by Chris Lowry
He stepped onto a small metal plate welded to the wall as the floor opened beneath the convicts and spilled them into the red dust surface of Mars.
The pipe they were chained to popped free from the wall and the men slid out in groaning thuds onto the hard surface of the planet.
They were at the bottom of a boulder strewn hill staring up at a five story structure built at the top.
Licks leaned out of openings in the side of the building and blasted at the cargo ship as it roared through a forcefield and away from the convicts.
Weber spied a giant generator resting not too far from their position.
The power pack for the artificial atmosphere that extended over them like a dome.
A case slammed into the ground next to them.
One of the convicts jumped up to open in and took a bolt to the chest.
A second man fumbled the lid off and scooped up a rifle.
He spun around to return fire and another man slammed both fists on the back of his neck and took the weapon.
A Lick blast cut him in half and the rifle clattered to the ground.
They were being picked off one by one from the Licks in the building and Weber noticed more pouring out of the doorways.
He grabbed a blaster, knelt on one knee and tried to sight down the rifle.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He glared at the non working weapon as he watched a third convict pitch over beside him.
Someone grabbed his rifle and flipped it over.
They turned on the power button and shoved it back to him.
Weber lined up a shot on the doorway and sent a blast into the next alien that popped out then the next.
"Move!" someone screamed and he ran for cover behind a boulder.
He leaned out and sent three bolts into
three bodies.
Two convicts joined him as they began to return fire in a disciplined manner back toward the buildings.
The Licks fell as they were picked off, but the convicts were outnumbered and dying fast.
Weber knew they were sitting ducks.
He began crawling from boulder to boulder toward the building, stopping every few feet to shoot an alien.
They fired back but missed him, searing the ground around him.
Acrid smoke and the scent of burnt flesh filled the shallow atmosphere and made his vision hazy.
He fired shot after shot into the aliens, into their fortress until his power pack ran dry.
The other two men followed him up.
One skidded a rifle toward Weber and exploded as a blast smashed into him covering him in a red fine mist that matched the color of the sand.
Weber checked the power pack, rolled over and shot the weapons cache below them.
It sent a fireball that rolled up until it hit atmosphere then spread out in flames that slid back down the inside of the forcefield dome.
The Licks cowered.
He jumped up and ran for the building, firing into the confused aliens and killing them.
The other convict jumped with him, falling in step as they hit the doorway and fought their way to the top.
Licks fell in the stairwell.
They fell out of open windows as Weber and the convict moved up.
The convict shoved him aside to be the first to the top of the roof.
A Lick blasted his body back into Weber, knocked his rifle loose.
It clattered down the steps.
Weber struggled under the dead weight of the body.
The Lick leaned out of the doorway, it's tongue slithered over its long snout.
It lined up a shot.
Weber jerked the dead man's blaster up and shot the alien.
It fell forward into the stairwell and knocked an advancing line of Licks down in hisses and growls.
Weber rolled over and picked them off.
He scrambled up and crawled through the doorway to the roof.
It was empty.
He moved toward the edge and peeked over, ready to shoot the last of the aliens.
Nothing moved.
Flames flickered where the weapons box once stood, smoke curled off of dead bodies of convicts and Licks scattered down the hillside.
He rolled up to his knees and looked harder.
He was the last man standing.
Two shuttles eased over the horizon and slid through the forcefield into the artificial atmosphere.
Marines poured out of the open ramp doors and established a perimeter as a second group began off loading supplies.
Weber trudged down the slick stairwell, stepping over bodies and around pieces of men.
He stepped out of the building and walked down the hill, weapon held to his side.
The Marines stopped working and trained their blasters on the soot covered grimy stained man as he approached.
Commander Cree stepped out of the back of a shuttle and marched up to him, Burly on his heels.
"Were you in the first wave?"
"Yeah," Weber grunted.
"You will address him as Sir."
"How many others?"
Weber looked around at the dead bodies, down at his blood splattered clothes and wiped some of the gore off his face.
"Just me."
"Get him cleaned up and in a Suit," Cree commanded. "I want you suited up and in my command tent in ten minutes."
"He doesn't have any training-" Burly started to say.
"How many battles have you fought on Mars?" Cree cut him off.
"Yes Sir."
Burly hustled Weber toward the ramp of the Command shuttle as it rested in the shadow of the building they designated the Citadel.
15
What do Dawson and company want to do?
Get to the Global and survive.
What do Weber and Renard want to do?
Get the gun emplacement down.
What does Desmond want?
What does Bellhop want?
"Are we there yet?"
Dawson lifted one tired foot off the sand and set it forward again.
"The more you talk," he wheezed. "The more air you waste."
"I signed up. To fly. Not to march."
Columbus reached down the air canister he had strapped to his leg and adjusted the flow, filling his suit with oxygen. He sucked in three giant breaths.
Anne stepped up beside him and cranked it back down.
"Less talking. More walking," she said and passed him.
Columbus grunted and fell in step behind her. The blast of air helped. Already the stars in his vision were clearing away and he could feel his ability to think returning.
They were still twenty kilometers away and the sun was turning the sky behind them into a line of harsh light. Soon the sun would top the horizon and spin across the face of the heavens. The pale glow of starlight was being washed out with growing light but it made walking even harder as the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own.
"When we get there," he said over their radio link. "What if we can't find supplies."
"I know. Where. To look." Dawson tripped over a rock and pitched forward onto his knees.
They could hear him curse and wheeze as he struggled to rise up.
Anne reached him and leaned down to grip him by an arm. She lifted, lost her balance as the effort sucked all of her energy from her oxygen starved muscles and she too collapsed next to the Captain.
Columbus reached them and spun the dials on all three air canisters up a couple of notches. They had been marching all night on restricted air, moving at a pace that should still put them at the Global before the setting of the sun, but once there, they still needed to find air and shelter.
They were hungry. Thirsty. And scared. Columbus knew there were in enemy territory and only luck had kept them from being discovered. If they were he had little hope that their small pistols could do much against full blasters.
So far they had made it undetected
, just three tiny figures moving across the planet toward a wrecked space ship.
The air revived Dawson and he helped Anne up.
"Thanks," he said to Columbus.
Anne nodded and reached back to turn their canisters back down.
"Miles to go," she said.
"Kilometers," Columbus joked. "We should call them klicks."
"Klicks to go," she repeated.
Dawson took a bearing on his tablet and set off in the lead again. The other two fell in behind him.
16
TO BE CONTINUED
