Behind them, a patrol of Taurons approached the encampment. Granat had led a patrol over the plateau in case the humans attempted a rescue from there. He was in time to see his carefully laid ambush destroyed, several of his squad dead and their transport vehicle in need of extensive repairs. He’d failed.
“Who was in command when the humans attacked?” he asked in the heavy, guttural tones of his race. The trooper who stepped forward was a foot shorter than Granat. He looked up at his commander. There was no fear in his face, just a mute acceptance of the price that had to be paid.
“It was me, Sir.”
Granat struck him a huge blow with his hard, clawed fist. The blow took him in the neck and twisted at the last moment so that a sharp claw ripped through the creature’s neck. He didn’t die immediately, just knelt down and waited for the inevitable. Slowly, as his blood drained into the Martian dust, he sank lower, and then he fell lifeless to the ground. Granat watched him. The body twitched a few times, and then went still. Good, the fool was better out of his way. He looked around.
“Who is the deputy in charge of this squad?”
A creature stepped forward. “I am, Sir. Dagan.”
“Yes, I have seen you fight. You will not make the same mistake as your former leader, will you?”
“No, Sir.”
“Good. Remember the fate of your predecessor. I can always find new ways to motivate my troops, so I trust you will bear that in mind.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Contact Elysium Base, tell them to recover the transporter. They can use it to bring the bodies back as well.”
“Sir, what do you plan to do about the humans? Now that they’ve beaten us.”
Granat controlled his rage. Was he right to trust this one, or was he another useless fool?
“They haven’t beaten me! I promise you that this is just a minor setback. When we return to Elysium I shall start making plans to attack them at Chryse Gulf.”
“How will we get inside Mars Base, it is heavily defended?”
Granat considered whether he should pass the information to his new leader. It was a debacle, despite what he’d admitted. Although if he’d been here, he’d have torn the humans limb from limb. Perhaps this trooper needed some positive news to offset this debacle.
“We are already inside Mars Base. That is not something you need to worry about.”
Chryse Gulf, Mars Mining Colony
They’d radioed ahead. The crews were waiting at the garage airlock, as they approached the outer door opened and they drove straight in. The door closed and the chamber started to equalize with air. The green light flicked on and the inner door opened and they drove through to greet the waiting crowd. It was not the welcome the rescued party from Tyrranha Plateau had expected. After they’d stripped off their suits they saw that the men were morose and silent. A few did come and shake hands, but there was no jubilation at their escape from the alien trap.
“What’s up with them?” Gabi asked. “They don’t look particularly pleased to see us.”
“It’s the air,” Rahm replied. “They’ve just seen their own air reserves cut by a quarter. If we hadn’t come back they’d be better off.”
She shuddered. “That’s a mean way to greet us.”
“Is it? Think about it, Gabi. If the air supply runs out before the relief ship arrives, some of us are going to die. Maybe all of us. That reminds me. Excuse me for a few seconds.”
He looked around and found Saul Packer.
“Saul, those portable air scrubbers. They’re going to be worth their weight in gold, I’m guessing.”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“Right, here’s what I want you to do. Take the remaining units and lock them away in our personal store. It may be best if we decide who has the use of them. Rather than someone like Tobin Ryle.”
“I’m on it, boss. Ryle would keep them all for himself anyway, there’s no way he gets access to them from me.”
“It’s not just him, Saul. It’s just you and me who will have access, no one else. Change the combination of the door lock and let me have the new one, nobody else.”
He nodded and walked to the buggy to extract their stock of scrubbers. Rahm didn’t have long to wait. Tobin Ryle stalked into the garage and straight to him.
“You brought the portable scrubbers back, well done. I want to put them in our stores for safekeeping, where are they?”
“You’re too late, Ryles. They’ve been issued. You knew the crews were running low on air.”
“All of them?”
“All the ones you need to worry about.”
“I’ll confiscate them myself,” he muttered and made to walk away. Rahm grabbed his arm.
“Ryles, they’ve just come in from a nasty mission, they almost didn’t survive. Touch those air scrubbers and you’ll be out of the airlock. That’s a promise.”
Ryles stared at him with hate filled eyes. “You can’t threaten me, Rahm.”
“I just did. Now beat it.”
The deputy manager walked quickly out of the garage. It was obvious he was about to report him to the Base manager, but he didn’t care. He’d brought back the trapped crew, so it would have to be enough for now. He walked through to his quarters and started to clean up. He was naked when the door opened. He whirled around, it was Gabi. She stared at his body. There was a hunger in her eyes that was almost primitive. It was a long time since he’d seen a woman as aroused as her. She grinned at him.
“My goodness, you do look good.”
“Gabi, give me a moment, I’ll put a towel around me.”
She ran up to him, light and delicate on her feet. “Don’t do that, I was enjoying the view.”
She hugged his body, then put up her head and kissed him on the lips, a very passionate kiss that went on forever. He wasn’t complaining. He felt himself becoming excited, as did she.
“Hey, I can feel something hard down there, and I don’t think it’s the chair leg.”
“Gabi, for God’s sake. I feel embarrassed.”
And he did. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Not since the death of his fiancé in that raid on the Herat base, in fact. He’d felt guilty ever since. Guilty for what he wasn’t sure. But it had been enough for him for avoid women, up until now.
“Gabi, I haven’t even showered, I must stink.”
“Mm, that’s what I like. Sweaty, musky perspiration, it smells like, sex.”
It was true, they’d both been wearing suits for many hours, and their bodies had the rank, musky smell that they all tried to shower off at the end of a shift. But there was something undeniable about the odor of her, something that made his stomach churn. And more besides. He lifted her gently onto his bunk and held her to him. She clamped her arms and legs around him as if she was drowning and clinging to a lifebelt.
“Rahm, don’t you ever let me go, I feel so safe with you. For God’s sake, screw me. Fuck me senseless, I just want to forget that mission.”
“I’m happy to oblige, Ma’am. Very happy.”
Afterwards they lay together, enjoying the feeling of being close, skin to skin. Abruptly, she looked up at him
“Rahm, just what do you want out of this contract? Why are you on Mars, you could have enjoyed a well-paid career on Earth.”
He was silent for a long minute. “It’s a long story. I came here to get away from people, to start again. I had a major disaster with a project I was running. When this came up there was a lot of appeal, you know, mega wages, save the Earth by mining trevanium. Now, I just want to get back, cash my paycheck and buy a place away from too many people. Maybe set up a one man mineral consultancy, yeah, that’s about it. My own boss, away from these assholes like Ryles. And away from Mars.”
She lay there, thoughtful, for long time. He was an island, sure. But didn’t someone say, ‘no man is an island’?
Whatever it was, he couldn’t disguise it from his crew when he went into the canteen clutching three of his store of Bourbon bottles. Gabi had stayed in his room to clean up some more. Women! Back on Earth they could spend an hour getting ready to go to the store to buy a box of soap flakes. She’d told him to go on ahead and she would join him later. He sat down with his crew and poured hefty glasses of the amber nectar, then relaxed in the warm glow of a mission done well. And something else, but that was his secret. But no longer his alone, Gabi was also privy to the great secret of his past.
“I didn’t know you two were an item” Kacy said with a puzzled expression.
“We’re not,” he shot back.
She snorted. “You could have fooled me. You make a good couple, too. You two should try and make a go of things. But by the looks of things you already have, Rahm.”
He felt himself going red and hastened to change the subject.
“What’s the latest on the air scrubbers? Have the engineers managed to fix anything up?”
“If they have, they didn’t tell me,” his technician replied.
“We need to know where we stand. I can hardly believe they’d just give up, after all…”
He was interrupted by a stir in the doorway as Jacques Fechter entered the canteen, followed by his odious assistant Tobin Ryle and Dan Weathers, the Chief Engineer.
“Listen, everyone. Dan has been out to the air scrubbers to try and make repairs. Dan, would you tell them what you found.”
He stepped forward. “My team spent several hours stripping down the machinery, trying to find the fault. I’m sorry to say it’s a no go. The multi-condenser array has broken down completely, and we don’t have any way of repairing or replacing it here on Mars.” He shrugged apologetically. “If there was anything we could do, believe me, we know how important it is. But we’ve gone as far as we can go. The air scrubbers are finished.” He looked around and the Mars Base manager. “Jacques, I guess that you need to spell out the rest.”
Fechter coughed. “Er, yes, you all know what this means. We’re sandwiched between the Alien attacks and the equipment failures. As from this moment forward, all drilling operations are finished. We’re going to emergency lockdown to conserve what little air we have left until the relief ship arrives. We’re…”
“But you said it was going to be three months late!” an angry voice shouted from the crowd. “How in hell’s name are we going to last an extra three months?”
“The manager looked embarrassed. “It’ll be difficult, I know. But the lockdown procedure will carry us through. You’ll all be confined to your quarters, so I’ll try and make sure you get some movies to watch. You should all be able to access books for your tablets from the Base library, so I’m afraid we’ve all got to sit back and wait. No one will engage in any activity that isn’t essential for maintain a basic life support environment. Other than that, the militia will keep watch. We don’t want to suffer any more attacks from the Taurons. That’s all.”
Ryles touched his arm and whispered a few words to him. He looked at Rahm.
“Oh yes, the portable air scrubbers. Rahm, you brought some spare units back from the wreck of the Eastern Star. I want you to put them in my office for safe keeping. Tobin will come with you to check that they’re all handed in.”
“No.”
He said the one word, quietly. The miners had been talking amongst themselves but the room was suddenly quiet as they sensed the tension.
“No? What do you mean by no?”
“I mean exactly what I say, Jacques. If Ryles gets his hands on those sets the sneaky bastard will make sure that he’s first in line when the air starts to go bad. There are other people going to need them, like the militia to keep the Taurons out. Some of the folks in sick bay, they won’t live without good, sweet air to breathe. So I intend to make sure certain that they get to the right people. Tobin Ryles is not on that list.”
“You hand them over, Rahm, that’s an order. Otherwise, you’re fired. You’ll never work on Mars Base again.”
“That suits me, Jacques. I never want to see this damn planet again, once we get off it.”
“You do that and you’re no longer under contract. Saul will take over the crew.”
“Take over the crew!” Saul laughed bitterly. “Just to lie on our berths, watching old movies and breathing shitty air while we wait for the relief?”
Fechter glared at him. “Just do as I say, that’s an order.”
He swung on his heel and made to walk away, he almost bumped into Gabi who was racing into the canteen.
“Rahm!” she shouted. “I’m going to need some of those portable air scrubbers.”
There was a chorus of angry shouts. “Yeah, he’ll give them out to his people.”
“Fucking favoritism!” “Let’s go down to his locker and take the damn things for ourselves!”
Gabi shrieked over the hubbub. “No, listen! All of you. There’s a chance we can fix this.”
She walked forward and stood by Rahm and the rest of his crew. “You know that datacard you pulled out of the Eastern Star?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember. It was the ship’s manifest. What about it?”
“As I was getting dressed I noticed it had fallen out of the pocket of your pants onto the floor.”
There was a chorus of whoops and catcalls as the meaning of what she’d said became clear. She turned a bright red, but plunged on. “Out of interest, I put it into my reader and checked to see what the manifest had on it.”