Battleground Mars (16 page)

“It’ll have to do,” Rahm replied. “Are you ready to go?”

“Let’s suit up and do it.”

When they were ready they were forced to wait for the attack team to go out first. Their mission was simple, to divert the Tauron’s attention so that Rahm’s team could slip by with their precious cargo. They watched the troopers leave and waited twenty minutes. Hacker’s intention was to drive straight at the enemy, all guns blazing. When that had their attention they would vector away towards the Plain of Araby, aiming for the Cassini Crater. On the way there was a small, little known and uncharted area of deep, shifting sands. With luck, they’d lead the enemy into the shifting sands and leave them floundering in its depths. There, they could pick them off at will. That, anyway, was the plan. Inside Mars Base they heard Hacker’s troop open fire and the sounds of a pitched battle raging. Rahm made a last minute check. Then he turned to his force.

“Let’s roll!”

They traveled in the opposite direction to Hacker, along narrow channels in the Martian surface. They were probably what had once been thought of as canals. They kept their buggies away from the skyline as they drove towards the cave. They were almost there when one of Josh’s men called over the intercom.

“I can see Tauron sentries, two of them. About five hundred yards ahead.”

The stopped their vehicles and dismounted. Two Taurons stood on the surface, about ten yards from the channel. It was enough to block their path. They were engaged in some kind of a curious ritual with their weapons. Perhaps like martial arts katas, they were whiling away the time by practicing their skills.

“Josh, stay here. Brad, we need to hit them hard and close, I don’t want any messages going out over their communications net. Can you manage to dismount and bring that cannon?

He nodded. “There’s a tripod mount in the buggy, you bring that and we can assemble it closer to those sentries.”

Rahm took out the alloy structure and together they crept carefully along the base of the channel until they were only fifty yards from the Taurons. They could hear their grunts now as they engaged in their fierce martial games. They set up the tripod and mounted the huge cannon and Rahm made the final adjustments. He nodded, “when you’re ready,” drew his pistol and waited while Brad sighted on the aliens. Brad fired and effect was spectacular. Both monsters disintegrated as they were hit with the massive burst. Where once there had been two huge, threatening monsters, there were now only two corpses on the ground, broken and bleeding the peculiar green blood.

Nathan brought up their buggy, driving behind Josh DeVries. They climbed in next to Kacy and the two vehicles traveled the rest of the way to the cave. The entrance was concealed, large enough to accept their buggies so that they were out of sight. As they drove inside, Gabi was waiting for them. She smiled with relief when Rahm appeared. Josh’s men piled out and covered up the entrance, and then they walked through to the machinery cave. Dan Weathers was waiting for them.

“Did you bring them?”

Josh handed over the small box of grafilek. Dan looked inside.

“This is it? This is everything you could find?”

“We ripped out the portable air scrubbers, after we found there was a small quantity in the stores, so that’s every crystal we have. Apart from what’s inside our own portable scrubbers.”

He was thoughtful for a few moments. “Well, I’ll try it. The machinery is all installed ready to go. As soon as we feed in the crystals it’ll tell us is there are enough.”

He went to a control console, flicked some buttons and a small hatch opened next to him. He tipped the crystals inside, pressed a button and the hatch closed. Another sequence of keys and the machinery started to work.

“That’s it?” Rahm asked. “Is it working ok?”

Dan smiled. “Not quite yet. It’ll process those crystals, and then run them through to the main air scrubbing mechanism. There’s an indicator here,” he pointed to a digital readout. “As soon as there is enough to recycle our air the bar goes into the green. At the moment it’s in the read, because it’s empty. As the crystals are processed, the bar will creep towards the green.”

“And if it only goes halfway and stays in the orange?”

Dan sighed. “In that case, our air will only be partially scrubbed. It’ll still be full of poisonous carbon dioxide. Better than no air at all, but if we breathe it for too long we’ll die.”

“Right.”

They watched the line creep up, slowly. Gabi came to join him and he looked at her.

“You ok?”

She smiled, but it was strained. “I’ll feel better when we get back to Mars Base.”

“Yeah, I’ll feel better when we get back to Earth. I’d give ‘em my bonus in return for a few mouthfuls of clean, sweet mountain air.”

She was about to reply when Dan called over to them.

“It’s not enough.”

The joined him at the console. The line had stopped.

“What now, Dan?”

The engineer looked at Rahm. “It’s as I said, it’ll help, but the air will be poor quality. The only way to improve things would be to use more grafilek. If we stripped out every last crystal from the rest of the portable scrubbers, that would probably do it.”

“And leave us with no backup if the system goes down again.”

He shrugged. “Those are the options. We can’t have it all ways.”

“There is another way.”

They all looked at Rahm. Josh smiled, “hey, if you’re holding out on us, let us know your plan.”

“It’s this, Josh. We have to take precautions in case the Taurons hit us hard again and they could even find their way to this place. I’m suggesting we finish those bastards once and for all. This planet is hostile enough, let’s reduce the odds.”

“Kill all of the Taurons? Are you crazy? They wouldn’t let us get near them.”

“We could do it. They’re tough and they’re clever, but they’re not human. That’s our edge.”

They were all thoughtful. Dan picked up the handset to communicate with Mars Base.

“First off, I’ll let them know that they’ve got some air over the main system, it’s better than what they’re managing with at the moment. Then I suggest we get back. It’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say about your plan.”

The climbed into the buggies and started back for Mars Base. They stopped briefly next to the two dead Taurons and Rahm stripped off the one surviving breathing set. In answer to their questioning glances, he said, “I just want to know what makes these bastards tick. It could help us.”

They headed back to Mars Base. Rahm kept looking down at the Tauron breathing equipment, as soon as he could get it into the workshop he’d dismantle it and see it if could help them. Was it possible that the Taurons breathed a mixture similar to their own? Possible, yes. Likely? No.

“You want us to what?” Tobin Ryles eagerly laughed down the proposal. “We’re here to mine trevanium, Rahm, not start a fucking war. Have you lost your brains?”

He ignored the man and spoke directly to Fechter. “Jacques, we didn’t start this, they did. They keep hitting us and putting us on the back foot. I believe if we hit them hard enough we’ll either finish them for good or give them such a bloody nose that they leave us alone. We’ve got a crappy life support system that still won’t allow us to carry on drilling for the mineral. Either we hit them or we go to bed and watch old movies until the relief arrives. Or the Taurons hit us again and next time do some damage that we can’t repair.”

The argument raged, and Ryles was against any kind of action, as were a few of the miners, who wanted to opt for the so-called ‘safe’ option. The rest of them were heartily sick of letting the alien monsters call the shots, and clamored for the chance to go out and finish them for good. It was the manager, Jacques Fechter, who would have the last word. Once more he retreated into a shell of indecision.

“We need to think about this, men. I don’t want to do something that’ll make our problems worse. We’re still waiting for Damian Hacker’s men to come back from their raid. Let’s see how well they do. I’m not saying that I feel we should sit and do nothing. I need to think about it.”

The meeting broke up when someone shouted through into the crowded room.

“Damian’s people are coming in now”

They swept out of the room and along the passageway to the garage.

The buggies came through the inner airlock door and parked in the garage. Rahm counted the men, there were two missing. Damian climbed down from the vehicle. He looked exhausted as he removed his pressure suit. At first he looked solemn. Then his face split in a wide grin.

“We kicked the shit out of them!”

The crews cheered, and there was pandemonium for a few moments. Finally he held up his hands and shouted for quiet.

“I’m not saying it was easy. I lost two of my best men and we took a few hits. What I am saying is that if we attack them in the right way, surprise them with tactics they’re not expecting, we can beat them. That means we can clear their ugly asses right off the surface of the planet and carry on with our mining operations.” He looked around, noticing that they were not using breathing masks. “Does this mean what I think it means? You’ve fixed the air scrubbers?”

He looked at Dan, who shrugged. “Yes and no, my friend.

He explained about the partial fix, the machinery repaired yet short of enough crystals to operate it at full capacity.

“So we’re still in lockdown?”

Fechter stepped forward. “Not lockdown, Damian. We can move around freely and do as we want inside the base. But it means that we can’t undertake any drilling outside, there just isn’t enough air.”

None of them saw Rahm walk away, except for Gabi. She followed him to the Base workshop. He clutched the breathing mask he’d taken from the Tauron.

“What gives, Rahm? What are you doing with that thing?”

She looked closer. “There’s something wet on it, something green. Ugh, my God, it’s their blood.”

He grinned at her. “I’ll wipe it off. As to what I’m doing, there are about a hundred and fifty Taurons on Mars, give or take a few. What if their breathing equipment is similar to ours? If we manage to beat them, that’s an awful lot of breathing equipment that we could use. It could get our mining operation back on course.”

She took the mask off him. “Let me dismantle it. I’ve dealt with lots of similar things back at training school.”

She stood at the bench, stripping it down to its component parts. Rahm admired her as she worked. She was slender, yet with the strength of one who made there living from working with both their hands and their brain. Her body reminded him of a long distance athlete, or even a ballet dancer, with that inner steel surrounded by an outward grace. He remembered he in bed, her warm flesh pressed against his own, and her athletic agility that made the act so memorable. He grinned inwardly as he felt himself becoming aroused. He needed to keep his mind on the job. Not the other job. She was peering at the readouts on here analyzer and didn’t look up as she spoke.

“If you need to take a cold shower, I can wait.”

 
His grin surfaced. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Because I’m a woman. Now concentrate. The Taurons use oxygen and nitrogen to breathe in a similar way to what we do. I guess that it’s a prerequisite for life on any planet. The difference is in the proportions. They use twice as much oxygen as we do. As well as that there are some trace gases that are not present in our own air on Earth.”

“Does that mean…?”

He stopped. There was an enormous explosion and the overhead lighting failed. They were in pitch black for a few seconds while the emergency lights switched in. They walked out into the main complex.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s the Taurons. They hit our main power generators. We’ve lost our electrical power. We’ve lost everything.”

Granat waited on a low hill close to Chryse Gulf. He watched his team go in. Five of his warriors, they were all young, all desperate to prove their bravery and loyalty. At first it had been difficult to persuade them of the new concept of warfare. His race was brought up to the glories of warrior combat, of men face to face with their enemy, fighting to the bitter end. Until one died and the other lived. This was something new, but so were the humans that they fought. How could a race that was do weak, so primitive, so lacking in the technology of the Taurons become such a formidable opponent? Yet they managed to surprise his forces again and again. The message from Tabor, Lord and Dictator of the Universe, had been unequivocal. They were falling behind in their quotas of trevanium. There was criticism of Granat for squandering too many resources fighting the humans when they should be mining for the precious mineral. The message ended with a typical, brief command. Finish the humans once and for all and bring home the trevanium. No matter what tactics you use, it is essential that you ensure that our ships return to Tauron with their holds stocked to capacity. Otherwise, he would hold Granat responsible. End this foolhardy and petty squabbling now! Or else. He’d pondered the message and decided to waste five of his young warriors to destroy the human’s power installation. They approached with the explosives strapped to their bodies, and each had a trigger on their belt. They were to attempt to place the charges and leave, detonating them as they went. If anything went wrong, they would blow themselves up for the glory of Tauron. It would also save his reputation, of course, but that was incidental. These humans had to pay for all the trouble they’d caused him. The rest was easy, as soon as his warriors were near the building he’d used the remote detonator. He chuckled, it was so easy to arrange. Now these humans would cower in their Mars Base until they died from failure of their life support. It was perfect, at last he’d dealt them a blow from which they’d never recover. They’d die, here, no the surface of Mars. He stood at the top of the hill, proud and erect. He shouted his defiant cry, and the eerie tremolo echoed across the barren surface of Mars.