On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (32 page)

As this process needed to be automated and run from the habitats, it had to be tested from my tablet. I remembered that I had left my tablet back in the W-Hab. I went back to get it, cycling in and then out of the airlock. I had now used up the three airlock cycle tolerance for the reserve air tanks in the habitat. This AtmoGen had better work properly or I was in the deep. As I walked back to the AtmoGen, my stomach suddenly sank and I froze in place. Out across the plain towards the ice wall I could see a shimmer in the air. I stood there feeling both helpless and enraged, not sure which one to go with. After maybe twenty seconds of this, the shimmer shot straight up in the air, becoming another gray orb, and disappeared from sight.

I stood there for a few minutes scanning the sky, energy rifle now at port arms. It didn’t return, and I didn’t see anything else to stress about, so, resigning myself to being the latest microbe in the Petri dish, I slung the weapon over my shoulder again, and went back to work.

I pulled a USB cable out of the small compartment on the back of the tablet carrying case and plugged it directly into the AtmoGen onboard controller. I launched the AtmoGen software, let it initialize, and then hit the “Storm Close” icon. I stuck my head out the hatch and looked from side-to-side to watch the hatch doors open, the equipment carriages retract, the Elastomer blades and the outer door rim rotate back into a closed state, then the doors finally closed, sealing and locking in place.

I climbed back down to do a quick visual inspection, then with the tablet still attached and sitting on the deck, I just reached in and hit the “Start Operations” icon. The process reversed and after a final interior and exterior visual inspection, I then pronounced the mechanical portion of the manifest item completed.

Next was the dicey part. I had very little to do with it, and yet my survival was highly dependent on it. In two years, I’d be better off. One of those future planned supply drops would include a hopper and feeder system/filtration system that would allow me to drop chunks of frozen water and frozen CO
2
into it. The hopper would crush, then feed these items into an as yet unopened port, and the equipment package coming with it would then process the ice just like it was processing the Martian atmosphere. The added benefit was that the solids processing system would also produce methane and hydrogen as well as oxygen, using the Sabatier process. The eventual production of methane and hydrogen would be used for a far more efficient lifting power of the SRVs; allowing them to return larger quantities. Right now, if they weren’t damaged irreparably in yesterday’s event, the carbon monoxide and oxygen lift for the SRVs would only put about 40 kg on its way to Terra. Using methane and hydrogen, with oxygen as the oxidizing agent, then they would be able to take about 150 kg.

Scrolling through all the readings from the AtmoGen control system on my tablet, then visually comparing them with what was on the screen inside the service area of the station, everything looked good. I activated the processing sequence. Panel lights started flashing and everything looked
A-OK
. I now had to kill an hour, while I waited to come back and check the progress. This first hour was as much system testing and validation as it was actual processing.

I pulled out the armoured umbilicals from their storage racks, just inside the service hatch, and started uncoiling them. I wouldn’t attach them until all the system’s checks had completed. There were two armoured umbilicals for gases, and one smaller armoured line for system’s communication. I could Bluetooth with the AtmoGen plant, but the preferred connection was wired. After they were uncoiled, I took a stroll around the colony site, looking for anything that needed immediate attention with one eye, and watching the sky around me with the other. With half an hour left, I went back and sat on the deck inside the AtmoGen service hatch, legs dangling outside, and started going through email messages on my HUD. There wasn’t anything from Mission Control that I could address right now, so I went on to the public email box. There were thousands. I looked at the latest ones, most had to do with yesterday’s attack. I chose to ignore those, other than writing a quick reply to a few whose names I recognized, I’m fine and thank you for your concern. I typed these quick messages out on the controller unit on my suit arm. There were a few from schools and universities with real questions about the mission, and what I was doing. I answered three of those in more detail. I used the internal helmet camera to record video rather than type on the arm pad.

Realizing the systems had been running well over the required hour, I picked up the tablet (why hadn’t I typed the messages on that? It would have been so much easier), and started running the evaluations and diagnostics on the AtmoGen controller, and the processed gases. Everything came up nominal,
A-OK
, or 100%; depending on what you were looking at. I was now producing oxygen and nitrogen to breathe, along with the carbon monoxide for the SRVs. I hopped down to the ground, and proceeded to connect the umbilicals. I realized both Big Dawg and Little Dawg had moved close to the AtmoGen station and were watching me. This gave me a momentary creepy feeling, but it passed when I realized from the angle of the cameras on the masts, Mission Control was just getting some upclose and uniquely angled video feeds.

Twenty minutes later, the two armoured hoses and armoured COM line were connected to the AtmoGen station, and the W-Hab. The service hatch was closed and secured; and I was feeling a lot better now that I knew I’d be breathing at the end of the week.

I walked over to the supply drop landing site and had a real close look at drop #7, yesterday’s drop that almost ended in disaster. Getting down on my knees and peering under the canted craft, I could see what was keeping it upright. Two of the ground support/levelling legs had extended part way down. I couldn’t tell if mechanical pressure or system commands were keeping them in place, but the controller junction unit looked like it had been blown to heck. As I was part way under the drop, seeing that, I backed up quickly, but carefully, to get out from underneath it. With that system controller blown, it would be mechanical pressure holding those support legs in place. The damn thing could still fall over at any time.

I turned on my helmet’s exterior video camera, and gingerly made my away around the damaged side of the cargo ship so that Mission Control could get good visuals of what I was seeing. I stopped every few moments to point out something, my running monologue describing it in detail. After half an hour I stood up and headed back to the W-Hab, watching the sky as I went, energy weapon at port arms again.

I climbed into the airlock, got out of my suit and vacuumed it off, vacuuming up the floor as well. After returning the weapon to the hidden charging cradle, hanging my suit and exchanging the air bottles, I passed though the inner airlock door into the lower level. I went directly to the atmospheric system mechanical room and made the necessary connection changes. The day-to-day gas tanks for oxygen and nitrogen were now charging from the working AtmoGen plant. The AtmoGen really was a facilities plant now, and no longer a space craft. It was never going to go anywhere again.

I backed out of the equipment room carefully, procedure scrolling through my head, and went upstairs. It had been a good day so far, well, mostly good, aside from that one brief sighting. I decided to celebrate the successes of the day with a nice hot cup of the very precious coffee reserve.

Achael, Hlef & Gilda:
A Few Hours Ago

The girls walked into the office, neither hurrying nor hesitating. They stood at attention in front of Rosewood’s desk. Lieutenant General Rosewood slammed the door shut, and stalked around behind the desk to face them. She stood there staring at them, fuming, finally leaning forward with her closed fists on the desk; and started the yelling.

“How many kinds of stupid are you??”

Hlef was impassive, Achael bit her lower lip.

“I have never seen anyone so blatantly and completely disregard procedure, protocol, and damn it, common sense!! How dare you go out to that site all by yourself Achael!? Anything could have happened to you, and then where would we have been?? Mike would have had no support, we’d have probably lost the Dart to the fraking Eridani, and we would have lost you!! What if that little peckerwood had others with it?? What if it had a cloaked strike force waiting for you?? What if they were baiting us Achael?? What if those bastards were trying to set a trap for you??”

Suddenly feeling the intensity of her shame at disappointing the Lieutenant General and the idiocy of her passion driven actions, Achael stopped biting her lip, and focused on not crying. Hlef looked impassive, Gilda got even hotter.

“You, young lady, are too damn valuable to us!! You are too damn valuable to me!! You are the shining example of joining Eben and Humans together!!”

Hlef glanced at the Lieutenant General with her big eyes, sunglasses in her jacket pocket. Gilda caught this and looked at her, “Yes Hlef, so are you … and your brothers! And exactly why the hell didn’t you stop her!! You’re as much to blame for this as she is!!”

Hlef startled and snapped her head to look at the General, “Hey, I tried to …”

“DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY HLEF!!” Screamed Gilda, “Haven’t you watched that fraking movie enough times?? You let her get the better of you, and because you were a lousy fighter when it mattered the most, Achael could have been killed, the Eridani could have killed Mike, and our entire operation could have been put in jeopardy!! You’re as much to blame for this as Achael is!!”

Hlef wanted to respond, but instead she just looked straight forward again, lips pressed firmly shut. If Achael was in the thick of this, then she was too. Sistas’ rules. No more trying to defend herself.

“Do you have nothing at all to say for yourself??” Yelled Gilda. Hlef just stood there, impassively, staring straight ahead.

Gilda threw her hands in the air at that point and roared, “ENOUGH!!”

Hlef looked straight forward again, stood a little straighter and could feel the first tingle of tears somewhere deep inside, though she didn’t show it. She now knew in her heart she had also disappointed the General. Disappointing the General was, well, horrible. Thinking that maybe she had let her sister go into danger because of her inability to stop her, well, she hadn’t thought of it exactly that way before, but now that a lantern had been hung on it, it started to eat at her.

Gilda paced back and forth behind her desk, a little bit calmer she continued, “KamPen got the Mar-Sat signal shut down before any images of our craft were sent to Earth, but I still have to deal with what’s spooled on his local server.” The girls didn’t know about The Platform, “Mike survived the incident, and as fate would have it, he survived the incident without our help. He’s a crafty bugger that one, he defeated the damn Drone with rocks!” she paused, “Ultimately, Achael, you were just the janitor that cleaned up the Eridani mess … the Eridani …” she drifted off into thought for a moment.

As she paused, mid-thought, Achael managed a brief glimpse at Hlef. She couldn’t read what was on her face, but she knew that Hlef was upset now as well.

Gilda stopped and placed her hands on the back of her chair. She hung her head for a moment and shook it, looking up with a twinkle in her eye, “I can’t believe you actually flew all the way to the Eridani base with that piece of tin shit hanging under your Dart. What the hell were you thinking woman?” Now with a much softer voice, “Did you encounter any problems on the way?”

“Ma’am, three of their scout vessels escorted me from just outside the colony site, all the way to their base.”

“I see,” she paused, “and the Drone? What did you do with his body?” Gilda already knew it hadn’t been dead, she had already spoken to Gref.

“It wasn’t dead ma’am, just knocked a bit doolally in the crash. I put it in the Dart, and took it to the Eridani Master.”

“Really, it went willingly?” She didn’t have quite all the details.

“No ma’am, I had to secure it in the Dart, it was extremely agitated.”

“I’ll bet it was,” she thought for a moment, “what did you use to secure it with?” Those little frakers were famous for getting out of restraints and bindings.

“Duct tape, ma’am.”

“Duct tape?”

“Ma’am.”

The smile came first as she looked off to the side, then came the laughter. It didn’t last long but it was genuine, “I really have to get your cabin video,” she muttered to no one in particular.

The laughter had broken the mood; the Lieutenant General didn’t seem as intense anymore. She walked slowly around the room and came to a stop behind them, “Girls …”

Achael and Hlef looked at each other quickly, and then executed a military perfect about face.

Gilda smiled a bit, “Achael, Hlef, I’m so glad you two are okay. I’m so glad this didn’t go the way it could have. I’m so very, very glad I sent the strike team after you Achael,” she paused as her eyes started to get misty.

“Oh hells bells, enough of this formality crap,” Gilda held out her arms, “come give your mother a hug.”

The storm had passed.

Teviot Vallis

Things had remained bad since the humans, Ebens, and hybrids had departed. Blitowyn of Chernasai had lost face in the way events unfolded in the hangar bay. He quickly regained face in his handling of the cleanup. He had immediately ordered the older Trigla Guard Commander and his entire platoon executed for their treasonous surrender in the face of a superior force. The recently arrived defense force opened fire on them immediately, lest they also be found treasonous. Blitowyn had mentally screamed very loudly about how the drones had failed to defend him, meaning they failed to defend his personal guards. He ordered forty of them dissolved. The fact that they had been ordered to be hands-off was irrelevant. In the drones’ small minds, a Master was never wrong. The forty drones that he identified immediately ran to the acid tanks and threw themselves in one at a time, all fighting to get ahead of the others.

The Master was most displeased with the Vesna Mahal and his four cronies. To his credit, Blitowyn knew far better than to turn his ire on them for what had transpired in the hangar bay. The Vesna were far too vital to every single thing the Voiya wanted to achieve. Still, having a very good grasp of the politics, the Vesna Mahal prostrated himself before Blitowyn, while in front of the other two remaining Voiya Masters, offering his abject apology for the progress of events, offering his resignation and reassignment to a less purposeful position (the ultimate punishment of a Vesna). His four Vesna cronies, also being astute political players, prostrated themselves as well, and offered their resignations, and reassignments. Not a single one of them thought for even a moment this would be the case. They knew that by doing this, by aiding Blitowyn in regaining face, they would have more political power than before. The Vesna Mahal of this group was of the considered opinion that Rillixiwen’s little brother was a serious player in the making and aligning himself closer and tighter now was going to pay off handsomely in the future. The payment would be, of course, the opportunities for more science and experimentation. Pure science, simply for the sake of science, was the first love of all Vesna. Everything else merely supported it.

After leaving the hangar bay, the trio of Voiya, and Eridani Masters each one of them, proceeded to the living quarters. Rillixiwen and the other seven Voiya’s bodies, the Voiya who had killed each other in the aftermath of Rillixiwen ordering the Drone to harass the human, had all been removed. The three remaining Voiya had no idea what set off the blood bath, or what the problem was with Rillixiwen’s orders. Since there were no recording devices in the Voiya’s private quarters, this would probably remain a mystery forever. Probably.

Trigla workers, supervised by Vesna, were in the process of removing the damaged furniture and repairing the walls. The largest contingent of Trigla staff were working at cleaning the copious amount of dark Voiya blood that soaked almost everything. It is very rare that the Voiya actually kill anyone themselves, but when they do, they do it in a grand way: always lots of blood and icky bits to clean up afterwards. This particular mess would take many days, and not a little reconstruction, to remove the last traces of it.

Arriving at the area of the underground base where their quarters were located, the three Voiya had immediately gone for massages and heated head wraps to help them deal with the stress of the day. Crequan, also of Chernasai, and Ochalz of Nejan were very, very distressed when they had heard about the massacre in the Voiya’s quarters. Add to this the sudden arrival of armed human, Eben and hybrid soldiers invading their base, and a stand-off in the hangar bay; they were beside themselves. They had been in the Matron’s presence at the time of the massacre, and did not know what was happening until one of the Vesna had come to call them away on an important affair of state. No one yet had the guts to inform the Matron of the massacre or the enemies’ incursion, and none of the remaining three had yet volunteered to be the one to tell her. Since Blitowyn was last in line for everything at present, Crequan and Ochalz figured they would make him do it. They felt bad about that, him having to deal with the hangar bay, the cleanup, and now this as well. Okay, they really didn’t feel bad, they couldn’t care less actually. It simply gave them a reason to have the Trigla masseurs apply their craft longer than usual.

The three met privately so that Crequan and Ochalz could berate Blitowyn into the job of informing the Matron. Downing some of his favourite alcoholic nectar, without really tasting it, Blitowyn worked up the courage, and finally went to see her. The Matron was the female in charge of a certain house. As her name was Uudhoo, and she was the only matron on the base, that meant that everyone on the base belonged to the House of Uudhoo. The Voiya Masters, the Voiya children, the Vesna, the Trigla and the drones were all part of her house. Since females rarely survived childbirth, those that did were esteemed and revered as the leaders of the polyandrous families that formed around them. All of the children on the base had been born of her. The children were all fathered by the different Voiya, most of them dead now, except for Blitowyn; he had only been there three years, and had not yet had the pleasure. All of the children, reaching maturity, would either leave to join another house (the boys) or create their own house (the girls, if they survived their first childbirth). All of the male children would be known as “of Uudhoo”. All of the female children, that survived their first childbirth, would choose their own name for the new house that first birth established.

After Blitowyn had be gone only twenty minutes, a Vesna arrived, running into the room, to inform Crequan and Ochalz that Master Blitowyn of Chernasai had summoned them to the Matron’s chambers. They looked at each other in disbelief, as only the Matron could summon a Master anywhere. The Vesna, seeing their confusion, conveyed that the breaking of the news had gone very poorly, and that Master Blitowyn required their assistance in comforting the Matron.

Well, Blitowyn or not, being summoned to the Matron’s presence was something no Voiya would dare ignore. They all but ran to her door.

Upon entering the lavish and spacious sitting room, they found Blitowyn on his knees, and the larger Matron (females of the Voiya species were bigger than the males) collapsed in his arms. She was sobbing and screeching with a pain that a human would recognize as coming from deep loss. The Voiya males simply couldn’t understand that concept, but they knew they had a duty, an obligation, to the Matron. Blitowyn looked up at them, his eyes wide, confused, and not knowing what to do. While the feelings of love, care, concern, and emotions in general were foreign to Voiya males, it was more than abundant within Voiya matrons. Something about surviving childbirth seemed to flip on a switch somewhere in their heads, or hearts.

Her half-opened eyes saw them entering, she turned her head to them and cried so hard she could barely breathe. She held out her arms to beckon them. They approached and without hesitation knelt beside her and Blitowyn. The four of them sat there for a long time. The three males had their arms wrapped around her, and tried thought-projecting words of comfort to her, perfunctory words they had all been taught by more senior Voiya males when joining the house. A Trigla attendant had a basin of water and was dabbing a damp cloth repeatedly around the Matron’s head and neck, trying to cool her overheating skin and bring her some comfort. The Trigla attendant had no great love for the Voiya Matron, but she herself was a mother and wife. She recognized this could very easily have been her. The Trigla set aside her indifference for the present time, and responded with compassion; cooing the soft trilling sounds that soothed her own children when they were upset. The attendants’ husband was a senior member of the guard force. Today he was in charge of the on-duty platoon in the hangar bay. She hadn’t heard yet.

After watching this for some time and realizing that the Matron was not getting any better, one of the Vesna assigned to her detail thought-summoned the base medical team. Arriving promptly, the Vesna physician examined her quickly and efficiently. While the Vesna understood what love was, as an object of study, they had no experience with love towards another being. Commitment they understood, sharing and obligation as well, but not love. Had they been able to understand it experientially, a few Vesna could have psychically flooded her with soothing emotions. Instead, the Vesna physician took a syringe and bottle from his portable med kit, charged the needle from the bottle, and injected it on the underside of the Matron’s left wrist. She almost immediately fell into a deep slumber. Looking very relieved, the worried Voiya Masters inquired as to her prognosis, as such an intense display of emotion simply had to be caused by either a virus or a psychosis. The Vesna knew exactly what it was, though and even without experience of the condition itself, he knew that it would only be time that would heal her suffering. He tried to thought-project as much to the Voiya Masters, but they kept insisting if he was doing his job right, he would give her more injections or more pills. Finally the Vesna physician gave them yet another thought-projected lesson on emotions, their effect on the female Voiya body, how they were processed internally, and what it would take to heal her. He reviewed those things for a great length of time. One of the things the Vesna had long been studying in humans was their emotional responses.

The Voiya looked resigned, finally realizing that bluff and bluster would get them nowhere. They realized they truly were concerned for the Matron’s well-being. Realizing they were going to have to make great efforts to aid her in that healing process, the three of them left the physician in charge of the Matron, and immediately went for another massage and heated head wrap.

To be fair to the poor devils, they each needed time to think and organize everything running around in their head. They also needed time to think about what would be their response to the day’s events. They needed to have a firm grasp on their own thoughts before they could, as a group, work towards a consensus. Of course, when you have three aliens who border most of the time on bug-shit-crazy, the term consensus is probably going to be stretched a bit.