Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  Then Peter spoke as Brinker nodded, “Colonel Dimitriov, I will now walk toward you from the other passageway. Please do not be alarmed. I want to talk to you face to face about surrender and working out our differences.”

  With this, Peter rounded the corner slowly, as Dimitriov pointed her shotgun at his midsection, not more than six meters away. He looked at Dimitriov and her guard by the door, who was also turned away from Hiraldo to face Peter.

  “And I wish to speak to you about the Rat.”

  This was the code for Hiraldo to kill the guard. She instantly withdrew her handgun and shot him at point blank range through the side of his lungs. He did not see it coming.

  Dimitriov fired her weapon at Peter, who had begun his dive toward her ankles the moment Hiraldo fired. It was a desperate move as the shotgun pellets missed his helmet and suit by scant millimeters. Just as she was backing away and ratcheting another round into the chamber, Hiraldo slugged Dimitriov’s chest with her balled fist, throwing all her strength into the punch. The blow was so powerful that it broke Hiraldo’s two outside fingers and three of Dimrtriov’s ribs with a crack. Dimitriov fell to the floor just as Peter landed on top of her, his body pinning the shotgun between the two of them onto the floor.

  Brinker was less than a second behind them as he gripped the shotgun’s base and yanked it safely from between them and away from Dimitriov’s clutching fingers. Peter immediately rolled from atop Dimitriov, but not before he could see that her breath had been knocked from her and she was wild-eyed and gasping for air. Instinctively, from long years of training, Peter reached over her shoulder and turned her oxygen regulator valve to 100% flow, the proper treatment for a suit-bound injury involving the lungs until first aid could be summoned.

  Francis noticed the move as he approached and asked, “You planning for a trial?”

  “Of course. She’ll stand trial along with any survivors,” he replied, turning to look back at her.

  “You Americans are such sentimental fools,” she gasped at him through her visor. “Did you really think victory was available to you at such a small cost?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Dimitriov,” Peter replied, “but your spy is dead and his virus has been disabled. At least one of your men has surrendered and given us the rest of the information we need. And, as you probably already know, Shturmovoi is not exactly putting out the welcome mat for your return engagement. So the only one who will be paying the cost appears to be you. And as far as your scientist, Dr. Kirov, is concerned, he’s alive and well and asked me to pass just a single message along to you – checkmate!”

  Her face contorted in rage as she whipped out a hidden knife from her pouch and thrust it toward Peter. He blocked it with his right hand as he withdrew his taser with his left hand and shoved it toward her. Dimitriov grabbed it with her other hand as Peter slowly lowered it steadily closer to her, its arcing 10 centimeter bolts of electrical power reaching toward her suit. Her lithe frame was no match for Peter’s superior strength and soon the bright blue spark touched her helmet.

  It was Peter’s desire to simply disable her. But he had forgotten that her suit was now purged with 100% oxygen. The rest happened far too quickly for anyone to be able to react or do anything to save Dimitriov; even Peter, who stared down at her just inches away from her helmet visor.

  Her hair caught on fire first. It flared and glowed red, then yellow, then a brilliant white. The skin on her face actually began to burn; first as tiny flamelets exploding through her nose, then as a white hot sheet that covered her head and neck. As she opened her mouth to scream, Dimitriov inhaled a sheet of flame that disappeared down her throat in a twisting, brilliant vortex of deadly fire.

  Peter instinctively pushed himself away from the hideous spectacle just as her suit ballooned, then a tongue of flame peeled away from her chest and leapt toward the ceiling before being extinguished by the near vacuum of the passageway.

  “Now that’s what I call a terminal case of heartburn,” came the stoic voice of Hiraldo through the communicators.

  Brinker, who had been staring at the incredible sight of the exploding Dimitriov, looked up and over to Hiraldo. He burst into wild laughter, walked over to Hiraldo and slapped her upraised palm with his. “Hiraldo, you are one bad-ass Marine, you know that?” he said with glee.

  “Jack, I need a status report,” Peter said quickly.

  “I’ve been watching you and everybody else, Peter. The war appears to be over. Three of the enemy have surrendered; all the rest of them are dead.”

  “What about our people?” Peter asked.

  The circuit fell silent for a long moment.

  “Jack, I need to know about our people.”

  “Six are missing from Dome 6 and presumed dead and three were killed in combat outside. Both Safe rooms are holding. Everyone else is online with me now.”

  “Brinker, take the prisoners into custody and hold them at the Spaceport. I don’t want them anywhere near here until we can work this out. I don’t want another spy in our group, at any cost. Jack, pull together a damage report after we release the rest of the colony from the Safe rooms. Let’s put teams together to patch the holes as fast as we can. Francis, can you work with Jack to make that happen?”

  “You don’t mind if CIA works on this project?” Francis asked with a weak grin.

  “Yeah, like to whom are you going to send your report out? Rat?” Peter responded.

  “Hey, I heard that,” Rat’s voice came back over the communications circuit. “If you guys ever want to see any coffee again, you’d better hurry up and get with the program.”

  45

  he war had cost them all dearly. Between the precious lives taken in the battle, life support consumables lost in preparations, various irreparable damages to spacesuits and other vital equipment, and the loss of life support air and water when the surprise attack came, they had lost more than one third of their total reserves. The deaths of ten colonists would mediate their life support burden somewhat, even though they had picked up three additional personnel as surrendered prisoners. Ashley was in charge of this most important area. Her neck wound amounted to a deep scratch; one that she covered with a warm, high neck sweater. But she had been given the immediate task of working through the complex calculations it would require to fix their exact survival state. It would be a long and laborious process requiring at least two sols of calculations, summaries and scenario modeling.

  The biggest and most welcome surprise was the three captured Soviets: two women and Anatoliy. All three immediately renounced Dimitriov as a diabolically insane megalomaniac - utterly stark raving mad. They recounted their horrific journey across the desert to BC1 in graphic detail, describing the excesses of both Dimitriov and Kravchenko. Peter released transcripts of every interview in full as soon as they could be made available. When it was discovered it was Hiraldo that had killed Kravchenko, there was another round of celebration in the camp and Hiraldo’s reputation grew well beyond reasonable limits.

  Soviet Scientist Kirov was now up and about with the aid of a walker. After having heard the testimonies, he confirmed that the two females were unwilling conscripts, personally vouching for their previous reputations at Shturmovoi and recommending that they be allowed to join the colony without reservation.

  Kirov also noted that the man who had surrendered and gave Peter Dimitrov’s communications frequency, was Valentin Anatoliy, a deputy of Dimitriov’s. After much furious debate between Kirov and the remaining scientists at Shturmovoi, it was recommended to the Americans that Anatoliy, too, be trusted. It was, after all, Jack and Brinker’s sworn testimony that without the frequency revealed to them at that precise moment, the battle probably would have gone the other way. Ironically, it seemed that it was one of Dimitriov’s own most trusted few who had helped decide the fate of them all.

  Jack immediately set about the task of unraveling Toon’s extensive treachery. The first task was to unwire Covenant
from the dead-man’s switch taped to his chest. He simply and eloquently established an artificial software heartbeat generated by the computer itself. This little software patch was then written into seven different places in the computer’s many complex subroutines, so that if any part failed, the other took over automatically. They made the transition between Covenant’s harness and the computer smoothly and without incident. Jack also planned to seek out Toon’s extensive re-writing and re-programming and undo the damage a little at a time.

  Toon had effectively knocked out all BC1 communications satellites around Mars. But, again, Jack discovered the problem was entirely secreted away in strongly encrypted software patches Toon had hidden in the BC1 computers, and he removed them all. In a mater of 36 hours, all satellites were back online again.

  In just two sols, the dread of battle had turned into a celebration of victory. But it was quickly turned back into dread again as the outcome of Ashley’s findings began to hang over them like a cold blanket. They all knew that much had been lost and none of it was retrievable. The question was, ultimately, could they actually make it up the life support hill toward permanent regeneration of their life support needs? Nearly all of them knew that if they could not make it before, it certainly was not to be any different now. There were a few hold-outs, however, who believed with all their hearts that Ashley would return with findings that would allow them to live; to somehow make it through the dark, cold abyss of the Elysium winter. Yet most knew it was not a matter of “if” but of “when”.

  On the morning of the third sol following the attack, funerals were held for the ten BC1 victims. It was a somber ceremony. Their bodies were stacked and covered with some of the many sandbags that had been filled in preparation for the attack. That afternoon, a very much abbreviated ceremony was held for the Soviets who had died. Their interment was conducted in a similar fashion. Peter had ordered that the least amount of consumables be expended in the process.

  At the end of the dinner hour on the third sol, Peter rose to speak.

  “I suppose you all feel like I do; that it’s wonderful to be free here on Mars, and that we can all celebrate that freedom that was nearly lost, and cost us many precious lives. But you also know I’m not here to make speeches, but to tell you what Ashley has found in her analysis. Let me just say that it’s a complex analysis. I’ll release it in its full detail in a few minutes so all of you can pour over it. If you have any findings or suggestions, please send them to Ashley. After a much-deserved rest tonight, she’ll be looking at them all tomorrow.

  “There are three scenarios, based on the life support consumables we have available. All three scenarios identify the same limiting factor: water. We’ll run out of water before anything else, and that’ll cause the system to fail first.

  “Scenario A defines a very austere posture here at BC1, calling for prolonged bed-rest; 18 hours per person per sol for everyone in a minimal energy position. There will be no outside excursions except for dire emergencies. The temperature would be reduced to the mid 40’s Fahrenheit inside and there would be one meal a sol of 1500 calories for men, 1200 calories for women. In this scenario, the life support would diminish to the minimal rate in about 120 sols.

  “Scenario B is less rigorous. Required bed rest would be reduced to 12 hours per sol. No outside excursions except for emergencies and inside temperatures reduced to 48 degrees Fahrenheit. There would be one meal served per sol of 1800 and 1500 calories respectively. In this scenario, the life support would diminish to the minimal rate in about 97 sols.

  “Scenario C is the least rigorous. It would require only a 10 hour sleep period, the temperatures raised to 50 degrees with two meals and higher caloric intakes. This scenario gives us 76 sols.

  “After having reviewed these choices, I’ve selected Scenario B,” Peter ended bluntly. There was a murmur among the group, but it was clear that the idea of sleeping in a frigid bunk until death was not exactly being received as the best of news.

  Finally, after an awkward moment of silence, Bob Kerry stood up from his table.

  “What if we can find more water?” he asked.

  Peter looked to Ashley for the answer to that question. She stood and replied, “Water is a key, but not the only key to topping the hill,” in reference to the life support equation. They all knew well that “topping the hill” meant having the capacity to recycle and regenerate everything they would need to live indefinitely without re-supply from earth. “Our immediate need is water. If we could find significant water, we could effectively double the life support capacity. But if we could find enough energy as well as water, we could extend it for years and probably top the hill.”

  “What if we could bring the supplies down from orbit?” Kerry persisted. “And what if we can go get water and power from Shturmovoi?”

  Peter held his hand up to quiet the crowd. “We have no orbiter, no access to space and the orbiter on the pad at Shturmovoi has no fuel and no way to produce any. They were waiting for their own re-supply ship. And Shturmovoi has only enough water for their own needs. In fact, their life support equations are even more grim that ours.”

  “How much energy do we need? Can’t we get it from solar collectors? What if we could make our own solar panels?” Rat asked.

  “If we had more water, we would then need enough energy to split the water and even the carbon dioxide in the outside air into breathable oxygen,” Ashley replied with patience. “We have the ability to build some of those devices here. But we don’t have nearly enough solar collectors or energy storage to create a difference and we don’t have the industrial capacity to build solar panels here. Besides, there’s no water to make any of that necessary.”

  After a long pause that seemed to be equally laced with despair and silence, Brinker walked slowly to the front of the room apparently consumed in thought.

  “Okay, now I’ve got a “what-if” question for all you rocket scientists,” he said in his swaggering style, pointing his stogie at Peter and Ashley. “What if, let’s just say, well, what if, what if I, right here and right now, were to ask Hiraldo to marry me, right here in front of God and everybody?” Then he turned and looked directly at Hiraldo who started a deep blush.

  “Well, what if I did that?” he asked her.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Hiraldo said in utter astonishment. Then she stood and said, “Yes! Yes, I would!” and rushed into his embrace.

  “If I only got 97 sols left,” Brinker said, his arm laced over her shoulder, “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather spend it with than the best damn United States Marine in the solar system!”

  The crowd erupted in wild applause. One of the technicians, Randall Markley, who had manned Rail Gun 3, stood on top of his table and pointed at the couple.

  “Yeeeeeessssss, Sarge! You’re the maaaannnnn!” he yelled, pointing his finger at Brinker.

  Then the assembled crowd erupted in a chant, “Brinker! Brinker! Brinker! Brinker!” which continued unabated for long minutes.

  Brinker interrupted his own tribute with a wave of his hand. “And unless anybody here can give me one good reason why not, I want the wedding put on today’s schedule!”

  Again the crowd erupted in wild applause and started to chant anew, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  In the midst of the cacaphoney, Fabian Gorteau suddenly stood and slowly made his way through the chanting crowd to the front and motioned to Peter for the floor. Gorteau had become silent, sullen and withdrawn after the war. Many speculated it was because he felt personally responsible for so many deaths on both sides.

  “Quiet! Quiet, please. Professor Gorteau has a comment,” Peter said, quelling the crowd.

  Gorteau’s whole demeanor had changed and he looked much older and less robust. Yet, even as he walked, his slightly bent frame and totally disheveled hair belied his superior intelligence, and everyone knew of his legendary discoveries. Each colonist became very still, straining to hear his profound statement.
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  “I have made an important discovery,” he said quietly, twisting his shaggy moustache with his fingers and looking down at notes written on his tablet computer. Then he nodded with certainty. “Yes, I believe I am correct. Yes, indeed.”

  There was a very long pause as he formed his thoughts.

  “I have determined that it is entirely possible and well within the range of many of us here today to calculate with some degree of certainty the level of carbon dioxide generated in Sergeant Brinker’s honeymoon suite on his wedding night. I propose installing a gas monitor and establishing a CO2 level pool – the closest estimate in any given 10-minute interval wins it all! And for heaven’s sake, don’t hold out – we only have 97 sols left and I believe this should be the biggest jackpot in this planet’s history!”

  Randall Markley bounded across two tables and landed at Gorteau’s feet. “Professor, you’re the maaaannnnn!” he yelled, pointing his finger at Gorteau who began to smile broadly, then winked slyly at Peter. At this point, everyone was on their feet cheering, even the somewhat mystified Soviets.

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Covenant yelled above the noise, standing on a chair. “I had the privilege of working closely with these Marines for what seems like forever, and now I propose the ultimate toast to their betrothal.” Withdrawing a miniature acetylene torch from his pocket he said, “I propose ‘we light his stogie’ once and for all!”

  Randall Markley rushed across the floor to stand at Covenant’s side. “Covenant, you’re the maaaannnnn!” he yelled, in his now well-rehearsed act, pointing his finger again at Covenant who struck a switch and lit the tiny torch in his hand.

  Brinker strutted over to Covenant smiling broadly, with Hiraldo in tow, holding the well worn stogie in front of him. But just as Covenant’s lighter approached the stogie, Ashley screamed “WAIT!” Then she approached the two with a plastic bag.