“Simmons needs your help digging,” she tells me flatly, then walks ungracefully back down to the ‘Horse.
The dig-out took six hours of aggravating, combined effort, drawn out because the treads would start sinking again as soon as we tried rolling them out a few meters. We had to ease the ‘Horse forward a hull-length (or less) at a time, continuously wedging rocks and branches under the treads (Jenovec almost lost a hand in the process), with the Sleeper-vets cursing in full disregard of the New-Drop morality the entire morning and afternoon.
Finally, we got the vehicle up onto a stretch of more stable ground, but the outlook ahead didn’t seem promising: the terrain down in the bowl was indeed an unpredictable mix of rock and hard-pack and the treacherously soft, slushy dust/sand blend. Worse, the ground cover makes it hard to see what kind of ground you were on until you were in it.
Even worse, the strain of the extraction did more trauma to the already damaged suspension linkages. Simmons was adamant we get some critical repairs done before we tried moving any further, especially if there was any risk of sinking again. Even trying to climb back out the way we came in was out of the question. (Though—as Horst put it—since we were fucked down in the bowl, we might as well search the bowl while we were here.)
It struck more than one of us that we could go to packs and hike more effectively than we could drive, do the recon on foot. But we’d be giving up the protection and firepower of the ‘Horse, and that didn’t appeal to the new-drop coalition, including our mission CO.
During this ordeal, we could hear but not see two more flights passing east and back west, somewhere beyond the crater. Evidently, someone back at base had determined that we’d never decide to cross the crater, or wouldn’t be able to, having either better geographic intel or better sense than we did.
Also during this ordeal, the Box kept its distance, conserving power as it watched us from above. It reminded me of a canine in the wild, waiting on the periphery of a pack until it could earn acceptance.
Covered in Mars, we sat in the bay and debated our options over another unexciting meal.
“We’ll need to scout ahead on foot, plot a course,” Corso decides pretty quickly. “The rover still has sensors that can check soil-density.”
“We could just roll the rover out in front of us,” Horst opts, trying to chew some kind of compressed cracker/biscuit/something.
“I’m going to need more warning than that,” Smith counters, sounding as tired as we are even though he got to sit the whole first half of the day. “This thing doesn’t turn on a dime, and I’d hate to try backing out if we really hit bad ground.”
“We’d be exposing whoever we sent,” Horst warns the obvious.
“What’s the range on your gear links without uplink or repeater boost?” I wonder.
“A kilometer clear,” Horst confirms the gear hasn’t gotten any better than what we had pre-Bang. “Maybe two, if you have sight-line. That still puts someone a long run from home if shit goes bad. And if the mission is to find what we’re supposed to be looking for, shit will go bad.”
“I’ll do it,” I volunteer.
“Negative,” Corso instantly denies.
“Trust me, or risk your people needlessly,” I distill.
“I’ll go,” Horst diffuses our head-butting.
“So will I,” Lyra surprises. “I’ve lived on this world my whole life. I can handle myself.”
“Fit her with a can,” Horst tells Scheffe.
“I’d rather be able to move,” Lyra declines, “especially if there may be running involved.”
Despite my protests, both Lyra and Horst prep for their recon in nothing more than L-As and surface gear. Corso is even reluctant to issue them the tinkered condenser/re-breathers we’d gotten from the Knights, but Horst guaranteed them on personal experience, and it would keep them from being limited by the canisters they could carry. They also take extra rations, water, a shelter and cold-weather gear, just in case. The rover-bot makes a good pack mule as well as a gun and scientific platform (luckily they left most of the original exploration tools when they put armor and weaponry over top of it all).
I’m tempted to say fuck you to Corso and go anyway. It’s not like she could stop me. But the drama would delay us getting out, getting fixed enough to roll. Then I realize my concern for my fragile friends is tempting me away from the cache of nukes I need to keep an eye on. Again.
“I’ll be fine,” Lyra reassures me as if she can sense my conflict.
“I’ll be listening in on your channel,” I reassure her.
It’s not a very dramatic farewell: They hike out at a slow crawl, carefully checking the terrain meter-by-meter, the rover sending us back a safe-map graphic through the link.
“Remember: Two klicks out!” Corso calls after them. “If we can roll by then, we’ll catch up. If not, hold. If you see any sign of activity, huff it straight back. If you lose link, huff it straight back.”
Horst gives her a thumbs-up, but doesn’t look back.
I need something constructive to do.
“You need some help with that?” I ask Simmons as he sets up to start repairs on the tracks, his welding-flash masked under a camo-painted tarp. He looks to Corso for approval, and she gives him a cautious nod.
“So… How strong are you?”
Strong enough to lift the hull a few centimeters on its suspension, putting my back up against it. It gives him the slack he needs to pull parts, swap out what he has replacements for, and set aside others to field-blacksmith.
I help him in this discreetly, laying hands on parts where he can’t see, pretending I’m just scraping out the packed-in muck and checking for damage. At one point, he gives me a suspicious eye—I think I fixed something he already knew was broken. I give him back a look of innocent confusion, and I can see him decide to let it go. He checks the parts anyway.
As we work, I look after Horst and Lyra as they slowly pace the ground heading away from us. After about seven-hundred meters, they have to start climbing over the tail end of the higher slope we tumbled down. Once they crest the top, they’re out of sight. A half-hour later, their signals start to degrade.
I take a break long enough to climb up on top of the hull, try to get a high-ground eye on them, but they’re out of sight in the shoulder-to-head-high growth. I remind myself they have a two-kilometer leash. Simmons calls me back down so he can get some of his repaired parts back in place to test their fit.
Three more hours pass. Simmons estimates we’ll be able to try rolling in less than half-an-hour, he just needs to reset the tread tension. I help him, still making small repairs of my own as I find the need. I get the suspicious eye again, but again, he lets it go, now almost conspiratorially.
By the time Simmons declares we’re good to give it a go, Horst’s signal has degraded to unintelligible chop. Smith figures if we can climb the slope ahead of us, we’ll get it back clear, so we put our work to the test. Simmons and I climb up on the roughly-hammered-back-into-shape catwalks for the ride. Scheffe throws him up some nutrient bars, and he tosses half to me.
Smith takes it slow and smooth, and we start crawling forward. The ground doesn’t try to swallow us again, but there are slippery moments that have Simmons hanging head-first over the deck to keep an eye on his tracks. I’ve got my eyes ahead, hoping to see Horst and Lyra.
With a few brief but unsettling losses of traction, we make the crest, tip over top, and find reasonable ground. But there’s no sign of Horst or Lyra, or the rover. They could be lost in the growth, but we’re not getting signal, either; no reply, not even when I try myself. I feel an icy sinking in my gut.
“I’m going after them,” I decide impulsively, jumping down off the ‘Horse.
You can’t leave the nukes.
I’m not sure if that’s my own internal thought, or Dee or Yod.
There hasn’t been a flyover in hours. There’s been no sign of activity in proximity to the vehicle.
“Take Scheffe,” Corso insists, sending her out in an H-A that Simmons quickly fits with a re-breather.
I’m about to tell her that her Specialist wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing if I had nefarious intentions, but I don’t want to waste the time arguing. If she can keep up, she can keep up.
I run.
The rover tracks are easy enough to follow. They go nearly two klicks mostly straight east. Then they stop. There’s no rover in sight. There’s no one in sight.
Scheffe impresses me by catching up as I’m scanning the ground, running in her bulky shell like a small child overdressed for winter. I find Horst and Lyra’s tracks. And more: human-sized, wrapped like Nomad boots which helps mask them. And something else: parallel grooves, about a meter-and-a-half apart. Their depth tells me it was something heavy, maybe a sledge carrying something heavy. I risk a ping on their link channels, and get it right back at close range. Ten meters further east, I find their link gear discarded in the bushes, including the one from the rover, brutally pried out. But I don’t see or smell any blood.
“Run back and tell Corso they’ve been taken. Probably not by Harvesters. We may be in someone’s territory.”
“I’m not supposed to leave you, sir,” she exasperates me.
“The tracks go that way,” I point to the crater rim, roughly in line with Liberty Colony. “So I’ll be running that way.”
“I’m not supposed to leave you, sir,” she repeats stubbornly, but I can hear the distress in her tone at the thought of further running in a full shell. The rim, assuming that’s where they’re going, is another five klicks, and then there’ll be a hell of a climb, unless there’s a pass or caves lower down.
“The tracks go that way,” I play the repeating game. “They’ve made effort to cover them, but poor effort. That tells me they want to be followed. So: Trap. And you’re a big target in that can.”
“Your all-black isn’t exactly low-viz either, sir,” she argues.
“Yes, but I can do this…” I show her how my optical camouflage mod works. She takes a reflexive step back. But then she follows my rippling silhouette as soon as I start moving east.
Fine.
“Corso, this is Ram,” I flash back. “Recon and rover have been taken. We have local company. Hold here. I’m pursuing. Will check in when I can. Out.”
“I’m with him, sir,” Scheffe backs me up. “He’s telling the truth.”
Whoever took Horst and Lyra is probably watching, I know, and probably heard that. I’m hoping they did. But that means I’m going to be using Scheffe as bait. Big, slow, awkward and inexperienced bait.
“Come on. Stay close. Stay low. Stay sharp.”
Chapter 5: The Sons of Liberty
With Scheffe limiting me despite impressive effort on her part, it takes us two hours to get to the point where the faint tracks start climbing. I can hear Scheffe sigh inside her suit, panting from her effort, sucking on her canteen line. I know she’d do better if she stripped down to L-As and a mask, I know that the shell she’s wearing probably won’t stop what they’re likely to send at her anyway, but I can’t guarantee I can block everything headed her way, especially if there’s a crossfire waiting for us.
“You sure you want to come further?” I give her a chance to take the safer move.
“I’m fine, sir,” she pants bravely.
“Well, at least you’re getting to see the planet.”
“It is very beautiful, sir.”
That gives me a smile.
We start climbing. I keep my eyes on the steeply rising jagged rim ahead of us. There are too many places for a sniper to nest up there.
“Just be ready to grab ground when I say so.”
We take the climb slower than I’d like to, but I’m trying to give Scheffe a course that follows the trail while giving her as much potential cover as possible. I scan no sign of movement, heat or signals.
After another half-hour-plus, the tracks lead us into a narrow pass. It’s barely meters-wide down in the treacherous, rocky bottom, but it looks like it may wind all the way through to the outside—I can hear and feel the beginnings of the evening winds whistling through it, pushing gently at our backs like they’re nudging us forward encouragingly (or conspiratorially).
There’s no way the ‘Horse could fit in here, much less get over the man-sized boulders in our path. I’m surprised that whoever took Horst and Lyra managed to drag the rover through here, but I can still see the telltale marks of the sledge, leaving scrapings of dried Graingrass wood on the rocks.
The use of local materials gives me hope that we’re dealing with a survivor group. Asmodeus wouldn’t bother to soil his hands with handicraft, and his bots and Harvesters probably wouldn’t be capable. My greater fear is that he’s seduced the survivor-descendants into his service, like Chang seduced the PK and Zodanga. Asmodeus would do it just to give us the hard choice of shooting at otherwise innocent humans, but that would also give him reason not to convert them, and that gets me back around to hope.
The curse of that hope is that I will need to try to avoid hurting whoever these people are, and they may or may not give me that choice.
The green thins out as we climb through the fissure, and that means Scheffe’s camo stands out brightly against the ruddy rocks. Thankfully, the deep shadows we’ve entered blunts the contrast somewhat, just not enough to keep her from looking like an ornate bug crawling clumsily over the jumble of boulders, scrambling and slipping as I leap much more gracefully from rock to rock, doing it in spurts so that the rippling effect of my cloak is harder to track. Several times, Scheffe herself loses sight of me and freezes apprehensively, until I risk disturbing some pebbles to show her where I am.
They let us get about a hundred and fifty meters into the fissure before they spring their trap. At that point, there would be no running, not without exposing our backs as we scrambled our retreat.
There are two shooters, one on either side of fissure, up high in the cliffs about thirty meters above us, staggered so that the one on our left is about twenty meters closer than the one on our right, forty and sixty meters up-canyon, respectively.
I have to jump to get in the way of the incoming rounds. I suspect our ambushers get quite a start when they see their rounds impact and shatter against something unseen, which almost makes the sting of the hits against my chest and forearm armor worthwhile.
I shout for Scheffe to get down. Her instinct was to hunker and try to get her rifle on target—but I tell her to get all the way behind the rocks if she can. Then I deal with the dual threat.
Not wanting to kill, I fire an explosive round over the head of the farther shooter, bursting it against the rock eaves of his shallow cave nest, hoping to disable or discourage with the shrapnel. Then I fly, leaping up the left slope, slinging myself on whatever handholds and footholds I can find (almost slipping and falling all the way down twice) until I propel myself into his larger nest. In the meantime, he’s sent three more rounds down at Scheffe, and on the third, I hear her scream.
He jumps back at the shimmering semi-visible whatever suddenly flying at him, and tries to raise his rifle. He’s dressed in a collection of dirty and patched colony rags, a scarf pulled across his mask and goggles. Not wanting to shoot him, I twist out of the way of the nearly point-blank shot, scoop up a handy egg-sized rock, and try to bounce it carefully off of his forehead. Unfortunately, I miscalculate between momentum and adrenalin, and hear the sickening crunch of his skull giving way. His head whips back and he flops over like a ragdoll.
Not the first impression I was hoping for.
I check the body: He’s alive, breathing raggedly in his mask, but I doubt for long without serious medical attention. His eyes are already glazed and unequal.
He smells about as ripe as he looks. The skin of his face is so filthy and capillary-ruptured that I can’t tell ethnicity. He looks well-fed, but muscle-wasted from living all his life in Martian gravity without centrifuges or supp
lements. The only identifying marking on him is a well-worn and faded American flag patch on the right shoulder. His rifle is old UNMAC issue.
Scheffe is shouting for me, shouting for help, back down in the crevice, in the panic that comes with bad injury. I can see her flailing behind her boulder cover, but can’t tell how badly she’s hurt. The other sniper is struggling to get reset, to aim his rifle at me (or in my general direction, as I’m still not providing a good visual target). His probably-ruined goggles pulled aside, his dirty face is running bright with blood.
I’m thinking about how I can disable without killing from here when he gets shot through the left clavicle from somewhere higher above on my side of the fissure. It’s messy enough to spray his nest with gore, and puts him down.
I feel them coming: motion down the cliff-side above me, before three bodies wearing cloaks and plate armor rappel down into the nest. Two level ICWs in my general direction while the third checks the wounded man, kicking his rifle away from him as if he still might be a threat, then stripping him of a handgun, a pair of knives and a climber’s pickaxe.
I recognize the general style of the home-forged armor and swords they carry, but not exactly. And their cloaks and cowls are a mix of greens and browns and ochres, not the rusts of their Melas brethren.
“You’re Knights,” I greet them, making myself visible. My appearance doesn’t seem to startle them as much as it should. “New Knights. I know your Order of Avalon.” I slowly put away my pistol, show them empty hands.
“Shoot him,” I hear an order from above. “Just once.” But it sounds more casual than a kill order should. One of the armored warriors obeys, firing just one round from his ICW, which I decide to dodge.
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 28
