by Chris Lowry
And then he was.
Cree marched across the floor and pulled a small thin cylinder from his belt. He held it inches from the neck of the prisoner and clicked a button.
A laser blade burned like a miniature torch and sliced through the Lick's neck.
It twitched twice as it died.
"This belonged to him," Cree shut it off and held the hilt to Renard.
"Keep it. That's how we handle security risks around here."
Renard fumbled the grip and attached it to his belt. Cree went back to the map and with no prisoner to watch Renard drifted after him.
He cast a glance over his shoulder at the still body on the sand floor, smoke curling up from a hole in its neck.
"On my mark we'll move our teams out and split up. Each of you has been given target coordinates. You will reach your target and destroy it. You will succeed where others have failed. You will help me end this war so I can go home to my wife and son. You will save the earth. Am I understood?"
"Yes Sir," the Captain's barked back.
"Burly," Cree said as he grabbed his helmet and settled it on his head. "Escort that Marine back to Desmond's squad. I want them first out."
"Aye aye," said the Second.
He motioned Renard to don his helmet as the other Captains did too.
Renard heard it. The hiss of a vacuum as a small compressor in the corner sucked the oxygen in the enclosure down into a tank before the Second keyed the command to disengage the force field.
Burly jabbed his elbow toward the edge of the pit and leaped up with grace and ease.
Renard tried to emulate.
He made it high enough but stumbled on the landing and fought for balance.
The Second grabbed his arm at the last second before he tipped, helped him upright and marched with him back to his squad's foxhole.
8
The sunrise on Mars happened abruptly.
The sun rolled up over the horizon spreading a bright band of light that marched like a line across the sand.
Renard saw the glow pass over his feet and keep moving away from him and stopped to turn and stare. The burning orb reflected on the golden tinted visor in his helmet.
He turned back to point and kept moving through the sand, his footsteps a little more sure with experience, but still uncertain as he learned to move the weighted footplates in lighter gravity.
The radio in his helmet sputtered.
"Hold up," Desmond instructed them.
Renard stopped and lifted his blaster to the ready. Nothing moved in front of him.
Just dunes, a hill, depressions in the rock full of dust and sand. Somewhere past the nothing was the lion's den. Beachhead.
"Weber. Stoker. Move up. Triangulate point."
Weber and Stoker moved with graceful ease up to Renard and shifted ten paces to either side of him. Weber cleared his faceplate and shared a wink with Renard before going reflective again.
"I didn't see anything."
"That's just what they want you to see," said Stoker.
"Radio quiet," Desmond instructed. "Let's go."
They trio marched forward, slower this time as they searched the ground ahead of him.
"Pssst," Weber hissed over the radio and they froze.
He slid across the sand to ease up next to Renard, his blaster trained on a shadow under an overhanging rock.
Renard spied the bunker dug into the ground and camouflaged with a hill of sand.
Weber scouted the terrain, signaled Desmond.
Their leader edged up to the overhang, helmet on a swivel as he tried to keep eyes everywhere.
The bunker could be a feint with Licks hiding under the sand ready to pop up and ambush them.
Or they could be waiting in the darkness ready to boil out like ants as soon as some silent trigger was released.
Desmond motioned Renard to follow him in. They moved to the edge of the of the overhang and peered under.
It's a long shallow trench that runs along the length of the rock, carved out of the sand and extending in the darkness further than they can see.
The rest of the squad pulls tighter to form a half circle around the trench. Half faced in, rifles held ready and the other half turned out, watching and waiting.
Desmond clicked his radio.
Weber silently slipped over the side of the hill and down into the trench. Another click sent Leroy and Wang to stand sentry on each edge of the trench, their faces hidden by visors.
Wang fidgeted with his gear as he stood, checking his power clip, his air canister as his eyes roamed the darkness in the ground and the sun drenched landscape around them.
Weber dropped to his stomach and flashed a Maglite off the end of his rifle barrel.
The LED beam lit up the interior of the rock like a miniature sun. The light revealed more carved rock and a tunnel that extended even further.
Weber crawled down the tunnel, his knees and elbows scratching a zig zag pattern in the dust.
Desmond lowered his rifle and pulled a tablet out of a suit pocket. He keyed it and followed a glowing dot that represented Weber as he disappeared into the tunnel.
Wang looked over at Leroy standing as still as a statue
Desmond keyed a button and a grainy video image from Weber's helmet transmitted back to him.
The image washed over a figure leaning against the tunnel wall. The tip of his rifle moved toward it carrying the light further in to show it was a Lick.
Dead and mummified. A blast hole in the suit it wore.
Weber crawled toward it, dragged the rifle off the body and kept advancing.
Leroy glanced toward the other squad members as they watched the landscape.
He turned back toward the trench.
A Lick popped out of a sand covered tunnel in front of him. It blasted him backwards.
The other Marines in the squad hit the ground and returned fire. Desmond screamed for calm as the men blasted the ground around the Lick, the rock overhang.
The Lick slid back into the tunnel and began to run into the darkness.
A blast sent it out of the hole into the open, a smoking crater in its chest.
Weber crawled out covered in sand and grime.
"Hold your fire," he keyed over the radio. "Hold your fire."
He climbed out of the second bunker entrance and knelt to check on Leroy. The Lick hit him in the chest, almost the same spot where it took a round.
He started stripping the supplies off the body.
"That tunnel branches off five times just in the leg I was in. If each of those five branches off again-"
His squad mates turn around to examine the land they just traversed. They could be surrounded by Licks hiding in the sand ready to pop out or drag them down.
They had no way of knowing, but it felt like they were in it pretty deep.
"Did you see a communications array?" Desmond asked.
"Just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it isn't there."
"They could know we're coming."
"Or they might not communicate the way we do. This could be an independent unit, like us, working on its own for the same goal."
“Stopping us."
"Yes sir."
Desmond turned to Renard and Tay.
"Sweep the perimeter. Everyone meet on my mark. Bring Leroy over here."
Bellhop and Wang lifted Leroy's blasted body up by the arms and dragged him through the sand. They laid him down without ceremony in the trench by Desmond and turned back to watch with the others.
Nothing stirred behind them except for the dust, the wind. Renard thought it was one of the weirdest things about being on Mars. The lack of sound.
Sure it was easy to hear the breathing of his squad mates over the open communicator lines, but the wind on earth would whistle, howl, or just rattle as it shifted over and around things.
Up here it all happened outside of his suit a self contained little world that left him feeling disconnected from
the environment.
Not that there was much connection back in the atmosphere, but at least he could hear.
It was one of the first lines of defense growing up on the streets. One developed a keen ear for danger approaching.
Footsteps in the dark. The roar of a hoverjet engine as the homeless were hunted for conscription into the Marines.
Here there be dragons and silence.
They couldn't hear them roar.
"Our mission may have been compromised," Desmond announced, his voice tight. "They might be watching us now. We don't know. I need all eyes open. I need all periscopes up. We move in radio silence and fast. Our goal is that damn gun emplacement. If you are the last god damn man standing, then you move for that gun and gut it. Got it?"
"Yes sir," the radios squawked softly.
"Bellhop. Wang. Pull point."
The two Marines checked the power packs on their rifles and began the slow jog across the sand, feet touching off little dust storms the wind picked up to carry across the valley floor.
The rest of the men fell in with them.
"Run quiet. Run fast. Stay alert," Weber jogged next to Renard and clapped him on the shoulder.
Then he was gone, moving ahead so that Renard could only see the sand colored suit as they spread out.
9
Renard sucked wind. He tried to fight it, hoped to fend off a cramp before it came in, but the stitch in his side grabbed him like a vice and he slowed.
His shuffling footsteps kept him going, almost looking like a run, if a turtle were making the fast pace across the sand. He could hear his breath wheezing in and out and wondered what the others thought of the noise.
The sun blazed down, the internal compensators working overtime against the heat he was building up inside the suit. He felt like he was sloshing.
Better hot than cold he thought and remembered the Global. Packed in tight with hundreds of other recruits, shoulder to shoulder sleeping on flat mat racks in the vast hold next to the shuttle bay.
He could feel when the ship settled into orbit because the hum of the ion engines behind their sleeping quarters stopped.
The ship creaked as retro rockets fired sporadically to maintain position.
A red light above the airlock door began whirring as a siren blared throughout the ships.
"Red Alert!" a Corporeal screamed.
The men scrambled to lock down their helmets, grab their rifles and hustle for the shuttles.
Their bodies piled up at the bottleneck of the airlock, the simple doorway designed to allow one man through at a time was better at compartmentalizing sections in case of breech.
Renard was lucky.
He made it through in the first wave, a purple faced Sargent screaming at him as he ran.
"Everybody in the cans! In the can's now. We're dropping."
Renard hit the ramp into the shuttle. One of his fellow recruits snapped him around with a hand on the elbow.
"We're still two hours out!" he shouted.
"Something bad is happening."
Outstanding grasp of the obvious, Renard slid into the jumpsuit and clamped down the straps.
He double checked the seals on his helmet as the shuttle engine roared and lifted off the decking.
"Green! Green!" the Sargent leaped out of the ramp as it closed with a hiss.
Renard felt the shuttle turn around and the acceleration thrust him back into his seat as it raced for the exit.
An enemy rocket slammed into the ship doors as they went through, the concussion bounced the shuttle into the side of the ship and sent it on a spin through space.
The recruits inside screamed, the sound locked behind their sealed helmets.
Renard squeezed his eyes closed and didn't see the lifeless body of the Sargent caught in the vacuum bounce off the hull of the shuttle.
The pilot pulled it out of the spin and leveled off as it skipped on the edge of atmosphere.
A second shuttle spiraled past them in an uncontrolled descent.
The inside of Renard's shuttle rocked like a wild thing. He was slammed against the straps, the hard wall of the hull, the ridges of the jump seat cutting into his legs.
The pilot's voice came over their headsets.
"Everyone hang on. We're going in tight."
He could feel the rockets buck against the atmosphere as the pilot fought for control.
10
Captain Mike Dawson stared at the curvature of the red planet as they settled into orbit. His young face was lined with concern as he watched rockets arc out of the atmosphere and zero in on his ship.
"All hands red alert," his second called out.
"Prepare stations," Dawes called out.
A red light began strobing on the bridge, the emergency signal blaring throughout the ship.
"Return fire," Dawes commanded.
Explosions rocked the ship as enemy rockets slammed into the hull plating.
"Fire at will," Dawes said.
Rockets arced up off batteries on the ship and raced toward the Martian atmosphere.
"Two shuttles out," the Second yelled. "We've lost hull integrity. They hit the shuttle bay."
"Control?"
"No helm," the wide-eyed ensign stared up at him.
"Full batteries," Dawes told the Second. "Feed them hell."
The second turned to comply as a rocket slammed into the bridge. Shrapnel sprayed from the control panels and pierced him against the far wall.
Dawes climbed up and surveyed the sparking carnage through acrid smoke.
"All hands abandon ship."
Anne, his communications officer pulled herself back to station and keyed the radio for the automated announcement.
"All hands to designated life pods. All hands to designated life pods," it repeated on a loop.
"Transfer controls to my station," Dawes said to the injured Ensign. "Bridge crew to the escape pods."
His First Mate Columbus didn't move from his station.
"Captain?"
"I'm not dumb enough to go down with the ship."
"I'm not so sure Sir."
"Just buying you some time. Go get our fall back command ship ready," Dawes gave him a quick grin.
Columbus grabbed Anne and the ensign and hustled them out into the corridor toward the life pod.
Dawson keyed the coordinates for the Lick Beachhead into the landing solution.
He locked the computer and set an ion engine burn to fire after ninety seconds turning the giant Global into one hell of a bunker buster.
He eyed the bridge of what had been his first and was mostly likely his last command then ran out of the bridge to join the others.
Dawson sprinted down the smoke-filled corridor, sparks leaping from the walls, falling from the ceiling in sheets and fire falls.
He ran past two dead crewmen, bodies crispy from an explosion and swore.
The airlocks designed to automatically close between sections were finally beginning to whisper shut as the fried computer systems rerouted and rebooted.
He raced through one airlock, barely made another and missed the one to his life pod, almost sacrificing a hand to it.
"Damn it.
"There's room in here Captain."
Columbus stood at a manual hatch at an older multi-person lifeboat instead of the autonomous life-pods.
Dawson raced through the doorway and his First Mate swung the hatch closed behind them, spun it locked.
Seven shuttles and the life pods shot away from the Global as explosions from the Lick rockets slammed into the hull again and again.
The giant transport turned missile veered off course and began to disintegrate in flames and fireballs. Life pods blasted away from the hulk even as it drilled straight down into the red planet.
11
Renard topped a rise and stopped to stand with the others.
They stared at the burned crumpled remains of the Global spread out across the desert for thousands of ya
rds.
"That your ship Renard?" Bellhop asked.
"It brought me here."
"How the hell are we supposed to get home?" Weber sighed.
