Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  The two vehicles closed quickly on one another as the colony watched things unfolding in abject horror. Brinker and the oncoming vehicle were obviously engaged in a game of interplanetary chicken. Neither craft appeared to be backing down. If they collided, even in a side-swipe, Brinker would die instantly. But a second or two before one craft would have had to turn, the Soviet vehicle slid to a sudden stop. Brinker’s MAT also braked as they faced one another head-on in the frozen Martian desert.

  For long minutes they faced one another, unmoving. No one in the colony spoke – or breathed. Finally, Brinker’s MAT slowly pulled alongside the Soviet vehicle, their sides nearly touching.

  “Let us both back into the Hangar,” Brinker commanded over his radio. “And hurry up!”

  Brinker’s MAT circled the Soviet SAR vehicle, then turned to lead the way back to the MAT airlock hangar.

  “Brinker, what do you have?” Peter asked.

  “Wait and see for yourself,” Brinker replied. “Just have plenty of manpower waiting. I want my Marines there, first in line. And I’m gonna need a medical team, stat!”

  Brinker entered the hanger first followed by the oddly shaped Soviet vehicle. Just as the SAR entered, the door swung slowly shut as the technician re-pressurized the hangar.

  Peter, Ashley, Bob and the rest of the colony’s leadership were just behind two Marines, armed to the teeth, waiting as the airlock pressurized. As usual, the pressurization process caused a certain amount of dust and fog to obscure the view, further heightening the tension while they waited. But, eventually the access light blinked green.

  The Marines popped the hanger’s access door opened and stood with weapons raised on both sides of the Soviet vehicle. Brinker’s hatch raised and he stepped out of his MAT, cigar in his mouth.

  “Open it up, Covenant,” he ordered, tapping on the hatch door with his knuckles.

  The SAR hatch released and Julian Covenant looked out at Brinker with his typically confident sneer. “No need for the weapons, Marine, I can assure you.”

  “I’ll make that decision. Now get out and I want to see your hands up and open,” Brinker snarled. “Take this man into custody,” he ordered his men. Covenant looked agitated, but complying fully, stepped out of the vehicle with his hands up and spread.

  While everyone else was occupied with the sight of Covenant, Bob Kerry gasped, “Oh, my dear God!” and ran toward the vehicle. He yanked the opposite side hatch open and there, in the other seat, lay two unconscious forms; one of them Suzanne.

  He grasped her face gently in his hands to see if she were still breathing. As he did so, she opened her eyes and smiled weakly. “Trust him….” she said softly as she drifted back into unconsciousness once more, her fingers tugging weakly against his arms.

  36

  ob Kerry personally rescued Julian Covenant from Brinker’s grasp as the medical technicians unwound Suzanne and Fyodor Stepanovich Kirov’s intertwined and broken bodies from the front of the Soviet SAR. Suzanne had been beaten and her limbs showed signs of advanced frostbite. But Kirov was in a much worse state – a deep coma, half frozen and battered nearly to death. Covenant did not show even a scratch.

  Covenant convinced Peter that he required an immediate but private conference with him in a room whose security was guaranteed. He also demanded that only Peter and Francis be in attendance. On the urging of Bob Kerry alone, Peter agreed to the private conference but also heeded the insistent warnings of Brinker not to trust him or anything he said.

  Peter, Francis and Covenant met behind closed doors.

  Peter started the meeting out bluntly. “Let me start this by saying, up front, that I don’t trust you Covenant.”

  Unfazed, Covenant replied, “This colony has but a few sols to prepare for war. They Soviets should have left Shturmovoi already, hell bent on destroying you.”

  “How do you know this?” Peter asked, still untrusting.

  “Have you ever heard of Hernando Cortez?” Covenant asked.

  “The Spanish conquistador?” Peter asked neutrally.

  “Yes,” Covenant replied. “One and the same. You see, he left Spain bent on conquest of the New World. His idea of conquest included mostly booty – the gold of the Central American Aztecs. But he left Spain for one thing – utter and total conquest. Gold was his reward, but his goal was the annihilation of a whole civilization. In short, he wanted the resources and he did not care about anything else; it was all trivial to him, especially resistance, or peace or mercy. The interesting thing about Cortez was that he was very anal, very single minded, very directed, and very goal oriented.”

  “Why do we have to suffer through this history lesson, Covenant?” Francis snarled.

  Covenant ignored him as though he were not even in the room. “When Cortez arrived in the new world, he unloaded his ships, his army and his animals, and then burned the ships in the harbor, not even leaving himself an avenue of escape. They were to conquer or die, and there was no other option, not even for himself.”

  “And your point is?” Francis asked with premeditated insolence.

  “You’re about to witness the madness of Cortez repeated on this planet. You see, my friend, the SARs fully loaded with people as they are, well, they’re only capable of a one-way trip. Once they arrive, they will be critically low on life support and they’ll have no way back. Their mission here is to kill all of you, leave no one alive, and finish the Martian winter in your quarters, breathing your air and feeding off your consumables. They know that all of them and all of you cannot possibly survive what’s to come. If any of us are left alive, it’ll be as expendable slaves, nothing more.”

  “How do you know this?” Francis asked, fully skeptical, looking toward Peter. “I, frankly, don’t trust you, Covenant, any more than he does.”

  “Well, obviously, I just came from there and witnessed it with my own eyes,” Covenant replied, looking to Peter. “You know, my ex-mother-in-law never trusted me either. So you’re in relatively good company.”

  Peter took the cue and stood between them. “Francis, we need to back off a little here,” he said bluntly. “Logic seems to be on his side. He appears to have saved two lives and has a good story so far. We need to cut him some slack and let him talk.”

  Then Peter looked squarely at Covenant as he walked a slow circle around him. “I‘m not saying that I actually trust you, Covenant, but I’m dying to hear the rest of the story – all of it.”

  “Very well,” Covenant replied, nodding his head and looking down at his feet. “And so you shall. I am a British agent, who was requested for assignment to this base by the late Lassiter Lipton.”

  “A British Agent?” Peter asked with all incredulosity, laughing aloud. “Why would Lipton assign a British ...”

  “Because he knew you were infiltrated with RSE Agents – at least one and perhaps two.”

  “And why would it matter, Covenant? Who would give a tinker’s damn if there were a spy here? Everything we do, everything we think, is published in international journals! We’ve no secrets here worth hiding! And why a British Agent? What about the CIA or the FBI? Don’t we have plenty of our own spies to go around?”

  Covenant replied slowly. “I realize this is very difficult to explain in such a brief time, but please allow me to continue.”

  “Peter, I want to hear this,” Francis responded, now surprisingly taking the position of the cooler head between them.

  “I have credible scientific credentials, which would have hidden my identity better than one of your own agents. Furthermore, I’ve been an operative in the specific area of RSE intelligence for most of my career, which also made me the best choice. And finally, Lassiter Lipton was informed that the Soviets had seriously developed plans for sabotage of our efforts here at BC1. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Lipton has a famous British heritage.”

  “Why? Why would they want to harm or even interfere with our effort here?” Peter asked with an amazed look on his face.

/>   “We didn’t know. But we felt like it was worth the effort to understand the situation and be in a position to block their efforts if it were true. Furthermore, we had no idea if BC1 had been infiltrated for purposes of sabotage and, if so, who it would be. It was my job to find these things out before it was too late. As a MI5 agent, I’m trained to accomplish these tasks.”

  “If that’s so, then why didn’t you tell me when I was elected leader of this colony?” Peter asked angrily. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know this subterfuge was occurring right under my nose? If Lipton knew, then why was I left out?”

  “Frankly, Peter, you’ve always been one of our suspects.” Covenant replied bluntly. “And after the death of Lipton and the rather extraordinary change of command around here, you actually moved up on the list.”

  “Oh yeah, and who would the rest of ‘our’ be?” Peter replied instantly, facing Covenant. “Who else around here works for your little undercover spy-versus-spy team?”

  Covenant stared back coldly. “’Our’ is merely a reference to MI5 headquarters.”

  “Liar,” Peter snapped. “You’re a cold blooded liar, and probably a murderer; and even more probably, you just moved up on my list of chief suspects as a double agent for the Soviets.”

  Covenant smiled. “Touché. Well done,” he replied softly. “Your point is well taken and understood. I fully recognize your sovereignty here, Peter and even if I don’t agree with how it was achieved, I would be a fool to disregard it, and I shall not. Understand that it is difficult to lose contact with base and not have any other recourse left except continuous self motivation based on endlessly shifting realities.”

  “Continue,” Peter responded neutrally.

  “My primary task here has always been to ferret out the infiltrator, or infiltrators. That’s the sole reason for my being here. When Lassiter died and there was no more connection with base, I began to work alone on the case, and it was obviously becoming more urgent. I noticed that as the community now operated in a completely open mode, where there were no secrets, my job became infinitely more difficult. The Soviet agent was obviously capable of freely sharing everything with Shturmovoi and no one would be the wiser. You see, they’ve had a briefing transmitted from here to them each sol since this base opened, including every sol since the crisis began.”

  “How do you know this?” Francis asked.

  “I have intercepted three of them in code. But the agent is brilliant and continuously changes his mode of operations. And I haven’t been able to decipher the messages.”

  “Then how do you know what they are; that they’re secret messages sent to the Soviets?” Peter pressed.

  “Because they are precise and directional; aimed in each case directly toward Shturmovoi.”

  “Why didn’t you share this with Gorteau? He would’ve been able to decipher them for sure!” Peter asked, exasperated.

  Covenant stared back at him in silence. The unspoken answer was obvious; Gorteau was also a suspect.

  “Go on,” Peter said in disgust.

  “At first, my strategy was to take on the role of a traitor to your little government, to try and draw the agent to me and make a contact. That failed miserably. The next attempt to identify him – or her - was to plant a dummy virus in the computer system to see if the agent would be curious and try and activate it himself. I had it all wired to determine exactly who it was. The virus was a clever fake, of course, and would never have damaged your systems, but it certainly would have found my suspect. Unfortunately, that did not work either. I realized at that point that you had compartmentalized the information and he either did not know about it or the infiltrator was one of your inside people. Finally, I knew that I would have to go to the Soviets and find out directly, one way or another. I knew that time was running out.”

  “And how did you manage to make the trip across 2065 kilometers of desert to Shturmovoi?” Peter asked, astonished.

  “Easy. I just called and ask for a pickup, and they obliged. You see, I put it to them in a way that they couldn’t refuse. After my request, their local plant advised them I was for real since I had made such a jerk out of myself around here, and I now wanted to sell you out. So they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by a pickup. They sent a SAR with one driver, and had supplies cached along the route, for a round trip. It was very easy. All I had to do was stage a walk-out and hoof it to hide behind the nearest big rock over yonder hill until they arrived.”

  “I thought you said they couldn’t make a round trip.” Francis noted.

  “The SARS are very capable vehicles. It all depends on how they’re rigged. This particular rigging could not have been made with two people; but only a single passenger one way and two the other made it possible.”

  “Then why did they want or need Suzanne? And why did they demand she meet them halfway?” Peter demanded.

  “Because they didn’t trust me and they needed verification of my story before they could proceed with their invasion plans. Their whole idea was to bring an American in and torture them until they spilled the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. They understood that you never even dreamed they were nuts enough to start a war and thought they could glean enough information out of an unwitting witness to stage their war plans properly. As far as the SARs capabilities, they lied to you, plain and simple. Furthermore, they needed a real live MAT to see if you had lied to them about its capabilities. After all, it would be rather embarrassing to pass each other in the desert on the way to conquer one another, now wouldn’t it?”

  “But why didn’t they just ask their spy – why did they need a live body?” Peter pressed.

  “In the world of intelligence, one never trusts any single source. You see, if they had three separate data sources – their plant, me and Suzanne - they would have a three point fix on the truth and proceed with certainty. Basically, they’re so deviant, they expect everyone else to be the same and they don’t trust anybody, period. It’s always been a sad reality that in the wide, wide world of spies, everyone is suspected of lying to everyone else, because they usually are.”

  “Then why didn’t they torture you?” Peter asked, still full of suspicion.

  “They were always uncertain as to whether I was for real or not. If you take on a willing defector, treating them nicely gains far, far more useful ground than torturing them.”

  “He’s right, of course,” Francis added, then looked to Covenant. “I believe you; go on.”

  “They kept almost everything away from me while I was there. But they did not know that I understand Russian fluently even though I speak it very badly. I was able to glean enough random bits and pieces to verify they were planning action against BC1 and that they were expecting a visitor.”

  “I was standing on the airlock dock when Suzanne arrived, half frozen and unconscious. She had apparently crashed her MAT before the rendezvous point and was actually walking toward the pickup when the Soviet SAR saw her and snagged her at the very last moment. She was down to her last breaths of oxygen and her CO2 filter had all but burnt out. They actually saved her life and brought her in. Later that sol she regained consciousness but found herself in more of a torture chamber than a hospital. Fortunately for her, she was so weak that it took only a relatively light beating before she slipped under.”

  “And what were you doing while all this was going on?” Peter demanded.

  “Planning the escape, of course. I knew I would have only one shot.”

  “I’m dying to hear the rest of the story,” Francis said without betraying whether he was being sarcastic or not.

  “The escape was actually fantastically easy,” Covenant began. “The security structure there was never designed to keep people in. So it was a simple matter of poking a hole in the walls of the infirmary and the SAR hangar and letting the computers sense the pressure loss. Their system then began to seal off the infirmary and the route between by automatically closing doors. But I had we
dged the doors leading out of the infirmary to the SAR airlock. The drop in pressure between these points kept anyone from being able to enter anywhere in between.

  “As pure fate would have it, they moved Kirov into the same room as Suzanne on the sol of the escape. It seems they were keeping him barely alive so they could continue to torture him for whatever weird reasons they had. So once the alarms began going off, I taped fire escape bags over their heads so they wouldn’t suffocate as the air pressure dropped and dragged them both out to the SAR hangar. I then stuffed them into the SAR closest to the door and blew the outer door open with a packet of explosives to let myself out quickly. They had already rigged the unit I selected to make the trip to BC1, so it was a relatively simple matter of snag and drag.”

  “So why didn’t they come after you?” Peter asked.

  “Easy. I slashed all their tires and as many of their hydraulic lines as I dared before leaving in a bit of a rush!” Covenant replied with a visible smirk.

  Peter looked disappointed. “Do you mind explaining how you slashed the tires of the most puncture and tear resistant material known to man?” he asked in reference to the material of all tires used in Martian exploration. “Don’t you think that story is just a little hard to believe? Doesn’t the slashing tires part of your story make the rest of it very doubtful? Isn’t it impossible, in fact, to slash over 40 tires in just a few minutes?”

  “Not with one of these,” Covenant replied confidently, pulling what appeared to be an ink pen from his pocket. With a twist, a bright red beam appeared and Covenant sliced a 4 inch thick glass paperweight in half with the sweep of his wrist.

  For the first time in his memory, Peter smiled at Covenant.

  “Only one more question, Julian.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How do you know they’re just getting started on their invasion?”

  “Just a matter of guesswork on my part, actually,” he replied. “Two sols to fix the airlock door and regain access to the SAR fleet. Another two to fix and change the tires and hoses; and one more to finish their attack preparations at an accelerated rate. I left them six sols ago which means they probably left yesterday morning at first light. I could be wrong, of course, but I can assure you that there’s someone here in this colony who knows for sure. We just need to find out exactly who it is before more damage is done and they find out what we’re up to. If we can find their mole, then our chances improve considerably. If we cannot, then we may not survive beyond another week.”