Lakes of Mars

by Merritt Graves

  “Give me the charges to the bay door!”

  “They’re in my backpack under Pierre. I’ll cover you,” I said, raising the Pegasus while Daries grabbed the charges and stuck them to the metal.

  I looked around for Eve, but there was no sign of her.

  “Get back!” he yelled at Fingers, who was firing into distant doorways. I remembered his claiming he could barely hold a Pegasus, but after a couple of years in this place, one couldn’t help but be a good shot.

  Just as soon as we ducked around a corner, the floor rumbled and fiery chunks from an explosion spewed past. We waited a few moments longer, then Daries, Fingers, and the two remaining Blues charged in, yelling, “Get the fuck down!” to the handful of wrenches and gears who were in the bay.

  “You—yeah, you,” Fingers shouted at the nearest gear, nodding at the Pulsar. “You get this thing and that one over there prepped, or I’ll light you up, I swear to fucking God!”

  “We’re taking a shuttle, too?” Whistler asked.

  “Might as well leave them less to chase us with. You can fly it, right?”

  “More or less.”

  I pointed my gun at one of the wrenches. “Is there a med kit in the hangar?”

  He looked at me, mystified for a second, then nodded.

  I gestured at Pierre, still lolling unconscious across my back. “You’re a wrench, so fix him. If he dies, you die. Got it?”

  He half nodded.

  I shook the gun at him and screamed again, “Got it?!”

  “Yeah, I do! I do!”

  I set Pierre down by the gangplank and then ran over to the door. I knew there’d be more Reds coming any second, but instead of taking cover I wandered out into the corridor, scanning the tubes. Eve was supposed to be here. She hadn’t sent me anything on her U-dev for a while, probably not wanting to give away her status. But then again, the Reds could see her progress on the cameras, so what did it matter?

  I was about to pull back into the bay and send her a message when ‘almost there’ appeared on my U-dev’s screen.

  My chest lightened as I typed back. Hurry. Which way are you coming?

  Level seven west. Can’t type more.

  I pocketed the U-dev and opened up on two Reds who were coming down the corridor she was inbound on, knowing I had to keep it clear for her. I kept firing, forcing them around the corner, and followed in a sprint, surprising them both with close-range shots. There were more pouring down the tube in the distance, but fearing that I’d get cut off, I ran back to the junction and slid behind a bulkhead before opening up on them.

  Come on, Eve. Come on. We’re almost out of here. I fired off a few rounds. Reloaded. Checked down the tube. Burned through another magazine. Reloaded, expecting her to come around the corner any second.

  “Aaron, get in here!” Daries shouted.

  “I have to hold them!” I shouted.

  “No, Eve’s here, but . . . just get back here!”

  I sent another volley down the corridor, retreating, then turned and ran back into the shuttle bay. I looked at Fingers who was typing something on the lightboard at the bay’s far side, and then at Daries who had his weapon trained on the wrenches prepping both the Pulsar and the other shuttle. A few were now lying on the floor, unconscious, and I figured they must’ve tried something.

  “What wer—” I said, starting to ask Daries what he’d meant, but then I saw her—not in our bay, but in the adjacent one, separated from us by the clear polymer walls Mr. Katz had remarked upon when we’d left on the field trip.

  I ran over and started speaking, but seeing that the wall was soundproof I took out my U-dev instead, jamming words into the pad, Why’d you go to that one?

  Fingers said Shuttle Bay Five in a tie-in.

  “What?” I mouthed, seeing the white block letters of “Shuttle Bay 4” etched into my side of the glass. “Why would he do that?”

  She shrugged, looking dismayed.

  Frantically, I typed, ‘You gotta get around here!’

  As soon as I sent it I slammed the butt of my rifle against the polymer wall, but it didn’t break. I kept slamming it, and on the third swing the stock cracked. I signaled to Eve to back up, then unloaded half a magazine on the wall. Nothing. Screaming in frustration, I struggled to clear my head, grasping for a workaround.

  ‘Do you know how to fly one of those?’ I typed to Eve, pointing at the twin scouting shuttles behind her. She shook her head and mouthed something I couldn’t make out, but I knew what she was saying anyway: She had spent all her time in the biolab, not racking up certs.

  This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t go without her. And in that moment I was so faraway, feeling like I was being carried away from my body, away from Eve and Daries and Fingers and all the shooting, out into space.

  I can’t leave yet. I can’t leave yet.

  I didn’t know if I was saying it aloud or not, but it was all I could think. All I could feel. Jets of panic were ripping through me, smashing my thoughts into desperate, jumbled shards. But just when I started feeling like I’d be engulfed, all the guilt and regret from the crash came surging back to the surface, and I remembered what was in my backpack.

  “We gotta go!” Fingers yelled at me from the steps to the shuttle.

  I ignored him and slapped two of my last three sticky charges against the wall, backing up and yelling to him and Daries to take cover. But just as I was about to trigger the detonation, a squad of UFM marines ran into Eve’s bay, blocking her exit.

  “No!” I shouted, my finger hovering above the U-dev button. She was still within the blast radius.

  A bullet sliced through the top of my shoulder and I crashed to the ground, disoriented and nauseous. I tried to move my arm and it felt like a blade was slipping around inside me. Marines had entered our bay, too, and I fell backward behind a crate trying to get out of their line of sight, drawing up my legs just before the floor in front of me exploded in a hail of bullets.

  “We gotta fucking go, man!” shouted Daries as he backpedaled into the shuttle, moving much more lightly and quickly than his build would imply, fearlessly shooting at a handful of Reds who were trying to get around a mountain of cargo crates to flank me. “There’s no other way!”

  I peeked out and saw Eve being pulled through the adjacent bay’s doorway, surrounded now by marines.

  “Duck!” I screamed, and detonated the charges.

  The wall disintegrated. I started sprinting toward the hole I’d made, but another deluge of bullets slammed against the nearby crates, forcing me to dive for cover.

  “We gotta go!” Daries screamed again.

  I tried to ignore him and disregard the pain in my shoulder, but as I was preparing to dash for it again I heard, “You’re going to get us all killed if you don’t come now! We need you to fly the ship!”

  The message penetrated. Fingers may have been a good tech and Daries was good at ground Challenges and managing fighter squadrons in the ship ones, but of the three of us I was the only one who could competently helm the Pulsar. I turned around and crawled toward the gangplank, using crates for cover, making it two thirds of the way back before a sustained curtain of bullets halted me. There were still about ten meters to go, but it was completely exposed, and I couldn’t see how I’d make it. I was about to tell Daries to go without me—they’d have at least some chance out there, and none here—when there was a clank and a roar and Reds started falling and racing for cover. Fingers had figured out how to work the Pulsar’s deck gun.

  I sprang up under the fire, bolted across to the ship, and hurled myself onboard.

  “All right, he’s in. Get down from there!” Daries called to Fingers.

  I sprinted to the controls on the bridge and began pressing on the lightpanels. “What are we going to do about the bay door? Should I blow it?”

  “No need,” Fingers gasped, plopping into the copilot’s seat. He tapped a few things on his U-dev and the door in front of us began to lurch
open.

  Now that I was inside, the sense of loss was spreading, unchecked by immediate danger. “How could you do that?” I screamed.

  “I found the dock files on the panel over there and set up a wireless link—”

  “I mean with Eve!” I yelled, mania bubbling over.

  “What?” Fingers sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “You sent her to the wrong bay.”

  “Brandon tied in with me and told me he’d gotten mixed up and it was bay four right before, but I wasn’t even—”

  “And you didn’t tell Eve?”

  “I didn’t have any tie-in fluid left.”

  “You could’ve messaged her on your U-dev, but, but—you didn’t want to give away our intentions, did you?”

  “I wasn’t even . . . I was running. It sounded like he had told her, too. I didn’t think to . . .”

  “Goddamn it, Brandon! Fuck! Fuck!” I shouted. Why would he do that? The location of the fastest ship on the station isn’t something you’d get mixed up, especially if you’ve been working in the shuttle bay with a Student Access Permit for the past six months. The inexplicability of it made the controls blurry, and I was shaking so much that I couldn’t grip the throttle. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”

  “Let’s get out of here first,” Fingers said, his voice a tremor, pointing at the fully open shuttle bay doors.

  “I know, I know, I’m trying,” I said, still unable to think of anything except Eve and Brandon. I pulled up the lightboard tutorial, but all the letters looked strange and I couldn’t concentrate on the words long enough to get through even the first explanatory sentence.

  “Aaron!”

  “I’m trying!”

  “They’re coming out in zero-G suits to put charges on our hatch, we gotta move!”

  Seeing a few triggering words on the tutorial, I took the throttle, hit a couple buttons on the nav panel and started easing us through the hangar door.

  “Punching in a course for the Permian Asteroid Cluster BB at seventy-five mark—”

  The ship shook and Fingers had to brace himself against the controls in front of him.

  “The station’s shooting at us,” I snarled, twisting the throttle and taking us into a roll.

  “What’s their range?”

  “I don’t know. Probably a hundred kilometers, like most of them.”

  “We’re almost—”

  The ship shook again, harder this time, sending Daries flying out of his jump seat, crashing into the view screen behind my headrest.

  Fingers was frantically checking diagnostics, trying to steady himself. “Fuck! That was our long-haul engines!”

  “We should be out of range in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . okay, clear. How bad is it?” I asked.

  He ran his hand through his hair as he reclaimed his seat. “Bad. There’s no way we’ll get to the cluster now.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  “I’m taking us down, then,” I said, looking back at the wrench still working on Pierre. He might have been able to help us fix the ship, but there wasn’t any time.

  “Down where?”

  “Down to the planet.”

  “But the lightwall’s back up,” Fingers said, checking the scanners.

  “I know.” I glanced at Daries, who was picking a large sliver of glass out from the side of his face. “Are you okay?”

  He grunted.

  I called over to the wrench, “How is he?”

  “Stabilized.”

  I took a deep breath, partially relieved. At least we hadn’t lost him, too.

  “Whistler’s shuttle’s asking us what we’re doing. They’re not hit, but they’re following our lead. He won’t make it very far in that thing without us.” Fingers’ attention was caught by a flashing light on the panel. “Shit!”

  I followed his gaze and cursed. A few of the Mars ships were breaking away from their blockade of the planet to intercept us.

  “I still don’t know what your play is for getting us through the lightwall.”

  Neither did I until after the comm sounded and Whistler asked us about our course again. “Just follow us,” I said, flipping to the distress signal’s comm frequency. “Drieus Colony, attention, Drieus Colony. We’re the Corinth students who blew up the array so you could get your lightwall back up. We’ve commandeered the UFM Pulsar with the intention of notifying the Fleet, but our . . . our . . .” I stopped, searching for words, trying to fight through the fury and disorientation. “Our long-haul engines have been damaged and . . . we need to land on your planet. We have a working weap— . . . weapons complement and . . . and we’ll do everything we can to assist you on the surface. Please lower the lightwall and allow us to enter the atmosphere. Do you copy?”

  I clicked the comm button off.

  “You just told the Reds what we’re going to do,” Fingers said.

  “It’s hardly a secret. And they’re farther away than we are,” I said, trying to stop shaking, my thoughts seeming to fly faster than we were, keeping me from making sense of anything.

  I toggled the comm button back on. “Do you copy, Drieus Colony?”

  There was no response.

  I attempted to slow down—trying to piece the blips together enough so that my subconscious could fill in the blanks. “We received your distress call when we . . . were alone on a field mission on the asteroid. That’s how—why we decided to blow up the array. We’re not going to . . . we’re not going to make it if you don’t lower that lightwall for us. Please respond.”

  “I don’t think they’re getting it,” Fingers whispered, his voice near to breaking.

  “If they can send a message, they can receive one.”

  “This is shuttle Sidewinder behind you. Your message doesn’t seem to be getting through. I think we should pull up.”

  “Negative, Sidewinder,” I said. “There’s . . . there’s no other way.”

  Red missile dots lit up on the tactical screen.

  “Christ, they’re going to get us before we even get to the lightwall,” Fingers muttered as he mashed buttons on the panel. “Diverting all power to short-haul engines. Our lightwall won’t do us any good against that many missiles anyway.”

  The lights dimmed.

  Whistler’s voice rang over the comm. “They have lock.”

  “Sidewinder, direct all of your power to engines,” I urged.

  “The planet’s not responding. We’re going to pull up.”

  “Don’t do that!”

  “We’ve got to take evasive maneuvers!”

  They veered right out of the flight plan and I flipped the commline back on. “Drieus Colony, this is the UFM Pulsar. For God’s sake, they’ve got missile lock on us!” I was shouting, feeling my words and body start to line up again. “We’ve got critical information about Mars’ intentions. Please let us through! Please acknowledge!”

  Silence.

  “Maybe we should pull up, too. Try to shake the missiles with countermeasures,” said Fingers.

  I looked at the all the red dots on the screen again. “There’re too many.”

  “But you’re a great pilot,” Fingers continued.

  “Not that great.”

  “Drieus Colony, we are on approach and will maintain our current vector and velocity so you’ll only have to cut the wall for point two seconds. I’m assuming you’re receiving our transmissions.”

  “This is fucking crazy,” Fingers said, running his hands over his face and arms.

  I thought of Eve and in barely a whisper said, “It’d be crazy not to.”

  “Approaching the lightwall in twenty seconds and missiles are projected to intercept in nineteen. Hold your breath and strap in, I’m diverting life support to thrusters in three, two, one.” He keyed a series of buttons on the panel. “Impact differential now at positive point three seconds.”

  “Drieus Colony, we will be reaching the atmospheric lightwall in twelve . . . eleven . . . ten . . .
Please suspend it for point two seconds at the passing.”

  This was it. “Seven . . . six . . . five . . .” I stopped counting and gritted my teeth.

  Fingers lowered his head.

  Chapter 63

  Through my squint I saw the missile dots disappear one by one on the tactical screen, blowing up against the lightwall, and realized we were on the other side. I took a huge breath and looked at Daries, still holding his eyes closed, and then behind him at a now-conscious Pierre. He gave me a weary smile and a thumbs up, and despite the losses, despite Eve, a sense of possibility reappeared.

  “Life support restored to full power. Atmospheric lightwall is back up and tailing ships are breaking off pursuit,” Fingers reported.

  I saw a small explosion on the periphery of the horizon from where the Sidewinder had been approaching.

  “Dodged the first few, but they had eight locks on ‘em,” Fingers said, following my gaze.

  Before I could say anything the commline crackled and a voice I’d never heard before said, “UFM Pulsar, this is Drieus. We’re grateful for your help. About half of Mars’ blockading ships made it through before you knocked out the array and are assaulting the main lightwall generator on the surface. I’m not sure we can hold out for much longer and are requesting your immediate assistance.”

  “Copy that, Drieus. Standing by to receive coordinates,” I said.

  “Transmitting.”

  I turned to Fingers. “Are you sure this thing doesn’t have missiles?”

  “It’s an Adventure-Class scout ship. We’re lucky it has pulse cannons, but it’s really no match for any of those Mars Furies or combat shuttles down there attacking the colony. I’m not sure what use we’ll be.”

  Looking at the comm panel on the right and the small digital representation of the Pulsar just above it showing the condition of its hull plating and lightwall, I asked, “Drieus can hear and send transmissions because they know the modulation of their lightwall, but they can block anything they don’t want getting out, right?”

  “Should be able to,” said Fingers.

  “That means the assaulting UFM ships won’t know what’s happened on the station. So they’ll think this ship is coming to help them.”