Nills checked the seals on the replacement pump one last time, and then nodded to Anika, who was monitoring the starters for the heat exchanger on the control panel.
“Can you try it again now?”
With that, Anika set the controls to activate the newly replaced pump and reroute pressure back into the turbine.
“Okay, here goes.” She hit the switch, and slowly the turbine started spinning up. She gave Nills the thumbs up. He gathered up his tools and joined her over at the control board, checking stats on the readouts.
“Okay, it’s back up again, but for how long, who knows. Anyway, let’s close up shop here, and head back up to operations. We’ll see if there’s been any news on COM.”
With the colony being low on power for the last while, the temperature inside had dropped noticeably. It didn’t help that a sandstorm had been building outside, reducing the efficiency of the solar array field. If Nills and Anika hadn’t managed to fix the heat exchanger they would be in real trouble. It seemed to Nills that the threat of these life-and-death scenarios were being overlooked in the climate of uncertainty that had enveloped the colony ever since the arrival of Xaing Zu. When Nills finally arrived in the operations room, he had wrapped himself up in a long brown coat that he had become very attached to. It was old and worn and how it came to be here, in the colony, or even how it came into his possession he had long forgotten. Holburn looked up from his console when he spotted Nills entering. “Good work on that heat exchanger, not a moment too soon either. Storm is getting pretty bad out there. Any longer and we’d be running on fumes.”
“Any word on COM?”
“Yes and no. They dropped out of orbit about two hours ago, but I’ve had no comms and no confirmation of touchdown.”
“You think the sandstorm is affecting comms?”
“Possibly. It can do that, if it gets bad enough.”
Nills sat down at the table and shoved his hands into his coat pockets to get some warmth back into them. “Did you try to contact Colony One and see if they’ve heard anything?”
“I can’t get through to them either.”
“This is not really going to plan, is it?”
Holburn looked over at Nills and shrugged. “Could be worse, maybe COM crash landed and everyone is dead.”
Nills gave him back a sideways grin. “Problem solved, then.”
“Oh, nearly forgot.” Holburn passed a holo-tab over to Nills. “One message did come through, about an hour ago, from your friend, Lane Zebos, AsterX.”
Nills picked up the tab and tapped an icon. It was a video message. Nills tapped again to bring it up on the main screen. It was a head and shoulders shot of the AsterX CEO inside their cramped spacecraft. Of all the expeditions en route to Mars these guys were definitely the poor cousins. But, they were also the least threatening, concerning themselves more with the mineralogy and the technical capabilities of Mars, and Colony Two in particular. Understandable, considering that they were a mining company. Where Jann, Xenon and the rest of the council had concerned themselves with countering the machinations of Xaing Zu and COM, Nills had found Lane Zebos to be more like himself. Interested in the technicalities of the colony: its functioning, its resources. They were also the only one of the three that took a deep interest in bringing what Nills had wanted in terms of equipment, supplies and spare parts. But since they were not seen as a direct threat, the council had spent very little time communicating with them, leaving it to Nills to deal with their queries. As a result Nills had built up a reasonably friendly relationship with Zebos, who was now on screen.
The good news is we have embarked with all of the items you have requested. Some are bit hard to come by, but where we couldn’t source the exact item we have endeavored to acquire a substitute. I’ve also added in a little gift for you. You’ll see it on the manifest attached. Nills started reading down through the list.
That’s the good news. The bad news is we won’t be in Mars orbit for another eight weeks, give or take. It took us a long time to secure the necessary oversight. But we’re on our way now, so see you all in two months. That’s it for now. Will keep you posted. The message ended.
Anika had entered the operations room as the Zebos message was on screen, and had taken a seat beside Nills. “So what’s the little gift, then?”
Nills pushed the tab over to her and pointed to the last two lines on the manifest.
“Ten kilos of Blue Mountain coffee and a case of twenty-five year old Scotch.” Anika read it aloud.
Nills smiled. “I, for one, cannot wait. I count the days until they land.”
“What, nothing for the girls? You know, silk stockings, a few ounces of Coco Chanel, perhaps.”
Nills took the tab back, looked at the list again, and spun it back to Anika, and pointed at an entry higher up in the manifest. It read, 5lbs Belgian Chocolates. “Your favorite, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oooh…” said Anika.
“Hey guys, you’d better take a look at this.” Holburn’s fingers danced across the face of his control pad and a new image materialized on screen. A ghostly cloud of dust filled the monitor and from its center an image of a rover emerged, moving slowly towards them. The trio watched in silence for a few moments.
“That’s outside the main airlock here in Colony Two.”
“Yep, but that’s not one of our rovers, too big.”
“COM?” Said Nills.
They looked from one to the other. Then comms burst into life.
Colony Two, this is Commander Willem Kruger, of the Colony One Mars consortium, seeking permission to enter.
“Holy crap,” said Anika. “What do we do?”
Nills stood up. “Goddammit, this was not part of the plan. This was not supposed to happen.”
“What are they doing? Why didn’t they contact us and let us know they were landing?” said Holburn.
“Because we would be better prepared. They want us off balance.”
“So what do we do? Tell them the store is closed, come back tomorrow?” said Anika.
“No, it makes no difference whether it’s now, tomorrow, next week. We have to face this sometime, may as well be now.” Nills was on his feet now. “Holburn, tell them we’re opening the airlock. Anika, you come with me. We’ll gather up the reception party and meet them in the main entrance. Make sure everyone is armed.”
Nills realized they had been thrown a curveball. What everyone thought COM would do, they had just gone and done the opposite. He should have known not to trust them. They were trying to gain the upper hand and they knew that leaving them outside on the surface was not an option. At least not a very good one.
“Are you expecting trouble?” said Anika.
“You need to understand that as far as the people in that rover are concerned, they own this place, and everything in it. That includes us—you, me and everyone in here. So yeah, I’m expecting trouble if we don’t do what they want.”
By the time they got to the entrance cavern other colonists were beginning to gather. The COM rover had been left waiting outside the entrance airlock, as the colonists got themselves organized. Anika was now distributing weapons from one of the storage rooms at the back entrance cavern. These were mainly railguns, kept primed and ready for action.
“I want two up there, high on the gantry, one on each side. And two more at the back of the cavern, high up on those storage crates over there. Keep your weapons visible, let them see we’re armed.”
As the colonists left to take up their positions, others gathered round Nills and Anika who had taken up a central position facing the airlock entrance.
“Okay, let’s do this.” Nills tapped his earpiece to talk to Holburn, who was monitoring the situation from the operations room. “You can open the airlock now.”
From inside the cavern they could hear the rumble of the exterior door opening to expose the inner airlock to the maelstrom outside. A few moments later they heard the rumble again to signify tha
t the COM rover had now entered. A few tense moments passed as the volume within was repressurized and the dust and sand purged through the scrubbers.
Nills tapped his earpiece again. “Tell them to exit the rover inside the airlock before we open the door.”
Nills looked up and around at the people he had positioned on high ground within the cavern.
“Okay, everyone ready?”
A chorus of ready echoed around the space. Nills turned back to face the door and tapped his earpiece again. “Okay Holburn, ready when you are.”
Anxious moments passed as they waited, and waited. Finally they heard motors kick in as the inner airlock door started to rise to reveal six COM crew members in full EVA suits—all armed to the teeth.
“Holy crap,” said Anika.
Nills raised his hand and stepped forward. Then one of the COM crew popped open his visor, and stepped forward.
“Welcome to Mars,” said Nills. Then he pointed at them. “Now I would ask you to put down your weapons as they are not allowed inside the colony.”
“I am commander Willem Kruger, and you are?”
“Nills Langthorp.”
Kruger looked around the entrance cavern, spotting the elevated positions of the weapons that were trained on them.
“Ahh... The famous Nills Langthorp, in the flesh. Do you realize that you’re a legend back on Earth?”
Nills took another step forward. “I would appreciate if you would put away those weapons.”
Kruger smiled. “Let’s not start off on the wrong foot. We were expecting a better welcome than this.” He looked around at the assembled colonists, who were becoming decidedly twitchy.
“I think perhaps a little demonstration might be in order.” With that he lifted a small handheld weapon and fired at one of the colonists high up in the gantry. A burst of incandescent brilliance strobed the cavern as the colonist was encased in a mesh of flashing light. He shook violently and then fell from his position down onto a plastic crate with a thump. This resulted in the colonists directing a hail of fire at the six COM crewmembers, who were also returning fire. All around Nills and Anika colonists were engulfed in flashing balls of plasma. The cavern reverberated with the sounds of shrieking and whoomp, whoomp from the weapons of the COM crew.
Nills shouted, “Stop, stop, cease fire.”
The six COM crew stood exactly where they were, as if nothing had happened, the colonists’ railguns having had absolutely no effect against the amour of their EVA suits. They stood and faced off against each other as the realization slowly sank in to the colonists that they were completely defenseless.
“Like I said, let’s not start off on the wrong foot. There is nothing you have that can threaten us. So why don’t you all just drop your weapons and behave. You’ll find your fallen comrades to be just temporarily paralyzed, they’ll come to—eventually.”
Nills knew there was no point in fighting. They were totally outclassed. So he turned around to the colonists still standing. “Put down the weapons. Nothing will be gained by any more fighting.” And he threw his own weapon on the ground in front of the commander. One by one the colonists followed suit. The battle was over. They had lost.
The COM mercenaries began to split them up into groups and then started herding them back in to the main cavern in Colony Two, carrying their fallen comrades as they went. It was clear to Nills that COM had detailed knowledge of its layout. They knew where to go, how to get there and what to do to keep complete control of the situation. He was about to fall into line with the others when the commander came over and tapped his shoulder. Nills spun around.
“Mr. Langthorp. If you would be so kind as to follow me.”
“Where to?”
“This way, into the rover. We’re going on a little journey. There is someone who very much wants to meet you.”
10
VanHoff
Nills sat in the back of the rover as it bounced over the surface. Outside, the Martian world was obscured by a thick cloud of dust. The driver navigated through this impenetrable fog by virtue of a heads-up display overlaid across the entire front windscreen. The oncoming topography rendered itself in grainy detail like seeing the world through a old fashioned video game. To Nills, the machine had a distinct military design about it: sparse, utilitarian, and crammed with technical wizardry. Facing him, on the opposite side of the rover, Commander Kruger sat clutching a short but bulky weapon across his lap.
“Pulsed Energy Projectile, if I’m not mistaken.” Nills nodded at the weapon. Kruger gave a sideways grin and gripped the weapon closer.
“Very good, right on the money. How did you know that?”
“I read about them. Interesting technology. Although, the ones I looked at needed a truck to carry them around.”
Kruger held up the weapon and examined it like it was a treasured possession. “Things have moved on a bit since then.”
The problem with ballistic weapons in any space environment is similar to that in an aircraft with a pressurized cabin. There is a strong likelihood of puncturing the delicate fabric of the hull and suffering a catastrophic loss of internal pressure. The problem of course, is far greater in space because, at least with the aircraft you could technically still be alive while you plummeted to your death from 10,000 ft. In space however, you died almost instantly just from the decompression, not to mention lack of oxygen and sub-zero temperatures.
So when it became apparent to the powers that be that a different type of weapon would be required by any future spacefaring law enforcement agency, the task fell to DARPA to come up with a solution. Some argued that there should be no need for this sort of thing at all. Others said just keep it simple, and go back to using bows and arrows. But this didn’t fit very well with the high-tech space exploration image.
As luck would have it, DARPA happened to have something that might fit the bill, something they had been working on for quite some time. It came about from the desire of terrestrial agencies for a non-lethal weapon. Something they could use in riots and general public disorder situations where killing the actual protagonists would be… well, overkill.
It was called a Pulsed Energy Projectile Weapon, or simple PEP. It utilized a high-energy laser pulse that created a small plasma explosion on impact. This explosion created an electromagnetic shock wave that stunned the target. Because it relied on electrical energy rather than a projectile to get the job done, it could be used with relative safety in the enclosed confines of a space station, with little risk of puncturing a hole in the outer skin. Although, it would do a good job of frying any electronics that happened to be in the way.
So far so good. The only downside was it weighed in at a hefty 250kg, about the weight of three men, and needed a truck to carry it around. Nevertheless, their early developments were dusted off and over time it became lighter and deadlier. The variants that the COM mercenaries used were still a good deal heavier than even a fully tooled up Browning M2, but in one-third G, that really didn’t matter. They also could be lethal, although they did come with a very handy knob allowing you to adjust the level of deadliness, dialing it down from lethal to paralyze to stun.
It was a revolutionary weapon, particularly for crowd control. No longer did security personnel need to be hesitant, they could take out large numbers of aggressors with impunity. It made it viable for a small number of well armed individuals to safely deal with a much larger number of subjects. In Commander Kruger’s mind, it was the weapon that made this mission possible.
“So where are we going?” Nills already knew the answer to this. Let’s face it, there were not many places on Mars you could go. But he had Kruger talking, so decided to keep probing.
“Back to the ship. Somebody wants to meet you.”
“Somebody too important to risk entering the colony facility.”
“Yeah, something like that.” It was a hesitant reply.
“So you haven’t entered Colony One then?”
Kru
ger stayed silent for a minute, sizing Nills up. “I’m sure he’ll fill you in when you meet.”
The driver cocked his head around. “Commander, ETA in one minute.”
Nills looked at the heads up display. A new shape was beginning to format itself in the gloom, it was big. And since it was still one minute away, it must be very big indeed.
By the time they arrived Nills realized that big was too small a word for it. The only thing he saw outside through the windshield was a gigantic landing strut as they passed on the right hand side of it. Ahead of them a gantry had been lowered, presumably from the underside of the ship. Yellow lights flashed and illuminated the clouds of dust that had been whipped up in the storm. The rover drove straight onto the gantry platform, came to a halt, and then started to slowly ascend—into the belly of the whale.
A few moments later, Nills stepped out of the rover and into a compact utilitarian loading bay. It was crammed full of equipment and machines, they were anticipating a long stay. As he looked around the ship he considered just how far things had progressed since the early days of the first colonist landings. They had all been packed like sardines into tiny craft. How long ago was that now, he wondered. Over a decade?
“This way.” Kruger ushered him across the loading bay to a ladder leading up into the interior of the craft.
“Follow me.” He started climbing up. Nills followed. They passed up through a number of levels until finally they stepped off into an operations area. Several crewmembers occupied various workstations around the perimeter of the space. They all stopped what they were doing and turned around to look at Nills. In the middle of the room, sitting at a circular holo-table was a gaunt looking old man.
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