by Terry Mixon
The camp was very close to the crashed ship, so it was a safe trip in the dark, as long as they had lights. No big cracks or other obstacles, but they’d still put up ropes to guide them. They’d need them if the lights failed for some reason. It was darker than the cave under the pyramid in Guatemala.
Well, maybe not that dark. The stars shone in their unblinking glory. Phobos and Deimos also cast some light when they were in the sky. The closer of the two, Phobos, sped along, making two orbits a day. It was in the sky a bit more than four hours at a time. Deimos took a leisurely 30 hours to circle the planet, so they’d have it all night.
The ship had crashed a long time ago. Perhaps a thousand years. It struck hard and slid right into the wall of the caldera. Part of that intimidating cliff of stone had fallen on it.
If the layout was the same as the other craft, it didn’t look as though anyone had made it out. Rocks partly blocked the airlock. If it had opened, they would’ve fallen in and no amount of work would have allowed them to close it again.
Someone had almost made it.
Their destination was obvious. A massive hatch about sixty meters to the left meant there was a base built into the volcano. The fact no one had come out to rescue these people said it was probably deserted.
The base would wait for tomorrow, but Harry was convinced they could get into the crashed ship with a little elbow grease. The light gravity made levering the rocks out of the way easy. He wasn’t worried about further rock falls. If it hadn’t come down in a thousand years, the odds were very good it wasn’t going to drop tonight.
They moved the stones blocking the airlock in twenty minutes. Harry had to shuck his glove to control the key he’d brought. They’d found others on the comet, so he didn’t feel bad about taking it.
The thin air of Mars was cold. Intensely cold. Once night fell, the temperature plummeted. Up here, with the thinner atmosphere, it would get colder than any of them had ever experienced.
The key slid into place and the airlock opened slowly. It only made it partway before it froze. Harry could see that the frame was warped. He managed to wedge himself inside. He worried the inner door wouldn’t open, but it gave him no trouble.
The inside of the ship was a shambles. And a slaughterhouse.
Even before it had crashed, blood had coated the inner compartment. Mummified corpses littered the floor, not in neat body bags, but where they’d fallen or been tossed in the crash.
These people hadn’t died of blunt force, either. Someone had shot most of them. He’d seen enough wounds like that to know.
Several dozen men, women, and children lay sprawled in whatever angles fate had left them. He could see the pilot’s console up front. The stones had come in through the forward roof and crushed the pilots to death. He guessed no one survived the crash.
“We’re going to have to take our time in here, Sandra. It’s a charnel house. I’ll take pictures and then we’ll empty it out in the daylight.”
He saw something on the floor and picked it up. A pistol, but not like the ones he was familiar with. It didn’t have a slide to toss out the expended brass. He spotted a safety, but had no idea which setting was safe vs ready to fire. He’d carry it back by hand. Cautiously.
* * * * *
“You’re what?” Jess asked.
“We’re an extended family unit,” Crocket said. “It’s really not that unusual.”
He sat at a table in the area they were using to eat with his wife and—girlfriend?—at his sides. Neither of them seemed disturbed, so Jess had to believe him, though she really didn’t understand.
She nodded. “I’ve heard about polygamy, of course. I just haven’t ever met anyone that practiced it.”
“This isn’t anything like the terrible things you occasionally hear about in the news,” Emily said in an even matter of fact tone. “We’re all in this together because we want to be.”
“We’ve been a family for years,” Sierra said. “Us and Jacob Danvers back on Earth. We’re in this for the long haul and we’re not a problem that’s about to blow up in your face. The only drama you’ll see is Michael when he doesn’t get his way.”
“Hey,” he objected mildly. “I’m not that bad.”
Both of the women gave him steady looks.
Jess shook her head and smiled. “I can’t imagine how a relationship like that is stable, but if it works for you, I’m certainly not going to judge. More power to you.”
“You said something about books and scrolls,” Sierra said. “What can you tell us about them?”
“Doctors Powell and Young opened the crates that were in the room we took over for a dorm. They had books and scrolls in sealed containers of their own and they look intact, so we’re assuming they’ve protected them. There were more in another compartment.
“They also found copies—scans really—in the computer system. Someone translated the finds to the strange language. So, we’re working on identifying where these books and scrolls came from so we can reverse the process.”
Michael Crocket nodded. “I should be able to place them in general terms. Sierra is actually more familiar with many of the forms of writing than I am, so she might be able to narrow them down even further.”
His wife smiled. “I’ll take a look and send some sample images back to Liberty Station. They can consult with experts on Earth without implicating us in the outer system. That said, I’ll want to examine them as soon as possible.”
Jess turned to Emily. “We’re also hoping you can help them modify the computer program in one of their phones to do translations on the fly.”
The younger woman nodded. “I’ll have to take a look, but I’d imagine I can. I think I know the program you’re talking about. One that you catch foreign writing in the camera and it morphs on the screen?”
“That’s the one.”
Emily smiled. “Then you’re in luck. I’ve already modified a version of it to translate some of the other languages we usually work with. I paid the developer for a copy of the source code and we work together on improving the program when I push it in new directions. My copy is fully licensed for me to mess with it.”
Michael Crocket stood. “So, if we’re finished, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ll focus on the physical copies. No offense to Doctors Powell and Young, but I want to be certain we don’t miss anything that needs to be done to protect these priceless artifacts.”
The unspoken implication was that there were plenty of other artifacts on this ship that weren’t being protected. Yep, not so subtle.
Emily hung back when the other two made their way out. “You really don’t need to worry. We have the same ups and downs as more traditional couples, but nothing that will cause anyone else problems. We’ve already told him that he needs to keep his roving eye on lockdown while we’re in this situation.”
Jess rose to her feet and walked out with the other woman. “He has a roving eye? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I can’t imagine how you make it work.”
“It does take the right personality for it and the ability to set aside some of the normal jealousy. He doesn’t sneak around behind our backs, though. We have a say on who is part of our group, so if we veto, he doesn’t pursue someone.”
She shook her head. “You have my deepest respect for making that work, and more power to the three of you.
“Back to the crisis at hand, I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to get us some translations on the control screens. At this point, so long as we start slowing back down, I’m inclined to let this train pull into the station on its own, but we’ll need to know what happened so we can get back home.”
“I heard we’ll be passing close to Neptune later today. Within visual range?”
“That’s what I’m told. We’ll be having an escorted trip out to see it after dinner. I’ll make sure everyone knows.”
“Great! I wouldn’t want to miss something like that.”
Ray Proudfoot was inside th
e elevator when they arrived. “There you are, Jess. Miss Adams.”
“What do you need, Ray?” Jess asked.
“We found something you need to see. We’ve explored every section of the base, except for the tunnel with the cave-in. Rex went down to look at it with me and has some observations.”
The cave-in had been on the second level in from the surface. It wasn’t nearest the surface, so they were relatively confident that it wasn’t a threat to their life support. It looked as though one of the corridors had collapsed at some point in the past. She wanted to know what was on the other side of it, which was the only reason they were even considering digging it out.
They made their way up after Emily got off the elevator at the core. The base was huge. Like their own personal Death Star, just smaller.
Rex had dug out some of the area and was standing there with a shovel. “Hey, Jess. I found something important.”
She looked over the collapsed tunnel. “I’ve seen far too many of these in the last few weeks. What’s up?”
“See these?” He pointed to a shattered wall beside the area he’d dug out.
“The wall? Sure. It broke.”
“No, inside the breaks.” He used a finger to pull out a shard of metal. “This isn’t part of the wall.”
Jess took it from him and looked it over. It was about five centimeters long, bent, and burned. “I’m missing it.”
“This is shrapnel. It was involved in an explosion. This was part of an antipersonnel bomb. From the make-do nature, I’d wager this was an improvised explosive. The blast probably brought the roof down.”
She shook her head. “What were these people fighting about? Why did so many need to die?”
“I’ve got another question for you. We found that ship in Guatemala. Harry found one on Mars. Where did they come from?”
Jess frowned. “Is that a trick question? Here, I suppose.”
“That docking bay up there had room for one ship. Where did the second one come from?”
“You think it came from behind the collapse? We didn’t find any indication of a second hangar when we scanned the surface.”
“We didn’t land here and look all that closely. What if there was a larger, underground hangar?”
She shook her head. “Why conceal one and make the other obvious?”
Rex shrugged. “I’m not sure why these people did anything. Both crashed ships came from here, or there’s another place we haven’t found. Harry verified they had the same patches, so I’m betting they were crew here.
“This rock looks like a dead comet. Even at very close range. If we hadn’t been looking hard, we’d have missed that first hangar. What if there’s something larger that they were worried would be found more easily?”
She supposed that was possible. It didn’t cost them anything to look. “Have them turn down the gravity here and get some help. Be careful of vacuum. I want this section opened up as soon as possible. I’ll take a team up to the surface and see if I can find any sign there’s a secret bay.”
Chapter Seventeen
Josh Queen had to hustle to make it through the screening process at the White House and only barely made it to the Oval Office on time. As usual, the room never failed to make him quiver with excitement. One day, this would be his. He knew it deep in his bones.
George Blankenship rose from behind the desk and came around to the seating area.
“Josh, so good of you to come over. Tea?”
“I’m good, Mister President. Your call sounded urgent.”
The two of them sat on the comfortable couches and the president leaned forward. “I just had a meeting with the Chinese ambassador and, to be blunt, he was pissed. He said you were threatening to seize Chinese property. I’d like to know what’s going on.”
“Are you sure you want to know, sir? With the election coming up, you might want plausible deniability.”
“I can’t deny the man told me you planned on ejecting his countrymen from the Yucatan Spaceport. I might as well know what’s happening, because he’s going to make a stink about it.
The president smiled. “Son, space travel is dead. We killed it here in this office twenty years ago and good riddance. The money can be better spent earning us brownie points with our base.”
“I’m not so sure it’s as dead as we’d like it to be, sir. You’ve heard about the space station that was really a ship?”
“Of course. Some idiot wasted his money building a spaceship and beat the Chinese and Indians to Mars. Big deal.”
“There’s more than meets the eye. We’re pretty sure he has nuclear weapons up there.”
Blankenship’s expression narrowed. “That’s a serious allegation. Do we have any evidence to back it up?”
“He blew up a dead comet on the way to Mars. Destroyed it so completely it went from about a thousand kilometers in diameter to nothing. That seems pretty conclusive to me.”
The president considered that and then nodded. “Fair point. So, what justification do we have to seize the spaceport? Clayton Rogers already sold it to the Chinese. They didn’t have anything to do with the weapons, did they?”
“Not that we know of. I talked to the AG and he agreed that the original sale of the ISS2 framework was fraudulent. Rogers’ ex-wife bilked the government out of a lot of money for that failed project.
“I think she was in league with Clayton Rogers to make it look as though the project had fallen so far behind schedule and over budget that we’d never see it done. Then she let her ex buy it cheap through the Russians. They helped because they hate us. The US government footed a lot of the bill for that spaceship. It belongs to us.”
Blankenship frowned. “That’s quite a leap to prove in court. And, it doesn’t speak to seizing the spaceport. He also said something about you promising to seize other Chinese companies.”
“Well, not precisely. Rogers sold Rainforest to the Chinese without clearing it through the SEC. We’re investigating whether the sale was legal and looking into how complicit the company was in defrauding the US taxpayers. With what Rogers has done, there are probably grounds to seize everything he owns and then the money can go into helping the poor and disadvantaged.”
The president smiled. “I like the way you think, but this is a powder keg. Ambassador Chen told me in no uncertain terms that if we carry through on your threats, his government would take everything back. The implications for using force were not subtle. This could all blow up in my face.”
Queen leaned forward and gave the president his most earnest expression. “When I spoke to Rogers, he said that he intended to start mining in space. He talked about that being a lot of money. I dismissed it at the time, but now that I’ve had time to consult with specialists, I think he was underselling things. Intentionally so.
“He stands to make hundreds of trillions of dollars over the next few decades. And, on top of that, he’ll crash the precious metals market. Think of the political position that will put him in. A man with nuclear weapons in space and being by far the wealthiest man in the system. He’s got his eye set on world domination.”
Blankenship shook his head. “That’s jumping too far, Josh. We can’t just assume that’s going to happen.”
“His son claimed Mars in the name of his company. The whole goddamn planet. Does that sound like someone who’s playing small?”
“I saw the landing, but I didn’t get that out of it.”
“He said Humanity Unlimited. That’s the name of the company. First Mars, then the universe. Humanity Unlimited. He’s going to claim everything.”
“He can’t do that. We have treaties.”
“With other governments. Guess what? They don’t explicitly say a private entity can’t do that. And, on top of that, he incorporated Humanity Unlimited in the Republic of Nauru. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. An island nation that Clayton Rogers owns outright. One that never signed those treaties. And one where he’s busy building a new spaceport.�
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The president stared at him for a moment, rose to his feet, and pressed the intercom button on his desk. “Cancel my afternoon appointments and summon the Cabinet and the National Security Advisor. Oh, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This has a military component. I want everyone in my conference room in an hour.”
* * * * *
Nathan stepped off the plane at one of the smaller airports outside of Paris. It was dark and he could see a fire somewhere in the city. The large number of sirens wailing in the distance seemed to indicate a lot of police. Probably another terror attack.
They were almost a weekly occurrence these days. The French had let the jackals in and now they were eating France’s carcass from the inside out. Now that the militants had carved a Caliphate out of parts of Iraq and Syria, they’d become much more virulent.
Twenty years later and they had conquered half of the Middle East and had their eyes set on bigger prizes in Europe. Then the world.
And the US was milquetoast enough to let them do it, too. All that diversity and non-profiling crap. In the last five years, the Islamic terrorists had managed to strike inside the US three times. That’s how it had started here in France.
They slipped across the Mexican border with ease. The federal government did almost nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. The political morons considered them new voters to solidify their hold on power.
Most of the people flooding into the US wanted nothing to do with the terrorist nutjobs, but if you didn’t screen them, how could you identify the real threats?
It would only take a few simple actions to set the terrorists back on their heels. Infiltrate the mosques where the radicalization took place, identify the troublemakers, snatch them off the streets, and make them talk. Once they’d given up their friends, give them a bullet and a lonely grave.
Hell, it might not even be too late to save France.
Maybe he could form a team to take care of some of the problems and write it off on his taxes. A kind of community service. Something to think about.
