I could just barely get my hands over the ledge. But it was enough. I knew it would hurt her, but pushed down and jumped anyway, managing to use the momentum to get one elbow above the ledge, and then the rest of my body.
Once up, the sun now uncomfortably light in comparison to the darkness of the pit, I lay on my stomach and stretched my arms out for Rumer.
We couldn’t let this try be a repeat. I didn’t know how much time we really had, but the threat of the glass shattering was enough to make it clear this would be the only chance. If Rumer fell again the faceplate might give way entirely.
Rumer’s hand caught mine and as I pulled her up. I heard Taavi cry out over the radio.
She was up. Ares! We got her out.
“I promise we will be right back! I promise,” I called down over the radio, and pulled Rumer to her feet.
She had already covered the leak with her hand again. I didn’t know how effective that really would be, but there wasn’t time to check.
“Come on, hurry!” I signed then put my own hand over hers as well.
We walked, half ran back towards the HabRov. Every step I dreaded feeling the world drop out from below me again. We needed to be careful now that we knew there might be pits in the lava field, but we needed to get her inside.
At last we came to the HabRov. I fumbled with the hatch, pulling it open with a sudden release. We pushed inside, the door sliding shut behind us, and ran across the room to airlock.
Once inside we whipped our helmets off and fell into each other’s arms. Laughing and crying. My sister, oh my sister was okay.
“How did you find us?”
“I was so scared, Emory. Did you really think I won’t notice you leaving? I was watching you from upstairs. You were just standing there and then I looked away for only a minute, and you just disappeared! I couldn’t find you on the sensors. So I came looking,” she squeezed me, “I was so worried about you!”
“Me!? You almost died!” Then I remembered Taavi, “I’ve got to go back for him!”
How the hell was I going to get him out without a repeat? If I fell again, there would be no rescue.
Rumer opened up a compartment next to the first-aid kit on the wall and pulled out a laminated booklet. She flipped through a few page and then handed it to me, “There, in the bay in compartment E are cords for towing.” She laughed, “We are going to need them anyway to tow the kid’s dumb plane.”
When I reemerged from the HabRov I was carrying a box full of thick cords and connectors.
I kept calling out over the radio to let him know I was coming, even though I was fairly sure he couldn’t hear me. At least it made me feel better, less like I had abandoned him. That last cry of his as Rumer pushed off of his shoulders kept replaying in my head.
Rumer was watching me from the Hab’s communications center. But it didn’t feel any better knowing she was watching. She couldn’t take the vehicle into the field, and even if she could, without a working suit there would be nothing she could do to help.
“Taavi!’ I poked my head over the entrance.
There was just darkness. Oh no! What if he fainted?
A light flicked on and I saw his face, that over-sized grin peering up at me.
“You came back! I guess you forgive me?”
Forgive him? Huh?
I threw one of the cords down, “Will you be able to climb on this? Or do we have to tie you to it?”
“I’ll try!”
He latched on and began to pull so quickly I had to jump to catch my side of the line. Wow, he was fast.
And then there he was, standing on the surface of Mars with me.
I laughed and hugged him.
“I’m sorry, Emory.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because you think that this is all my fault?”
“No,” I shook my head, “Anyway, it takes two to tango. Come on. I’m done with adventure for today,” then looked at his leg, and bit my lip. I had no idea how it was going to be under the suit, “Come on. We have still got to get you inside.”
Chapter Four
In the HabRov, Rumer had already pulled out one of the beds. Mine, to be precise. Hers was folded and tucked neatly away. We helped Taavi to sit on it and then pulled off his suit and under suit, leaving just his grays.
It was most definitely broken. I could see the deformation even with the massive swelling. He let us tend to it the best we could, even with our fairly rudimentary equipment. Every person raised in Cradle is taught basic first aid, especially in our cohort because one of our two mentors was the head doctor. What I wouldn’t have done to have her there at that moment.
When we got back to a settlement, we’d be able to print him a cast, but in the meantime we splinted it and tried to make him as comfortable as possible.
We gave him pain medication and watched him drop into sleep. Then we stripped our own suits off. Jeez, those bruises weren’t going to look good in a few hours. There wasn’t much we could do for them, but they weren’t much of a threat either.
“I found his plane.”
“Yeah?” I asked, walking to the kitchenette for water.
“Yep. And Bryn sent us a message.”
I waited.
“Turns out that a kid, only seven and half orbits old, stole a plane to go adventuring,” Rumer began, “They were tracking it and lost contact in this area, “ she paused.
Only seven and a half m-years! That’s only 14 earth years! I thought, shocked. Rumer was right, he was just a kid.
“They are hoping we can find him,” she finished and looked at the sleeping Taavi.
Things certainly made a lot more sense now, I admitted to myself. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing yet.”
Was I missing something? Why hadn’t she reported that we found him? Our mission would be doubly successful then. Except for my whole almost getting us all killed bit...
“Tell them the truth, Rumer. It’s my fault after all. Not yours. You told us not to.”
She hugged me, and I could feel more of those damn happy tears from earlier threatening to escape, “No you dummy. There is no reason for anyone to know you are such an idiot who doesn’t listen to her ‘oh-so-wise’ sister,” she pulled away, “But on a serious note, if they know they might not let us back out here on our own for a long while.”
And you don’t want them to know you didn’t have the situation under control, I added silently.
“Plus,” she continued, “let’s not get the kid in more trouble than he already is. They’ll be happy to know he’s okay, but I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. I’ll contact Cradle and then we’ll get the plane. Apparently it’s pretty small. It’s a miracle he was able to make it this far without refueling.“
When we finished hooking the tiny plane to the HabRov, we scrambled back through the airlock, and Rumer began to remove the suit she had borrowed from Taavi. He wasn’t thrilled to learn that we were taking him back to Cradle to be picked up by someone from Aurora, but he agreed not to tell anyone about our fiasco. Our story for the ripped suit and his broken ankle was that they happened while we were hitching the plane to the HabRov. We all agreed it was better for our ongoing freedom if people didn’t know we had gone running on the surface in the dark. Not that Taavi would be likely to have a lot of freedom in the near future. I actually felt pretty bad for him.
It wasn’t even midday yet. All things considered we hadn’t lost more than a few hours. But, guilt pounded at me. I had risked my sister’s life and almost ruined her first mission in command. Maybe there was still time to make it up to her. “Do you want to drive?” I asked Rumer, “I could get to work on backing up that data. I’m sure we
can square it away before getting home.”
About the Author
Arwen Gwyneth Hubbard was raised on a desert mesa, where she would spend entire evenings gazing at the twinkling stars. As an adult, those long evenings have translated into an MS in Space Studies, a BS in Environmental Science, and an AS in Resource Management. Her longterm interest has always been Mars, which meant that her Masters Thesis focused on Martian Bioregenerative Life Support Systems. Branching into the realm of fiction, Arwen Gwyneth has discovered that the world she’s dreamt of is closer than ever, and pursues the goal of humanity’s colonization of Mars, both in fiction and in her work. In the meantime, however, she lives in the desert Southwest with her husband, and their fluffy orange cat named Moose.
Thank you
Thank you for reading the first book in the Mars Born Series, Trapped! I hope you have enjoyed it. If you would like to learn more about the series, or get access to free additional content, such as character and location paintings, please visit MarsBornSeries.com and join the Readers’ List!
Members of the Readers’ List receive a free copy (available only to list members) of an interview with Emory by the “Interplanetary Society for Cultural Understanding” and character painting.
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I would like to extend a special thank you to the wonderful people who helped critique, beta-read and edit. Thank you Kevin, Leo, Mairi, Daniel, and Laurel!
Trapped - Mars Born Book One Page 3
