Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1)

by Parker, Gavin E

  “Jesus!” said White. “Do you realise what’s at stake here?”

  “I do,” said Sherman. “That’s why my ass is covered. I can walk away from this, I had an exit strategy right from the beginning. Did you?”

  “Bullshit,” said White. “You can be careful, I know that, that’s why I always come to you. But no one is invisible. There’s always some trace left behind. You’re in this as deep as I am; deeper, even. And you can never walk away.”

  The waitress brought White’s order and placed it on the table. “Thank you very much, Ms,” he said, “that looks great.”

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” said the waitress.

  “No, thank you again.”

  “Enjoy your meal,” said the waitress as she left.

  “That’s right,” said Sherman. “Enjoy your meal. Right now there’s not a thing we can do, so just relax and forget about it. Maybe they’re already dead, who knows? Maybe the rescue goes wrong and they all die then, how about that? Let’s not worry about it until it happens. In twenty-four hours, forty-eighty maybe, if our man’s still around he’ll be on the Martian surface. We can contact him then if we need to. But until then, just eat your food have a great day.”

  White looked at his order. He knew he was hungry but somehow he didn’t feel like eating.

  Zelman was seated at a table when White arrived at the hotel suite. There was an array of magazines in front of her, and it looked like she was working her way through a puzzle page in one of them. “Awful news about Ephialtes,” she said. “It’s been all over the streams. They’ve hardly been talking about anything else all day.”

  “Yes,” said White as he walked over and kissed her on the cheek. “It looks like there may be survivors. The Martians are going to try to pick them up, tomorrow, I think.”

  “I hope they’re okay,” said Zelman. “It’s awful to think of them up there with no light, heat or communication, not knowing what’s going to happen to them. Just awful.”

  “I’m sure it’s going to be okay,” said White. “They’ll pick them up, and that will be that. It’ll certainly put an end to Cortes’ little venture anyway.”

  “How was he about it all?” said Zelman.

  “Not pleased,” said White. “He only speaks that one language; threats and intimidation. They’ve taken his voice away from him, and now he doesn’t know what to do. We’re all just hoping that he doesn’t lash out at us.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Zelman. “I’m sure he’ll see sense in a day or two. It was a ridiculous plan anyway.”

  “We all know that,” said White, “but now it’s ridiculous, expensive and failed. I don’t know if this might be even worse than him having gone through with it.”

  “Oh come on,” said Zelman, “you don’t mean that. I really think this is probably for the best. If they can get those people off, and no one got hurt in all of this, then I think this is probably one of the best outcomes you could have hoped for. He’s been forced to put his toys back in the box. He’ll have to get round the table with them now, he’s got no other choice.”

  “I don’t know,” said White. “Maybe this has gone too far the other way. There’s nothing for them to discuss now - they have everything they want. There’s nothing to negotiate, as far as they’re concerned.”

  “It’s probably for the best,” said Zelman. “Like you said before, in a few months’ time we’ll be trading with them and everything will be back to normal.”

  “It’s wiped you out though,” said White. “Helios stocks have plummeted. Two ships lost in as many months - that doesn’t look good for you.”

  Zelman shrugged. “I guess it means you’ll be needing two new ships to replace them. Who’s going to build them, if not us? The stocks will be back up in a week or two. I have the rest of my portfolio, anyway.”

  White went to the bar and poured himself a drink. “Want one?” he said to Zelman.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You go ahead. You look like you need to relax.”

  “Oh boy, do I,” said White.

  C H A P T E R 3 0

  The Prodigal

  The piercing wail of multiple alarms seemed to exist on its own, a thought before there was even a consciousness to think it. The alarms were all that existed. As Steiner drifted back from the darkness they seemed to occupy every space in his head. Every fourth or fifth second there was a powerful lurch. It was these that were shaking him awake.

  On realising he had been born again into a world consisting of nothing more than shrieking alarms and sudden violent movements Steiner sought to make an impression on it. He reached out for the flight stick but it was not there. Focusing more now, he realised that the engines were still running, but from the cracked cockpit window he could see that he was on the ground, save for a bunny-hop every few seconds. He realised too that, along with the sound of the alarms, he could hear the engines screaming as though in pain. Reflexively his hand shot toward the manual kill switch for the engines. He pressed the button. Nothing happened.

  He was more awake now and was able to process his thoughts in a more orderly way. The kill switch was down, so maybe he could manually isolate the fuel supply. As he reached out for the fuel cut-off switch there was another massive lurch as the ship tried to wrench itself free from the grip that Mars had on it. As it crunched back to the ground Steiner reached out again, this time flipping the switch to the ‘Off’ position. He waited for the remaining fuel to run out. There was another lurch, but this one was notably half-hearted. When the ship slumped back to the Martian surface Steiner heard the engines splutter before finally dying. The ship was now laying still on the face of Mars.

  The alarms still wailed. Steiner released his harness and only then noticed the blood trickling down his forehead. He felt the blood with his hand and looked at it momentarily before wiping it off on his flight suit and proceeding on his way out of the cockpit.

  The ship felt unfamiliar to him. It was resting at an odd angle and was in disarray. Various items and panels had broken loose and were strewn about, making the familiar seem new and strange.

  His intention was to get into his command drone. The drop bays were accessible from behind the cockpit. The command drone was in the first bay on the right. He figured that the structural integrity of the dropship was compromised but maybe the drones, or some of them, would still be okay. And he absolutely had to get away from those damned alarms.

  The hatch to drop-bay one was jammed. He went back to the cockpit to retrieve a crowbar and with some effort he began trying to jimmy the hatch. As he was about to give up the hatch moved a little, allowing him to get more purchase. Pulling on the locking mechanism with one hand and half-standing, half-jumping on the crowbar he eventually succeeded in moving the hatch to a semi-open position. The ship itself had been mildly warped by the impact, and the hatches were no longer true.

  Guessing there was enough of an opening to squeeze through, Steiner forced the upper part of his body into the gap. Inside it was dark, but enough light followed behind him that he could make out the shape of the top of his commander mech, held in the grip of a giant mounting bracket. He grabbed at the bracket and pulled his legs through the hatch, swinging them round beneath himself. From that position he climbed and slid down to the front of the mech.

  Steiner was relieved to find that the entry hatch on the mech had not been damaged. It opened with a sweetly smooth action as it always had, and he clambered inside the huge machine.

  The start sequence for the mechs was usually initiated from on board the dropship. Steiner had to resort to a manual override. As he flipped switches and pressed buttons he felt a rising anxiety that the thing would not start, but his fear was unfounded. His HUD came to life and he felt the low rumble of the internal motors starting up.

  He tried to communicate with the dropship’s internal coms but there was no reply. He sent a ‘Start’ command to all of the dropship’s drones but only received responses from seven
of them. He noted that six of the seven were on his side of the ship and guessed that the other side had been more severely damage by the crash-landing.

  Using his mech’s computer system he drew a rectangle in the darkness in front of him. He thought this was where the door was, but it was difficult to see in the half-light. He set the mech’s laser to follow the outline of the rectangle and watched as the red beam slowly worked its way around the shape, taking several minutes.

  As he waited he copied the command to the seven drones he had under his command. He checked visuals from each of them and saw that they were all dutifully cutting their way out of their metal prisons.

  As the laser in Steiner’s bay came to a stop he saw the rectangle of metal fall slightly in its place. It slipped to the side and back slightly, but did not fall completely out. He commanded the mount to release him, but its grip remained firm. Again, he had to turn to a manual override, and his mech fell to the floor of the bay with a loud clang. The mech absorbed the shock of the landing by bending its knees, then did a small sequence of movements, almost like it was stretching after its long slumber. It was calibrating itself to Martian gravity and orienting itself to the space it found itself in. Familiar yet unfamiliar, it was the shape of a hangar bay, but at an angle it had not experienced before.

  Steiner lifted his leg and the corresponding leg of the mech lifted, taking a step forward. At the rectangle, the mech punched the metal and suddenly there was a new, albeit crude, exit.

  Steiner walked out through it onto the surface of Mars.

  Outside he could see the full extent of the damage to the dropship. It was wedged up against a small outcrop of rocks, with the front higher than the back. The right-hand side was lower too, pressed close to the rocks. It looked wrecked. Steiner was amazed to think that this thing, which had brought him to the surface, was still in one piece. Looking at it, it was hard to see how he could have survived. He had always been sceptical about the quality of Helios’ equipment before. Now he felt humbled.

  Looking along the side of the ship he could see the lasers working on the bay doors. The last few remained, cutting their way out.

  Presently, as he watched, the drones punched and kicked their way out of the dropship, just as Steiner had commanded them to.

  The seventh drone was on the other side of the dropship. Try as it might, there was no exit available to it. The way was barred with solid rock. Steiner monitored its video feed and knew there was no hope for it. He commanded it to shut down.

  Steiner had data feeds from all his drones available to him in his commander mech, but he elected to make a visual inspection of his squad. The scene resembled parade grounds throughout history, with the drones dutifully lined up and their superior checking them over. Steiner was looking for damage, but if he had said, ‘Your buttons are dirty, drop and give me twenty,’ to one of the drones it would not have seemed out of place.

  One drone was feeding back data suggesting it was damaged. Power levels were inconsistent and the servos in the right foot and thigh were behaving erratically. Visual inspection revealed what appeared to be superficial damage. Steiner wasn’t sure if there was a physical problem or just a data issue. Data seemed unlikely and he didn’t want an unreliable mech on his mission. He decided that that mech should stay and guard the wreckage. If the Martians found the wreck and gained access to the dropship’s data systems they could possibly compromise all his inter-drone coms. It seemed unlikely, but he decided to leave a mech on guard anyway.

  He sent the remaining mechs in four opposing directions while he took a drink and some food. The food was an all-purpose nutrient slurry. The commander mech carried enough for two weeks. Steiner favoured chocolate flavour.

  The mechs were gathering video data about their location. Steiner had it patched in to software which, after a few minutes, worked out where they were on the Martian surface. Steiner let the drones wander on for a few minutes more, in order to confirm their location. After that, he called them back.

  They were somewhere south of Baetis Chasma, roughly eight hundred kilometres from the main Martian conurbation of Marineris. The mechs’ top walking speed was twenty kilometres an hour, and maybe they would have to round mountains or avoid craters. It would take them around two days to make it to Marineris. They set off.

  Steiner had had no communication with Ephialtes since he had left her only a few hours earlier. He assumed that she, like Hayes, had been taken out by EMPs or possibly nukes. That left him as the only surviving member of the mission. He had trained over and over again to take key Martian installations and he still had enough firepower to do just that. The Martians had very few defences and no military to speak of. They had heard news that the Martians had built missile defences and had added those into their training simulations. Outwitting missile defences on the surface of the planet seemed a much more inviting prospect than doing the same in space where there was, literally, no place to hide. In the sims they had successfully used features of the landscape and countermeasures to defeat the missile batteries. He saw no reason why he wouldn’t be able to do that in reality. In his mind he was forming a plan.

  With no direct communications from his mothership, and with Earth out of range for his mech’s coms, he decided it was his duty to proceed with the mission as he understood it. He had been training to capture Martian installations pertinent to the deuterium trade, and in order to do that he would first have to render the Martian missile defences harmless. That was his mission. He found added impetus in the fact that, contrary to everything they had been told on their journey, the Martians had proved to be anything but pacific. The attack on Ephialtes had been swift and brutal and had resulted, he supposed, in major loss of life. His friends, Foley and Johnson, were among the casualties and he had been right there beside Meades and Hayes when they had been killed.

  The way Steiner saw it he had no other option. He was on the surface of what would have to be considered a hostile planet, even without the presence of enemy missile bases. The environment itself was enough to kill him. He had a mission, or enough of one to work with, and he had the base, animal motivation of revenge. He had to attack the Martians. It seemed that was the only course of action open to him.

  C H A P T E R 3 1

  Mission of Mercy

  Bobby took the call in the middle of the night. Anthony didn’t even have the good grace to call himself. He asked one of the nurses to do it. The nurse told Bobby he should come as soon as possible. Jack was weakening and this was probably the end.

  On arriving at the house he made his way to his father’s bedroom, which now bore only scant similarity to the place he recalled from his childhood. He remembered jumping up and down on the bed with Anthony, and he remembered clambering into bed with his father and having stories read to him. The room from his memories was now was overlaid with medical equipment and the people in there, the nurses, doctor and lawyer, made it seem a public space and not the intimate family home of his memories.

  “How is he?” said Bobby.

  At first no one answered then one of the nurses said, “He’s comfortable.”

  He looked anything but comfortable. A breathing tube was taped to his face and another tube from his arm lead to a drip. He was propped up and his head lolled forward at an angle. His eyes were closed but his mouth hung open and his tongue was hanging out. His breathing was noisy and laboured.

  “Is he awake?” said Bobby.

  “No,” said the nurse. “He’s been like this for the last four hours or so. The doctor thinks he’s very close to the end now. It’s good that you’re here.”

  Bobby moved around to the side of the bed where Anthony was sitting. He put a hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “How’re you doing?” he said.

  “I’m fine,” said Anthony. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Is there anything you need me to do?”

  “No, it’s all taken care of. We just need to be here now. For Dad.”

  “Okay,”
said Bobby, and he pulled up a seat next to Anthony.

  They sat like that for a few hours. Bobby went to get them some water at one point. They sat and looked at their father, occasionally entering into a whispered exchange with one of the nurses or the doctor. The doctor had nothing to do. His patient was far beyond help and the nurses were more than capable of administering the painkilling medication he had prescribed. In truth, the only reason he was there was that Jack Karjalainen was rich enough to afford a personal physician and his imminent death, as the ultimate health crisis, required that physician’s presence. In order to look busy and medical the doctor, from time to time, would look at the instruments monitoring Jack Karjalainen’s state of health and then refer to his comdev to make a few notes. He would then whisper into one of the nurses ears and the nurse would nod back at him with a serious face. It was all pantomime. Everyone in the room knew why they were there. They were simply waiting for Jack Karjalainen to die. Nothing they could do would make a difference. He was unconscious now so even pain relief, the one thing they did have some control over, was superfluous. They went about their business, playing their parts in a drama over which they had no influence.

  It was during one of their pointless performances, this one being a nurse whispering to Anthony about maintaining Jack’s hydration, that he leaned forward slightly and appeared to be wincing as if in pain. He fell back on the bed and moved his head, the first time he had done so since Bobby arrived. He let out a long breath and appeared to stop breathing. The nurse went to him as if to adjust his breathing tube, but the doctor gestured for her to leave it alone. For a long time there was no sound of breathing and it seemed to Bobby like his father was gone, but then there was another gasp and Jack’s face twisted into a weird shape. He exhaled slowly and seemed to slump. After that there were no more breaths.