Battleground Mars (22 page)

When they drove in through the airlock the crews were waiting for them once more in the garage. The received a hero’s welcome, until Rahm held up his hand and told them that Damian Hacker wouldn’t be coming back. A somber silence descended on the room. Jacques Fechter walked slowly forward.

What happened to Damian?”

Rahm told him about the sudden Tauron attack.

“It was unexpected, Jacques. We’d beaten them, there were no Taurons left for miles. Then they just fell on us, we never knew where they came from.

“He was my brother in law,” the manager whispered in a voice that was overcome. “My wife’s brother.”

They were all appalled. Gabi went up to hug him. “Jacques, I’m so sorry. There was nothing we could do.”

“This damn planet,” he moaned. “She didn’t want him to come, but I said he’d make his fortune here. She’ll never forgive me.”

“She will, Jacques, she will.”

He smiled at Gabi, but it was a bittersweet smile. “You don’t know my wife. Family is sacred to her. I was always in Damian’s shadow where she was concerned.”

“Schh,” Gabi tried to comfort him. Or was she trying to stop him before he said something that was embarrassing? “I’ll pour you some Bourbon, I'm sure we all need a drink.”

He allowed himself to be led away. There was an embarrassing silence, broken by Dan Weathers.

“We needed that transport at the cave, to power the air scrubbers. The air is getting pretty bad in here.”

Rahm nodded. “Well take it straight over, Jacques. We’re already suited up, so we’ll have to take that bourbon later. He nodded at the two troopers from the transport. “Could you keep going a bit longer, take the transport to the cave, I’ll follow in the buggy to bring you back. Dan, are you coming with us?”

“Yes, just me and one of my technicians to start work. We’ll be there for a while, so I suggest you come back for us tomorrow. We should be finished by then.”

“How will we know?”

He smiled at Rahm. “The foul air in this place will become more breathable.”

Saul climbed in alongside him and they went back out through the airlock. The transport was right behind them, they both felt incredibly tired. The journey had been long, cold and very costly.

They kept a sharp eye out for the enemy. They’d hurt them hard out at the Hellespont Mountains, given them a bloody nose they’d be anxious to repay. But this time their worst fears were not realized, and they were able to drive the transport into the cave and leave Dan and his technician to begin the process of adapting the vehicle to drive the primitive dynamo. Saul took the wheel back to Mars Base and they drove back through the airlock with a feeling of relief. Jacques was quiet, for it was as if Damian’s death had been the final disaster that tipped him over the edge. Even their victory over the Taurons did little to assuage his anguish.

“It’s my fault, Rahm,” he replied when Cal took him through the steps they needed to take to save the base. “I’m the manager of Mars Base, look at me! I can’t even look after my own family.”

“I know how you feel, Jacques, because I’ve been through it.”

“That Afghanistan business?”

“Yes.”

“How do you get over it?”

“You don’t.” Rahm was lost for a few moments as the grief and despair resurfaced. But he shrugged it off. “I still don’t know what happened, but what I do know is that you do everything you’re able to do. Keep going until it’s not possible to take another step. We’re not there yet, and if we get our act together, we never will be. Are you seriously going to let a bunch of overgrown lizards take over our real estate?”

If took half a bottle of bourbon and all of Rahm’s experience with personal disaster, but finally Jacques seemed to square his shoulders and start to sound positive.

“You’re right. If they’re going to take us down, it’ll be kicking and squealing all the way.”

“We’re all with you, Jacques. All the way.”

When he woke in the morning, he was greeted by a crowd of somber faces.

“What? What’s happened?”

Gabi was pale. She took his arm. “It’s Jacques. He killed himself.”

“Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it. Are you sure that’s what happened?”

He knew how badly the manager had taken the death of Damian Hacker, but suicide? That was ridiculous.

“He left a note, I think you’d better come and see.”

He followed her through the base to the manager’s office. Tobin Ryles was already installed behind his desk when they entered. He looked up.

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

Rahm smiled. “Shut the fuck up, Tobin, before I shut you up. Where’s this note?”

“You mean the suicide note? That’s confidential, I can’t let you…”

“Listen, you jumped up little pipsqueak. You couldn’t manage a henhouse, so you’d better start behaving yourself or you’ll find there are plenty of us here ready to kick your ass all the way back to Earth. If you behave, and leave us to do our jobs, you can play at being manager. Otherwise you’ll be confined to your quarters until the relief comes, is that clear?”

He nodded a sullen acceptance. “I’ll report you for this, you know. When we…”

“The note, Tobin. Just show me the note.”

“What do you want it for?”

“To make sure that no one killed him. He seemed to be ok last night. Did you kill him, Tobin?”

“No, no. Alright, I’ll show it to you.”

He read through the note. It was no bad thing that the note hadn’t been released for the crews to read. The manager didn’t expect that any of them would survive until the relief ship arrived. It said, “I blame myself for a lot of these problems, the death of Damian Hacker was an event I can’t live with. The last thing I want is to pant and gasp out my last breath with the Taurons beating down the doors of Mars Base.”

He went on to say that a quick and painless death was infinitely preferable to gasping out his last breath while being devoured by an alien monster. It was a sad note. Rahm heard Tobin Ryles speaking.

“The guy was a coward, taking the easy way out. He’s left me to deal with everything. I’m putting the base on immediate lockdown, no more risk adventures that get our people killed. We’re going to play it safe from here on in.”

He looked at the new Mars Base manager. The man was almost preening himself now that he’d achieved the promotion he clearly thought he deserved. He looked back down at the suicide note.

“Ryles, wouldn’t a suicide note have been written by hand? This one was written on a tablet and printed.”

The manager looked up, his face was a mix of emotions, and Rahm couldn’t decipher them. Guilt or fear, or was it puzzlement, a lack of understanding.

“What the hell are you talking about, Rahm? What difference does it make which way he wrote it? The guy took the easy way out, that’s all we need to concern ourselves with.”

“Would you have typed a suicide note?”

Ryles snorted. “I wouldn’t have done it in the first place. What are you getting at?”

“Supposing he was murdered?”

Ryles jerked as if he’d been given an electric shock.

“The hell you say. It was a clear case of suicide. I’m ordering you not to spread this crazy idea about murder, don't you think we’ve got enough worries as it is.”

“Did you kill him, Ryles? Did getting promotion mean that much to you? Or did you push him to it?”

“How dare you speak to me like that? Nobody killed him, you’re suffering from delusions. I’ve given my orders, so I suggest you prepare for lockdown.”

Rahm shook his head. “I’m taking a crew out to the cave.”

“I’ve given orders, just so you're clear. No one is to leave Mars Base! Haven’t you heard what I said, Mister?”

Ryles glared at him, challenging him to test his new authority.

“So you’re going to leave Dan Weathers and his technician out there to die are you, Tobin?”

The man’s jaw dropped as he understood his failure to account for all of the crews. Rahm walked away and found Saul.

“You need to round up the crew. We’re taking a buggy out to pick up Dan Weathers.”

“I thought he needed more time than this?”

“He does, but our little Napoleon, Tobin Ryles is talking about lockdown. If we don’t go get them they could be left stranded.”

Saul nodded and left to alert the crew. When Rahm reached the garage they were all there, Gabi and Kacy, and Kaz as inscrutable as ever. Brad was checking out the laser cannon. Nathan Wenders looked deep in thought. For the thousandth time, Rahm wondered what was bugging him. He started when he saw that he was being observed.

“Why are we taking the girls, we’ll be overloaded on the way back?”

Gabi heard him and answered. “It’s because they may need us, we’re both technicians and I’m, the only one here who has any working knowledge of the air scrubbers, remember?” Gabi grinned. “The rest of the crew will be carrying rifles in case we run into any trouble.”

“Ok, we’ll cram everyone in on the way back. I doubt that Dan is ready yet, there’s no sign of the air scrubbers working again but if we don’t go now Ryles could lock the base down for good.”

Kacy looked worried. “Surely not? He wouldn’t leave people out on the surface, would he?”

“Is that a chance you’d take with our new manager?”

She shook her head.

“There's another problem. My cop training tells me that Jacques Fechter’s death was accidental. We need to watch our backs.”

“You think it was Ryles?” Kaz asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not convinced he’d have the guts, but you never know. We’d better leave now before he comes in here and tries to stop us. When I get back, I’m going to check through the security logs, and see who was doing what around the time he went out.”

They suited up and climbed aboard the buggy. Rahm drove into the airlock, the inner door closed and they waited while the pressure was equalized. The outer door opened, they drove out and the door closed. He was about to point the vehicle in the direction of the cave when there was a massive explosion on the far side of the base.

He drove around the perimeter of the dome, where a huge hole had been blown in the skin of the structure. The enemy had struck at the section where much of their remaining life support stores were kept. Probably a suicide attack, Rahm mused. The normal glow of electric light had dimmed, and it looked as if even the emergency supply was failing. He called up the control center.

“Mars Base, this is Rahm, we’re right outside. How are things in there?”

Ryle’s voice came on the speaker. “They’re shitty in here, as if you didn’t know. We’ve sealed off the breach, and we didn’t suffer any casualties. But we lost a lot of air.”

His voice was trembling, they all noticed.

“How much is left?”

“We have air for five days, electricity and heating for not much longer. Maybe a week.”

“Do you want us to come back in, we have two technicians with us, and they can help you fix things.”

They all heard a chilly laugh. “Fix things? We’re all going to die, don’t you know that? We have air for five days, so nothing you can do will alter that. Besides, you can’t return, every time the airlock is used we lose some of our air. I’m not allowing any more movement in or out of the base. Now leave us alone, we need to start preparing for the end.”

There were no conflicting voices over the communications net. Rahm drove slowly away.

* * *

Granat watched from the rim of a small crater, less than three miles distant. He’d hoped that they’d swarm out to make repairs to the damaged structure. Instead, they were remarkably quiet, as if they’d sealed off the damaged part of their base. Perhaps the area that he’d sent his suicide squad into was not as important as his engineers had suggested. He’d have a work with them about that. If they’d failed him, they’d feel the hard edge of his wrath. But in the meantime he had to deal with the straightforward problem of ending the human mineral exploitation on Mars. He looked carefully at the base again. He was certain that the lights glowed more dimly that before. Was that a part of their emergency procedure, or were they running low on the means of life support. He noticed a buggy emerge from the airlock. It looked as if they were setting out on a drilling mission. In that case the attack had failed. He needed a different approach. Perhaps multiple suicide attacks, yes, that could be the answer. If they hit the base in several places at once, it would be impossible for them to recover form the damage, they’d be fatally damaged. Yes, his suicide teams could do it, they were impossible to stop. It hadn’t been so easy this time, getting them to strap on the bombs to their bodies, some of his men were even mumbling about his leadership being in question. Well, a success would put an end to that. He walked down from the crater rim to the transport that was waiting for him. It was only on the return to Elysium that he remembered the victory cry. It hadn’t seemed quite so appropriate this time. The next attack would be different.

His crew stared at each other. The explosion had not only destroyed part of Mars Base’s life support. It had also destroyed the will to fight of the people left inside.