“Well, I told Roland that we got the rover working and used it to finish the work,” she said.
“What did he say?”
“That he would pass the information onto the others and then he asked how we got it working again.” She leaned up against the door frame. This time it was she who looked at Frank, from bottom to top. She studied his physique as his gaze still wandered elsewhere.
“You told him we cleaned the solar panels and the internals?” Frank inquired, meeting her gaze for a brief moment as she pretended to not have been checking him out.
“That’s right,” she said quickly. “Well, I better get to bed, I’m very sore.”
Frank gave her a nod goodbye.
After Mia departed, Frank took a well-deserved combat shower. His abdomen wound had taken a step back during the last mission and the hot shower felt good on his skin, with some burning. He spent the thirty seconds scraping and scrubbing dead skin cells. A bad case of heat rash had begun to take form all over his body and it concerned him a bit.
A great urge to sleep interrupted any thoughts of continuing on for the day and Frank crawled out the shower, leaving behind his prosthetics. Screw it, he thought and crawled on his hands to the bed.
As his head hit the pillow, he couldn’t help but think of Mia and her slim, fit figure and mesmerizing eyes. It didn’t take long, however, as sleep found him fast and another long day came to a close at Ōme Station.
Chapter 19
0236 hours, Sol 14
Ōme Station, Lyot Crater
Earth Date: May 18, 2045
Blinding white light engulfed him through his berm-covered position. Even with eyes shut he could see the bones in his hand, like an x-ray image. There was nowhere to hide from this bright light, this hell. Before thoughts or words, a great wave of destructive force swept over the defensive fighting position, obliterating sandbags and wood with ease, burying the young Marine in dirt.
Alarms blared and red emergency lights swirled throughout the corridors and living areas at Ōme. Frank awoke out of his dream in a sweaty fright. He lurched out of bed and fell onto hard titanium. A sharp edge on the prosthetic sliced surface skin, causing capillary blood to pool inside his flight suit.
He applied direct pressure and withered around in a flux of pain. Gathering his wits he hailed someone, anyone on the station’s intercom, but received no response. Frank peered outside his door into the main corridor—nothing, no one but emergency sirens blaring in his ears and demented red lights.
“Anyone?! Roland?!” he shouted into the eerie hallway, his voice drowned out by the incessant noise. It was maddening.
“Amirah!” he shouted, but it was no use. Instead, he hailed the AI through his comm-link's text function.
Frank: Amirah, turn off the emergency warning system. What is the emergency? Where is everyone? How acknowledge?
Amirah: Don't let him get away.
Frank: Who's getting away Amirah?
Frank left the confines and safety of his room, his trusty 1911 pistol holstered at the hip. The red lights contrasted beautifully against the gun’s steel frame, an engraved 1st battalion, 5th Marines insignia displayed above an etched date of “5 Apr 05”. He did not know what to expect ahead but kept trying to reach Amirah.
Frank: Shut off emergency warning system.
Amirah: Stop him
Standing inside the corridor’s main entry way, Frank silhouetted himself against the flashing lights, creating a fatal funnel. He peered inside the atrium, squinting to try and make out a shadowy figure amongst the chaos. Standing in the center of the dome, a human-like figure stood ominously, swaying back and forth.
Frank got a sick feeling inside his gut out of pure terror. Lying at the feet of the mysterious entity, a body or corpse—Frank was not sure. He raised his pistol from a low ready position and took careful aim. His fear-induced adrenaline caused him to shiver and his teeth to chatter as the gun shook in his hand. The hairs on his neck and arms raised like a magnetic reaction. Goosebumps formed all over his body and tightened his skin until it was almost painful.
The figure swung around and looked at Frank. He couldn't make out if it was a human or something else. Its eyes reflected the visible light of the atrium, causing a devilish glow. The eyeshine sent Frank spiraling into a fight-or-flight response. He fired three shots, two to the chest area and one to the head. Two chest shots hit their mark while the lone head shot's trajectory suddenly changed or was deflected. The forty-five caliber bullet struck the side of the dome and began venting atmosphere with a loud, audible pop.
Frank took his eyes off the target for the slightest moment, and the shadow bolted towards the main airlock and vanished into nothing. Frank ran to the corpse-like object on the ground. It was a lifeless body. He gently cradled a woman’s head, identifying severe burns on the neck and skull. He turned the head towards himself and was shocked to see the face of Keiko.
She was bloodied and apparently lifeless with eyes wide open, staring back at him. Her tongue hung limp and her skin felt cold.
“Frank! Frank!” a woman's voice shouted from across the atrium. Red lights still enveloped the area.
Peering into the seizure-inducing lights, Frank saw another shadowy figure. This time he could make out her voice, but just barely. It was Mia. She ran towards him, still shouting. “Frank! Frank!”
Frank looked down at Keiko. something isn't right here, he thought. In that instant Keiko came back alive, her eyes black as a doll’s. She shrieked with an ungodly scream and lunged towards Frank with terrifying speed. She slammed into him and he woke from his night terror with a pathetic cry for help.
Standing over him, hovering, was Mia. She grabbed onto Frank and calmed him down as he came back to reality, drenched in sweat. “It's ok, Frank,” she said. It was still dark outside and in the early morning hours of sol 14. “You had a nightmare.”
“Why did you come over here?” Frank asked, somewhat bewildered.
“You slept right through the alarms. We had a power failure or something,” Mia said.
Frank stared at the wall, trying to catch his breath from the all the excitement. “Really?” he panted.
“Yes. Luckily Amirah handled the issue. Something to do with the reactor,” she said. “Scary to think about. What if Alexei isn't here and the reactor has a meltdown? Where the hell would we go?” Mia cringed at the thought, her body quivered.
“Are you cold?” Frank asked. Mia ignored the question and gave him some reassuring words before departing. Frank lay his head back down on the soaked pillow and grudgingly closed his eyes. He tossed and turned for hours as sleep never came.
•••
In the morning, the astronauts left at Ōme went about their assigned duties. Every day, a series of chores and tasks had to be completed to keep the station running. Frank's job was to maintain the four adjoining domes and their various modules. He began his day with a cup of coffee and developed a stringent checklist that included a thorough walk-through of the grounds. Frank drank more coffee than he did water as the coffee was a ready mix that required no additional preparation and little water.
The dayroom was where Frank spent most of his time. It reminded him of his old aviation squadron and the lounge area that connected to the main hanger. The only difference was the bar area. He remembered the custom bar a fellow pilot carved from decay-resistant cedar. He missed wood, especially the smell of cedar and pine. Frank sighed as he reminisced of old times, of better times.
”Bloop, bloop,” went the sound of a tiny, radio controlled rover nearing the dayroom from the hallway. The quintessential sound of a rover at Ōme, it preceded their arrival into new rooms and locations. Different bloops meant different things and Frank was still trying to decipher what those were.
Peering out the dayroom window, Frank wondered what lay beyond the crater’s mountains, what lay at the lowest depths of Lyot Crater. Fourteen sols and they had not yet done what they came to Mars to do, mi
ne. It frustrated him and he stared longingly through clear glass, across the vast sea of red-tinged sand.
His concentration was interrupted, however, as the sight of a large airship came over the mountains. Frank stood and walked towards the window. He took out his viewfinder and put it on maximum zoom. The Goza was accelerating on all four boosters, a lot faster than he remembered.
“Amirah,” Frank said calmly.
“Yes, Frank?” she replied.
“Notify the captain, Goza has returned,” he said, lowering the viewfinder to his abdomen. Frank winced as the small pain that had been brewing in his core was now coming to a head.
Ōme’s main airlock opened with an exhalation of oxygen-rich air. It sputtered visible white ribbons of compressed air that were lost forever to the Martian atmosphere.
Two astronauts trotted out from the airlock and towards the incoming Goza airship. The crane-equipped rover, which had previously held onto the airship, was still in place right where they had left it before. Aptly nicknamed “the boom stick”, the rover’s extended crane secured Goza once again.
Frank helped Alexei and Keiko depart the flimsy rope ladder with their equipment in tow. He greeted them and to his surprise received no response from Keiko. She acted timid and distant as she made her way to Ōme Station, her bag strapped around her body like a satchel. She walked right past, not acknowledging anyone. Her arms crossed and head held low.
“What’s wrong, Keiko?” Frank inquired, but only silence replied back. He looked on with concern as she disappeared into the airlock. Thick bay doors shut behind her in a vertical motion.
Roland ran out to greet them with excitement, passing Keiko on the way. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Good, good. We doubled our efforts and placed forty kilometers of pipe,” Alexei bragged triumphantly in Frank’s direction. “We could have done more, but our oxygen supply was getting low.”
Frank looked towards Mia with a puzzled face. She only saw the blank stare of his darkened visor. “Excellent news!” Roland exclaimed.
“Where did you get extra pipe?” Mia interjected.
“On site, all of it. We started at the crater rim first and located the bundles of pipe that had been left behind there,” he said.
“Where?! We didn’t see any bundles of material anywhere,” she asked, puzzled.
“You should have checked public records on the share drive. It’s there for anyone to see. Gotta put in the extra effort, Mia,” Alexei taunted, giving Roland a belated handshake.
“Regardless, we’re happy you returned safely, and without incident,” Roland said. “Renee and I will depart in the morning to finish the mission. In the mean time, lets get inside and eat. Renee has prepared us our first hot, home cooked dinner . . . to celebrate.”
As the group made their way back to the dome, Frank questioned Alexei about Keiko.
“Yeah, I have no idea whats wrong with her,” Alexei replied simply. He continued to chat with Roland as Frank fumed in secret. Something happened, he thought. Alexei did something to her.
That night the crew of the Yamada feasted for the first time. A bottle of fine wine and grape juice was served, as well as pork chops, potatoes, and sweet corn. They ate, laughed, and told stories around the table. The dayroom filled with chatter as they shared the same view of ominous darkness that seemed to loom just outside the windows.
After dinner, each crew member was allowed time to send personal video transmissions back to Earth. The station was equipped with two modes of interplanetary communication. A triad of parabolic antennas provided microwave communications between Mars orbiters and Earth. However, these were secondary and tertiary systems as laser communications had replaced radio frequency.
A single optical transceiver sat perched atop the highest spire on the largest dome. It was small and compact compared to the massive microwave dishes. Its housing was cubical with a collimated neodymium laser behind tantalum glass. The device oscillated back and forth as it calibrated, eventually finding its parent orbiter.
The orbiter acted as a stepping stone for the photonic data as it raced across space to the nearest relay satellite. Each satellite expanded the weaker beam of light, giving it a powerful boost to the next beam expander. Once on Earth, the data could be processed and sent back, resulting in the first interplanetary internet, called simply Mars Internet.
A spot adjacent to the control room had to be dedicated for server space. These servers acted as the station’s protocol stack, receiving and sending data packets from Earth. Because of the delay in long distance communications, each server cached its data, giving the illusion of high speed internet. In practice, however, no amount of technology could hide the fact that it still took forty to eighty minutes to send complex information between the two planets.
Frank diverted from the group as they all poured into the control room together. He had no one to send a message to and it didn’t really bother him either. He opted instead to spend the night in prayer and meditation.
As the door shut behind him he could still hear the sounds of laughter, of voices ringing through the hallway. It made him happy and a little envious, but it still concerned him that Keiko was acting unusual. Usually inadvertently the center of attention, she remained quiet and reserved for most of the evening. Mars can be hard on people. Even the most minute situation can be blown out of proportion, he thought. Isolation affects everyone differently.
Many more sols went by before the final ten kilometers of water pipe were completed. Breakdowns and malfunctioning equipment had kept Goza grounded and in need of repair. It wasn’t until sol 20 that the pump house finally went online.
Members of the crew surrounded Alexei as he turned on the main breaker for the water pump. It took several hours before driblets of water appeared out of the pump’s faucet. Roland filled a green plastic cup until full and took a small taste, smacking his lips and savoring the flavor.
“We got water,” he said with a big smile. “The others joined in, filling their cups with water. In a circle, amongst pipes and loud motors, they chugged the icy cold water together.
“It tastes like gold,” Renee said.
“Martian glacier water,” said someone else.
“Brain freeze!” Frank cried as he pound his head with his fist.
“Be careful, this water is only a few degrees from being frozen,” Roland scolded. Water covered his shirt in a giant, dark, wet circle.
Plastic cups clunked and clanked together as a toast was made. “Now, we conquer Mars!” Roland declared. The room erupted in ecstatic applause.
Chapter 20
0856 hours, Sol 21
Ōme Station, Lyot Crater
Earth Date: May 24, 2045
Mia unraveled another laminated map onto the flimsy plastic table inside the mission planning room. An empty living quarters unit was converted into a mission planning room after the control room became too cramped with electronics to adequately stand in as a group.
The map, a topographical contour of Ismenius Lacus Quadrangle, was littered with possible exploration points and notes, represented in red ink. “I think we should begin our survey in Deuteronilus Mensae and work our way to Protonilus. The fretted terrain in the area is particularly interesting, especially this location here.” Mia pointed to a massive elevated fossae. “Ismeniae Fossae, possibly volcanic in origin, and it’s relatively nearby,” she argued.
Small bits and flakes of silicates swarmed outside the window of the room as wind speed picked up outside. It had been a quiet summer so far with clear skies and faint ice clouds dominating weather patterns. Wind speeds were low and hardly noticed by the crew.
Roland covered his mouth with his large, manly hand, tapping his lower lip with two fingers as he contemplated. “I like this plan, I really do, but I believe we should start closer to Ōme and explore Lyot Crater in detail first before venturing out,” Roland expressed. Keiko and the others silently agreed with Roland’s assessment. “Ca
n you formulate a plan for exploring Lyot?” he asked.
“I already have, sir. If I may?” she pressed. “We can explore Lyot Crater any time we want, it’s mid-summer. We should take advantage of the season and venture further, because once autumn and winter come we won’t be going far. Our equipment is still new and our supplies are fresh,” Mia asserted. “Save Lyot for when we can’t see five feet from our faces, you know?” The others nodded favorably, this time agreeing with Mia’s assessment. Roland stood in silent contemplation for several seconds as others yawned or rubbed their eyes.
“Let’s, uh . . .” Roland paused. “Let’s put it too a vote then.”
“Why vote?! Just make a decision!” Mia lashed out, annoyed at the perceived weakness in leadership.
“Do we have to vote? I don’t like either option,” Alexei said mockingly. Keiko let out a tiny chuckle. She covered her mouth to stop from laughing more, her face turning pink. Frank’s senses spiked by Keiko’s unusual reaction and subsequently studied her. He noticed small cuts on her hands, particularly around the knuckles and forearms. Almost like cat scratches.
“No, we vote,” Roland repeated sternly to the group. Mia seated herself and cast the first vote. “Fine, you all know where I stand.”
The others cast their votes and the Lyot plan won by a three to two margin, with Alexei abstaining in favor of a third option: building up the settlement more.
“Lyot Crater it is. Mia, have your strategy for exploring Lyot Crater ready by tonight. Five of us will go. I need one person to stay behind,” Roland ordered.
Keiko raised her hand to volunteer. “I can stay back and resow crops,” she offered. Renee also raised her hand and spoke out. “Let me stay with her. I’ll be more help here than I will out there. Plus we’re far behind on food production.” Roland protested but Renee insisted.
“Captain, please report to the control room,” Amirah’s voice echoed. “Captain, please report to the control room.”
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