Colony Down: Battlefield Mars Book 2 Page 2

  The thought stirred a twinge of sadness. Gladys had been a shrew, but to her credit, she’d stood by him his whole career, even agreeing to come to Mars, which a lot of women wouldn’t have done.

  Affection wasn’t a factor. Neither of them loved the other. Theirs was a marriage of mutual convenience. Gladys loved the trappings that came with his position, while he loved the position itself. Put more simply, she liked money and good clothes, and he liked power. To him, the purest joy in life was manipulating others to do his bidding.

  Now Gladys was dead and he was---where?

  Despair took root. If he could have, Winslow would have curled into a ball and cried. Gladys would have told him to buck up and take it a like a man, but what did she know? She was a woman.

  Winslow tried to empty his mind and not think about his plight. He was afraid that otherwise his despair might become so great, he’d snap. He’d go stark crazy and gibber like a madman---if he had a mouth.

  He started to wonder if the horrific torture would go on forever, if perhaps this was some kind of hellish afterlife, a punishment for his devious ways. But that was silly. He wasn’t evil. He didn’t go around hurting others for hurt’s sake. Besides which, he’d never believed in that bunk.

  But emptying his mind didn’t help. His despair grew worse. He was on the verge of losing all reason when, without warning, there was a change.

  A faint sense of movement came over him. As if the green glow were in motion. He dismissed it as a trick of his imagination. But when it persisted, a faint spark of hope was lit. The hope that, at long last, he would get to the bottom of the mystery.

  Winslow was startled when the green glow began to shrink. A definite boundary appeared, a frightening dark void, almost pitch black. Bit by bit, the blackness grew. Icy fear filled him. The fear that once the green glow was gone, so, too, would he be. The blackness was devouring him. Or, rather, his consciousness.

  Winslow wanted to shriek. To rave and rant against the injustice of it all. He didn’t deserve this. No one did. He should be back in New Meridian, healthy and happily living the life of power and prestige he loved.

  Suddenly, Winslow was jolted as if by a powerful surge of electricity. He felt himself jump and twitch and shake. The convulsions became so violent, he was afraid they would tear him apart. Then, as abruptly as they began, they stopped.

  New sensations flooded in. Sensations so strong, they were dizzying. He realized he could see. His sight had been restored. But there was something wrong with his eyes. The world around him was broken into a jumble of confusing fragments.

  Winslow concentrated on one of them and it acquired crystal clarity.

  Raw panic set in. For there, in front of him, squatted a crab-like Martian, its grippers poised to rip and rend.

  Martian dawn was breaking when Archard descended toward the tank and landed with a loud thump. When he took a couple of steps and raised an arm in greeting, the battle suit seemed sluggish. Or maybe it was him. The wear and tear was taking a toll. Since setting out, the most he’d slept was a two-hour spell a couple of days ago. He’d have collapsed from exhaustion by now except that the RAM 3000 monitored its wearer’s vitals and injected stimulants and medicine as needed.

  Katla’s voice crackled in his earphones. “You’re back! We were getting worried.”

  “All taken care of, sir?” Private Everett asked.

  “We’re good to keep going,” Archard said. Moving up behind the armored rover, he placed the RAM’s giant hands against the frame. “Here we go.”

  “Shouldn’t you rest?” Katla said.

  “When we reach Wellsville, I’ll sleep for a week,” Archard said. “Is the tank in neutral?”

  “I’m at the wheel, sir,” Private Everett said. “And yes, we’re all set.”

  “Let’s do this.” With a grunt, Archard resumed pushing. The suit easily absorbed the strain. He settled into a familiar rhythm, moving mechanically in more ways than one.

  Boulders were everywhere, and had to be avoided. Occasional rock outcroppings rose like islands. There wasn’t a single speck of green anywhere. Not so much as a hint of life.

  When Archard first arrived on the Red Planet, he’d been fascinated by the Martian landscape. Here he was, on a whole new world. His fascination didn’t last long, though. After a while, the vistas of nothing but dirt and rocks and more rocks and more dirt lost their appeal.

  Now, gazing out over the barren surface, Archard dearly missed the forests and lakes of Mother Earth. He missed trees and grass and flowers. He missed birds and butterflies. Compared to bleak Mars, Earth was heaven, pulsing with life and rich with beauty. Lord, he couldn’t wait to set foot on her again.

  “Captain?” Private Pasco’s voice intruded on his reverie.

  “What is it?” Archard said.

  “I’m in the turret, sir.”

  Archard raised his helmet, and the young Spaniard waved at him from the MASER bubble on top of the tank. “Thank you for letting me know,” he said dryly, “since that’s where you’re supposed to be.” During the day, anyway, to serve as a lookout.

  “I’ve been here since they woke me, sir,” Pasco said, “Watching the sky for you. Or anything else.”

  Archard lowered his helmet and put his back, and the battle suit, into pushing faster. “If you see something, call out.”

  “That’s just it, sir,” Private Pasco said. “I think we’re being followed.”

  Archard stopped pushing and turned. He activated every sensor in the RAM and swept every bit of ground to the far horizon. “I’m not picking up a thing.”

  “This is Everett, sir,” the Kentuckian broke in. “I’m not picking up anything on the tank’s sensors, either.”

  Shifting the RAM’S legs, Archard fixed his faceplate on the turret. “We can do without false alarms, Private Pasco.”

  “Trust me, sir. It’s not nerves,” Pasco said. “Twice, right before you got back, I saw something move.” He pointed toward a distant outcropping. “Over there.”

  “Any idea what it was?”

  “I only had a glimpse,” Private Pasco said. “It was low to the ground, and moved fast. But to me it looked like one of those worker Martians, or whatever they are. Could be it’s been following us.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Private Everett said. “Or we’re royally screwed.”

  Archard scowled. The last thing they wanted was for the Martians to shadow them to Wellsville. It would be New Meridian all over again.

  “Wait here,” Archard said to those inside, and took to the air. Rising only a couple of meters, he skimmed the surface in ever widening circles. If the Martians were anywhere around, there should be tracks.

  His headset crackled and Katla said, “It could be Private

  Pasco only imagined he saw it. Stress can play tricks on the mind.”

  “I saw it, Dr. Dkany,” Private Pasco insisted. “I’m a trained trooper.”

  “Your training doesn’t cover every exigency,” Katla said.

  “Every what?”

  “Pipe down, both of you,” Archard cut in. “I’m trying to concentrate out here.” He didn’t blame them for being testy. They’d been cooped up in the tank for over a week. As much as they’d like to get out and stretch their legs, it required donning an EVA suit and not wandering further than a stone’s throw away. Hardly worth the effort, given that time was literally of the essence.

  “A word if I may, sir,” Private Everett said.

  “I’m listening,” Archard said.

  “If the Martians are out there, we can’t go any closer to Wellsville, can we?”

  “No, Private,” Archard confirmed. “We can’t.” They would have to break off and head elsewhere. Anywhere. So long as it was away from the second colony. Lives were at stake. A lot of lives. Specifically, one hundred and sixty-four, including a U.N.I. C. unit with seven personnel, under the command of a Major Dwight Howard.

  Archard continued to search until he neared the rock o
utcropping Private Pasco had pointed out. Ascending a little higher, he keyed his sensors to maximum and probed the outcropping from the top of a tower-like column at its center to a ring of boulders that spread east and west from the tower’s base.

  Archard suddenly stopped, and hovered. His initial impression had been that the outcropping was entirely natural, just another of the countless outcroppings that dotted the Martian surface. No two were ever alike. He’d had no cause to suspect they were anything other than random geologic formations. But now, as he increased the magnification factor on his helmet display and zoomed in on the column, something wasn’t right.

  Archard flew closer. The column appeared to be solid rock. The boulders, too. Yet his unease persisted. Boosting magnification to its limit, he scanned the column a second time. The surface was coarse and pitted. There was no evidence it was an artificial construct.

  To be sure, Archard initiated an electromagnetic scan. He went from radio to microwaves to infrared to ultraviolet. He would have done an x-ray and gamma ray sweep, too. But at ultraviolet, his helmet display lit up like a small sun going nova. The column glowed so brightly, it hurt his eyes.

  Mystified, Archard tried to make sense of it. He switched the scan off to spare his eyes, and blinked to clear them. Just in time to see an opening appear at the bottom of the column.

  CHAPTER 4

  The opening spread a good six meters, becoming an oval-shaped door or hatch. The next instant, out scuttled an eight-legged creature a meter in circumference, with a pinkish red carapace. From the front extended a pair of appendages that ended in long, slightly serrated grippers.

  From out of hidden recesses in the carapace rose a pair of multifaceted compound eyes attached to long stalks. The eyes swung in Archard’s direction, and the creature rose as high at its legs allowed. Its grippers opened and closed, making clacking sounds, and the thing came at him in a rush.

  Out of the hatch behind it poured more.

  Archard resorted to the RAM’s M537 Minigun. Able to churn out lead at a cyclic rate of five thousand rounds a minute, it chewed the first creature and those that were emerging behind it to ribbons. But more kept streaming out of the entrance.

  Archard gained altitude. It wouldn’t do to let the Minigun run dry, not when they might need it again. He switched to missile mode. He would blow up the column and bring it crashing down, sealing it. But as he locked on, a different type of Martian burst out and raced with amazing speed toward the tank.

  The new creature was blue, and huge, five meters high and nine meters long, at least three meters of which was a segmented tail. Its forearms, if they could be called that, were as big as the battle suits.

  Archard had fought one of these this before, and barely survived. They were a warrior caste, incredibly tough, astoundingly strong. Should it reach the tank, it could easily rupture the armor plating, causing decompression. Everyone inside would die.

  All this ran through Archard’s mind as he engaged the RAM’s thrusters and sped in pursuit.

  The blue warrior’s eyes telescoped and turned toward him, then quickly retracted into a ridge along the front of its carapace. The creature went faster.

  “Private Everett! Private Pasco!” Archard bellowed into his mic. “You have a blue Martian, closing fast!”

  “Already on it, sir,” Private Everett replied.

  The tank was in motion. The Kentuckian had fired up the engine and was wheeling the vehicle to engage the enemy. Like the battle suit, the tank was fitted with an array of weaponry.

  To Archard’s consternation, the creature began to weave in an erratic pattern, as if the thing somehow knew its quarry was about to open fire.

  The tank had come to a halt. The battery charge was low, and Everett was waiting for the creature to narrow the distance.

  Archard preferred not to let it. He launched a missile. Almost faster than the human eye could follow, it flashed down.

  At the last split-second, the creature swerved sharply, and the missile struck the ground instead. The explosion wasn’t as loud as it would be on Earth. Sound didn’t travel well in Mars’ thin atmosphere. Dirt and stones and dust rose in a billowing cloud.

  For a few anxious moments, Archard lost sight of the Martian. He zoomed over the small crater the blast had left, but there was no body.

  Archard flew clear of the dust.

  Seemingly unhurt, the blue warrior was bearing down on the tank.

  “Leave it to me, sir,” Private Everett hollered.

  The tank’s twin 7.62 mm machine guns opened up.

  Miniature dirt geysers erupted as the slugs stitched a path toward the Martian.

  Archard clearly saw the creature hit. Yet the rounds either glanced off its thick carapace or failed to penetrate to its vitals.

  The blue warrior didn’t slow. And now it was barely seventy-five meters from the others.

  Inside the tank, Dr. Katla Dkany gasped. “What does it take to stop that thing?” A part of her, the trained exobiologist, marveled at the creature’s ability to absorb punishment and keep coming. But a larger part felt rising dread.

  “Pasco!” Private Everett bawled.

  “On it!” the young Spaniard yelled from the DEW array on top.

  Katla heard the hum of the MASER which was short for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. In other words, it baked living organisms alive.

  The blue Martian broke stride, and shook slightly.

  Private Everett let out a whoop and pumped a fist in the air. “Pour it on, Pasco! We can eat Martian lobster tonight!”

  The very idea revolted Katla. She supposed it shouldn’t. After all, back on Earth, she had loved buttered lobster and crab. Only these were alien crustaceans, and intelligent, and eating one, to her mind, would be a hideous violation of basic ethics.

  “Look! Look!” Private Pasco shouted.

  The Martian had recovered and was closing again. Lowering its carapace, it became a blur.

  “It’s fixing to ram us!” Private Everett exclaimed.

  Katla instinctively reached for the dash to brace herself. At the speed the thing was moving, and given its bulk, it might well crush the front of the tank. She heard Trisna Sahir’s daughter scream.

  “The MASER can’t stop it!” Private Pasco bawled.

  A small hand fell on Katla’s shoulder and she nearly jumped. It was ten-year-old Piotr Zabinski, who had lost his mother and father to the Martians. His eyes were wide with fright. She scooped him into her arms just as Everett flicked a toggle and a sheet of fire shot from the tank.

  “The flamethrower will fry that critter to a crisp!” Everett declared.

  Katla had her doubts. But the creature did come to an abrupt stop, its eye stalks sliding out of its carapace to fix on the crackling tongue of flame. She wondered if it even knew what fire was.

  Up in the turret, Private Pasco yipped for joy.

  His elation proved premature.

  If there was one thing Katla had learned about the Martians, one aspect that impressed her the most, it was their intelligence. They had developed an entire civilization. Their ruthless attack on New Meridian had been brilliantly conducted. They were smart, these things. As smart as humans, if not smarter.

  The blue Martian proved her point by darting wide to its left. It had ascertained that the flames only came from the front of the tank. The sides were unprotected.

  Trisna Sahir wailed to her gods in Hindi.

  Katla felt like wailing, herself. The creature was coming toward the passenger side. Her side.

  Piotr’s fingers dug into her, and he buried his face in her shoulder.

  Heaving out of his seat, Private Everett moved toward the bay. “I’ll get into an EVA suit and try to kill it.”

  “There is no time for that!” Trisna cried.

  Katla agreed. It would take a full minute for him to don the suit, another to go out the airlock.

  She looked out her window, and nearly screamed. The blue
Martian had halted right outside. As if it were curious, its multifaceted eyes peered in at her. There was no hint of emotion.

  Then its grippers rose and splayed against the tank’s armor plating. Incredulous, Katla watched as they dug into the armor as if it were so much cardboard instead of the most impregnable synthetic known to man.

  “It is going to break in!” Trisna shrieked.

  CHAPTER 5

  Archard held off using a weapon because the warrior was too close to the tank. Arcing high, he saw the blue warrior move around to the side. A boost to his thrusters, and he was directly above it.

  Through his commlink, Archard had heard his men doing their best to stop the thing. That the blue warrior had shrugged off the MASER was incredible. It was not supposed to be possible.

  Without hesitation, Archard bunched the RAM 3000’s oversized fists and went into a power dive. He was taking a gamble. His RAM had taken a terrible beating during his battle in the volcano. He’d repaired the stress fractures before leaving New Meridian, but a repair was never as strong as undamaged armor. He might crack the suit open on impact. In which case, he’d be dead within moments. If the decompression didn’t kill him outright, being unable to breathe would. The air on Mars was ninety-six percent carbon dioxide.

  His battle suit, like the tank and the rovers and the gigantic domes that enclosed the colonies, maintained a simulated Earth atmosphere. A breach would cause the two atmospheres to collide, as it were, with catastrophic results.

  His body rigid, Archard put all that from his mind and slammed into the enormous creature’s broad back. It jarred him to his marrow, even with the suit’s internal buffers. There was a crunch, and a powerful blow to his chest, and then he was lying on his back in the dirt and the Martian terrain and sky were swirling round and round.