Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series

by Lon E. Varnadore

  The wind increased. Even though the helmet’s sensors filtered out the worst of the increasing screaming of the wind, he heard it. The pelting against the outcropping grew worse, and Marcus felt a slight buzz of vibration that came through the rock, blasted by the wind and sand. Within ten years, he was sure the small cluster of rocks would be nothing more than bare lump of stone. Unless that pipedream of full terraforming gets done, somehow.

  There was a twitch from Lash. She sat up and grunted as her movement brought her into contact with the heavier sandstorm. Her head then jerked violently to the right. She turned to look at him, and Marcus felt his blood to turn to water when he saw her eyes grow wide and stare right into his. She cursed through the comm. “Marcus, we have to go, now.”

  “Why?” Marcus asked, though he already knew in his head why. Only one thing caused Lash to react that way. Don’t say it, please don’t say it, please, please, please…

  “Crawl.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Crawl.

  That single word crystalized the dread he’d been sensing since the crash. “How can there be—”

  Marcus clamped his mouth shut with a click when he saw a shadow emerge from the sandstorm, shuddering and dropping lower and lower. It was an ancient ship, the plating ripped and shredded in areas from the intensity of the sandstorm. It descended more and more towards the surface. To Marcus, it looked like an older model DXC-78, an old model Ticonderoga-class ship. A long hauler model that had been out of service for ten years at least for breaking down too often. His eyes drifted to the engines, a quad emplacement at the back of the ship. Overheating the 73DCs, it looked like, for it was trailing white mist from the engine in an expanding cloud behind them. Is that plasma leaking? Marcus watched as the ship dropped again. They were burning way hotter than they should. Someone was trying to fly through the sandstorm without any kind of pulse engines that any sane person would use. Instead, they were using the main sequence engines that were better used out of atmo, the engines ran hotter and hotter to try and keep the ship from dropping like a stone.

  Normally, if caught in a sandstorm, pulse lifter engines were used to keep the sand from getting into the ship and to keep the main sequence engines from burning hot and venting plasma from interacting with the atmosphere of a planet. Mars, even though it had a thin atmosphere, had enough to make what the ship was doing dangerous to everyone near the thing.

  The ship above burned hotter to carry it forward on a path that would overshoot even where Marcus and Lash were headed. The plasma coming out mixed with the sand and caused the tail of white-and-blue plasma; and it’s corroding the engines, Marcus thought with a shake of his head. It was insane to do something like that. He’d only seen one group ever fly their ships so close to the surface of a planet without easing up the main drive engines for the pulse engine to take over. The danger was mostly from the radiation and heat build-up in the ship that would cook a human or Ilas in ten to twenty minutes.

  The Crawl. They don’t need to adhere to the same standards. The protections from their altered state allowed them to do things humans couldn’t even think of, let alone try.

  Marcus grabbed Lash, and he felt her hand squeeze his hand hard. “We have to go,” she said. “Now!”

  Marcus stood up, moving around to the other side of the small outcropping of the rock. When he did, he saw the mound of the ancient bunker. “We’re closer than we thought,” he said, looking at his tablet.

  “Good,” Lash said, struggling to move forward alongside.

  Marcus wasn’t sure how, but he knew that the old maps of the bunkers weren’t always drawn to scale, a fact which never made a lick of sense to him. He knew he had to move. Fast!

  He caught Lash in his periphery pulling out a small tube in her long, thin fingers before slamming it into her suit’s thigh. He heard her give an audible grunt. Straightening up, she started to move faster towards him, and then past him.

  A stimpak? He asked in his head, knowing it wasn’t a good idea. “Won’t that—"

  “I don’t have time to argue with you human. Move,” Lashiel said, moving forward, passing him while he stood stunned for a second.

  Marcus shook himself and followed after Lash. This is crazy, he thought.

  “Crazy is our go-to nowadays,” she sent.

  Small bits of the coarse sand scoured their suits as they trotted towards the bunker. The sensors screamed at them that their suits were being damaged by the wind and sand. It was getting redundant, and twice Marcus issued a verbal order to turn off the system’s Crying Connie alerts. As it went off again to inform Marcus that another piece of his suit was close to being breached, he shouted, “All warnings, shut down.” Glancing down at his suit, he saw the sand had scoured the top layer off ninety percent of the suit that he could see. He disabled the voice when it gave its last warning, and glancing over, he saw the top two layers of Lash’s suit were close to flaking away entirely. Marcus ignored the suit’s final, final warning when he spotted the structure of the survival shelter come into visual range. He resisted the desire to run for it. He looked over at Lash to see she was stumbling and fumbling with the probe from the Shelby, even with the stimpak she used, she was slowing down.

  “Can you keep going?” Marcus asked, moving closer to her.

  “I’m fine, Marcus. Go.” She sent, waving a hand to try and dismiss him.

  “No, you need help. Let’s go.” He reached out to take her arm, seeing the brass-and-bronze coloring already becoming more and more pitted with the sand. He saw his own glove’s outer layer starting to fade to the first black insulating layer already. “We have to move, Lash. Can you—”

  Lash slipped her arm over his shoulder and started to move in time with him as best she could. Her strides moved with a bit more strength.

  “That stimpak did it, huh?” Marcus asked.

  She said nothing, only pushed herself forward.

  The pair stumbled over a small lip made of sand that had been pushed back, creating a small divot at the entrance of the shelter. It helped to protect them for the moment. Both knew that the storm would only get worse, and the only way to survive such a thing was to get inside with speed.

  “Something like that,” Lash said. She looked at the door and hesitated.

  “What?” Marcus asked, looking between her and the door.

  She didn’t say anything, and her eyes were far away for a second.

  Dammit Lash. “We need—"

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” she muttered into her suit. Her eyes swiveled towards him with a pleading look to not ask.

  He shrugged. “I’m sure you do,” Marcus said with a small grin. “When do you not?”

  “Marcus, I—”

  Marcus practically carried her to the door of the ancient bunker as far as he could from the opening. “We’ll be fine.” Marcus palmed the lock. That was all that was needed to open up such an abandoned shelter. For a moment, Marcus felt his heart skip a beat as he waited. They needed to get inside and to safety and— the door cycled a second longer before stopping with a grating clack-clack. A locked icon came on the ancient screen. “What the Hells?” Marcus shouted, punching the door.

  “Someone locked it,” Lash said, grunting as she shifted in the suit. She snagged the comm cord that dangled from her palm, yanking the small cord to jack it into a recessed port protected from the worst of the sand. Marcus assumed she connected to the system, for he heard her speak. “Please, open the door, our suits are failing. We need inside.”

  Marcus pulled his own comm cord and jacked into the recess as well to join her plea. “Please, you—”

  “No,” the voice came back. It sounded like Lash’s voice, as if the person was talking through a computer voice box.

  “Have a heart,” Marcus cried out. “We’re going to die out here.”

  “Then you should have gotten inside faster,” the voice said, robotic and cold as ever.

  Marcus looked at Lash. “Thin
k you can try to ‘connect’ with whoever’s inside?”

  “You hate it when I do it to you,” Lash said, her face even paler than usual, but there was still a grim set to her jaw.

  “We have a deeper need here, Lash,” Marcus said with a pleading look. He did hate it, but they were going to die. “Unless you want to see what your bones look like once they’re scoured by sand.”

  Lash gave him a dark look and closed her eyes. Marcus could see the slight tendrils amongst her hair starting to glow a little in the darkness of her helmet. She then jerked away from the door. “No, we can’t go in there,” she said. She became rigid. “I am not going in there.”

  “Why?”

  “Eridani,” she said with a shudder.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marcus felt his blood freeze with that. He then felt his hand flare with pain, as the mark reacted to his body’s sudden spike in adrenaline. “Slag! You sure?”

  Lash turned and glared at him through her fogging helmet. The sand was starting to get worse even in the little alcove. With the lights on his suit and Lash’s starting to flicker brighter and brighter red, Marcus knew they only had a few more moments to get in or die.

  Would it be worth it? Marcus asked himself. He cursed, not realizing he had doomed himself and Lash to die out here. All because he was afraid. Both of them were going to die. Marcus looked at Lash. “Can you think of anything?” There was something he could try, but he wanted to wait until they were truly desperate, though he was sure they were already close to that.

  Lash shook her head violently. “I’d rather die out here, Marcus. I am not going to—”

  “Lash, don’t be stupid,” Marcus said, glaring at her.

  “It’s an Eridani! I’ll be—”

  “You’ll be dead.”

  “So?” She asked. “Would anyone miss me?”

  Marcus cursed himself for a second. “Lash, I—"

  Lash rested a hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “Marcus, please don’t think you have to say anything. Just leave me here.”

  “Lash, we—”

  “I am not going,” Lash said.

  Marcus grabbed her helmet. “Do you want to die out here? Really die?” He sent back to her.

  Lash closed her eyes and sighed. He could see a small trickle of tears wetting her cheek. “No,” she said, her voice a bare whisper over the comms.

  For a heartbeat, Marcus contemplated staying outside. Would it really be that bad to die out here? Then the sand-laden wind scoured them, really slamming into them. The two pressed hard against the door. Lash’s suit took the brunt of the blast, and Marcus watched the last layer of the suit begin flaking and breaking away, while the red in Lash’s HUD illuminated her face.

  Slagging shit, you have to do it. Marcus slapped his hand onto the console again. His hand hit the activation switch of the comm. He shouted out in a voice without a tremor, “My name is Marcus Redding, I am property of Hy-Zong78. Let me and my companion enter, or you will be in violation of the Accords of—”

  Before he could finish the formal statement burned into his mind over the years, the door started to grind and split open. Before Marcus or Lash could move, the heavy wind shoved them forward. Both toppled into the first airlock of the large bunker. They landed with grunts as the airlock activated, once the ancient pre-Crawl door slammed shut much faster than it opened.

  Marcus stood up first, then helped Lash up and braced her upright. He saw that her knees were buckling, even with his help.

  “Let us—”

  Marcus was drowned out as the cycle alarm sounded in the chamber. Marcus knew there was a cycle of three doors, each more fortified than the last. Few sandstorms could breech the first pre-Crawl doorway. The reason for the three doorways was, according to theory, the Crawl. Their strength and strange wax-like layer was able to dissolve most metals, but the inner hulls of the ancient bunkers of the pre-Crawl technology stopped them by the second doorway.

  At least that is what Marcus had always heard.

  He jerked his head back to Lash, who’d pulled away from him. “You going to—”

  She leaned a shoulder against the airlock wall. “I’ll live, Marcus. Thank you,” she said, her smile shaking along with her body trembling in the suit. “You still brought us in? Why?”

  “Survival,” Marcus said.

  The second door started to cycle with the sterilization process commencing to wash away any contaminants from the outside before being tracked inside. Marcus heard a very different voice come over the loudspeaker.

  “Welcome, property of Hy-Zong78. His current incarnation is 80, you might need to update your notes.” There was a short laugh that Marcus knew was the Eridani attempt to make humans think they could find humor in things. The Eridani were not human, and very few emotions were shared between the two species.

  The way the pre-Crawl speaker worked, it was able to beam the signal, using something akin to line-of-sight lasers into the helms of Marcus and Lash, individually. His helm wasn’t that old, yet the pre-Crawl techs had guesstimated how far humans could go in a set amount of time. Even with the Black Days, messaging systems with helmeted suits followed along a certain trajectory. When Marcus heard the reedy voice of an Eridani speak, his bowels turned to liquid for seconds.

  Slag, that isn’t good. He’s trying to make me feel at ease. “And, your designation? It is only fair.” Marcus asked, trying to sound contrite while looking up at the speaker knowing there was a vid link.

  “Master is as good as another for one with your primitive brain,” the Eridani said with a verbal smirk.

  Marcus felt his hand burn a little more. Have to keep my serum a secret and not let this asshole find out about it. And, somehow not let them find out about the tech we carry. Piece of pie. “Of course, Master.” The word felt bitter in his mouth, and Marcus knew he grimaced at it. He didn’t care. Both of them needed inside, and this was not the time to argue. “Yet, that would imply you are my Master. And, we both know that—”

  There was a sigh that came from the comms as the second airlock opened. Marcus was a little taken about that the third door split open as well with a slow, grinding noise.

  Marcus started with, “That is against—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve taken precautions,” the Eridani voice said over the speakers. As the door opened, it revealed a pale, young, dark-eyed woman, in the sleek Eridani slave-grey jumpsuit, holding a powered-up laz-pistol towards Marcus and Lash with a loud, low thrum. Behind her was the peppermint-scented freak, her Master. The creature sat in a hovering chair, which acted more as a cradle to guard the frail, emaciated body of the alien. There was a small, swiveling turret at the top of his chair which was pointed directly at Lash.

  Marcus dropped his hand to his thrower, then pulled it away when the laz-pistol swung to him. He held his hands up. “Like I could do anything. You already disabled it.” He knew that the girl or the Eridani, had disabled his thrower. He had touched it so that his suit could confirm that there was no charge in the thrower. It was there, Marcus knew. But the power was somehow disconnected internally by some bit of Eridani tech. Damn peppermint.

  And his chair has a weapon system. Wonderful, Marcus thought. This keeps getting better and better.

  “Oh, an experimental as well,” the Eridani’s voice croaked out a rasping laugh. “Lovely. Harley, please, let them inside.”

  Harley, the slave girl, glared at Marcus for a moment. Marcus could see the intense hatred of what Marcus was, and it ate at her. She had the focused eyes of an Eridani bodyguard. Her body was tense as a coiled viper, ready to strike out to protect its master. Marcus and Lash held their hands up to show they didn’t have any weapons. Marcus wasn’t sure if Harley would let them in, despite her master’s allowance. The laz-pistol did not waiver, simply stayed a few centimeters from his forehead for several frantic heartbeats before she backed away and lowered the weapon. She didn’t put it away. She even bowed, a slight inclination of the head while swingin
g out her free arm as a gesture of beckoning them inside.

  Before Marcus could say anything, Harley snatched the bag from Lash’s shoulder and pulled it away from her, jerking the Ilas off balance. Harley dropped it to the concrete ground, and Marcus winced when Lash landed with a gasp and grunt. He knew that pre-Crawl tech was tough yet wasn’t sure that it would necessarily be that tough. He looked to Lash, about to help her when Harley waved the weapon in his face, shaking her head. He caught sight of Lash glowering at Harley, but was able to regain her feet, though she was clumsy and looked to be on the verge of passing out.

  “What do we have here?” The Eridani asked. His head lolled to one side of his frail torso with the two large, elongated, black diamonds for eyes boring into Marcus and Lash. Marcus still marveled at how the Eridani were so physically weak that even on a low-grav world like Mars they couldn’t move without their advanced tech chairs. Even in space, their bodies were barely able to move without some tech to help. He had heard his own owner, Hy-Zong78— 80, he corrected himself, say that the reason was that the bodies of the Eridani had wasted away much faster after so many cloning attempts. Many became used to the chairs instead of even trying to move around at all once out of the spawning vats. A few of the younger Eridani still tried to use mech suits to move, but soon gave them up after a few decades to use the chairs as well. Or were killed when used as mercenary forces for the older Eridani along with the cannon fodder of the “lesser” races the Eridani had picked up and used.

  “First, you could tell your bodyguard to put the heater away,” Marcus said, pointing to Harley and the pistol.

  The Eridani’s eyes narrowed at Marcus, the glittering black eyes dancing in the light of the bunker. There was a beat between the two of them, and Marcus felt the cold and inhuman eyes boring into his own, right through him. Swallowing, he stood firm. Not going to cow me like others have, asshole. I’m not backing down this time.