Blue Sky of Mars

by Christopher R Wills

  “I think it is climbable sir, especially with the lower gravity. But the surface is three miles up there. I’m not sure we are all up to climbing three miles.”

  “That’s our escape route Gunny. We have no choice.”

  “Aye sir.”

  Jethro thought about it. There were eleven of them, Jethro’s team of six, Raja, and Rutter and his gang of four. They couldn’t return down the tunnel, as that led to the prison, and the train was on its way back. As soon as the train reached the prison some heavily armed guards or even worse, some trained troops, would come back down the tunnel and there was no way Jethro’s team could get past them. The only way out was up the shaft.

  “Gunny, I want you and one other to lead climb to make sure the route is clear.”

  “OK sir. Can I take Peck? She’s a climber.”

  “Yes no problem. See you at the top.”

  Gunny and Peck started climbing up the framework. They made it look easy.

  “I’m not fucking climbing up that,” said Rutter.

  “Fine by me,” said Jethro. “You and your friends can wait here.” He turned to the rest. “Listen in everyone. We’re going to climb the shaft.”

  Rutter’s gang were not keen on climbing either and they had a heated discussion but Rutter appeared to convince them to shut up. Jethro didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them in the Moon’s gravity and he would not turn his back on them at all even though they apparently had no weapons.

  Jethro split them into three groups of three. He put Rutter in the first group with Walker and Brains, Raja in the second group with Jones and one of Rutter’s men and he put himself in the last group with two of Rutter’s men. He hoped that by splitting Rutter’s gang up they would be less trouble and he felt confident enough to handle two of them on his own.

  Jethro went last out of all of them. He had climbed a bit himself but he was not as accomplished as Gunny and Peck, and Raja seemed to do well. It wasn’t too difficult because their weight was only a sixth of that on the Earth so they didn’t need to have ultra-strong arms or vice like hand strength. However, they were wearing space suits that were strong and light and they had breathing helmets on. The exertion would make them breathe more heavily. Jethro hoped they had enough spare oxygen bottles.

  Jethro found the climb easy but he had to wait for Rutter’s two men who were very slow so his threesome lagged well behind the others who were almost out of site up ahead. Jethro watch his two carefully and then realized too late that they were being deliberately slow so he would be cut off from the others.

  Jethro knew he had to catch up with the others in case something was happening.

  “Hey, wait for us,” one of Rutter’s men shouted.

  “I’ll wait at the top.” Jethro replied. He wasn’t fussed if they didn’t make it to the top. He had his team and his mission to think about, and those two men were expendable.

  He caught up with the second group of Raja and Fraser but stayed behind them and didn’t alert them to his presence. He switched his head torch off. They were doing OK. Up ahead he could see a large platform and it appeared the first team of Rutter, Walker and Brains had reached it and were on the platform.

  Jethro let Raja and Fraser’s team reach the platform before him, but when they did, he heard shouting and a scuffle. This was what he feared.

  He climbed silently towards the platform stopping just before he reached it and listened.

  He could hear Rutter. “When your boss gets here, don’t say a word, or he takes a dive.”

  The bastard.

  Jethro could see a pair of legs dangling over the side of the platform. The legs must belong to Fraser. Jethro could see that he was strung up by his hands and he could just make out the blade of a large knife being held against the rope that tied his hands together and was tied to the cross member. He looked around to see if he could find some way to prevent him from falling.

  Beside Jethro on the shaft wall was a metal beam that appeared to be used to support wooden shaft supports. Jethro pulled at the beam. It barely moved so he pulled harder. This time the beam started to come away from the wall of the shaft along. Jethro stopped to make sure he wasn’t heard.

  He could hear Rutter talking again. Rutter seemed to like the sound of his voice because he was talking gibberish about what he would do to Jethro when he appeared.

  Jethro had the metal beam, and he laid it across from the central lift structure to a hole in the side of the shaft creating a narrow path to the shaft wall. He climbed down to another metal beam and pulled that away from the shaft wall too. He laid that alongside the other beam, creating a wider path between the lift structure and the shaft wall. Another two metal beams and he had erected a platform beneath where Fraser was being held. Jethro stood on the platform and jumped up and down on it a couple of times and it appeared stable and able to take his weight. Fraser would be falling from a greater height but he was lighter than Jethro, and hopefully it might not come to that.

  Jethro had to hurry because he wanted to get control of the scene before the other two of Rutter’s men caught him up, and he could just about hear them below him.

  He climbed up quietly to the underside of the platform.

  “Where is your leader now? Maybe my men have taken him out already. Maybe they’ll appear in a minute having got rid of him.”

  Rutter sounded confident which was good because it might make him careless. Jethro could see that the man who held the knife to the rope that held Fraser up was standing right at the edge of the platform. Easy does it. Jethro swung over to the spot so he was hanging immediately below Fraser. Now if only the man would move one of his feet closer to the edge.

  Now. The man stepped right up to the edge so Jethro took his chance and swung up whilst still holding on with one arm and wrapped his free arm around the man's ankle and pulled it over the side. Unfortunately, the knife the man had in his hand was very sharp and cut through the rope holding Fraser up.

  He fell on top of the man as he struggled to stay on the platform. Jethro leapt up over the side and kicked the knife from the man’s hand and watched it clatter over the side. Then he kicked the man in the head, silencing him.

  Jethro saw a laser blast from a gun just miss his head and he turned to see Rutter holding the gun and pointing it directly at him.

  “Time to die,” Rutter said, but just before he fired something appeared in front of Jethro and took the blast. Jethro didn’t wait and dived for Rutter knocking him off his feet with a shoulder. Jethro was quickest up and took the gun from the floor next to Rutter and smashed the butt on Rutter’s head knocking him out instantly.

  “Fraser.” Walker shouted at Jones and Jethro turned to see him fall over the side of the platform with his hands still bound by the rope.

  Shit.

  “Brains and Walker, guard these two.” Immediately Jethro followed Fraser over the side using his left hand to hold on to the platform.

  Fraser had landed on the makeshift platform Jethro had constructed but one beam had already been knocked out and Fraser was in danger of falling off the remaining beams, this time all the way down to the bottom of the shaft.

  “Don’t move Fraser.” Jethro was down to him in a flash and he grabbed one of his ankles just as the rest of the makeshift platform collapsed beneath him and fell.

  Jethro had a good grip with his left hand on one beam of the lift structure and a good grip with his right hand on Fraser’s ankle. He hung for a few seconds to calm himself then easily lifted him up to a beam immediately in front of his waist. He made sure Fraser was stable before he let go of his ankle. Then he pulled himself up onto the same beam and untied his hands.

  “You OK?”

  Fraser nodded rapidly.

  “You ready to go up again?”

  “Aye sir. Thought I was doomed for a minute or two.”

  Jethro let him go up first in case he was still shaken but he climbed up to the platform without a problem and Jethro fo
llowed him.

  Walker and Brains had Rutter and his mate tied up on the platform and were pointing guns at them. But Raja was down. Jethro looked at him; he was still alive. He had jumped in front of Jethro stopping Rutter from shooting him. He had saved Jethro’s life, but was badly wounded.

  The laser gun had cut through his space suit on his left arm and had cut his arm, which was bleeding badly. This was dangerous because of the radiation present on the atmosphereless Moon, although being in the shaft may protect them from most of it, but on the surface, he would be dangerously radiated. They didn’t have a proper space suit repair kit or even a first aid kit with them.

  Jethro looked around the platform. This was obviously a stage in the lift system. He remembered the counterweights on the ground and he could see the lift-cage which presumably would lower to the bottom if the lift worked, which it didn’t when Jethro had tried it whilst at the bottom.

  He saw more counterweights beside the lift-cage attached to cables reaching up higher into the shaft. That must be the next stage in the lift system. Jethro tried the button on a panel mounted on the structure but again nothing happened.

  Jethro pulled a knife from his belt and approached Rutter who was now awake.

  “Hey. You can’t kill me. That’s murder. Look, I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me. I didn’t mean it. No. Please no.” Rutter was almost crying as he pleaded for his life although Jethro had no intention of killing him.

  Jethro cut a patch from the front of Rutter’s space suit and returned to Raja. He wound the patch around the tear in Raja’s space suit arm and then tied it on with some rope. It wasn’t perfect but it might hold until they could get into the spaceship that was supposed to be at the top of the shaft. If there was a spaceship waiting for them at the top of the shaft.

  Rutter should survive because the Space Helmet was independent of the suit so his only problem might be radiation poisoning and Jethro wasn’t too fussed about that.

  “Can you climb?” Jethro asked Raja.

  He nodded and stood up.

  “Brains, you first. Then you Fraser, then Raja then Walker. I’ll follow up the rear.”

  “Hey what about us?” Rutter pleaded. “You can’t leave us here.”

  “Your two mates will be here soon.”

  “But I can’t go on the surface with this hole in my suit.”

  “You could always climb back down. I’m sure the prison guards will be pleased to see you when they arrive.”

  “You bastard…”

  Jethro didn’t wait to hear the rest of his insults. He climbed up the lift structure after his comrades.

  chapter 12

  They climbed for what seemed like hours and it worried Jethro. He was getting tired, so he knew the others must be getting tired. They hadn’t caught up to Gunny and Peck yet. Ahead Jethro saw another platform he passed the message up to rest on the platform. When he reached it, he saw his team of Walker, Brains, Jones and Raja lying exhausted on the platform.

  Jethro switched his head torch off and looked up the shaft and he could just see a tiny hole through which he could make out light from stars in the sky. Good news that he could see the sky but bad news in that his team were exhausted, and he doubted they would all make it that far. He looked at a watch he had taken from a guard. They had been climbing for around six hours now and there was no way they would reach the top inside two hours.

  So the prison guards and whatever else they could muster for an escape would be in direct pursuit up the shaft before Jethro reached the top. Not a situation he wanted to be in, although a worse situation would be if the prison could send troops to the top of the shaft and wait for them.

  They might not reach the top inside two hours but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try. Jethro would keep up the rear but he urged the others to race to the top individually but safely and asked the first to get there to brief Gunny and Peck to be ready for them and possibly ready for a fire-fight.

  Brains shot off ahead closely pursued by Fraser. Walker was a little more careful and Raja’s injury slowed him. Jethro stuck with Raja, encouraging him and making him take rests where necessary. His tremendous strength was a great help but his injury had weakened him.

  One hour to go before the prison guards would arrive below and although the opening at the top appeared closer, it was still only a tiny hole and a long distance to climb.

  Zero hour, give or take, the prison guards could have returned and be in the chamber below the shaft by now. After checking Raja was still as OK as he could be under the circumstances, he told him.

  “Raja, you carry on. I’m going to listen out for a moment.”

  Raja lumbered up the structure and Jethro listened. There. He could hear sounds at the bottom of the shaft. Shouting and machinery and firing. But it echoed up the shaft and made no sense to Jethro. Then he heard a sound he recognized. Jet Packs. Shit.

  He hadn’t thought of Jet Packs as he hadn’t seen them used around the prison and was hoping they wouldn’t be available to the prison guards. Then a more troubling thought hit him. Maybe they weren’t available; maybe the prison had engaged the help of the military. That would be a much bigger problem because whilst Jethro felt he could easily handle a few non-military guards he might not fare so well against highly trained military.

  They were using Jet Packs to climb the shaft which meant they would be on them quickly. Jethro needed to prepare. He raced up to Raja.

  “Listen to me Raja. They are coming up the shaft in Jet Packs, which means they will catch us before we reach the top. I can handle them but I need you out of the way. You must carry on climbing and ignore what’s happening behind you. Do you understand?”

  Raja nodded.

  “When you get to the top, I want you to tell Gunny about the Jet Packs. OK? He will know what to do.”

  Raja nodded again. He looked too tired to argue.

  “Good. You’ve got a job to do. Get to the top asap. Leave me to do my job. I was trained for this. Go.”

  Thankfully, Raja nodded and then carried on climbing.

  Jethro knew he had only moments to prepare. The good bit was that there was not much space in the shaft for the Jet Pack fliers. Jethro estimated that probably only two could travel up at a time and that there would be a fair distance before another two could follow on for safety because of the exhaust of the first two Jet Packs above. The bad news was that Jet Packs were an ideal means of transport on the Moon because they only needed to provide a sixth of the thrust needed on Earth because of the lower gravity.

  Jethro removed a metal girder from the wall and rearranged it so it blocked the space between the lift structure and the sides of the shaft. He did this with a few more metal girders so that there appeared to be a barrier preventing the Jet Pack fliers from continuing. The barriers were weak as the girders only rested on the structure and were shoved into holes in the sides of the lift shaft, but the fliers wouldn’t know that.

  Jethro carefully climbed beneath his barrier and switched his torch off and hid as close to the shaft wall as he could so they could not see him from below.

  The first Jet Pack reached him and the flier stopped just shy of the barrier. Jethro heard him talking into his mike but couldn’t make out what was being said. But he guessed what he was being told, that it was a trap which it was. So Jethro reacted quickly and shot the man before he reacted. Now the enemy were warned.

  Jethro grabbed the man before he fell and ripped the Jet Pack off him. He had no gripe against the man so he carefully laid his body out on the lift structure. Now Jethro had his own Jet Pack. He turned it off and waited until the next flier arrived which was soon after.

  This flier was much more cautious as he had by now probably guessed that something had happened to his mate. Jethro waited in the dark but the flier remained too low for Jethro to shoot him as if he did the flier would fall and Jethro would not be able to get the Jet Pack, which he wanted.

  There was only one thing for
it. Jethro turned his Jet Pack on but set it to no thrust and jumped into the black abyss. He fell past the other flier then switched his Jet Pack to thrust and came up behind the other flier and shot him before he could react. He grabbed the flier and stripped him of his Jet Pack too, before placing his body on the structure to allow his compatriots to pick him up later. The Jet Pack had a powerful torch on the front.

  Jethro took a firm hold of the spare Jet Pack and flew up beyond where he had left the first flier and continued up in the shaft until he reached Raja.

  “Fancy a lift to the top?”

  Raja was pleased to see him as he was suffering due to the exertion and his wound. Unfortunately, they could not fit the Jet Pack onto Raja as his chest and shoulders were far too big for the harness to fit around. Jethro reasoned that as the Jet Packs were the same as ones used on Earth, they should be able to produce the required lift to fly two body weights, or three, considering Raja probably weighed the same as two normal men.

  So, Jethro made a sling from some rope and passed it around Raja’s shoulders. Raja was holding the spare Jet Pack and standing on a cross member in the elevator structure. Jethro adjusted the thrust on his own jetpack and slowly rose until it took the tension up in the sling. Then he feathered the thrust for a little more and it lifted Raja off the cross member. But his weight was twice that of Jethro’s and so once it lifted him, he swung away from the structure which unbalanced Jethro which caused the Jet Pack to fly straight towards the shaft wall. Luckily, Jethro could gain control of it. He tried again and after a few close shaves he could set the Jet Pack to take them up towards the surface.

  They caught up with Walker, who was showing serious signs of tiredness so Jethro insisted he use the spare Jet Pack. Soon after they caught up with Fraser and Brains who had stayed together and appeared to be doing well. Jethro told them he would be back down with the spare Jet Pack once he had got Raja and Walker to the top of the shaft.