Battlefield Mars Read online

  Martians were everywhere.

  Winslow barely had time to take the spectacle in when the creatures bearing him came to a halt and let go. Unprepared, he fell hard, scuffing his elbows. He pushed to his knees and was going to rise but an iron vise clamped onto his neck from behind, holding him in place.

  Bleating in fear, Winslow closed his eyes and braced for imminent death.

  32

  Dr. Katla Dkany was a healer. It was in her nature to help others. So when she heard the duty nurse scream, she reacted without thinking. She ran down the hall, calling Sharon’s name.

  About to plunge through the open stairwell door, Katla stopped. “Sharon? Are you there?”

  From below, only silence.

  “Sharon?” Katla gave the door a slight push, enough that she could cautiously peer in.

  The light that usually lit the stairwell was gone, housing and all. It had been forcibly ripped out, taking a piece of the wall with it.

  “Sharon?”

  There wasn’t any blood or body parts. Whatever had happened, Sharon might still be alive.

  Katla swallowed, and swung the door open. She was peering down the stairwell when a hideous shape, using the rails as a ladder, scuttled onto the top rail and clung there.

  For breathless instants neither of them moved, then a pair of stalks rose and inhuman eyes fixed on Katla.

  “Dear God!”

  The creature seemed as fascinated by her as she was by it.

  Taking advantage, Katla sprang back and slammed the door. She pressed her shoulder to it, thinking the creature would try to batter it down. Over a minute elapsed, with her pressing so hard, her shoulder hurt, but nothing happened.

  Katla sprinted to the front desk.

  Piotr was where she had left him, his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs.

  Scooping him up, Katla ran to the first patient’s room and burst in.

  The guy watching TV smiled sleepily. “Back again? Who’s the kid?”

  “You have to get up,” Katla said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Huh?” the man said.

  “There are…” Katla refused to say “Martians.” He would think she was crazy. “…things loose in the hospital. The soldiers will be here soon to pick us up.”

  “Hold on a minute,” he said as she turned to go. “What are you on about? What kind of things? Where’s Dr. Basiloff? He set my cast. I should talk to him.”

  “No time.”

  Katla raced to the next room. The blood pressure patient had curled onto her side and was asleep. Katla had to shake her twice to wake her.

  “What? What’s going on?” the woman mumbled in confusion.

  “We must leave the hospital,” Kata explained. “I’ll disconnect you.”

  “I thought Nurse Johnson said I was to be hooked to the monitor until midnight? She was very specific. Where is she, anyhow?”

  “Please,” Katla said. “There’s no time to waste.” She sat Piotr on the bed and undid the wrist strap that read the woman’s blood pressure, heart rate, and other signs.

  A shadow filled the doorway. In hobbled the guy with the broken leg, on crutches, saying, “What the hell is going on? Tell me more about these ‘things’ you mentioned?”

  “Things?” the woman said.

  “Captain Rahn and his men ran into them out at the Zabinski farm,” Katla said. “Now they’re in New Meridian.”

  “Ran into what?” the man in the cast said.

  Katla was spared having to explain by a loud crunching sound from the middle of the room.

  Before their very eyes, the floor began to dissolve.

  33

  An array of transmission and receiver dishes, antennas, and other equipment, rose like a metal jungle from the roof of the Broadcast Center.

  The heart of New Meridian’s communications, the B.C. was responsible for relaying television and radio feeds from Earth, as well as airing original colony programming. It was also the hub of their Emergency Broadcast System.

  Archard instructed Pasco to remain in the tank and took Private Everett with him. The day shift had gone off duty and the swing shift was working.

  A receptionist typing on an ePad looked up from her work and blinked in surprise. “Captain Rahn, isn’t it? What can we do for you?”

  “I need to see the manager.”

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Studevant went home for the day. He’ll be back in at eight tomorrow—”

  “The assistant manager, then,” Archard said curtly. “Or whoever is in charge.”

  “That would be Ms. Galice. But she’s unavailable at the moment. She’s in Studio B overseeing the nightly news. If you’ll wait, I’ll have someone take you there as soon as she’s—”

  Archard knew Ruth Galice. He’d dated her before he hooked up with Katla. “I know where it is,” he said, sweeping past her desk.

  The receptionist rose. “You can’t go marching in on them. They’re in the middle of a newscast.”

  “All the better.”

  The Broadcast Center’s three studios were arranged as convex extensions of the central core. Studio B contained the news-and-weather set, mainly desks with large screens in the background.

  Archard barged in. The newsman was reading copy about a possible fourth colony within the next decade. The camera people and other crew glanced around. So did the woman in charge.

  Ruth Galice whipped off her headset and moved to block his way. “Archard?” she whispered. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Archard strode past. A cameraman tried to stop him and he shoved the man aside. Now wasn’t the time for niceties.

  The anchor pair on the air sat slack-mouthed as he walked around between them and stared into the camera.

  “Citizens of New Meridian. Pay attention. This is Captain Rahn, U.N.I.C. Under Article Three, Section B, Subsection N, paragraph four of the United Nations Colonization Protocols, as head of security for New Meridian, I formally declare a state of emergency and assume temporary command of the colony.”

  “What?” Ruth Galice said, coming forward. “Does Administrator Winslow know about this?”

  “I repeat. This is a state of emergency. You are to get to your homes if you are not already there. Make sure your airlocks are secure. Under no circumstances should you venture outside until I give the all-clear.”

  “What is this?” Galice asked the question undoubtedly uppermost on every listener’s mind.

  “We are under attack,” Archard addressed the camera, and when a crewwoman snorted in derision, he glared, then continued. “It sounds preposterous, I know. But indigenous lifeforms have already killed over a dozen people.”

  “Indigenous?” the newsman found his voice. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Are you calling the captain a liar?” Private Everett said.

  “But…but…” Ruth Galice got out.

  The double doors burst inward. Martians streamed in, and were on the crew in a blur of long legs and waving eyes. A cameraman held out his hands to ward them off and lost both forearms when a Martian gripped them at the elbows, and wrenched.

  Ruth Galice screamed and retreated but she wasn’t fast enough. Her scream ended in a gurgle when a Martian tore her head from her shoulders.

  “Sir!” Private Everett needlessly cried, and brought his ICW into play.

  So did Archard. Flicking the selector to armor-piercing rounds, he stitched creature after creature. A wounded one teetered into a woman holding a clipboard and speared a foreleg through her chest.

  Archard sprang to Everett’s side so they were shoulder-to-shoulder. Their combined auto-fire riddled the things, felling many in their tracks.

  Still more swarmed to the attack.

  34

  Chief Administrator Levlin Winslow hoped his bladder wouldn’t let go. Again. He didn’t want to die reeking of urine. He swallowed, or tried to, but his mouth was completely dry.

  Winslow stayed perfectly still. The g
rip on his neck hadn’t tightened but the threat was clear. He could see the ends of the segmented digits that were curled around his neck. They were sheathed in the same shell-like covering as the creatures that took him prisoner. Only they were bright blue.

  A long limb, also blue, extended past his shoulder. The four alien fingers at the end of it gripped him by the front of his suit. As effortlessly as if he were a child’s doll, he was raised off the ground and turned so he faced the thing holding him.

  Winslow gasped. He was both terrified, and in awe.

  The thing was ten times the size of those that invaded New Meridian. It had two eyes and eight legs, but its body, notably the forepart, was much bulkier. The torso, if that is what it was, tapered into the overlapping folds of a long tail. Every square centimeter was a vivid, beautiful blue.

  “What are you?” Winslow blurted.

  The thing raised him until they were face-to-eyes. And what eyes! As blue as the rest, multifaceted, sparkling like gems. Its stalks dipped and rose as it minutely examined Winslow from his hair to his shoes.

  “I’m friendly,” Winslow got out. He thought to hastily add, “And I’m an important person.” Perhaps they would be less inclined to kill him if they were aware of his position. “I’m in charge of the colony.”

  Other Martians converged. Most were the small kind. A few were like this blue one, only not quite as big. In a far corner stood a singular creature with an oblong green body three meters high, unusually thick antenna and eye-stalks, and legs that splayed wider than the legs of the rest. It was the only one of its kind in the chamber.

  An invisible stir rippled through the Martians. Every last one swung toward an opening in the rear wall.

  Out of it came the strangest Martian yet. About a meter in length, it reared a good three meters high. Where most Martians had two sets of four-legs, this one had two sets of three. Midway up its craggy body were a pair of long “arms” with those remarkable digits. Its eyes were the largest of any Martian Winslow had seen, overshadowed by an obscenely huge, bowl-shaped carapace. And all of the creature, from top to bottom, was a bright yellow.

  The newcomer came straight over. Others in its path moved aside, dipping their bodies as it passed.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this new Martian was special, a leader, maybe.

  Mustering a smile, Winslow croaked, “I’m a leader, too. We should sit down and discuss the situation.”

  The yellow Martian brought its eyes close to his. “Do you understand me? Is it possible for us to communicate?”

  The yellow creature turned its eyes to the blue creature, and the blue creature slowly, almost casually, took hold of Winslow’s left thumb and broke it.

  Dr. Katla Dkany’s could hardly credit her eyes. A hole was forming in the floor. The modules used in the buildings on Mars were supposed to be impenetrable but something was ripping through at a fantastic rate. Dust spewed, causing her to raise a hand to shield her face. She blinked and coughed and swiped at the dust, and when she could see again, she beheld what she took to be a giant drill. It was ridged like a drill, and tapered to a near-point. But then it stopped spinning and the ridges parted, and twin stalks emerged with eyes unlike any she ever conceived.

  The blood-pressure patient screamed.

  Instantly, the creature’s eyes slid back into the ridges and the thing whisked down out of view.

  “We have to get out of here!” Katla cried. Grabbing Piotr off the bed, she ran to the door but couldn’t get through. The man with the crutches was rooted in astonishment. “Move! Hurry!”

  “What was that?”

  The woman in the bed screamed a second time.

  A different creature was scrabbling out of the hole. One of the smaller, round Martians, the kind Katla had seen in the stairwell. It leaped to the end of the bed, raised its eyes and its bone-hard fingers, and was on the woman before she could move. A leg sheared into her bosom even as the creature gripped both sides of her head and tore it from her body.

  The man on the crutches stumbled back, bleating in terror.

  Another Martian was coming out of the hole.

  Katla bolted from the room.

  The man tottered and nearly fell. A crutch smacked the hall wall.

  Katla wanted to help him but she knew if she did, she was dead. He couldn’t move fast enough. Plus, she had Piotr to think of. She took a few more steps toward the hospital entrance.

  “Wait!” the patient shouted. “Help me!”

  Katla stopped. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t desert another human being in need. She turned and reached out.

  A Martian hurtled out of the doorway. It struck the man full in the chest, slamming him against the wall, and clung fast, its limbs churning. Flesh and blood sprayed high and low.

  Katla ran. She made it as far as the front desk. The stairwell door down the other hall shattered and a Martian burst through. Darting behind the front desk, she crouched under it, holding Piotr tight.

  “Lady,” the boy said.

  Startled that he had stirred to life, now of all times, Katla hushed him with, “Shhhh. Don’t talk. We’re in danger.”

  “Did you see the lady?”

  “I did,” Katla whispered. “But please. Not a word or they will do the same to us.” She heard the clack of Martian limbs on the hard floor.

  The noises stopped on the other side of the desk.

  Katla dared not risk a peek. She could only pray the thing couldn’t sense them somehow. Scarcely breathing, she heard the creature move on.

  “That lady,” Piotr said.

  “Please don’t talk,” Katla whispered. “They might hear us.” Assuming the Martians had ears, which the exobiologist in her couldn’t state with any certainty. The creatures resembled, in a way, Earth crustaceans, which relied on sensory hairs to detect vibrations in their surrounding environment, be it water or air. It could be the Martians possessed a similar auditory system.

  The issue became moot when a multifaceted eye at the end of a curving stalk came over the edge of the desk and stared right at them.

  Captain Archard Rahn slapped in a new magazine and blasted a row of charging Martians. Private Everett added his own auto-fire. Between them, they dropped the things three-deep, and yet still the tide poured into the studio.

  The broadcast crew lay all about them, gore everywhere.

  “On me!” Archard cried, and backpedaled to a wall as far from the doors as they could get. “Frag rounds!” he warned, and banged off three grenades in succession, sweeping from left to right.

  Tremendous blasts obliterated the doors and the creatures streaming through them.

  Archard felt the concussive force even through his suit.

  The stream of Martians lessened but didn’t stop.

  “Now you!” Archard commanded.

  Private Everett imitated him exactly; three grenades, from left to right, fired so close together the three blasts were almost one.

  More Martians were obliterated. Bits fell like raindrops.

  Only a few were left standing, and they weaved and swayed as if confused.

  Archard chopped them down with a spray of 5.56 mm. Finally, the last of them dropped.

  Human and Martian body parts carpeted the floor. A few of the latter still moved, twitching weakly.

  “Now what?” Everett said.

  “On me.” Archard made for the blistered doors, leaping over the fallen. He was so low on ammo, he didn’t finish off the wounded Martians.

  “What’s that up above?” Everett said.

  Archard heard it, too. A muffled crash, as if a section of roof had caved in. Or—and the thought sent a spike of consternation through him—something on the roof had toppled over. “No way,” he said under his breath.

  “Sir?”

  They bounded out of the studio. Archard growling into his mic, “Pasco, can you hear me?”

  “Sir!” crackled the metallic reply.

  “Sitrep.”
<
br />   “The street is clear. Everything seems normal. You’d never know we’re being attacked.”

  Archard’s worst suspicion was being confirmed.

  Pasco wasn’t done. “I heard the shooting on the comm-link but stayed put like you told me.”

  “Good man,” Archard said. “I want you on the maser. Cover us as we come out.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  The receptionist’s body and arms and legs were near her desk, her ePad in shambles.

  “I have a question, sir,” Private Everett said between breaths.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Why did the Martians hit the Broadcast Center? Was it coincidence? Or to cut off our communications?”

  They reached the front doors and barreled outside. Stopping, Archard turned and looked up in time to see a relay tower tilt, then crash onto the roof. “Does that answer your question?”

  “These critters are smarter than I reckoned.”

  “Let’s hope they’re not smarter than us,” Archard said.

  35

  Levlin Winslow never could take pain. When he was a boy, any little scrape brought him to tears. To have his thumb broken was agony. He threw back his head and shrieked.

  The Martians just stood there.

  Winslow tried to pull free but the blue creature held fast. He jerked, and kicked, and whimpered. He stopped when the blue thing held him out toward the yellow Martian. Once again he was subjected to an intense scrutiny. He tried to pull away when the yellow creature reached out. He thought he was about to have his head ripped off. Instead, the yellow Martian lightly placed its fingers on his temples.

  Nausea assailed him. His stomach flip-flopped. A prickly sensation, similar to a heat rash, spread down his entire body. Worst of all was a sickening feeling in his head, as if his brain was being poisoned. The chamber, and its occupants, spun and danced.