Battlefield Mars

by David Robbins

  Archard had another reason for not shooting. His squad was hopelessly outnumbered. He’d much rather back away without provoking the thing, get to the surface, and contact New Meridian. The colony, every colony, must be alerted.

  He glanced past the creature, and the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickled.

  Nearly all activity in the cavern had ceased. Every last Martian had stopped and swung their eye stalks in his direction.

  A chill swept through Archard. The implications were staggering. He backpedaled, but the moment he moved, so did the creature. The thing came at him in a scrambling rush, its legs clacking on the basalt like sticks on rock.

  Archard fired. He had the selector set to single shot, and he sent a slug into the creature’s round body. At the blast, the thing jerked, and kept coming. Archard had no time to dwell on why the armor-piercing round hadn’t brought it down. He flipped the selector switch to semi-auto and triggered a three-round burst. The creature partially buckled but came on again. It was almost on him, its grippers centimeters from his face, when Archard flicked to full auto and emptied half his magazine.

  The thing shuddered and collapsed.

  Out in the cavern, the Martians were waving their stalks and their front limbs in what might be a frenzy of rage. Fortunately, none of the walkways connected to the tube. That wouldn’t stop them, though; not when they could scale sheer walls.

  Wheeling, Archard bounded around the bend and almost collided with Sergeant McNee and Private Everett, who were rushing to his aid. “Run!” he shouted. When the non-com went to say something, he pushed him and bawled, “Don’t talk! Just run! Run for your lives!”

  In bulky civilian EVA suits, running was a chore. Thanks to the military’s streamlined versions, and Mars’ lesser gravity, troopers could run as fast as they could on Earth for short distances. Still, it took a lot out of them. Archard was puffing after a hundred meters, and sweating profusely after two hundred, even though he worked out every day; rigorous exercise was required to prevent muscular entropy.

  Archard twisted at the waist to look back. Once again his sensors failed to show heat signatures. But the display read motion, and no wonder.

  A dozen of the things were after them.

  15

  Another ten meters, and Archard whirled. “Behind us!” he bellowed. He’d like to use a frag but the creatures were too close. While his suit could automatically seal small punctures, he didn’t dare take the risk of something worse.

  Archard cut loose. The foremost creature fell, heaved up, managed several more steps, and pitched forward for good.

  Those behind it leaped over its body.

  Sergeant McNee and Private Everett unleashed 5.56mm hailstorms, dropping more.

  Archard raked one in midair and it flipped and thrashed wildly, its legs reaching for him even in its death throes.

  The last of the things ran into a withering blast from McNee. Riddled, it scuttled another meter and was almost at Archard’s feet when it went still.

  “Damn!” Private Everett exclaimed.

  “Keep going,” Archard said, certain more would come. He reloaded as he went.

  “What are they?” Everett said.

  McNee, more tactical minded, asked, “How many are we up against?”

  “I don’t know how many will come after us, but I saw thousands,” Archard related. He concentrated on pacing himself, on his breathing, on putting as much distance as he could between them and the Martians.

  Martians. It felt strange to even think the word. All those early expeditions. Almost two centuries of colonization. And no one knew. It seemed impossible. And yet, if the Martians lived underground and seldom came to the surface, the odds of encountering them were next to nil. Mars was a big planet. The colonies, specks in all that vastness. And since most colonists never left the domes, that cut the chances even more.

  Plus there was the fact the Martians didn’t show up on their sensors. If not for motion trackers, the Martians would be invisible.

  Archard tried to work out how that could be. Mars was a cold planet. Far colder, on average, than Earth. It stood to reason that any life that evolved must either generate enough heat to survive or be cold-blooded, like reptiles, fish and crustaceans on Earth. So cold-blooded, in fact, they didn’t have heat signatures.

  Now that Archard thought about it, those things in the cavern, with their carapace-protected bodies—biologists called those exoskeletons—and their jointed legs, might well be crustaceans. A far more intelligent breed than their cousins on Earth.

  Archard was brought out of his musing by a sharp pain in his side. He had run so far, he was hurting. He could hear Everett pant. McNee, iron-hard with muscle, barely breathed heavy.

  “Stop,” Archard said. “We’ll rest a minute.” He checked his motion sensor.

  “Can you tell us what you saw, sir?” Sergeant McNee said.

  “A whole city,” Archard said, and only now did it fully sink in.

  “Those we killed must be their soldiers,” Sergeant McNee said.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “A lot of species have soldiers, sir. Army ants. Beetles. Other bugs. Why not Martians? The way they came after us. Aggressive. Hostile.”

  Archard was about to say that he didn’t believe the Martians were insects when his helmet blared.

  “Captain! Captain! Can you hear me? This is Pasco.”

  Archard didn’t like the panic in his voice. “I can hear you. Report, Private.”

  “We need help! Hurry! We’re under attack!”

  16

  They had been running for so long, Archard was soaked in sweat. Every sinew ached. Only sheer will kept him going.

  The locator beacons proved their worth. If not for their signals, Archard could easily see he and the others becoming hopeless lost. The many forks, the many branches, were a maze.

  He kept trying to raise Private Pasco without success. Pasco had gone quiet after the initial contact, and Archard feared the worst. If the Martians could burrow through basalt, and through the walls of a module, it was conceivable they might be able to bore through the otherwise impregnable armor on the tank.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can go on,” Private Everett huffed. He had fallen slightly behind and was struggling to keep up.

  “There are no quitters in the U.N.I.C.,” Sergeant McNee said. “You’ll do as we damn well tell you.”

  The Kentuckian weaved and stumbled.

  Archard tried his helmet comm again. “Private Pasco, can you read me?” All he heard was the muted hiss of the circuit. “Pasco? Do you read? What’s happening up there? Status report.”

  “It could just be interference,” Sergeant McNee said. “Reception can be spotty underground.”

  Archard was well aware of typical communications issues but it didn’t ease his worry any. Not just for Pasco and the boy. Losing them would be tragic. Losing the tank would be a death sentence. He and the others didn’t have enough air to make it back to New Meridian on foot. Trying not to dwell on that, he said, “Pasco, damn it!”

  His helmet crackled. “Sir? Sir? Is that you? Where have you been? I’ve been trying to raise you.”

  “Report,” Archard commanded.

  “We’re still here. I guess it wasn’t an attack, after all. I don’t know what it was. Or is, since they’re still out there.”

  “Pasco, I need you to make sense. What are they doing?”

  “Nothing. Well, that’s not true. They’re just standing there. Must be forty, fifty maybe. They have us surrounded and they’re staring at us with the weirdest eyes you can imagine. Studying us, I think. What do I do?”

  Archard remembered the creature that studied him, and how Piotr had said the things studied the remains of his parents. Were the Martians trying to make sense of what they were seeing? After all, humans must be as alien to them as they were to humans. “Sit tight. Don’t do anything. We’ll be there in five. How’s your charge?”
r />   “My what? Oh. The kid. He’s still asleep.”

  “With the Martians all around?”

  “I didn’t think it right to wake him. The poor little guy has been through a lot.”

  “Hang steady. See you soon.”

  They were approximately fifty meters from the cave entrance when Archard spied a hole in the side of the tube. He was sure it hadn’t been there when they descended. Evidently, the creatures surrounding the tank had come out of it.

  He hand-signaled to the others to slow to a walk, then stalked forward as quietly as possible. When the tank came into view, he froze.

  It was exactly as Paso described. Dozens of creatures, their stalk eyes moving back and forth and up and down, as if they were mesmerized. Or taking in every little detail.

  “Pasco?” Archard whispered.

  “Sir?” the Spaniard replied much too loudly.

  “We’re about to make a break for the tank. Be ready.” Archard turned to the others. “Locked and loaded?”

  “Let’s do this,” Sergeant McNee said.

  17

  “Pick your targets,” Archard gave a last command. “We don’t want to damage the tank by mistake and be stranded.”

  “I hear that,” Private Everett said.

  Archard moved into the open and the nearest Martian turned and raised its eye stalks. Not a second later, all the rest did the same.

  Archard’s skin crawled. He took a slow step and was immediately flanked by Sergeant McNee and Private Everett.

  The creatures exploded toward them.

  Archard sprayed Martian after Martian. To either side, Sergeant McNee and Private Everett poured their own auto-fire into the surging tide. It dropped the foremost ranks but didn’t deter the rest.

  Archard dropped a creature with its legs spread wide, shifted, and drilled another. He thought he heard Private Pasco shout something in his comm-link but he couldn’t be sure.

  A Martian reached Everett. A leg speared into his EVA suit, thigh-high, before Everett cut the thing down. The hole was small enough that the suit instantly sealed the breach.

  Archard shot and shot and shot again, narrowly avoiding having his own suit ripped. The press of Martians forced him back a couple of steps. Private Everett prudently retreated, too.

  Sergeant McNee didn’t notice. The non-com stood his ground, meeting the Martian wave with sweep after sweep of his ICW.

  Private Pasco sprang out of the tank airlock and joined the fray, sending lead into the creatures from their rear.

  McNee looked up, taking his eyes off the Martians for only a moment. Executing a high bound, one of the things slammed into his chest. McNee clubbed it with his stock as its grippers sheared into his suit. His head snapped back and his mouth widened from the pain.

  Archard shot once, twice, three times, and it sagged and fell from the non-com’s chest.

  McNee dropped to his knees.

  Archard darted over as Private Pasco gave out a whoop. The few remaining Martians were bee-lining into the lava tube. The dead lay in heaps, with wounded ones here and there waving their eyes and legs, but none could stand.

  “Sergeant? Can you hear me?”

  There was a large hole in the front of McNee’s EVA suit, much too large for the suit to repair. His face was nearly blue.

  Quickly, Archard wrapped an arm around him. “Help me!” he bawled at Everett and Pasco. They bore McNee to the tank and Archard went through the airlock holding him.

  Once inside, Archard eased the non-com onto his back in the bay. McNee was gulping for breath, his eyes so bloodshot, they appeared red. From the hole in his suit came sucking sounds. The Martian leg had speared through into his lung.

  “Don’t you die on me, Sergeant,” Archard said. “I need you, damn it.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Sergeant McNee said, blood dribbling from his mouth. He arched his back, gasped, “On Mars?” and was gone.

  “This is bad,” Private Pasco said.

  “We haven’t seen anything yet,” Private Everett predicted.

  Archard agreed. He had a foreboding feeling that things would soon become a lot worse.

  OUTBREAK

  18

  Chief Administrator Levlin Winslow was having a terrible day. There hadn’t been any word from Captain Rahn after his initial profoundly disturbing call. Winslow had the Communications Center try to raise the captain repeatedly, but there was no reply.

  Winslow had an important call of his own to make, and he couldn’t do it at the office. Secrecy was essential. His superiors had drilled that into him during his indoctrination for the administrator position. He left early, and headed home.

  As if the situation at the Zabinski farm wasn’t calamity enough, Winslow had another problem to deal with. Some of New Meridian’s surveillance cameras were malfunctioning. A short in the system, the Chief of the Maintenance Center assured him. They’d have it fixed by morning.

  Then there was his wife. She called a couple of hours ago to ask if he would bring home a bottle of alcohol-free wine. Why she bothered with the stuff was beyond him. Something in her tone told him that she was upset but she didn’t bring up why and he wasn’t about to set her off by asking.

  Now, having washed his hands as she always made him do before he could sit at the supper table, Winslow glumly regarded his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was hell being the most important person in the colony. The stress of the job was getting to him. His receding hair was grayer than when he arrived on Mars, his pudgy body, pudgier.

  Squaring the shoulders he didn’t have, Winslow boldly marched to the dining room table.

  Gladys was already there, her heavily made-up face set in stern lines, tapping her long red fingernails on her plate.

  Cringing inside, Winslow forced a smile. “How do you do, my dear? May I say you looking ravishing tonight?” He was terrible at flattery, but if it blunted her wrath, he would try.

  “Spare me,” Gladys said. “You forgot again, didn’t you?”

  “I told you I would be a little late,” Winslow said, thinking she was upset because she’d had to keep supper waiting.

  “Not that, you simpleton.”

  “Honestly, dear, how can you talk to me that way? I’m your husband.”

  “Don’t remind me. You’re piss-poor at it so it’s nothing to brag about.” Gladys made a tent of her fingers and glared. “What day is it?”

  “Oh hell,” Winslow said without thinking. Frantic, he ran down the list. Her birthday was months away. It wasn’t Valentine’s Day or some other holiday.

  “Think, Levlin,” Gladys said, dripping venom. “What did you and I do twenty-eight years ago today?”

  “Exchanged vows,” Winslow remembered, and braced for the tirade to come.

  His phone chirped. Eagerly grasping at salvation, Winslow snatched it from his pocket. “Hold on, dear. This might be important.” Hopefully it was word that Communications had heard from Captain Rahn. “Chief Administrator here.”

  “Sir, it’s Ferguson.”

  “You have good news, I trust?” Winslow said to his assistant.

  “We have a problem.”

  “Can’t you deal with it?” Winslow demanded.

  “No, sir. Your presence is required at the Maintenance Center.”

  Winslow didn’t contain his annoyance. “Is this about those cameras shorting out? I told them to deal with it. What can possibly demand my personal attention?”

  Ferguson lowered his voice, or else was holding his hand partly over the receiver. “Two of the maintenance workers have disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared? We’re in a dome. There’s nowhere for them to go. They probably snuck off to the Social Center for a drink.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Winslow angrily demanded.

  “Because, sir,” Ferguson said, whispering now, “there’s an awful lot of blood.”

  19

  Winslow never liked visit
ing the Maintenance Center. For one thing, the place smelled of lubricants and solvents and the like. He could do without that, thank you very much; he positively dreaded getting the stuff on his suits. He was Chief Administrator, for God’s sake, not a grease jockey, as they used to be called.

  The M.C. was responsible for fixing everything that broke, from rovers to computers. On Earth, the work was more specialized. There were vehicle repair shops and electronic shops, etc. On Mars, the powers-that-be believed it wiser to combine specialties. That way, fewer colonists were required to do comparable tasks. A critical aspect, given that space in the domes was limited.

  The domes themselves were masterpieces of Earth technology. Constructed of an indestructible alloy covered by a protective nanosheath, they were breathtaking to behold. From the outside, in sunlight, they gleamed like gold.

  Bradbury, the first colony, had three domes. Wellsville, the second, had added a second dome about a decade ago. New Meridian only had one dome, but Winslow was confident that under his leadership, New Meridian would qualify for a second and even a third dome in record time.

  He’d never said anything to anyone, but he thought it silly to have named the first two colonies after long-dead-and-buried writers. Personally, he found reading a chore. Why read a book when you could have your computer or your eReader read it to you? At his office, he never read a document longer than two pages. He had Ferguson read them and provide a summary.

  As his chauffeur brought the official vehicle to a stop, Winslow smoothed his suit, ran a hand over his thinning hair, and waited impatiently for the woman to open his door. “About time.”

  Overhead, the high vault of the dome presented the illusion of blending into the sky. The alloy and the nanosheath were transparent, so that from inside it was if nothing were there. Psychologists claimed it made Mars seem more like ‘home,’ and the domes less like the environmental cages they were.