Battleground Mars (4 page)

“What are you up to, Kaz?”

The man straightened. “I was praying.”

“Oh. Is something wrong?”

He looked puzzled. “Why should it be? Prayer is fine for any time, is it not? The good times as well as the bad.”

“Er, yeah, I guess.”

Kaz smiled at his embarrassment. “I am a Moslem, my friend. We pray several times a day, so I try to find somewhere quiet. I did not think I would find anyone here at this time of the morning.”

“I’m sorry, I can come back later.”

Kaz smiled. “Not at all, I was almost finished.”

“Right.” Rahm went to the step machine and began his morning routine.

“When we are troubled, God can be a great comfort to us,” he heard Kaz say. He stopped and looked at him.

“That’s good to know, Kaz.”

He started to exercise again.

“Yet strangely, most men are frightened to have God look into their souls, as if they don’t wish him to see the black despair that lies within.”

This time he didn’t stop. He kept working the machine. “I’m pleased for you, my friend. Pleased that you have your God. Have you considered that for some men God is little more than a bad joke?”

He thought Kaz had left, but after almost a minute he heard his soft voice again.

“It must have been bad for you, Rahm.”

He felt his anger begin to rise, but controlled it. “Don’t try and second guess me, Kaz. Shit happens, to me, to you, to everyone. And when it does happen there isn’t any God to come around holding your hand. All you’ll see is the rest of your life waiting around the corner for you. Waiting to see how much more you can fuck up, how many more lives have to be lost.”

Then he did stop working the machine. He whirled to face Kaz. “I’ll grant you that there may be a God. But I’ll tell you, Kaz, he’s got a damned strange sense of humor. We’re on our own, my friend, there’s no help to be had from that direction. We’re born, we live, we fuck up and we die. End of story. And if you believe in the soul, you may as well believe in the fairies. I’ll come back later.”

He stalked out of the gym before he started a row that would begin to erode the tight relationships inside his crew. He didn’t need that kind of trouble. None of them did, for they’d have problems enough on Mars. The trouble was that Kaz was too clever, too intuitive by half. Rahm preferred the company of Brad, for him, philosophy was a brand of beer. Brad saw life as a series of absolutes. Love and hate, make friends with them or kill them. He returned to the passenger cabin. Saul was chatting with Kacy while the morose Nathan Wenders listened. An experienced driller, Nathan usually had very little to say, which suited Rahm just fine. Nathan glanced at him.

“What’s up, Rahm?”

“Nothing, why should it be?”

“Your face looks red.”

“I’ve been working out.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Rahm’s Office.”

He smiled at him, surprised that the normally taciturn Wenders had cracked a small joke. A pity Kaz couldn’t have left him alone in the gym. Or at leave the deep insights alone.

“We were going over the details of our working week,” Kacy interrupted his thoughts. “It’s pretty straightforward, in fact the simplest I’ve ever seen. There're no breaks, so we work a seven day week. That’s it, we wake up, and we go to work. We finish work and we go to bed. At least there won’t be any rows about duty rosters.”

They looked around as Jacques Fechter entered the cabin with Tobin Ryles. The manager looked competent enough, although he’d spent too much time behind a desk, judging from the size of his stomach. His face was scarred, probably the result of a mining accident. He wore his hair short in a no-nonsense crewcut. Clean shaven, he sported an immaculate white shirt and tie. Embroidered on the pocket of his shirt was MMC. Mars Mining Corporation. Rahm cautioned himself to be wary of this manager. He was a company man through and through.

“Listen up, everyone. We’ve got a couple of announcements. First of all, the outgoing crew fell short of their output, so we’ve got to make sure that we hit the ground running. Our two year quota has been increased by twenty percent to make up for the loss.”

There was a collective groan, but Fechter held up his hand to silence them.

“The good news is this. The company has announced a thirty percent bonus if we hit the revised quota targets. Thirty percent!” he almost shouted the final two words. “That’s a lot of money, men. Let’s not give them any excuse not to pay us.”

Rahm felt uncomfortable. Something wasn’t right, because companies didn’t gladly hand out money. Not without a gun at their heads. An idea was trying to force its way into his head. Then it came to him.

“Why did the previous targets fall short, what caused the problem?”

Fechter and Ryles both looked at him with distaste.

“That’s not really your business,” Ryles said. “What you need to do is concentrate on the job in hand, not what mistakes the previous crews made.”

His voice was even more nasally and nerdish, perhaps his sinuses were worse than usual after the long flight.

“To the contrary, that is information we should have if we are to avoid previous mistakes. It’s common sense.” Kaz had walked in and stood behind them.

They turned around and stared at him with irritation. He continued, ignoring their hostility.

“If we are to bring out these record quotas, we should know what caused the previous relief to fail. What was the reason?”

The two managers exchanged looks. “You may as well tell them,” Jacques muttered.

Ryles glared around the cabin. “I expect they were just stupid. They lost one of the crews when they...”

“Lost? What do you mean, they were lost?” Rahm interrupted. “How were they lost, was it the Martian storms?”

They’d all heard of the legendary storms, when planet-wide dust-storms were whipped up and lasted for up to a month. The storm’s fury was due to the low density of the Martian atmosphere. Winds of forty to fifty miles per hour raised the dust from the surface, but since Mars was so dry, the dust stayed in the atmosphere for far longer than on Earth. The season following the dust storms even had lower daytime temperatures. This was attributed to the global covering of light-colored dust that settled out of the dust storm. It meant that the freezing Martian climate was even colder, even harder for humans to operate in. But Ryles was shaking his head.

“It wasn’t the storms, no. In fact, it was the Taurons.”

The cabin descended into silence. Kacy was muttering, “They said that problem was resolved.” Kaz was the first to recover.

“So they killed a crew? An entire crew?”

“Yes,” Ryles replied. “They were careless.”

But Fechter shook his head. “That’s only part of it. Sure, the Taurons took one of the crews, and we've no idea why they went into such an isolated area. Afterwards Mars Base was running behind with the quota. They were in danger of losing their bonuses, so they took risks. They went to parts of the surface that were too dangerous, places that were known to be part of the Tauron’s operating area. So we lost a second crew.”

There were shocked sounds of disbelief around the cabin.

“You know as well as I do there’s more to it than that,” Josh said. He was shaking his head in disbelief. “Standing orders state that once the Taurons show up, every drilling crew has to be accompanied by a team of armed militia. Yet they sent them out without any escorts to cover them.”

“That’s not entirely true, Josh. Some did go out without escorts, but when the second crew was hit, they killed the militia guards as well. It happened five weeks ago, they’ve been in lockdown since then.”

Everyone had been briefed about lockdown, the emergency procedure, akin to lifting the drawbridge in a medieval castle. The base stayed sealed, no one went in, no one went out, and worst of all, the drilling stopped.

“So they want us to make up the difference?” Kaz pressed him.

Fechter nodded. “We’ll have to take some risks, but it’ll be worth it. The end of contract salary and bonuses will be enough for us to live like kings.”

“Or die like kings,” Kaz replied.

The two managers gave him a cold glance.

“No one’s going to die. We’re going to drill for trevanium and we’re all coming back rich,” Fechter said as he walked out of the cabin.

It was a stirring note on which to end, but none of them cheered.

The following day they landed on Mars and had their first glimpse of Mars Base in the Chryse Gulf. The long, boring journey had ended. The flight that had seemed to drag on forever had drawn to a close. Until they returned. For many of them, the confinement of the ship had meant the confinement of their thoughts, of their souls. There were few secrets on a Mars relief ship. Many were glad to look forward to a different mirror in which to view themselves and their lives. And for a different hole in which to hide their deepest fears. They’d donned pressure suits and helmets with built in life support, so when the ship door hissed open they walked out and glimpsed for the first time the surface of the Red Planet. It wasn’t so much red but sand colored. The ground was littered with rocks, some boulders were huge, but most were no more than a foot high. The plain they’d landed on, known as Chryse Gulf, stretched away to the horizon. In the distance it flattened out to become little more than a desert. In front of them, no more than two hundred yards away, was the domed shape of Mars Base.

“That’s our destination, folks,” Ryles shouted, like a cheap tour guide. They followed him over the sandy surface, kicking up dust as they walked. It took them only a few minutes to reach the airlock, a huge, reinforced door. It was already open, and they walked into the inner chamber and waited while the outer door closed. Air started hissing into their chamber, until a green light switched on and the inner door opened. They walked into a large, open garage, with several Mars buggies parked, some in the stages of repair. Stacks of drilling equipment lay scattered everywhere. In front of them a crowd stood watching them curiously. A man in the front walked forward to greet them. “We’re the outgoing personnel. You can take off your helmets and pressure suits now, you’re home. Welcome to Mars Base.”

After a brief medical check they were shown to their quarters. Rahm barely had time to stow away half of his personal possessions before he heard a commotion outside. He walked out of his room and followed the noise back to the garage. The outgoing crews were already suited up. Rahm noticed that there didn't seem to be many of them. Some were clutching carry-on bags for the journey back to Earth. There was no fanfare, no shouts of joy at the prospect of going back to their fat pay checks after two years on Mars Base. It reminded him of something else. Yes, of course. A funeral party. Yet there were no bodies. He noticed Josh coming towards him and nodded at the outgoing crews.

“They’re not very happy.”

“No. They lost half the crews on this relief. That’s not much to celebrate.”

Half the crews! It was no wonder they were in a somber mood.

“What about the bodies, surely they should take them back to their families and loved ones? It doesn’t seem humane, burying them here on Mars.”

“You’ve got it wrong, they don’t bury them. Whatever gave you that idea?”

He shrugged. “I just assumed, I guess. So what does happen to them?”

Josh stared around to make sure that no one else was near enough to hear. “It’s a Tauron custom. When they defeat someone in battle...”

“Yes?”

“They rip the bodies to pieces. Then they eat them.”

* * *

Granat watched the humans crossing the distant Nepenthe Valley. His thick lips drawn back in a sneer, for they were like insects, scrabbling in the dust and sand for the junk that others had discarded. Except that no one had discarded the precious trevanium, so it was not for the humans to take. It belonged to them, to the Taurons. He’d vowed to destroy any human that dared to stand in their way. Bring back the trevanium and defeat the humans, it was the mission they’d charged him with. One he’d pledged to carry out until the end. They reached the site and he watched the drilling crew set up their equipment on the Plain of Xanthe. They unloaded the solar powered buggy and placed the drilling rig over the shallow hole they’d dug the day before. He smiled, their sensors had picked up the activity in the Nepenthe Valley, so all he had to do was assemble his squad and wait for the pale slugs to return. He glanced across at his four troopers. They were more than he needed for such a simple operation. Perhaps he would take the humans himself. No, his men needed the experience, so he’d allow them to participate in the slaughter.

He was Granat. The most powerful warrior that Planet Tauron had ever known. At nine feet tall he was a foot higher than most of his compatriots and his skills learned in the gladiatorial arena were second to none. For some reason, these humans disliked fighting! How could anyone dislike fighting? It was meat and drink to him, as it was to most Taurons. They learned from their earliest days, how to fight, and how to kill. It was the only way they could survive, by honing and building their battle skills so that they were always ready to face any threat. Here on Mars, the humans had proved to be a more difficult proposition than they’d at first realized. Despite their puny size and apparent dislike of war, when they were attacked they fought back hard. It was why he’d been brought to the planet. It was good, the harder they fought, the more he’d enjoy killing them. And afterwards, the ceremony of tearing the bodies limb from limb, drinking the blood and then there were the warrior’s songs. It was a good life, truly. He looked down again, it was time. The drilling crew were intent on their rig, they wouldn’t see them coming. He nodded at his men. They would take what was their right, nothing less.