On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (24 page)

“Ummm, Achael…..”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Achael responded, “What is it Hlef?”

“I’ve just been informed that Mom says to leave you alone.”

The Drone

The Drone looked at the ship’s instrumentation as lights came on indicating problems from the careless fist pounding episode. All this did was piss off the Drone even further.

The Drone had moved the vessel around the line of ships sitting there, to find cover for the next attack. The Drone didn’t need cover as the human had no weapons, but finding cover had been drilled into the Drone for years. The Drone heard a static sound, and then the camouflage indicator went out. The Drone hit the reset button several times, but the system would not reactivate.
HUMAN KNOWS; HUMAN KNOWS NO POINT; CAMOUFLAGE LET CAMERAS SEE, LET ALL HUMANS SEE; LET SEE SUPERIOR RACE KILLING HUMAN; HUMANS KNOW NOT TO COME TO PLANET; HUMANS KNOW NOT TO COME TO MASTER’S PLANET; TIME FOR HUMAN TO DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE!

The Drone moved the vessel up and over top of the human to get a good look before taking up a new position. The human still only had rocks in its hands. Turning the ship so the emitter was facing the human, the Drone saw the human stand up. As more warnings started flashing the Drone depressed the button to send another stream of ionized energy towards the human. Something was wrong with the weapon’s power. The charge fired at the human was only one one-hundredth of its normal power. The ground exploded behind the human, sending the human flying through the air. It didn’t kill him, it just knocked him down. The Drone raged at the fire-control system.

Earth (18 minutes, 52 seconds later)

Nigara Kusiya, 72 years old, Niiyamahama, Japan - Nigara, long retired from the fishing industry, often snuck into the computer room of his not-too-small house, and went web surfing while his three adult sons ran the fishing boat. They would have been surprised to know he could even turn on the computer, let alone that he had a chat room nickname (Masaki23). Nigara had been following the Mars expedition with the avid interest of a ten year old. He had been watching the feed so he could see firsthand the landing of the next supply module. Now he sat there with his mouth agape, and his eyes as big as saucers (no pun intended). Just as the image dissolved to static he said out loud, “Rokkusu? Kare wa iwa o tsukatte iru?”

Anzhelika Rudnikova, 36 years old, Glazov, Udmurt Republic, Russia - The Journeyman Millwright with the Trans Siberian Railway had been home for about an hour. It wasn’t too long after midnight. As a mother and wife she rarely had time to herself, especially since her husband Anton had been injured at work three years ago. He was underfoot even more than the twin girls. However, she loved him like life itself, so she stole those few moments alone for herself when he was asleep. Coming home after the swing shift was one of those times because everyone else was in bed, including her husband. Tonight she was enjoying some vodka and leftover dinner while watching the late news on Rossiya TV. The Molniya TV satellite service was still too expensive, so she usually had to weed through the rhetoric and nationalism in the Russian broadcasts to find out the truth. Tonight was different though. The producers at Rossiya TV were directly broadcasting the amazing events going on so far away on Marsovo. She sat there with her mouth agape, eyes as big as saucers (no pun intended), a shot glass of vodka perched unmoving just in front of her lips, and a piece of sausage dripping in the chubby fingers of her left hand. Just as the image dissolved to static she said out loud, “Skaly? On ispol’zuyet kamni?”

Bernadette Paquette, 22 years old, Bourges, France - Bernadette saw it was almost 23:00 hours as she ran up the front steps of her new apartment building. She had moved in two days before. She was still waiting for new furniture to be delivered. Until the new furniture arrived, she would be spending the night, again, on piled blankets on the floor. After work this evening, she had gone out for dinner with a new guy in her office. She quickly realized it was also the last dinner she would have with him. Still, he was a nice enough man and made pleasant conversation, so she stayed out a bit later than she normally would in that situation. Besides, all she had to go home to was her cat Mijou (a humorous contraction of Mon Bijou), her laptop, and a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. When she did get in to the apartment, Mijou mewled and rubbed up against her incessantly; as he had been all day without fresh food, fresh cuddles, and fresh stroking of the fur. Bernadette took care of all those in reverse order, finally setting down a dish of freshly opened canned cat food. As Mijou purred and chewed noisily and sloppily on the food, the Rubenesque, dark red haired Bernadette (Adette to her friends) turned on her laptop, changed into a night gown, and lay down on the blankets. She looked at her email first, planning on binging a few episodes of her favourite show on the Canal+ streaming service afterwards. The last email arriving was from Claude, her brother, appearing at the top of her list. The email was only three minutes old and the subject line, all in caps, simply said, “REGARDEZ!!!!!” She opened the email and clicked on the link. It was a pirate site that was live feeding video transmissions from that silly, silly man on Mars. As the video loaded and she saw what he was doing, her mouth fell agape and her eyes were as big as saucers (no pun intended). Just as the image dissolved to static she said out loud,  “Des cailloux? Il utilise des cailloux?”

Tommy Freemantle, 12 years old, Belchertown, Massachusetts, United States - Tommy was sitting at his computer watching events on Mars. His mouth was agape and his eyes as big as saucers (no pun intended). His friend, Carl, had called him two minutes ago and told him what was happening. Tommy was now raptly watching the action. Just as the image dissolved to static he said out loud, “Rocks? He’s using rocks?”

The Drone

This human moved fast. Perhaps this human better than mere scum. Perhaps this human worthy opponent
.
The human stood up again and threw two more rocks. They were good-sized rocks, and the Drone heard the thump of them hitting the front of the ship. The Drone was not worried. The Drone’s opinion was that the ship was far too advanced to worry about rocks. The Drone saw a bunch of indicators light up, and felt a tremble in the seat.
Whatever human doing, rocks or not, IS having effect.

The Drone tried to get out of the way of the human, but the human kept tracking and throwing. The Drone didn’t doubt the human would die, not yet anyways. In an even blinder rage, the Drone pointed the ship’s weapon at the human, and pressed the firing button just as the human threw two more in its now almost constant stream of rocks.

Mike

One after another, pick up two rocks, throw two rocks. I was close enough and had thrown enough that they were all hitting the little ship, and hitting it near its little weapon nubbin; the little weapon nubbin with the big punch. One of the rocks, slightly bigger than a hockey puck, hit the nubbin dead on. Just as it did, there was a brief flash of light, then the area around the nubbin glowed briefly, then nothing. No energy ball.

“I hope that was the Hail Mary pass …” I kept throwing more rocks.

The Drone

Instead of the longed for vaporization of the human, the weapon didn’t fire. To add insult to insult, the full system control board lit up red. The ship bobbed and wobbled, and the Drone opened its helmet’s faceplate and could smell something electrical burning. The Drone shut and secured the faceplate again. The futuristic radar went dark. The weapons system fire-control module shut down at the same time. This was a really odd situation for the Drone, because there wasn’t that much that was traditionally electrical, not as humans think of electricity. The vessel used numerous localized power sources for each system specifically to avoid such cascading failures; but the localized power sources weren’t joined together. The small vessel did not have a centralized power source. So why had two different systems shut down simultaneously?

The downside of multiple independent power sources to individual components is a lack of overall redundancy to any individual component. The Drone moved the ship over top of the human to try and get the advantage by firing from behind the human; but the ship momentarily lost all lift. It hit the ground and bounced back up as the lift engine re-engaged. That was the second time that had happened. The Drone needed a few moments to get the systems stabilized before pressing the attack. The Drone swung the vessel around behind the line of six ships on the ground to gain some cover.

Putting the vessel in hover mode, the Drone pulled out one of the guidance modules, found the leads from it, darkened by electrical energy overload, and began swapping out these leads with the few spares that were carried on board. The Drone couldn’t afford to lose the propulsion engine on top of lift engine problems. Weapons were secondary at this point. The Drone was able to do all this without moving from the cockpit seat. Everything was within easy reach of the 1.3 metre tall creature.

More warning lights came on, and a klaxon sounded. The Drone looked at the external view monitor and could see the human crouched beside one of the ships on the ground. The Drone hurried to finish its work, and then dropped the guidance module back in place at the same moment the human stood up to throw more rocks.

The Drone tried to advance the ship, but it wouldn’t go forward. The Drone tried backing up the ship and it moved back slowly. It would not go in any other direction. Backwards was fine, the now almost constant thumping of the rocks was distracting. Getting away from the human’s annoying and distracting rocks would let the Drone focus on the repairs. The Drone reset the weapons fire-control system and tried firing the weapon again, but it still didn’t fire. Another klaxon started bleating in the small space. The Drone started the small vessel moving backwards, away from the human, slowly.

The Drone pulled the same guidance module out again and realized one of the leads it changed was defective. The Drone pulled it off the module, and reached in the small supply box for another one. The Drone’s hand came up empty. The Drone put the module in its lap, and pulled the supply box upclose and peered into it with one of its big eyes. Empty, completely empty. The Drone looked up at the monitor showing the human. The Drone suddenly felt the failure of the situation, and the failure of the day overtake it completely. Defeated by rocks? No! The Drone had underestimated the human.

The Drone had so utterly and completely failed; the Master it knew now, and all it could do was go back to the Eridani complex, in reverse, and jump in the acid vat in the hangar bay.

Watching the human on the small view screen, the Drone wondered, amidst that self-pitying inner monologue, why the human had stopped throwing rocks, turned around, and was running away from the Drone. Shouldn’t the human, rocks or not, have pressed the attack?

Lt. Col. Gref KamPen

He had his hands full, yet again, thanks to Achael and Hlef. He had made a quick inspection of the physical damage to the base, and now he was walking out of the sick bay after checking on Sergeant Tucker. He turned left and headed to the Communications Room. They were good girls, really, but damn, they had to stop putting humans in the infirmary. He had tried the discipline route. It usually had an effect on Achael, but not on Hlef. Then Hlef would get Achael wound up, and pretty soon they would both be insufferable until he relented. Lieutenant Colonel Gref KamPen, United States (Exo) Air Force, had been accused of being a little easy on the hybrids more than once. Truth be told, he was. For all the obvious reasons. He hadn’t chosen to come into life as a hybrid, neither had any of the others. However, they were what they were, and that was that. They had to stick together. In all the Verse there were only 216 Eben-Human hybrids in existence (twelve on Earth, seventeen on Sapro, and 187 on the base). There were four more gestating in growth tanks right now, but they hadn’t been legally born yet; so he wasn’t counting them.

Lt. Col. KamPen was appointed as Base Commander when he graduated from AFIT as a wide-eyed (literally) Captain, over thirty years ago. A few years later he was promoted to Major after successfully negotiating the terms of the détente, the accord, with the Eridani. Ten years ago he was bumped up to Lieutenant Colonel; and was now looking forward to getting his full Colonel bird next year … if Achael and Hlef didn’t totally frak things up for him. Gref KamPen (Gruffy to those close to him) had become a father figure to many of the younger hybrids, and he took great pleasure and pride in that. If he had been asked, point blank, where his loyalties were focused (career or hybrids): he would have had to admit he was more concerned about the pseudofamilial connection, than he was the uniform. Nonetheless, his career was important to him.

As Achael was approaching the new human colony site, the human dominant Lt. Col. KamPen (son of Kam) wandered into the Communications Room of the Mars base. He ordered the human corporation’s Mar-Sat signal to be disrupted. The human tech on duty made the necessary calculations, pointed the pulse generator, and began assaulting the Mar-Sat with both radio and electro-magnetic waves that would disrupt all signals to and from the Mar-Sat, without damaging it. The video and telemetry signals back at the Corporation’s headquarters, 18 minutes and 22 seconds later, dissolved into a solid mass of static.

The other satellite was a different story. That one was hardened against such interference by the same people who had built the interference generator. It required a different approach. Since Lt. Col. KamPen was the only one on the base that knew about that satellite, he would be the one that had to take care of it. He smiled a bit; the designers hadn’t told the humans quite
everything
about that satellite. They had told them that the weapons could only be launched by a signal from Mars’ surface, but they hadn’t told them that the human wasn’t the only one on Mars that could do it. There were a few other, shall we say, “quirks” that the human on Mars didn’t know about as well. For now, the important one was that Lt. Col. KamPen had the same full access that Mission Control had, and he had that access without the communication signal lag time that the far, far away Mission Control had. Returning to his office, it took Lt. Col. KamPen ninety seconds to establish a connection and deactivate the data signals being transmitted to Earth from The Platform.