She pulled away. “Just remember me.” She ran off.
By the time she got to the entrance cavern two betas were already working on one of the quad-bikes. Jann assumed it was one of these machines that Vanji must have used to make his escape. “Will it start?”
One poked his head out from the side of the bike. “Should do, give us some time.” He stuck his head back into the guts of the machine. Two more betas rushed in carrying Jann’s EVA suit and helmet. “We checked it over and it looks good for another three or so hours. After that you’re out of power.”
Jann nodded and stepped into the suit. Well, here I go again, she thought. Back to saving the world. Not really what I had signed up to with the ISA. She remembered her first few tentative steps on Mars after they landed. They weren’t really steps, more like falling flat on her face. How things had changed since then.
The quad-bike burst into life, its engine’s roar reverberating off the cavern walls. It cut out. “Crap.” The mechanic poked at its innards and tried it again. It burst back to life. He revved the engine a few times.
“Okay, keep the revs high or it will cut out.”
Jann nodded as she straddled the bike.
“If it does, then this button starts it, but it’s a bit dicky. You’ve got about fifty klicks worth of fuel in it.”
She revved the bike and popped the clutch. It jumped forward and cut out. She hit the start button a few times before it fired again.
“Open the airlock,” she shouted at the mechanic as she released the clutch, slowly this time. The bike moved forward. “Okay,” she said to no one in particular. “Let’s do this.” She closed her helmet visor and drove into the airlock.
The quad-bike was fast. Jann sped across the crater’s surface leaving a wake of sand and dust billowing out behind her. It made short work of the distance and before long she could see the tip of the MAV in the distance. She twisted the throttle and the quad-bike picked up speed. She was bumped and jostled. Without the belt holding her on, she would have been tossed off several times already. But the thought of the MAV rising up from the planet’s surface at any moment made her throw caution to the wind. She powered on. She was about eight hundred meters from the MAV when the bike cut out. “Shit.” She tried to start it again, and again, and again. But no joy. “Shit, shit, shit.” She banged on the handlebars. The MAV still stood motionless in the distance. There was nothing for it, she would have to run.
She moved with all the speed she could muster and closed the distance. She felt a sense of deja vu, remembering the last time she was out on the crater’s surface trying to figure out how to stop Annis. But she had learned a thing or two since then. She and Gizmo had built the fuel tanks together, so Jann knew this time what to do to stop the MAV from launching. All she had to do was get there.
Gizmo entered her thoughts. Now would be a good time to have the little robot around. But it was buried under several tons of rock. Poor Gizmo, she thought. It had been a good friend to her, even when she was treating it like crap. What she wouldn’t do to have it here with her now.
As she approached, Jann could see that all the fuel tanks were in position, so the countdown had probably begun. Disabling the MAV meant climbing up one of the landing struts to get access to the electronics that controlled the fuel flow. But if the MAV were to launch while she was attempting to get to it, she would be incinerated instantly.
Nevertheless, she started climbing and quickly located the panel. She popped the latch and exposed a sealed circuit board. She pulled it out and dropped back on to the surface. She had done it, Vanji was going nowhere.
Jann backed away from the base of the MAV, still clutching the circuit board. A little distance out she could see the rover that Kayden and the others had used, so she headed toward it. As she drew near she spotted two bodies on the ground. It was Noome and Samir. They had broken visors and both had a bloody hole in the middle of their forehead. They had been executed. They were not going back to Earth, it was never in the plan.
The hatch on the side of the MAV opened and a body emerged. It stopped on the top rung of the ladder when it saw Jann and stood for a moment, just looking at her. Jann’s helmet comms crackled into life. “Malbec, eh… so you decided to come with us after all.”
“Not exactly.”
“So what are you doing here?” It was Kayden, she recognized the voice. He began to descend the ladder. Jann backed off.
“I assume Vanji is in there with you?”
“Why don’t you come with us, back to Earth, back home? Think about it. You could see your family again.”
“You mean like Noome and Samir. Was that the tale you spun for them?”
Kayden waved an arm. “We had a… dispute, you know how these things can go.”
“They were never going home and neither was I. You just wanted the launch codes.”
“That’s not true, come…” he beckoned with his free arm. “Think about how pleased your family will be to see you.”
“I don’t have a family. My father died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Jann. Really I am. But you have your ticket booked, so why not come with us off this rock?”
“It’s over, Kayden. The betas control Colony Two now and they are baying for blood. So, no one’s going anywhere. Especially not without this.” She held up the circuit board up for him to see.
“Ah… I assume what you are holding is the reason our countdown has stopped?”
“Like I said, it’s game over.”
“Well, in that case, I too have something to show you.” With that, he reached back in through the MAV hatch, and before Jann realized her mistake, it was too late.
Kayden retrieved a railgun and let rip with a long burst of fire. Jann turned to run but she was jolted forward by a blow to the back of the head. She stumbled and fell, grabbing her helmet with both hands. “Shit.” How could she have been so stupid? He was playing her—again, keeping her talking, buying time.
She expected a stream of biometric alerts to flash up, but she got lucky, the railgun spike had not penetrated her helmet. She lifted her head up and looked over at the MAV. Kayden was reloading the gun. “Dammit.” She had dropped the circuit board; it was still on the ground, undamaged. She needed to get to it before he did. But he was descending the ladder fast. He aimed again and fired another short burst. Several darts buried themselves in the ground just inches from her. She picked herself up and ran for a good distance before chancing a backward look.
Vanji had now left the MAV and was standing beside Kayden, examining the control board. Jann had stopped running, now that she was out of range of the railgun, and stood watching them. They seemed to be discussing what to do. Finally Vanji took the gun and Kayden headed off with the board, presumably to reinstall it—and there was nothing Jann could do about it. Vanji reloaded the gun and looked over at her. “I admire your tenacity, Dr. Malbec,” his voice broke through on her helmet comms. “But it seems you have made your last play.”
She could see Kayden climbing up the landing strut. “So what about the secrecy, the hiding out all these years?”
“You changed all that, Jann. When you showed up in the airlock in Colony Two.”
“How so?” He was moving towards her.
“Your arrival allowed me to advance my plans.”
“Like giving the colony over to the hybrids? That didn’t work out too well.”
“No matter, I had done all I could with Colony Two. Too many obstructionists, too many who were starting to get queasy about the direction we were taking.”
“Like creating a new biologically reproductive species of human.”
“That, and other plans. So it was time to leave. And you were the way home.”
“Because I had the launch codes?” Jann was still backing away as Vanji advanced.
“Tell me, did you ever wonder why that clone showed up in the airlock in Colony One?”
She thought about this for a
moment, it seemed a long time ago. She wasn’t sure if she really cared.
“He was lonely?”
“I sent him. Well, more accurately I engineered it.” Kayden was now back down on the surface and moving over to the ladder. The circuit board had been replaced, there was nothing to stop them leaving.
“Kayden discovered that Samir and Noome had been hacking ISA communication over the last few years. They had formulated a crazy plan to use this MAV to escape. But they needed the launch codes. So how to get you to come to us? Simple, Kayden helped them send one of the more demented betas, one who longed to visit the source of their creation.”
“So you just played me the whole time.”
“Yes, but to be fair, we had to gain your trust first.”
“So the recycling, the escape plan, it was all a ruse?”
“Rather an effective one, don’t you think?” Vanji glanced back over his shoulder to see Kayden re-enter the MAV.
“How do you know he’s not going to leave you behind, Vanji?”
He fired off a burst but they went nowhere. But then he bolted forward and fired again, darts peppered the ground around her. She turned to run but caught her boot on a rock and stumbled forward. Vanji sensed his chance and ran at her, firing as he went.
She felt a searing snap of pain course up her thigh as the first dart buried itself just above her right knee. The second spun her head around as it smashed off the side of her helmet. “No.” She grabbed her leg to stop the air escaping. Vanji, seeing he had her now, stopped to reload. He cocked the gun and started towards her.
“Vanji, three minutes to launch, you’d better get back here now.”
Vanji stopped for a moment. He was torn between finishing Jann off, and missing his flight to Earth. In the end, he turned on his heel and ran back to the MAV.
Jann watched him go as the air slowly escaped out of her EVA suit.
23
Pale Blue Light
Dr. Jann Malbec dragged herself up from the dirt and balanced on one leg. Her heads-up display strobed alerts as her EVA suit tried hard to maintain pressure. She clamped a hand over her thigh, trying to slow the rate of evacuating air. A bolt of pain rifled up through her lower body. She could barely move.
There was no way she could make it back to the MAV, never mind try to prevent it from taking off. So she hobbled across the dusty Martian surface, as fast as the pain in her leg would allow, towards the abandoned rover. All the time the heads up display flashed warnings with ever more urgency until she finally crawled into the rover airlock and pressurized it. She popped opened her helmet visor and collapsed onto the cockpit seat.
Through the window she could see the Mars ascent vehicle, ticking down the seconds until lift off—and there was nothing she could do. Rage welled up inside her. They had played her for a fool, strung her along, and she had fallen for it. She willingly handed over the launch codes and doomed humanity to a future of genetic tyranny. As she sat and waited for the inevitable, a new sense of loss began to compound her anger. Now that the time had come for the MAV to perform its function, return its occupants to the orbiter, and ultimately to Earth, she realized that her last hope of going home would be leaving with it. She thought she had reconciled herself to this fate when she agreed to return to Colony Two with Nills, but now that she was face to face with it, the feeling of abandonment cut her deep.
Over the years, she had clung to the fragile hope that someday, she would be able to return to Earth. But that dream would soon be gone, perhaps forever. She was being robbed of her hope, her dream, it was being taken away from her and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She could only watch. The MAV started venting gas, prepping the engines for ignition. Her anger intensified.
“Well, if I can’t have it, then nether will you, Vanji.” She stood up and hobbled to the EVA suit storage area at the back of the rover. From an overhead locker she frantically pulled out a container of suit repair patches and applied several to her leg, as she sat back in the cockpit seat. She flipped her visor closed. The heads up display showed the patches were holding. She had around twenty minutes of air remaining. Should be enough, she thought.
Jann started the engine, it rumbled into life. Then she hit the comms and spoke. “Vanji?” There was a hiss of static before a response broke into to the helmet.
“Dr. Malbec, your power of survival is impressive.”
“There’s just one last thing before you go.”
“What’s that?”
“Go screw yourself.” With that, Jann pointed the rover at the MAV and rammed the throttle fully forward. She stuck a few patches over it to lock it into position and ran to the rear airlock. With just seconds to spare she jumped out of the back of the speeding rover onto the surface. She hit the ground hard and fast, and rolled several times before finally coming to rest. She had just enough time to look around and see the rover speed toward the MAV.
At first she thought it was going to miss, but it caught the edge of one of the landing struts. Then everything happened all at once. The MAV began to topple just as the engines ignited, and there was a split second when she thought it might actually lift off. But it didn’t. Instead it exploded in a gigantic fireball.
Even in the thin Martian atmosphere, the force felt like a kick to her chest. Dust billowed out from the epicenter and debris rained down, peppering the ground all around her. She rolled face down and covered her head with her hands. It was a reflex action and would do nothing to protect her if she was hit by any fragment of the MAV. Something struck the ground inches from her head, then something else. She had to move, get out of the zone, fast. She picked herself up and hobbled as best she could. She wasn’t sure of the direction as the atmosphere was immersed in sand and dust. New alerts flashed on her heads up, the suit was losing pressure. “Shit.” Either the patches weren’t holding or she had torn it again. She kept going.
After a few minutes the air began to clear and she sat down for a moment to gather her strength. The pain in her leg came back with a vengeance. She was breathing hard, using up valuable air she didn’t have to spare. “Calm down, focus,” she said to herself. “You can still do this.”
Her plan had been to patch the suit enough to make the walk back to Colony One. It wasn’t that far. But now she wasn’t so sure. It was losing pressure and worked hard to backfill with nitrogen reserves. Ordinarily this would be fine but she was low on resources. Her display calculated she had around ten minutes left. She had better get going. Jann stood up again and looked back at where the MAV had been. All she could see was an enormous cloud of dust. Probably nothing remained of it but a charred hulk of metal. It was gone, along with Vanji and Kayden, and any chance she ever had of leaving Mars. “Move.” She forced herself to start walking.
The faster she moved the more oxygen she would use up, the slower she went the less chance she would have to make it to Colony One in time. “Don’t think about it, just keep moving.” She could see its massive dome off in the distance. Home, she thought. It really did feel like that to her. She had spent so many years there it was part of her, it was what defined her. It kept her moving forward, beckoning to her, calling out her name like a loving parent standing in the doorway with open arms, welcoming you back after a long journey away. She kept going.
Her suit was running dangerously low on oxygen, she could feel it, her steps were getting shorter, more labored as her body grew progressively weaker from hypoxia. Her mind was getting fuzzy, her thoughts muddled.
Why had she done it? Killed Vanji. She could have let him go and taken the rover back to Colony One. She would not be in this position now. Was it out of some grand moral outrage she felt for what this technology would do to the socioeconomics of Earth? What did she care what happened to Earth. Or was it simply her rage? Rage for what Vanji did to her, rage for her time in the horror of the recycling tank? But did it go deeper than that? Rage for being abandoned by the ISA, by Earth, by all that she had known and loved
. Rage for the loss of Paolio and Nills and all her friends, all gone, all dead. She stopped, and slumped down on to ground on her knees. She looked up at the dome of Colony One, so near, so far.
Yes, she had been abandoned by them all, and now it seemed even Mars was letting her go. It had no more left to give her. Jann sat back on her heels, she too had no more left to give. She had five minutes remaining and for most of that she would probably be unconscious. She might as well make the best of it.
Jann looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful evening. Over the crater rim to the west the sun was sinking below the horizon, bathing the sky in a pale blue and purple light. Out across the crater plateau she could see a dust devil swirl and twist its way towards her. She watched it for a time, mesmerized by its dance. Mars hadn’t abandoned her after all. It was showing her its best, giving her a final sendoff.
She collapsed down on her back and stared up at the heavens. It was growing darker as her life was ebbing away. A dust cloud blew up around her as she took a deep breath, exhaled very slowly, and finally closed her eyes.
24
Search
The hybrids had been disarmed and were now corralled in a number of secure areas throughout Colony Two. They had split them up into several smaller groups, the eighteen that were left. But was this secure enough? The species possessed a strange telepathic ability, so even dividing them up was probably pointless in preventing them from communicating. Nills knew they would ultimately have to find some way for them to regain the trust of the betas, and vice-versa. They were still a problem, but for the moment, at least they were not a threat. As for the remaining geneticists, their future looked increasingly tenuous. Now that the betas were in control, some were getting drunk on power and were stoking up the mob to seek revenge. Like all great upheavals, the aftermath can be as chaotic, if not more so, than the event itself.
Colony Mars Ultimate Edition Page 30
