by Shawn Jones
“Did you see that, sir? I think he likes my mom.”
“I think they like each other. And that’s a good thing,” Cort said.
“Yes. Yes I think it is. Tell me about the doctor.”
--
“So after everything was catalogued and scanned and sold, I got bored.” Wills paused. “No, that’s not true, Kay. I missed you.”
“We missed you too, John. But your life was on Earth. Everything that mattered to you.”
“Not everything, Kay. I missed Cort and Sköll, but I missed you most, Kay.” Wills took Kay’s arm out of his and turned to her. “I missed you, Kay.”
“Oh.” Kay was stunned. “John, I’ve wanted to hear you say that for so long. I never thought I would. I love you, John.”
“I love you too, Kay.” Dr. Wills stood on his toes just a little and kissed her.
Four
Oxia Palus and Aeolis
“This is getting out of hand. We can’t stop them. They do what they want and take what they want. Since the second group arrived, we’ve lost control. There are just too many of them.” Chief Rhodes was speaking to Governor Keen.
“We have to do something. There were two coerced matings last week. You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I don’t like it, but I don’t see any choice.”
“Okay. Let’s call Rand.”
--
“Cort, can you come to the comm center? Keen needs our help.”
“On my way. I’ll grab a FALCON first. We need to just start leaving one there.” Cort Addison didn’t like the cooperative nature of the relationship that Rand and Dave Keen had developed. But it made sense. Stopping at his quarters near the comm room, he quickly slipped into the Flexible Armor Light Combat Nanotube suit without jacking into it.
--
It was always disturbing to Keen when Cort Addison was on his viewscreen. In his black suit, he was almost see-through. Keen didn’t know about the ultrafine fiber optic threads that caused light patterns to pass through the suit. All he knew was that the man looked like a specter. Something not quite of this world.
“Hello, Governor. What can I do for you?” the specter said.
“Mr. Addison, thank you for finding time to speak to me. It’s Taps’ people. They’ve become a problem.”
“And they are your problem, Governor. Once they come to me, they will be my problem.” Cort was cold.
“Mr. Addison, you don’t understand. The others have arrived. The ones Smith sent for that first day. There are over a hundred of them now. They have taken over the common areas. Most citizens won’t even venture out of their quarters. Maintenance crews are falling behind and the colony environment is in danger. Two security men have been killed. And there have been coerced matings. I can’t stop them. It’s chaos. Atlantica has promised a new security team, but even if they launched today, it would be at least ten weeks for them to arrive. In reality it will be a minimum of fourteen.”
“Governor, I appreciate your situation. Really I do. But isn’t this your fight and not mine? I only killed your security people because of what they did to my grandson”
“Mr. Addison, I don’t know if you really are who the newsfeeds say you are, but if so, you are your family’s, your pack’s, protector. One of the coerced matings was a member of your family. Well, she was married to a member of your family. Her husband died in a terraforming accident two years ago.”
“I’ll be there in three days.” Cort stood up before continuing, “And Governor, if this is a trick to get me into custody, you know the price you will pay. Send me a current map of the facility with their quarters marked. I want their schedules too. I will expect your Chief Rhodes’ full cooperation. Am I clear?”
“It’s not a trick. I’ll send you everything we have. Even security videos. Mr. Addison, thank you.”
--
“Did he say who was mated?” Kay asked as Cort loaded the latest vehicle from Earth. The Mars Environment Light Transport was much faster than the MERV. While it was only capable of carrying one passenger, it was designed to get from point A to point B much more quickly. In this case, it would halve the travel time from Aeolis to Oxia Palus.
“No, and I didn’t ask. It doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is that she is family. I’m going to talk to our people while I am there. Any of them who want to come back with me will be allowed to. Once it’s over, I’ll be staying there for a few days, talking to our family.”
“Sir, shouldn’t I go with you, if only to drive while you rest?” Rand asked.
“No, you can remote pilot from here, and the MERV would take twice as long. And I will need you to drive for me in four hour shifts. I want to be there as soon as possible.” Cort looked at them all. “I’m only going to say this once. If this goes south, that is, if it goes badly, you lock down. No one but family. You have my old-style body armor and weapons. Use them. Start working on defensive plans. Most importantly, do NOT attempt to help me. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Rand said as Kay and John nodded.
“Good. I’m loaded up. I’ll be back.”
--
Oxia Palus
“Give me a threat analysis, Chief,” Cort said as he drove the last kilometer to the colony.
“What’s a threat analysis?” Rhodes responded.
“I thought you were military. Your job, the title ‘Chief’, how did you serve?”
“I didn’t. Chief is what my mother named me.”
“Oh, shit. It’s your given name. I see.” Cort’s job just got a lot harder. “Where are they and which of them are the greatest threats to my success tonight?”
“There are six in the main common area. That’s the place their ‘night shift’ hangs out most of the time.”
“Okay. Is Keen with you yet?”
“I’m here, Mr. Addison,” Keen responded.
“Override security now. Lock everyone up, wherever they are. Rhodes, only open doors as I approach them, and constantly feed me their locations. Tag them ‘red’ with the software I sent you. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll start feeding it now. Keen has locked the facility down. Only my console has airlock and entry access.”
“How many colonists are outside their quarters?” Cort asked.
“Three hundred or so, mostly service people in other areas of the base. People avoid the main commons at night.”
“Tag the good guys green with the software. I don’t want to shoot the wrong people. As you well know, I don’t use disruptors. I’m not here to arrest them. They all die tonight.”
Cort watched the display light up like a Christmas tree with over a hundred red lights and hundreds more that were green. “That’s too much information. Can you only feed me ‘greens’ for areas I’m approaching??”
Rhodes studied his console. “Stand by.” A moment later he said, “Yeah, I can do that. Good thinking.”
Cort had an idea. “Do they have any kind of night vision gear?”
“You mean like IR stuff? No. They only carry prowlers and disruptors. Why?”
“As I open the inner airlock kill the lights in the corridors and their quarters. I can see in the dark. They can’t. Kill the emergency lights too.”
“Okay. Can I ask you something Mr. Addison?” Keen didn’t wait for a response before he said, “How does a man become so adept at this? How did you become such a man?”
“Too much practice, Mr. Keen. I’m coming in.”
--
As the inner airlock spun open like, Cort’s night vision illuminated the area perfectly for him. He broke into a run toward the common area Smith’s men were in. It appeared Rhodes mistimed Cort’s speed, and Cort rammed the doors to that area like a bulldozer. The door sections flew inward and landed on the other side of the room.
“Don’t let that happen again Rhodes. Anticipate my speed and direction.” He raised his MAT carbine and fired a dozen rounds into the room.
“I can’t. The l
ights are out. Sorry,” Rhodes said.
“Fuck. You don’t have IR?”
“Not inside.”
“Okay. Those six are dead anyway. Bring the lights back up. Except in their quarters. I’m heading there now.”
As Rhodes and Keen brought the lights back online, they were shocked. They shouldn’t have been after seeing what Addison had done to Taps’ men the last time he was here, but they were. Blood was everywhere. One half of the door set had destroyed a billiard table. The other was lodged in a wall to the kitchen area. But the real destruction was the bodies. There were six corpses lying around the room. None of them had heads. One was also missing a shoulder and arm. They hadn’t been decapitated. The heads were just gone. Not from their bodies. From existence.
“The one who raped my relative. Mark his quarters. He’s last.”
“Raped?” Rhodes asked.
“Coercively mated. I want him last.”
“Yes. I’ll mark him ‘yellow’ on your software.”
“Good choice.” Cort went to work. It was a turkey shoot. He strode from room to room down the corridors surrounding the commons area. Every time he approached a door, Rhodes activated it. As the door opened Cort fired the MAT and bodies collapsed. Electricity from their impotent prowler shock weapons and the less powerful disruptors bled off of his suit in tiny tendrils of death. The static charge in the air around him was so great that as he entered each room, the men inside felt their hair stand on end.
Standing outside the last room, Cort asked Rhodes, “Which one is he?”
“I don’t know. I can send you his image.”
“Do it.” The doors opened.
Cort compared the image to both men in the room. Raising his MAT he fired one round into second man’s head. As the body slowly fell to the ground, Cort spoke in the deep voice of the CONDOR suit that had brought so much death to two planets. “You are coming with me. It’s time for your reckoning.”
“What are you?” Kale Beth asked as he raised his prowler and fired.
“As I told your friends before, I am a soul banished from Hell.” The charge was still dissipating from the suit when Cort knocked Beth down and grabbed his ankle. The energy dancing around the surface of the suit shocked the rapist as he was dragged out of the room. Cort intentionally pulled the man through the door in such a way as to fold his other leg backward, dislocating the hip and causing Beth to scream.
“Where is his victim?” Cort asked Rhodes through the suit comms.
“Just a moment.” Rhodes called up the information. “I’m marking her quarters on your software. What are you going to do?”
“Make sure she sees justice.”
--
Kim Point was wide awake. She used to run early in the morning. Even after the man ‘Addison’ first walked through the airlock months ago and killed Governor Taps and his goons. She didn’t leave her quarters much these days though. Not since the morning she was mated. When she did leave her rooms, she made sure there were people with her and the corridors were crowded. She still didn’t feel safe, though.
When Addison got to Kim’s quarters, he activated her intercom and spoke. “Mrs. Point, this is Cort Addison. Are you awake?”
Kim stood and walked to her door. Activating the view panel she saw the same giant that had exacted so much damage the first time she saw him. “I’m awake. Why are you here?”
As Cort spoke, she could hear a man screaming in the background. Until Addison appeared to kick him. “You are family. Even if only by marriage. I’m here to avenge you. I have killed all of the mercenaries except one. The one who ra… the one who coercively mated you is with me. If you want to see him die, that is your right. If not, I understand that, too. Which would you prefer?”
“I never want to see him again. Not even to die.”
“I hoped you would say that. After I am done, I would like to talk to you, if that is okay. You were the woman who was jogging the first time I came here, right?”
“Yes. I saw you come through the airlock. Are you really him?” She heard the man in the background begin to moan again. “We can talk later. I would like that.”
“Thank you, I’ll be back in a few minutes. And yes, I am really him.” Cort turned and dragged his mangled charge away.
At the same airlock where Kim Point had first seen him enter the colony, Cort turn to the man he was dragging. “You’re going outside now. It’s about negative seventy degrees Celsius out there. But you will die long before you freeze to death. The Mars atmosphere is only one percent as dense as Earth’s, and it is ninety-five percent carbon dioxide. You will suffocate so violently that you may not even notice the cold. The air will rush from your body and your blood vessels will rupture. In many ways it will be the opposite of being crushed. You won’t explode, but you will swell up like a balloon. Even your joints will dislocate. But the worst part is that you will be alone. I won’t even be there. I’m simply going to throw you outside, and then I’m going back to talk to my family in the colony.”
Kale Beth knew he was in shock. He couldn’t form words. He couldn’t respond to the monster that was speaking to him. All he could do was moan. The pain from his leg was numbing now. Where is my other leg? Oh. There it is next to my shoulder. That is odd. What will it be like outside? How could this man be so callous? How could he just throw my life away? The shock kept him from realizing the irony of his thought.
Cort opened the inner airlock and dragged Beth into the small chamber. Beth saw the inner doors close and the outer doors start to open. That was when the real terror set in. He closed his eyes to block out the pain and felt himself being lifted. As he flew through the thin atmosphere of Mars, he felt his skin begin to burn. His lungs collapsed, drowning out his screams before he could voice them. He landed against what felt like a rock, and the impact caused the ribs on the left side of his body break. The monster was wrong, though. He could feel the cold.
--
“Would you like to go for a walk around the colony?” Cort asked Kim when she opened her door to greet him. He had commed Aeolis to update them on the situation before he got to her quarters.
“I would like that very much. Thank you.” Somehow the giant man’s cold and armored arm felt caring as she slipped her own into it. “Is he really dead?”
“Yes he is. All of them are. How are you?” Cort asked.
“I don’t know. They say it takes time. But knowing he can’t do this to me or anyone else again makes it better. Thank you. Why did you do it?”
“Do you remember what I said after I first came here? When I killed the old governor? My grandson was a prisoner here. He had been sent here for killing a man in Taps’ family who tried to do the same thing to his mother Kay. I did it for the three of you. I meant what I said about family. I will protect ours.”
A loud chime sounded three times throughout the Colony. “Good morning. This is Governor Keen. I’m sorry to disturb you, but you need to be updated on things that happened last night. The main commons area has been closed for the day. Please use alternate areas and routes as you move around the colony. Also, the quarters and corridors the visitors have been using are off limits. The reason for this is that our ally Mr. Addison from the Aeolis site has helped us to rid our colony of Governor Taps’ mercenaries.”
Keen paused. “No, that is not right. He did not help us. He did it for us. Those men are no longer a threat. I am truly sorry for what you have gone through over the last few months. But it is over thanks to him. Let’s get our lives back to normal. If you are fortunate enough to see Mr. Addison before he leaves, please give him your thanks.”
“Damn,” Cort said, “so much for a quiet walk.”
“Let’s just go back to my quarters.” Kim started to turn.
“No, just a moment.” Cort called up his HUD and found what he was looking for. Inside his suit, he said, “Rhodes, I have job for you. We’re going to the central garden. Lock it off for us. We want to talk privately.”
>
“No problem,” Rhodes replied. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Get all my relatives together. I want to talk to them later. First I will meet with you and Keen.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it.”
Turning to Kim, Cort said, “Let’s go to the garden. I have it on good authority that it’s empty for the next hour.”