her shoulders to face him. She launched desperate kicks at his legs. She hooked him in the crotch, bending him over to a protective angle. Wild kicks followed to his thighs, shins and calves as Arjun turned covering his head and face. Brzezinski leaped behind her and hoisted her bound hands high behind her back, extracting a sharp, muffled scream.

  Arjun peaked out from his hands, then straighten with a humiliated glance a Viktor.

  Viktor assessed the cowering Indian with contempt. “Arjun, will you require help with the restrained young lady? If she overpowers you again, you will have confirmed yourself useless to me.”

  Arjun fumed towards the bent Sashenka and seized her forearms from the big Russian. Sashenka cried out and continued a muted wail as he pushed her through the passage way.

  Kinch stood watching and running through options. Sashenka was out of danger now, his focus locked on Viktor’s kneeling figure 20 feet away. Too much distance, he thought. He ran through all the permutations of how he could take on the two huge Russians and the young Zhukov. The endgame didn’t favor him in any of the potential cases.

  The henchman pulled in close behind Viktor. He stood, watching Kinch roll his hands into tight fists. Viktor raised the long dagger and strode towards the boy. He swung the blade with three expert practice swings, cutting the air with a high pitch whine.

  The space between was consumed by the pack of men, Kinch holding steady, his mind racing. Zhukov and Brzezinski opened the semi-circle facing Kinch, trapping him from escape against the transport airlock behind. He moved his right leg back and out as he bent his knees and centered his gravity.

  “Mr. McGrath, don’t make this any more difficult for yourself than necessary. You will need to come with us.”

  “Thrust or swing”, Kinch thought as looked at the blade pointed towards his abdomen. His gaze drifted down to concentrate on his peripheral, measuring the distance of the other two. Zhukov was closer and weaker to his right, his pride wounded from Kinch’s rough handling.

  Kinch relaxed his fists and raised them to a ready position, protecting his mid-section. “My question was since the majority of Russian mothers rarely beget children from t
he same father, does that make Mother Russia a nation of -”

  Thrust.

  The blade exploded from Viktor’s side in a flash of motion. Kinch rocked to his right and spun throwing his left fist out and backwards, the back of his knuckles connecting with the side of Zhukov’s face as he continued the spin. His right knee followed the momentum with a fluid lift to dig deep into the boy’s kidney. Down Zhukov went.

  Kinch leapt backwards onto his feet facing square into Viktor’s downward slice. He pivoted to the right and waited for the blade to continue down into the depot floor. Kinch snapped his boot around to Victor’s over-extended head and sent him reeling. Brzezinski rushed forward, arms out to wrap Kinch up and take him to the ground.

  Kinch ducked as the big man went over him, pounding a quick right, left punch to the stomach then rammed his shoulder into his side sending the Russian bouncing onto the floor. Viktor leaned towards Kinch and brought the blade up from his right lower side in a long, wide arc, missing the underside of Kinch’s jaw. The blade pointed to the ceiling as Viktor twisted his muscular, agile frame into a forward spin and reversed the dagger like a whip around his body.

  The blade sliced deep into Kinch’s left shoulder as he fell backward into the wall. Pain exploded through his arm and neck as he watched Viktor complete a smooth spin and thrust the blade towards his chest. Kinch tried to bring up his slack arm to block and pivot right, but the blade pierced the left bicep. Kinch screamed in pain and threw out a haymaker bashing into the side of Viktor’s head. The blade pulled out of Kinch’s flesh and slid backwards to the feet of Zhukov and Brzezinski.

  Kinch fell against the wall once again, his unresponsive arm now shrieking in boiling pain. He looked down at the stunned Viktor then to Zhukov reaching for the blade. He looked left to a set of equipment shelves. To the right he saw the closed airlock door to the transport bay. The door held inside and outside locks.

  He jumped towards the bulkhead, working the inside three-part lock and ripping open the door with his good right arm. He fell through the open passage turning to throw his weight against the door and securing it. Sliding down he heard the banging against the door, then the futile tugs on the handle.

  Kinch bit down tightly through the agony he felt, trying to work up the courage to look at his wounds. He took a deep breath and turned to his left, looking at his blood-saturated jump suit. His upper arm was split open like a halved loaf of bread, flowing a deep, red current of blood. The laceration in his mid-arm was hidden under his sleeve, but blood flowed from the cuff of his jumpsuit.

  Kinch rocked his head back against the door as he felt the life drain out of his body. He closed his eyes and thought how he could bind the wound and get into a Mars suit before Viktor decompressed the transport bay.

  Damaged

  Kinch raised his good arm above his head making wide, slow sweeps looking for the control panel. His sat against the two lock compression door which separated him from his pursuers. He opened his eyes when he didn’t hit the panel.

  He pushed his head forward and strained up to see the red environmental panel and toggled the decompression switch to the safety position. Viktor now would not be able to blow the oxygen out of the transport bay. To suffocate him, Viktor would need Venkat or Arjun to override the safety application from the main environmental safety system, a five minute task at the quickest. Ten if Venkat is shrewd. He needed every second.

  Kinch looked around the transport bay. This was his office, where he worked on the excavator bots, TED and the transporters. He forced himself to his feet and began forming steps to the next course of action - steps one through three were defined, he was weighing options for the different consequences of step 4.

  He leaned to the work bench, gripped a can of compressed bonding agent, and limped to the door. He must have pulled something during a kick. No time to slow down, he moved towards the door with urgency. He considered the can in his hand as he removed the lid and placed his index finger on the spray valve. He raised the can to the glass portal window and sprayed the solid black bonding agent into the meaty, ugly face of Brzezinski. Kinch smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

  After Kinch sealed the glass completely, he sprayed the two live feed cameras. He went to his med kit, which was large and well stocked due to the distance from the infirmary. He threw it on the workbench and began to lay everything out he needed. He estimated four minutes minimum.

  Kinch ran to the Mars suits, jumped in a red one, pulled it up to his waist, grabbed a helmet and waddled back to the workbench and sat down to the unpleasant task ahead. He cut the sleeve of his left arm high above his wounds and slid off the bloody rag. He selected a rubber tourniquet from his arrangement and wound it tight under his shoulder, close to the deep laceration dividing his shoulder from the arm.

  A heavy, painful pulse beat above the tourniquet and the blood stopped flowing down his arm. He pushed aside the anesthetic. He didn’t have time to assemble and administer the luxury. Instead he dried the wound and applied long strips of tape, forcing the right side of the wound closed.

  The hook needle and suture were threaded and knotted, and without hesitation plunged deep into the exposed side of the wound closest to him. He raised his arm and pulled tight the stitch, fusing a jagged seam. Kinch thought of nothing but the next movement as time evaporated in relation to his chances of survival.

  Two minutes minimum. He ripped the tape off, the remaining sutures pulled with the care and expertise of the lacing of an athlete’s shoes. He moved to the dagger puncture wound below. There was deep muscle injury from the twisting of the blade. New thread and the minimum of sutures would give it stability.

  One minute minimum. The override would give a five second warning. Decompression would be quick, he could last a minute maximum without holding his breath. Holding his breath would rip out his lungs.

  He tied the last suture and flung the needle on the workbench. Ripping the bandages from their sterile paper and wrapping them with plastic tape. The decompression alarm screeched a high, raspy pulse. Kinch gathered his suit and loped in long strides towards the door, mashing the big red safety button into the wall. The screeching stopped. Decompression override. He was counting on the feature being overlooked, or Venkat not bringing it to anyone’s attention. He hoisted the suit sliding down to his knees.

  It would take maybe thirty seconds before they would find and disable the panic switch and re-initiate decompression, he thought as he pulled his Mars suit up, securing it. He shuffled towards the bench and his helmet. His fingers flew through the tasks of binding and double binding the suit, his gimp arm steadying the flaps. The alarm rejoined its screech as Kinch was pulling on his helmet. He locked the rubber gaskets and metal clasps. Three. Two. One.

  Kinch stood stoically as the depot environment was sucked into the near vacuum of Mars. He watched the bandage wrappers from the med kit spin in erratic spirals into the decompression grates.

  There was now a branch in his plan. Stay and fight, or get to the airlock elevator at the infirmary. He ran the probability tree for the outcomes of each branch and sub branches. He could get to the other door, Victor wouldn’t expect it. Odds were he thought the fluids in Kinch’s body had boiled out or the other possibility he would be cornered like a badger, daring them to come in.

  Making his stand here, using the heavy tools of the garage with his strong right arm was the best choice. But it wasn’t what his Grandfather would do. He would out-think, out-maneuver, and attack.

  Kinch began throwing items into the open bed of the utility transport - oxygen tanks, a six foot iron pry bar, coiled wire. He slid behind the steering column and closed the door of the small cab. It didn’t have an environment, not much different in size from the little utility truck Kinch had on the farm.

  He pulled the display forward. He logged in under the robot service account. Kinch never forgot a password. He had a knack for memorization. If he saw it or heard it, it was his forever. He entered the ran
domly-generated 14 character password as easily as if it was his last name.

  He opened two screens when a doubt pricked his mind - was this the point of no return, or had he already crossed it? Was he doing the right thing?

  His head jerked as he refocused and tapped the display. The bay door heaved and began to wind upward. He navigated the second screen to the media platform. He opened the core OS and executed the command to wipe the platform, taking out all cameras and communication.

  The door crawled upwards with a slow pace. He opened another screen and accessed the environmental platform. He opened the outside compression elevator door at the infirmary. He hovered over the core OS link for a moment, his mind racing seven moves down the probability diagram until he executive the command to destroy all life supporting environmental programs and data for Colony.

  He looked up to see the bay door open to the height where the cab could almost clear it and edged the throttle forward. He could now make out the end of the short stone tunnel angling up to the surface, a pink, indirect glow bouncing off the red sand swirling downward. The storm was intensifying. The door halted and Kinch slammed the throttle forward.

  He shot out of the tunnel, his wheels bouncing wildly on the hardscrabble Martian terrain. He banked a hard, full right throwing sand and dust into the air, which surrounded and blinded his vision into red darkness.

  The torrential wind blew away his cloud trail with its usual thin red stream of dust and he watched the cloud being pushed and dissolved to his left. Visibility was poor, but the roof of the colony was familiar and safe ground. He slowed a little looking for the elevator.

  Kinch’s eyes darted as he thought through the next steps. The switchover of the environmental platform would have been automatic after the catastrophic loss he caused. Manual system reboots would be necessary - protocol priority one - but there was no real danger if they got the backups online in the next few minutes. They would be blind and, with any luck, ignorant of his activities. The Colony was now concerned for their self-preservation by getting life support on line.