MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  They reached the platform’s central door and formed up beside the edge.

  Grant led, nodded slightly, and hit the control on the wall. The door slid open silently. Smoke poured out of the enclosed passage, along with the din of more gunfire. He ducked his head around the edge to survey the room then pulled back.

  “It’s an alcove, lower side looks like stone but there’s glass from waist-height on up that’s been blown out. We’re gonna need to be quick. Run in at forty-five degrees right for ten meters, turn, and fire into the station. We need to get over so whoever they’re fighting doesn’t get us too.”

  “Got it,” Scott said, confirming and following Grant in as he led the way forward. Smoke, shots, and explosions ripped at the room around them but he didn’t let it distract him.

  It only took a second. Grant slid silently to a point he felt was far enough to the side. He rotated his weapon back left and pulled back on the trigger. Instantly, the rifle roared to life, throwing a stream of hollow-point bullets.

  Scott only made it through a second on his own before the noise got the better of him. He looked over at Grant; the fire from his barrel reflected deftly off the visor of his helmet.

  The man stood frozen for a moment, his leading hand wrapped around the rifle’s carrying sling to maintain his aim. Scott looked forward again and only saw bits of blood and matter spewing from unseen sources behind the veil of soot. Grant turned, pushed Scott to the ground, and rushed the station.

  In what looked like a single stride, Grant covered the distance and leapt to the edge of the kiosk and again ran a hail of rounds into whatever was left. Shots from farther down the hallway snapped by. This time, the private dropped and rolled off the wall, tearing up his visor as he fell.

  “FRIENDLY! ALL CLEAR! FRIENDLY! ALL CLEAR!” he shouted as Scott watched from the side. His voice was barely audible by the engineer, whose ears were ringing and probably bleeding. The shots tapered off amidst some more muffled shouting from beyond. Grant stood and cautiously moved towards it, disappearing from the engineer’s view.

  Again Scott was alone. Crouched with his back against the wall, he scanned the surrounding room or what he could see. The security desk was half of an ellipse which jutted into the hallway. It was a fairly tight space but left enough room to maneuver whatever equipment surly was moved about under normal circumstances.

  Lighting was provided by strips of LEDs along the ceiling like in the other rooms. The corners and baseboards were rounded to keep dust from collecting and painted an extremely light beige or gray. The floor was a darker textured epoxy, designed to withstand decades of abuse with minimal maintenance.

  More doors like the one he and Grant had just passed through dotted the hallway every few meters, but there was no way to tell how far down the pattern continued.

  He looked back at the security kiosk and saw the remains of the guards piled up on the other wall, visible as the air handlers caught up and began to filter out the fog of war. The man on top had been thrown down with his eyes open, his face burned with a twisted look of terror. A deep, bloody gash took the place of his neck. Scott felt trapped by the fallen soldier’s gaze as if the two of them were the only people left in the world.

  He didn’t expect Grant’s hand falling on his shoulder of out nowhere. Scott jolted, breaking lock on the corpse.

  “You okay?” Grant asked, and then followed his line of sight. “Don’t look. It’s okay. They’re gone and we’re still here,” he said, reassuring the engineer. “Do you know any of these guys?”

  Scott shook himself out of the trance and came back to reality. Behind Grant materialized a crowd out of the smoke. They were attired far different from anyone he had encountered so far.

  A few were wearing the standard issue security uniforms, or so Scott extrapolated from the fallen. Some looked to be utterly disheveled, missing shoes and armor, wearing whatever they had scavenged along the way. A few others wore bright orange jumpsuits. Are they convicts? Scott silently asked himself, and then suppressed the thought.

  He shook his head, still trying to pull himself together. Half his family could have been among the audience and he’d have counted them as complete strangers.

  Grant offered his hand and pulled Scott to his feet as he listened to the account of the battle from the colonists.

  “They came through the barracks killing everyone they saw…”

  “I locked the door until they passed. I couldn’t move…”

  “What could they want?” Grant asked the group. “The team from Earth just took back the concourse. Is this it or could there be more of them?”

  One voice broke through. “The dig.”

  Grant looked back to the miner holding a heavy machine gun.

  “The excavation on the east side of the base is the only thing that’s changed. We’ve been clearing it out to expand the base underground. It’s been ongoing since the war.”

  It didn’t really answer his question, but it was better than nothing. “Can you take me there?” he asked.

  The miner nodded. “We can take the concourse bridge down to the airlock. It’s all sealed from the interior of the base.”

  Grant nodded. “Let’s do it,” he advised, turning to address the rest of the colonists. “I’d like to get down to the site and see if there’s any more aliens waiting for us. Space Corps has the west end cleared if you want to get checked out by them,” he said, facing Scott, and then back to the uniformed security officers. “Can you find some armor for my friend here?”

  * * *

  The mission continues, Major Kael told himself. While Sergeant Mason moved out to clear the south side of the base, he stayed with the wounded as the ships kept watch above. They would prevail.

  All battles were controlled chaos, and this one was no different. Jumping in blindly was so tactically bad but there was no other alternative. He tried to keep that in mind as he held a wad of self-cauterizing gauze to his soldier’s midsection as two others carried him through the airlock to the staging area. When the last of the aliens were taken out, he had ordered the doors closed and pressure equalized so there’d be less delay getting through the base.

  “Hold on. We’re almost there,” he said reassuring the broken man.

  “Just kill that thing. I’ll do it myself.”

  “Done. That’s what I want to hear,” Kael ordered as he saw a pair of medics from around the corner. They ran to meet him, took one look at the soldier, and drove an auto-injector into his arm.

  “Standard Red Shot?” Kael assumed, as his patient instantly relaxed.

  “Yes.” The first medic nodded. “Four painkillers, antibiotics and circulatory stabilizer. What hit him?”

  “Rifle bullet.” The officer stepped aside and let the medics clear the cavity in the soldier’s chest. “Same as the others,” he said, glancing over to the handful of cots with the rest of the wounded. Two had been hit in the legs. One had a broken arm and another took shrapnel to the face when his visor gave out in a grenade blast. Kael did what he could to console them in the classic battlefield officer fashion until Mason’s voice came in over the radio.

  “Sir, we’ve got a situation down in the south barracks.” Sergeant Mason’s message was short and to the point. It can’t be that bad, Kael figured. If they’d found more aliens, the request would have been more frantic. Then again, the veteran soldier wouldn’t be calling for him if it was something easy.

  “What do you have?” Kael asked as he stood and took a step back from the patients.

  “We found some more colonists. You should probably come see this.”

  “Alright. I’ll be right there,” Kael replied, giving one last glance to his casualties. The last man on the left caught him.

  “Sir, I’m sorry. Good luck,” he mumbled, struggling to manage a salute.

  A dry grin came over Kael’s face. He came to attention and returned in kind. “Don’t worry. We’re going to destroy them all,” he answered, dropping his
hand. “I’ve got to go. Keep it under control back here.”

  Kael shouldered his rifle and made his way back through the airlock. With his visor back, he could see the former battlefield open up so clearly. The other soldiers on guard stood at ease now that the immediate threat had passed.

  According to the maps, the south barracks was the second door along the wall to his right. The first door he passed by to the south labs consisted of a wide airlock in a shallow alcove similar to what had been installed back at the landing bay. He could tell from a distance that the one to the barracks was about a meter narrower but still wide enough to move some light vehicles through. Three of his soldiers guarded the door.

  “What do we have here?” he asked the detail.

  “It’s messed up, sir,” one responded. “Ask Sergeant Mason; he’s inside.”

  Kael played along and opened the door with his right hand firmly on his rifle in case things had gone downhill. The airlock split in the center and slid to the sides. Blood instantly ran over the threshold. “What the shit...” Kael growled.

  Bodies of the colonists were strewn all across the floor. Dents from automatic weapons fire peppered the walls. The aliens must have taken out every single person on the floor. Adding to the scene, most of the ceiling lights had been blown out, leaving emergency lights casting a red glow every few meters.

  Farther down, Kael spied a team of his men working by helmet lamps.

  Mason saw the door open, turned to the light, and raised his hand. “Sir! Down here!” he shouted.

  Kael stepped over the massacred colonists carefully, trying not to disrespect them anymore than they already had been, cursing nonstop. “If this was the aliens, what were they armed with?”

  “There’re a few belt-fed machineguns down here and some ammo. Probably theirs; they look old as hell.”

  “How many K.I.A. do we have?”

  “We’re at four hundred fifty so far but there are a lot more.”

  Whatever their status would be tomorrow, Kael felt as if they had already failed. Some rescue attempt this had turned out to be. “Is there a chance of finding any survivors?”

  Mason rolled a body over. Half the man’s face and throat were missing. “Not yet. Maybe Grant has them up on the next floor. We’ll keep checking the rooms.”

  19

  Scott felt strangely safe with a good centimeter of armor between his organs and any alien surprises. The armor didn’t weigh much in Mars’ gravity field but there was no mistaking the extra bulk. Scott had to move slower and more purposefully so as not to lose his balance. Maybe it was just something he had to get used to.

  Grant and the miner took point with the rest of them in two columns along the walls. The miner, Othello, he might have introduced himself as, seemed to know how to handle a weapon, but he could have been up front just to give directions. What am I saying, Scott mused, to survive this long he must know how to cause some damage.

  “The upper mine entrance is just a little farther,” Othello reported. “It’ll be pretty clear once we’re inside so cover might be hard to find.”

  “That’s fine. We don’t need to directly engage; we just need to spot them for the guys downstairs. I can’t be dragging you guys into this behind me.”

  Othello looked back over at Grant, holding his rifle closer. “We’ve taken care of ourselves so far. It’s our lot to be here; we might as well make the most of it.”

  The group had already passed the central bridge and was now further down the station then Scott had ever been before. The open layout closed in around them when the roof lowered to the left, turning the wide catwalk into a wider hallway. “What’s behind there?” Scott asked, gesturing to the protrusion.

  One of the security guards answered him first. “Not much. The top of the ship dips down here so it’s used by the maintainers but not many others.”

  Scott nodded mostly to himself and added to his mental list of things that could save his life.

  “I don’t think the aliens came through here,” Othello stated.

  “I agree; there isn’t any blood,” Grant replied. “This place looks brand new. I take it this floor doesn’t get used too often.”

  The miner to his right concurred. “The barracks is about thirty percent full, but most of them are down below. A few take this way to the mine, but most either swing by the office or the dining facility on the way in. Those are both in the walls on the first floor,” he said.

  Ahead the airlock door to the mine stood proud of the wall, beckoning the team forward. Grant flashed back to what he had seen before. Sure, the miner said it was benign but anything could be waiting for them. “I trust you can get that thing open quietly,” he said, stopping two meters back while the others caught up.

  “More or less. They probably won’t be able to hear it down in the dig.” Othello keyed a password into the control panel to the left. Grant and Scott took note. “Once it’s open we’ll go down a ramp about twenty meters, and then go right along the walkway.”

  The lock clicked and the door seal split without a sound aside from a hiss of air escaping. Grant pushed it aside and led the way inside, following Othello’s order. The inner lock was already open so he cut to the right, staying low against the wall until he felt there was enough room for the other two dozen members of the team to get in and spread out.

  The platform was a smooth, heavy duty metal, which was designed to transport heavy machinery to any floor. From the angle ahead, Grant estimated that it must have wrapped around the entire facility and all the way down. To the left, about eight meters over, was a heavy barricade, solid towards the bottom and with a mesh grate on top. The entire facility was lit from strip lights on the wall as well as larger similar lights higher up on the ceiling.

  From his perspective near the wall, the mesh started too high and obscured any view of the ground below. It was sufficient to mask their movement but also kept him in the dark.

  Fifty meters are enough, he thought and raised his hand in a fist. “Hold here,” he forcefully whispered. The security guards who could hear instantly dropped to their knees, watching for danger. The lesser-trained colonists followed their example.

  “O, get up here.” Grant whispered back to Othello as he crept to the edge of the wall, stood up straight, and peered over. Through the heavy braided steel cable, he could make out several enemy positions on the lower levels. Just like before, they were constructing barricades from whatever crates and equipment they could move.

  Othello moved forward again and joined Grant at the wall. He chanced a look over the edge before crouching down. “More aliens?”

  “Yeah.” Grant nodded. “They’re covering both sides on the first floor,” he said, looking down further but couldn’t see the bottom of the mine shaft. “How deep does the dig go?”

  “Over two hundred meters on the main borehole. There are a few landings on the way down with more shafts off of them that go deeper.”

  Grant looked back up to the ceiling, arching across high above like the dome of a stadium. “This thing is huge. I thought you said it was for expanding the base.”

  “It was at the request of the investors, not me. They wanted to make sure the ground was stable and we found out,” Othello answered. “The ground is ancient. It hasn’t moved in ages.”

  “Geology later,” Grant replied. “Do you see any more positions? Is there anywhere else they could form up?”

  Othello thought for a moment. “They could always go deeper. I don’t know what they’d think they’d find.”

  “Don’t worry about that part. They might be running but I think they’ve still got a purpose. We’ve got to clear them if we want to find out.” Grant considered the possibilities. “I’m not going to wait on the cavalry. Form everyone up along the wall here across from their positions. I’ll hit them from their level; you guys cover me.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “No. Can you open their airlock to the concourse from here?”
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  “From the top door, maybe. One of the technicians could probably pull it off,” Othello answered and glanced over the edge. He looked back to see Grant waving another colonist forward.

  “I need you to cycle the airlock down below to draw their attention. I’ll take the first shot and the rest of you can hit them from the side,” he said, turning to the colonist that just approached. “You’ve got five minutes. Make it happen. Good luck,” he said to the technician and Othello before continuing out along.

  The miner took command of the hodgepodge of fighters and circled them up. “Spread out along the wall. We’ve got about four minutes, and then the soldier will attack them from the low side. We need to draw their fire.”

  Scott heard the order and didn’t feel his heart jump as it had earlier. At least he wasn’t alone anymore. He had a real weapon and wasn’t right out in the open. Plus, Grant had their back. Scott looked off down the ramp where he had advanced.

  He watched the man’s shadow follow along the wall, and then scale it. No. He wouldn’t try something that crazy would he? Scott thought as Grant leapt from the top railing only to catch himself on the far side of the lower edge before releasing again and landing on the platform below. The guy is serious, Scott thought as he snapped back and checked his rifle one more time.

  Grant froze as he hit the ground with a soft, dull thud. If taken on Earth with his current load, the fall could have broken his legs and ruptured every disc in his back. On Mars, he simply fell into a low crouch to absorb the impact no worse for the wear. He watched and listened intently for any hint of movement. There was none to be heard. Good. They were still focused on the doors.

  He checked his watch for the time and let his rifle lead him forward down the platform. Grant stuck to the shadows of the wall and moved out until he felt he was only a few meters above and to the side of the closest position.

  There were only a few seconds left before the door would be opened. Grant grasped the railing with one hand, the other on the rifle. It wouldn’t be enough, he thought through the probable exchange. There were at least eight aliens on his side. Explosives were called for.