Battlefield Mars Read online

  The door was slowly swinging open.

  “As a precaution,” Winslow said. He hadn’t planned to have her join him but now he had no choice. “We’re in peril of our lives.”

  With a loud click, the door came to rest. Inside was completely black. Winslow expected the lights to come on, and when they didn’t, he groped about for a switch. Too late, he became aware of peculiar noises.

  Out of the blackness poured Martians, the same as in the sublevel, their stalk eyes waving back and forth. Running past Winslow, they swarmed toward Gladys. She screamed and dropped her glass and turned to flee but the creatures brought her down before she could take a step.

  Her terror-filled eyes locked on Winslow’s in appeal but there was nothing he could do but stand frozen with fear as the things tore her limbs from her body.

  Winslow felt his knees go weak as blood welled up out of Gladys’ mouth and crimson sprayed from the stumps of her shoulders and thighs. Her torso flopped convulsively, then went limp.

  Winslow fought down an impulse to heave.

  A Martian gripped his wife’s head and with astounding ease wrenched it off. Holding the head aloft, it scurried into the blackness.

  Other creatures placed Gladys’s arms and legs to either side of her body and moved back, their eyes bobbing up and down.

  Winslow wished he would pass out. It would spare him the horror to come. But no such luck.

  The next moment, the creatures turned toward him and closed in.

  28

  Dr. Katla Dkany couldn’t blame Piotr Zabinski for being difficult, not after the ordeal the boy had been through. Twice he’d stopped and wouldn’t go on. Each time, she dropped to a knee and spoke soothingly and coaxed him into continuing.

  Piotr’s eyes were empty pits, his face slack. She doubted he knew where he was or what they were doing.

  When Piotr stopped a third time, Katla simply picked him up and carried him. It was imperative she make haste to the Broadcast Center and have them issue an alarm. But first she must drop Piotr at the hospital.

  Katla couldn’t get over Archard’s revelation about there being real, live Martians. Ever since she was Piotr’s age, back in Budapest, she’d cherished the dream that one day humankind would discover they weren’t alone in the cosmos. Finding an advanced civilization might be too much to ask, but life of any kind would be a start.

  Her dream was why she’d minored in exobiology, why she’d later volunteered for Mars. Not that she’d believed Mars harbored life. It was just that the Red Planet was one step closer to planets that might.

  Katla walked faster. With the advent of night, lights had come on all over the colony. One of the brightest was the red cross on top of the hospital.

  Not many people were out and about, which wasn’t unusual. It was the supper hour for many.

  Katla passed the ambulance, which seldom saw use, parked in its usual slot. The wide double-doors opened and she went to the front desk.

  The Duty Nurse, Sharon, was on the phone, her other hand over her other ear as if to hear better.

  “Speak slowly, sir. You’re not making any sense.” She saw Katla and held up a finger to indicate she would be with her in a bit. “You need to calm down, sir. Please. I can’t help you if you’re hysterical.” She rolled her eyes as if to convey she was talking to a nutcase. “People don’t just vanish, sir. Your wife has to be around there somewhere.”

  “What?” Katla said.

  Intent on her call, Sharon turned away. “For the last time. Take deep breaths and compose yourself.”

  Katla didn’t wait. She hurried down a hall, searching for the floor nurse.

  Illness was rare on Mars. Colonists were chosen, in part, based on their genetics, and were as healthy as human beings could be. Accidents, though, still happened, and in the first room lay a man with his broken leg in a cast. In the second, a woman whose required regular checkup revealed that her blood pressure had risen to a troubling level, was hooked to a monitor.

  “Have you seen the Floor Nurse? Nurse Johnson?” Katla asked.

  Engrossed in an eReader, the woman looked up. “Dr. Dkany! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Nurse Johnson?” Katla said.

  “She was in to check on me about fifteen minutes ago.” The woman chuckled. “Don’t you love that accent of hers? They speak so cute Down Under, don’t they?”

  “Do you have any idea where she went?”

  “She didn’t say, sorry.”

  The other rooms in the wing weren’t being used. Katla was about to return to the front desk when she saw that the emergency door at the far end of the hall was ajar.

  Katla wondered if Nurse Johnson had stepped outside for some reason. Cradling Piotr, she hastened over and stuck her head out. “Johnson? Are you out here?”

  In the dim shadows it was hard to see anything. Katla took a partial step and her foot bumped something. She looked down, and smothered an outcry. She had found Nurse Johnson.

  Or what was left of her.

  29

  The sublevel screens in the Maintenance Center office were still dark except for those directly under the hatches. To Archard’s consternation, the tunnel under the Maintenance Center hatch was as empty as the rest.

  “They’ve taken all their dead away,” Private Everett exclaimed.

  “Do animals do that?” Pasco said. He was leaning on a desk to support his leg.

  “These things have a civilization, like we do,” Archard enlightened him. “They’re not animals. They’re intelligent.”

  “As smart as us, sir?” Pasco said.

  “That remains to be seen.” Archard scanned the rest of the screens. The street scenes appeared perfectly ordinary.

  “Could it be the Martians who are jamming our communications?” Private Everett said.

  Archard hadn’t even considered that. He’d seen no evidence of advanced technology in the underground city. But then again, it might be so different from Earth tech, he wouldn’t recognize it if it was right in front of him.

  “This is turning into a regular war,” Pasco said. “And there’s just us three.”

  Archard turned. “Let me see that leg.”

  The wound wasn’t bleeding much but it was deep enough to require stitches.

  “One of those things tore through my suit as if it were paper,” Pasco said.

  “We showed them, though,” Private Everett said. “Between here and back at that lava tube, we must have killed a hundred or more.”

  “Out of, what?” Archard said. “Tens of thousands? Millions?” He clasped an arm around Pasco’s shoulders. “Let’s get you to the tank.”

  “I can walk on my own, sir. I don’t need to be babied.”

  “Zip your hole and limp fast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The air outside felt cool and fresh, even if it was pumped from the Atmosphere Center.

  Archard breathed deep and stiffened.

  “Was that a scream?” Everett said.

  The cry was so faint, Archard couldn’t be sure. He strained his suit to hear another but the night stayed quiet.

  They used the tank’s rear bay door instead of the airlock. Archard checked the sensors, and once again, they displayed nothing out of the ordinary.

  Pasco was holding his leg and grimacing. “I feel hot. And a little woozy. You don’t suppose those things can poison us, do you, sir? Like scorpions, say?”

  Something else Archard hadn’t considered, and probably should have. He needed to get his head together. “They don’t have stingers.”

  Everett had started the tank and put it into gear. Just then the consoles speakers blared, and this time there could be no mistake.

  A woman was screaming for dear life.

  Dr. Katla Dkany had performed surgeries. She was used to blood, and to the sight of internal organs. But seeing Nurse Johnson’s headless torso, with Johnson’s arms and leg placed to either side and Johnson’s stomach ripped open and her organs in a p
ile, caused Katla’s gorge to rise. She tasted bile and swallowed it down.

  Piotr Zabinski saw the remains, too, and came to explosive life. “Mom!” he screamed, struggling furiously to break free.

  Katla held fast. “It’s not your mother,” she said, and slammed the door shut. The electronic lock activated, and a digital display read ‘Secure.’

  Katla didn’t feel secure. The door had hung open for minutes. The creatures Archard had described might be in the hospital.

  Breathless with worry, she backpedaled. Piotr still struggled, but weakly. His outburst had given way to bleak despair.

  The blood-pressure patient had raised her head from her eBook. “Did I just hear a yell? Is everything all right?”

  “There are things…” Katla began, and stopped. The woman would think she was crazy if she mentioned Martians. “You might want to keep your door closed.” She did so before the woman could object.

  The guy with the broken leg was watching a movie. He smiled and gave a little wave as Katla shut his door.

  Sharon was hunched over her duty station, saying into her phone, “You heard your husband call out and you went into the living room, and there’s blood all over but he’s gone?”

  “Hang up,” Katla said.

  Sharon motioned as if to say she couldn’t.

  “I mean it.” Reaching down, Katla ended the call. “You need to pay attention.”

  “What on earth?” Sharon said. “That woman was beside himself. She was the third call tonight. She claimed…”

  “I heard what she claimed,” Katla cut her off. “Now you need to hear me. Lives are at stake.” She paused.

  “Lives?”

  “There are creatures loose in New Meridian,” Katla resumed, and held up her hand when the Duty Nurse went to speak. “Don’t start asking questions! I don’t have time to explain everything. Nurse Johnson is dead and we’re in danger. I need you to make sure the stairwell door to downstairs is locked.” The hospital basement served as their storage room, and their morgue.

  “But…but…”

  “Just do it,” Katla said. “Be careful, and get back here as quick as you can.”

  Clearly bewildered, nodding and shaking her head, Sharon rose, came around, and ran down the opposite hall.

  “Here,” Katla said, and placed Piotr in the vacated chair. “Sit tight. I have things to do.”

  The first was to contact Archard. He answered right away. Keeping her voice as calm as she could, she told him about Nurse Johnson, ending with, “I haven’t had a chance to go to the Broadcast Center yet. The alert hasn’t been sounded.”

  “I’ll see to it myself,” Archard said. “Are you safe there for the time being?”

  “We appear to be.”

  “Good. I have a scream to investigate. Then we’ll proceed to the Broadcast Center. I should be at the hospital in twenty minutes, tops.”

  “No problem,” Katla said with more confidence than she felt.

  “Hang in there,” Archard said, and hung up.

  Katla leaned on the console and closed her eyes. “This can’t be happening,” she said, and yet it was. She must deal with it as she did any crisis. Rousing, she wondered what was keeping Sharon, and moved to the junction.

  The stairwell door at the other end was wide open.

  “Sharon? Where are you?” Katla called out.

  Her answer came in the form of a harrowing shriek.

  30

  Private Everett turned into a side street and slowed at Archard’s command.

  Thanks to the behavioral scientists and their insistence that the colonies on Mars be as Earth-like as possible, New Meridian’s dim streets mimicked those of Earth. A fact that, from a security standpoint, Archard never liked. But since crime was nonexistent, and until now, no one knew that the Red Planet harbored hostile life, where was the harm?

  “Damn us for overconfident fools,” Archard said.

  “Sir?” Everett said.

  “Nothing. Audio at max.”

  “Already is.”

  The street was deserted. Muffled voices came from a couple of house modules.

  “There’s nothing here, sir,” Private Pasco said. “We should get to the hospital. My leg is starting to bother me real bad.”

  “Quiet.” Archard thought he heard scratching. He bent toward the nearest speaker even though his helmet relayed everything the sensors picked up perfectly well. “Stop the vehicle.”

  Everett braked and looked around. “There’s an alley on this side. Want me to hop out and investigate?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Can we take off our EVA suits yet?” Pasco requested. “The atmosphere is normal, isn’t it?”

  “Not yet,” Archard said. If the dome were breached, catastrophe could occur in the blink of an eye. He went out the bay and was almost to the alley when a thought struck him. Stopping, he gazed upward.

  The atmosphere. A human would die, horribly, if exposed to Mars’, which was ninety-six percent carbon dioxide. Evidently the reverse wasn’t true because the air in the sublevels was Earth air and it hadn’t killed the Martians. How were they able to breathe when Earth air only contained about four percent carbon dioxide?

  Then there was the air pressure. Under the dome, it was a hundred times greater than out in the open. How was it the Martians weren’t crushed to a pulp? Were their thick shells a factor? Did the shells protect them like a diving suit protected a deep-sea diver at depths that would otherwise crush the human body?

  So many questions. Archard cast them aside and entered the alley. He went its entire length but didn’t find another victim. Returning to the tank, he settled back as Everett took the next left. They were midway along the block when the Kentuckian braked so sharply, Archard was almost thrown against the dash.

  “What the hell?” Pasco blurted.

  “There,” Everett said, pointing. “Do you see, sir? It’s a body.”

  All Archard could distinguish was a large lump lying at the corner of a building. He exited to investigate.

  A woman, on her way home perhaps, had been jumped at the darkest spot on the street. It was the usual; her arms and legs had been torn off and placed by her torso. Her head, in keeping with the pattern, was missing.

  But it wasn’t her grisly remains that caused an icy fist to clamp on Archard’s chest and cut off his breath. It was the depression in the ground near her. The same kind of depression he’d seen at the Zabinski farm.

  The Martians were out of the tunnels and boring through the very ground.

  Wheeling, Archard ran to the tank. “The Broadcast Center,” he barked the moment he was in. “Step on it.”

  “What about my leg, sir?” Pasco said, his jaw clenched.

  “It will have to wait,” Archard said. So would Katla. Alerting the colony came first. Then they would hurry on to the hospital. He only hoped she stayed alive until he got there.

  31

  Levlin Winslow wailed like an infant when the Martians seized him. He expected to be torn to pieces, as they had just done to Gladys. He struggled, if feebly, and was on the verge of passing out when the most remarkable thing happened.

  Four of the creatures lifted him bodily and bore him into the Survival Shelter. His wits swimming, he was dimly aware of being whisked through a gaping hole in the rear wall. The smell of dirt filled his nostrils. He realized they were traveling through a freshly-dug tunnel.

  The Martians didn’t need the sublevels to get around. They could go where they pleased, making their own passageways.

  Winslow could barely see. They flew past a recess, and in it, something moved, something huge, something unlike the creatures carrying him.

  Total blackness closed in.

  Undeterred, the Martians swept him along with frightening rapidity. His weight was no hindrance; he might as well be a feather.

  The nightmare took an eternity. Tunnel after tunnel, this way and that.

  Winslow didn’t resist. It wouldn’t
do any good. Besides which, he was thankful to be alive—and wanted to stay that way.

  Presently, the dimmest of light alleviated the darkness. The source eluded him. The tunnels changed, too. They weren’t dirt, they were rock.

  They passed a junction, and down it he beheld another huge something moving away.

  Winslow didn’t try to make sense of it. He didn’t try to make sense of any of this. How could he? He wasn’t a scientist. He was a politician. His specialty was kissing the asses of those above him and telling those below him what to do.

  He should have known not to trust his superiors. They’d lied to him, just as they’d lied to the colonists. To the entire population of Earth, for that matter.

  With a suddenness that sent stark terror coursing through him, the creatures burst out of a tunnel onto a narrow walkway suspended high over God-knew-what. Above them stretched a vast space filled with walkways and arches and structures that defied description. Glancing down, Winslow beheld more of the same, going down, and down, into the bowels of Mars.

  Pale light, filtering from above, lent a grey hue to the surreal scene.

  Winslow closed his eyes to ward off dizziness. He never could tolerate heights. As a boy, on a dare, he climbed onto the roof of a neighbor’s garage and become so scared, his father had to rescue him using a ladder.

  The narrow walkway connected to a wider one, with creatures hurrying to and fro.

  Despite himself, Winslow grew interested in the Martians. There were different kinds, large and small and in-between, in different colors, too. But all of them had certain physical traits in common, namely, multiple legs, and crab-like or lobsterish shells for bodies. Most also had those eerie eyes at the ends of waving stalks.

  It was the latter that got to Winslow most. Especially when the eyes of every last Martian in sight swung toward him.

  Yet another walkway brought them to a broad shelf and a towering edifice that appeared to have been carved out of the reddish-black rock. They scuttled through an arched entrance and ascended a ramp that brought them to a spacious chamber.