by A P Heath
“Yes Captain.” Mentrim confirmed replying for both of them.
In the Peregrine Aitkin could see Johs was desperate to speak.
“What is it Sergeant?” He asked.
“I know you don’t want to hear this sir and I know you don’t have an answer, but I’ve just got to say it out loud.”
Johs was moving in his seat. Nervous energy shifting his huge body around in the constraints of the couch.
“Say what you need to say Sergeant.”
“What the actual fuck is going on here?” Johs exclaimed, the profanity an unusual touch when speaking to an officer in front of his squad.
Aitkin let it go on this occasion.
They’d suspected there may have been an attack on the station.
It was unusual for anyone to be operating this close to Earth, but had some pirate clan somehow gotten wind of the place, an under-manned and isolated Deorum supply station would
make a tempting target for raiding. But this? Aitkin didn’t even know what this was and he could tell by the comms that he wasn’t alone in his ignorance.
Captain Lanad’s voice broke the short comms silence, “Peregrines, be ready on station for evac from the primary loading bay in eight minutes. We’ll have multiple bodies bound for Luna and…” His comms were interrupted by Sergeant Deneminjic.
“Sorry Captain, but it’s the woman I mentioned, the military one.” There was urgency in his voice, even through the comm link.
“What about her Sergeant?”
“She’s not dead sir. She’s on the verge but we’ve got some faint life signs.”
Aitkin felt a prickle in the skin on the back of his neck. Maybe this woman, whoever she was, would be able to shine a light on these strange circumstances.
“Understood Sergeant,” Lanad replied, “Make her a priority and go back for the others once she’s aboard a Peregrine.”
“Yes Captain.” Deneminjic signed off, but within seconds his voice returned.
“Er…Captain. There’s something else sir…”
In his mind’s eye Aitkin could see Captain Lanad taking a deep breath and rubbing at the bridge of his nose to keep from venting his frustration at the sergeant.
Deneminjic was a seasoned marine. He’d been a sergeant for three years and a marine for three more before that. It was not like him to be easily unnerved.
“Yes Sergeant, what is it now?”
“It’s the bodies sir. The two that seemed strange.”
“What about them Sergeant?”
Aitkin could tell Lanad was moments from balling out the Sergeant and ordering him back to the Pride for penitent duties.
His uncharacteristic hesitance was clearly testing the Captain’s patience.
“They’re getting up sir.” Deneminjic replied before his comm
went blank.
EIGHTEEN
Martius’ head was pounding. He could feel the heaviness of his limbs weighing his body down. He opened his eyes cautiously and quickly closed them again. The light was so bright it hurt to look at. He was lying flat on his back. Martius groaned as he rolled over, the action making him nauseous.
He had drunk…what? Everything he could find by the feel of it.
He searched the bleary scraps of his memory. There were images of his mother, looking at him with her customary anger. And a man, looking shocked. In fact he had the feeling he’d shocked a lot of people.
Martius opened his eyes again, the light still hurt but now he wasn’t facing it directly the pain had lessened. He was lying on sand. There were pebbles under his head. He could hear the lap of water on a shore and the shouts of sea birds. He was on a beach.
Lifting his head he could see the sand stretching away before him. He was nestled in the shadow of some wide leaved bushes that sprouted from the sand.
Clearly they’d looked like a comfy place to lay his head when he stumbled across them in his stupor, but now the spot seemed anything but. His back hurt.
His legs and arms hurt, he guessed from the hardness of the packed sand on which he’d been lying. The sun was shining bright, but low in the sky, its rays magnified by the great shimmering dome that arched over the centre of the great Martian capital city Prometheus.
Martius raised a hand to shield his eyes and squinted at his surroundings. He was still in Prometheus wasn’t he?
The water could be the Hellas Sea that the capital was built around or it could be the Argyre Sea in Hereidum.
He struggled to judge the length of the shoreline as it faded in the distance.
For all he knew right now he could be as far from the capital as Sabea or maybe this was the Utopian Sea he was looking upon.
No, that couldn’t be. The largest lake of Sabea was barely two
kilometres across and whatever water he was looking on was significantly greater.
The Utopian Sea was just as unlikely. That exclusive paradise isle was well within his means to enjoy; his family owned significant holdings there, but the idea he’d managed to negotiate the seven-thousand kilometre passage across Cimmeria, through the Hesperia Plains and over the Nerschel Pass in one drunken night was laughable.
Far more likely he’d simply stumbled from the Governor’s estate onto the shores of the Hellas Sea. After all, the estate was situated on a section of that very shore so it was the most likely scenario.
Martius pulled himself to a sitting position. Or at least tried to. His arm buckled under him on his first attempt, dumping his face back onto the hard sand. He lay for a moment, building his resolve to try again and cursing the tender that let him fill his bloodstream with so much of that potent wine.
His second attempt was more successful, the movements slow and accompanied by more groans and muttered curses. Once he’d established his balance Martius sat for a while, his legs splayed in front of him.
The day was warming up. It must be early still, early enough for the beach to be quiet. It looked like it would be a fine day. That lifted his spirits somewhat. The weather under the great Martian domes could be managed, but usually the Office of Met Management preferred to leave it to its natural cycle.
Above him the sky was clear. The dome was thousands of metres up and the view it gave on a clear day was spectacular; the pale blue of the Martian sky deepened by the blackness of space that seeped through from beyond.
The pale dots of the stars still managed to pinprick the daylight sky at this hour, although Martius knew they would fade as the magnified light from the sun eclipsed their gentle sparkle.
The pain in his eyes had subsided, but the throbbing in his head continued.
He looked around, able to make out more of the detail and laughed as he turned his head to glance over his shoulder.
There, barely fifty metres away was the low boundary wall of the Governor’s estate. Here he was wondering about the great potential distance he could have travelled when in reality he’d made it less than a hundred steps from the doors of the Governor’s hall.
Another memory returned to him. He winced as his mind replayed the crash of glass and he saw the ornate bottles exploding on their shelf behind the bar. He was sad about that. It was a crime to waste such exquisite liquors.
The thought of drinking pulled his attention to his own parched throat. He could feel a terrible dryness, an enormous thirst. His tongue was thick and dry in his mouth.
Time to find another drink.
The best cure for a hangover was more alcohol, but this morning Martius found himself searching for a more substantial way to quench his thirst. He couldn’t go back into the Governor’s estate that was for sure. His hair was in his eyes, his clothes dirtied by his night lying on the beach and he could smell his own stink; sweat, sand, the alcohol bleeding from his pores.
There was something else hiding in the back of his mind too. He’d decided something, late last night when he sat alone on the empty beach. It was a niggling feeling of discomfort.
Martius shook his head, trying to di
slodge the thought so he could grasp it clearly.
The motion made his head swim and he lost his tenuous balance, sliding sideways to lay sprawled in the sand again. He coughed, spraying fine grains that blew up and filled his eyes. Blinking them and the tears they caused at the corners of his eyes away he lay there, his body otherwise motionless.
Another memory surfaced; his mother, his own voice shouting and a feeling of rage that had filled him completely.
He raised a hand to his cheek. She hit him. And then the thought he’d been searching for burst forth into his consciousness.
It was so clear.
Martius remembered how he’d stumbled from the steps of the hall. His feet were clumsy and he’d lost his balance and
careened over the low wall that separated path from manicured garden.
The grooms had followed him out, but stayed on station at the doors and he’d called out to them for assistance as he lay on his back, crushing delicate flowers and stems. They hadn’t moved to help him and soon his laughter had turned to threats of retribution and accusations.
His ranting had availed him nothing and when he finally pulled himself right side up both men had disappeared inside those big, patterned doors. Martius knew they thought he was a joke. He’d railed at the empty darkness. Screamed at the silent closed doors and promised he would see them all sorry.
That was when he made his decision. Mars was a wasteland. Forget the domes and their perfumed gardens, their tower blocks and pearlescent architecture. Take a step outside the dome and they’d see the truth of this dead planet.
There were other places Martius could go, better places than this. Places where he’d be recognised for his skills, his achievements, his worth.
I’m wealthy, smart and resourceful. I can go anywhere!
He’d made his way unsteadily down to the shores of the Hellas Sea. A swim would clear his head. The water would be cold, bracing against his skin, shocking his mind to a state where he could plan his departure from this filthy rock and all the preening peacock fools that called it home.
He glanced now at the water before him. A swim in the state he’d been last night would surely have ended with his lifeless body washing up somewhere along the everlasting beach.
He didn’t remember exactly what stopped him, but he was glad of it, whatever the reason. He probably had the same realisation last night. Surely that was it.
Martius might have been drunk, but he wasn’t fool enough to kill himself through such an act of stupidity.
There had been a voice though, hadn’t there?
No, Martius decided. It was just me.
And then he’d sat here, right here on the height of the beach to plan his escape from Mars and the will of his family.
It wouldn’t be easy. They’d try to stop him, try to keep him here to hold up their ridiculous ideals. That meant he couldn’t use the grav-ports in any of the great cities. So Prometheus, Hereidum and Sabea were out of the question.
That had left him in a quandary. The grav-ports were the only way off the surface, it had been three-hundred years since the last ship left under its own propulsion and Martius didn’t know whether there were even any craft like that still in existence, let alone available on the surface of Mars.
Then it came to him; there was still a grav-port in the old abandoned domes of Daedalia. He didn’t know how he knew of it, but he did. It must have been in one of his old lessons or maybe mentioned in a book he’d read.
Martius didn’t read much as a rule, but the knowledge must have come from somewhere. He was alone, had been alone all night. Hadn’t he? There was something…
Martius spun around in his seated position, twisting his legs in the sand. There was no one else around. There weren’t even the signs of anyone else being here. So why couldn’t he shift the feeling he was being watched?
No matter.
He knew where he had to go and he had the wealth to get him there. What he didn’t have were the connections.
The Earone family was known throughout the aristocracy of Mars and his forebear was famous throughout the solar system, but that would all mean little in the tunnels beneath the northern deserts.
There was a road to Daedalia, but it was abandoned like the city state itself.
Left to the mercy of the elements to decay in the radiation and great sand storms that scoured the unprotected surface. He couldn’t rely on that route to get him where he needed to be, so the only other path was the tunnels.
They ran from the industrial districts of Sabea’s western dome Henry, north to the deserts of Vastitas and as far west as Olympus Mons.
The tunnels were old, older by far than any structure on the surface of the red planet. They held the first human
settlements when mankind left the safety of Earth.
In the vents of the dead volcanos ice had been found and every buried glacier had become the centre of a new township.
The tunnels had been dug to connect these burgeoning settlements and soon others had branched off to allow for mining the mineral rich crust of the planet. Now so much of the network was lost to cave-ins, quakes and general disuse that no one knew for sure how far or deep they went.
People still lived in those tunnels and townships. They were poor, scraping a living from each other and the very rock they dwelled beneath.
It was a dangerous and dishonest place, or so Martius had always been instructed. The people of the tunnels were necessary to allow for the life lived by those on the surface, but that didn’t mean they needed any more interaction than such necessity called for.
Martius knew he was going to have to go through those tunnels though. It was a long journey, thousands of kilometres and to make it successfully he was going to need someone who knew the way.
He was going to need a guide.
Martius got unsteadily to his feet. His head still ached, but the confidence brought by his new found purpose dulled the pain. He felt excited, almost giddy. His mother would rant and rave, his father would simply drool in his chair, barely aware he had a son at all, let alone upset by said son’s sudden absence. She could try to stop him, but she couldn’t know the brilliance of his plan.
He would make his way to Sabea, then into the tunnels to Daedalia and off world to meet his destiny. It was all so easy, so simple, yet she would never think to look for him where he was bound.
Martius steadied himself for a moment. He was ready, he didn’t know why, but this felt so right. He wondered at how he’d gone so long without doing this before now.
He had his plan, he knew his destination and the steps he must take to make it there. First though, he needed to wash and change.
He needed to gather his credits and pack valuables to trade if he needed to. Better to be prepared. Martius smiled to himself with satisfaction. The universe was calling. He set off along the beach with confident, if somewhat uneven strides.
A gentle breeze made the wide leaves wave to his departing back, watching him as he walked away.
NINETEEN
Iasa opened her eyes. She was alone again. Well, not strictly alone. Her attackers had dumped her on the bodies of Janner, Ipsis and Trishan.
As they’d dragged her into the room she’d seen her unit members, deposited unceremoniously against the inner wall of one of the recreation suites few rooms.
Somehow the boarders had managed not only to kill three of her unit, elite seasoned operatives all, but had done it just a matter of meters from where she had been relaxing in the simulation ring.
She reflected that, had they spotted her inside, she would be lying with the others. Of course, she was lying with the others, but their eyes had been closed permanently where hers were still open.
Her body ached terribly and her vision swam as she tried to move. Lights danced before her eyes and she lurched as she rolled from her comrades’ lifeless bodies and onto the cold uncovered floor.
Iasa lay for a moment, trying to gather her breath before br
acing her arms to lift herself to her knees. The effort made her head spin and she vomited onto the metal decking, the hot acidic liquid splashing over her fingers.
She was in a bad way, that much she was sure of. Something was badly broken inside her chest and she suspected internal bleeding.
Her suit had compressed against her, a programmed reaction to bodily injury to prevent the wearer from bleeding out. She wasn’t bleeding though.
At least not from her chest or abdomen. As she raised her eyes she caught sight of the smeared red trail leading out into the hall.
It was streaked with thin lines and as she reached a shaking hand up to the back of her scalp, she realised the pattern had been formed by her hair dragging through the blood that was leaking from her crown.
There was a deep gash there. She let her fingers explore, wincing at the stabs of pain they caused in the open wound.
She must have hit something on the corridor wall when she was thrown against it by the strange weapons of the boarders.
Iasa realised she still had no idea who they could be. They weren’t of Deorum origin, of that she was sure and the Ministry didn’t have the technology, or the balls, to launch an attack like this.
It was unlikely to be Mars, not those fat pacifists and the thought that a pirate clan had developed the ability to shrug off mortal wounds was too far past ridiculous to be contemplated. But that left…no one.
The human race had spread throughout the solar system before and after abandoning the Earth to its Plague and taken their divisions with them. The steps into space were supposed to unite mankind in a new brave era of endeavour and exploration, but that dream hadn’t lasted long.
It had taken no time at all before the people of Luna and Mars considered themselves apart from Earth. The colonies around Jupiter had held their fidelity longer, but in time they too considered Jovian to be a race apart from Terran.
Still, amongst all of the various peoples of the solar system, Iasa was confident she and her unit were the best trained, the most deadly and the best equipped. Yet these anonymous attackers had taken them down like so many untrained cadets.