It was early afternoon. I was due on a late that
day. I’d spent the morning at the gym and I’d just come back from the
refectory. I’d seen Greeley was strung out on his bunk. He was on a late,
too. I’d taken my stuff and gone to the head. I thought I’d shave and shower
then; we were due on at 20:00 that night. I’d planned to spend the rest of my
free time that day watching a movie and playing in one of the IVRs.
I’d shaved half of my face when I heard the first
bang. I instinctively flinched, though at first I thought it was something in
the kitchens. When those big serving pans get dropped they make a hell of a
racket. I dropped my razor into the water and listened. There were further
loud bangs and I ran back to the bunks. Our dorm overlooked the parade ground,
so I thought I might have a view of what was going on if it was out front.
Greeley was off his bed. That was what first
made me think something might be up.
“What was that?” I said.
“Don’t know,” said Greeley. “Did you see the
flashes?”
“What flashes?”
“Flashes. I don’t know. You didn’t see them?”
Just then there was another flash, followed by a loud
cracking sound. We both crouched, and made our way to the window. Greeley peeked
first. I was going to pull him back, but in the end I peeked too.
Looking across the parade ground to the entrance
I could see there were no guards at the gate. None of this was adding up. I
wondered if Colonel Shaw was running some sort of surprise exercise. “Look,”
said Greeley. “Look at the tunnel.”
The main entrance to the garrison was served by a
road tunnel. The tunnel opened out near the entrance. There was some
scrubland and then the gated entrance to the parade ground. I could just make
out the shape of a vehicle in the tunnel. It wasn’t one of ours.
“They’re attacking us,” said Greeley.
At first I thought this was one of his jokes. He
was so straight faced, even when he was saying the most ridiculous things, that
it could be difficult to know when to take him seriously. But he remained stony-faced,
and I could see he was concentrating on the tunnel.
I could hear some sounds coming from our
building. Orders being shouted, and running. Edley appeared at the door.
“You two, get to the entrance hall, now!” Edley never shouted, but when she
said ‘now’ that was the most forceful thing I’d ever heard her say. She was
already gone when I heard her shouting, “And take your weapons with you!”
I looked at Greeley. He just shook his head, but
he was moving toward his rifle. I went to get my rifle, and I went to grab my
side-arm too. It was then that I remembered I was only wearing my shorts
and flip-flops. I tossed the side-arm on the bunk and followed
Greeley to the door. I put my hand up to my face, remembering that I hadn’t
finished shaving. Half of my face was still covered in shaving foam and
bristles.
In the corridor were others like us. Half-dressed
and looking confused and worried. We made our way down to the entrance hall
and tried to figure what was going on. I heard someone loudly insisting it was
just a drill but another voice disagreed. “I saw them go down. It wasn’t our
guys. It’s an attack. I’m telling you, it’s an attack.”
“What do you think?” I asked Greeley.
“I don’t know. Seems like a funny kind of a
drill,” he said.
We could still hear people running about. Over
the next minute or so those sounds petered out. There was the odd distant
shout or the sounds of chairs scraping, but soon even those had stopped.
Edley came down the stairs. She had her pistol
drawn and she was focused on the main entrance. I think that was when I knew
for sure that it wasn’t a drill. She wasn’t looking at any of us, assessing
our performance or anything. She was looking at the door and nothing else.
There was a group of guys over by the window. I
heard one of them say, “It’s a transport, Major,” and I could see others about
him struggling to get a look. I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. I
heard it slow down, and then the engine cut. There was a spooky silence. We
were all straining to hear what might happen next.
“This is Commissioner Maya Foveaux of the Martian
Security Service. I would like to speak with Colonel Katrina Shaw.”
It must have been through a loudhailer or
something. The garrison had blast doors and toughened windows, and we could
still hear it pretty clearly. There was dead silence, then we heard
footsteps. Not running, but deliberate and at a steady pace. It was Colonel Shaw.
She came down the main stairway into the entrance hall and walked right up to
Edley.
“Are you going out there?” said Edley.
“I am,” said Shaw.
I felt scared and impressed. Shaw’s voice didn’t
betray a flicker of emotion. She sounded double-hard and like she knew
exactly what she was doing. It’s not something I would have done.
“We’ll have you covered,” said Edley.
“Thank you, Major Edley,” said Shaw, as casually
as if Edley had just offered her cake.
They walked to the door and Edley opened it. I
saw Shaw lean into Edley and say something, but I didn’t quite catch it. As
soon as Shaw was gone Edley closed the door.
I don’t know what happened next. I couldn’t hear
anything but, like I said, the doors and windows were pretty heavy and cut out
a lot of noise.
Next thing Edley was on her comdev. “Yes, sir,”
she said, and she went to open the door again. Shaw walked in with this
woman. She was tall and she looked like she meant business. She was wearing
full battledress and she had a pistol on her hip.
“Would you please come with us, Major Edley,”
said Shaw, and the three of them walked through the lobby and up the stairs.
None of us knew what was going on. I heard some
murmured conversations and I could see that the guys by the windows were still
glued to them, looking nervously out to the parade ground. I could see their
knuckles white as they gripped their rifles.
“That was Foveaux,” said Greeley. “She’s come in
to negotiate our surrender.”
“Surrender?” I said. “Looks to me like we have
her surrounded.”
“In here, you big dummy,” said Greeley, “but not
out there. Mars ain’t ours no more. Think about it. We’re outnumbered now.”
I did think about it. He was right. If Mars
wasn’t part of the USAN anymore, where did that leave us? A long way from home
with not a friend in sight. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. We
used to be the defenders. We upheld the law on Mars. Pillars of the community.
But now we were the enemy. And there was a shitload more of them than there
was of us.
I was mulling that over when I heard a loud ‘
bang!
’
This time I knew for sure it wasn’t the kitchens. The cooks were all in here
with us, hugging their rifles just like we were. It took a moment, but after a
few quick exchanges some of us started edging our way up the stairs. I wasn’t
going to go, to start with, but Greeley was off like a shot and I figured I
would be at a safe enough distance behind those at the front.
We crept up the stairs. The guys at the front
were making hand signals, gesturing for us to keep quiet and hold back. They
were crouching and had their rifles at the ready.
I heard a voice from up ahead. It sounded like
Edley. She said, “We need a medic up here, now!” I turned and saw one of the
medics pushing her way between us. She had her medical kit instead of a rifle,
and a side arm. She disappeared around the corner at the top of the stairs.
Encouraged by the medic, I guess, we all surged
forward. I got to the top of the stairs, where I could just about see into
Shaw’s office if I leant on the guy next to me. I couldn’t really see much.
I could make out the medic’s boots. It looked like she was kneeling down and
working on someone. Shaw came to the door. “Back to the lobby,” she said.
“It’s all over here. The situation is under control.”
And that was that.
Greeley was right. Foveaux had come to take our
surrender, and Shaw had surrendered to her there and then. Apparently Major
Bowers had taken issue with the idea, and Foveaux had shot him dead, just like
that.
I can’t say we’re going to miss him, but damn!
That wasn’t what I’d joined the army for. It felt a little too close for
comfort.
They left their own guards at our checkpoints
when they left, and the next day they came back and took Colonel Shaw and Major
Edley away. They put Captain Gibbs in charge. A few weeks after that we had
to move out to an old warehouse facility on the edge of town.
Gibbs had this idea that we should build a new
mini-barracks right there inside the warehouse. The army has a load of
standard designs so Gibbs picked one out, liaised with the Martians over
building materials and then put us to work on building it.
A couple of weeks into the build the MSS turned
up. Some guy spoke to us over a loud-hailer. He said we could join them
on full pay and help to build the new Mars, or something.
“Screw that,” said Greeley, and he got back to
laying bricks.
“You don’t fancy being a traitor then?” I asked.
“Nope. I’m thirteen months short. I’m going
back to an army pension and great employment prospects with the skills I’ve
picked up right here.”
He was being facetious. We hadn’t really learned
anything much in the army, despite what they liked to tell you in their ads. I
guess we’d learned a thing or two about policing, so maybe Greeley could go
back and become a security guard, or something. But he was right about not
joining the MSS. That was heavy stuff, treason even.
I was surprised to see a few people amble over to
the MSS guys. I guess some of them had taken a shine to Mars and decided to
stay. They were taking a hell of a risk, though. They could never go back to
the USAN, and if the USAN got out here and took Mars back they would really be in
the shitter, and deep.
It seemed surprising to me that people would take
a big decision like that on the hoof. I guess it takes all sorts. It wasn’t
for me, though. Like Greeley, I thought I’d see my time out here in the
warehouse, get rotated back to Earth then walk away from it all. Maybe go back
to England, maybe stay in the mainland. Get a job, settle down.
We’ve been here a few months now. The building
is finished, and I guess it’s not that bad. We have a bit of space for training,
and there’s IVRs and food and whatnot. In eleven months or so there will be a
launch window, and we’ll all get sent back to the world. We’re just counting
down the clock to that.
Cooped up with not much to do I’ve begun to
follow the news streams more closely. I want to know how we’ve ended up in
this situation, and what the USAN is doing about it. Well, it seems they’re
doing plenty.
They have this big ship,
Ephialtes
. It’s the
biggest spacecraft ever built. It had been made for the war on Earth, but they’ve
rejigged it some and sent it out towards us.
It’s nearly half a kilometre long and carries
twelve Commander Program dropships. Each single one of those is a nightmare in
itself. A dropship carries a squad of twelve mechs, including the commander.
Each mech is four metres high and armed like you wouldn’t believe. And this
massive warship,
Ephialtes
, is stuffed full of them and it’s coming
towards us.
It feels sort of good that our guys are coming to
the rescue, but I kinda think I’d rather just wait it all out and go home.
Ephialtes
,
dropships, mechs and commanders are all great, but if they start shooting the
place up who knows what might happen? I’d happily take the ignominy of
returning safely home as part of a defeated force than risk death or injury in
a heroic reassertion of USAN power.
So that’s where I am now, trying to decide
whether this was a good idea. I guess it all depends on how it pans out. The
space travel was great fun. The posting was cushy, and even the move to the
warehouse wasn’t so bad. If we see our time out and get to come home safely then
I’d say yes, coming to Mars was, on balance, a good thing and a great
experience.
Only it looks like that’s not how it’s going to play
out. Greeley doesn’t think so, either. He says the USAN are coming to retake
their planet, and nothing is going to stop them.
I hate to think about it but I know he’s right.
The countdown has started and the USAN are going to bring the fight to the
Martians.
Ephialtes
is coming, and when that thing gets here, shit’s
going down.
Ephialtes
Trilogy Book One:
Ephialtes
Available now on ebook and paperback
Praise for
Ephialtes
:
"The story effectively generates suspense
for the inevitable confrontation between the two planets . . .
An absorbing, inventive introduction to Parker's version of the 23rd century,
where politics still reign."
-
Kirkus Reviews
"For fans of this kind of military sci-fi,
there's every reason to pick this title up. The book is an exceptional example
of its genre that does all it sets out for succinctly, but pushes for a full,
fleshed-out trilogy as something to look forward to: a trilogy that seems
likely to meet expectations. The book oozes quality throughout."
-
Self-Publishing
Review
, 4 Stars
Follow Ephialtes Trilogy
on
Twitter
and
Facebook
Follow Gavin E Parker on
Twitter