Mars Fire - Chapter VII, Sol 3
Previous Chapters: Chapter I , Chapter II , Chapter III , Chapter IV , Chapter V , Chapter VI
Chapter VII - Sol 3 - Wednesday
The next morning was an early one, and after a last kiss from a very sleepy wife, Burrows headed to the vehicle park with his pressure suit slung over his shoulder in an anti-static bag. There was no direct link from their colony area, Section 4, to where the vehicle park lay, despite the actual proximity of the two areas, which meant he had to go via the main dome to get there. He could always have gone above-ground, from an airlock in Section 4 directly to the vehicle park, but that would have involved more time and suit checks - and going via the main dome was just a lot faster and simpler in comparison. The route from Section 4 also took him through Section 1, where Pope and now Ian also lived, but the door buzzer to Pope’s module gave no response. The big man must already have left for the rover bay.
Councillor Felmann was near the vehicle park tunnels when Burrows entered the main dome, and raised a hand in greeting as he approached.
“Busy day for your team, I see.” Felmann had not shaved, and silver-grey stubble lined his jawline - an unusual state for him. He was somewhere in his sixties, predating the colonisation efforts here on Mars, but had the hard, trim figure of a man who took pride in his health. “I’ve pushed some priority items to the shopping list, I hope you and the team can manage to find them.”
“With Reyn in charge of procurement, I’m sure we will. With Pope helping, we should probably not ask questions about how those things were found.” Burrows grinned, and Felmann’s stern face twitched into a smile too.
“You have a good team, Jack. I’m sure they will deliver.” Felmann’s grin faded, and his voice lowered. “You will be speaking to Colonel Hayes as well, I trust?”
“Absolutely. Once Reyn and the others are busy with the negotiations, I’m planning to split off and take Ian with me to see the colonel.”
Felmann sighed and used his one hand to rub at his eyes, and it took Burrows a moment to recognise the fatigue that was etched across his face.
“This strike on the train line has me worried.” Felmann’s voice dropped another level, and he stepped closer to Burrows. Fatigue and concern warred in his dark eyes. “The Union has been pushing us a lot harder than most people here realise. It feels like it is going to escalate soon, and I don’t think everyone here understands the risks we are in.”
Burrows took a moment to collect his thoughts before he replied. It worried him that Felmann had the same concerns as him - because it meant that his worries were probably not too unreasonable. The doubts that had plagued him the day before were still there, lurking just below the surface.
“Officially, the Jade-fall was an accident. That has been the standard story from the Union from day one after the original disaster.” Burrows was silent for a long moment before continuing. “However, it does look rather convenient from their perspective. We are being weakened and cut off from our supply lines at a time when we need them the most. Argos and Nova are already under pressure, and our own border from Rhodes down to Culheimer is also being probed every day.”
“You and I get the same CDM reports, yes,” Felmann replied wryly, and shook his head. “I just don’t know what to make of it any more. Some of it must be random coincidence, but some it just feels too… convenient, almost.”
Burrows said what they both were thinking.
“We are a lot bigger than the Seven Craters Federation was. If they come here, they will face a much different opponent.”
“And they have had five years since then, which means they will be even more numerous this time too,” Felmann countered, and shook his head again. “You’ve seen the satellite photos of their western areas. The old Marsden Mines site, which they call Outpost 17 now. That site has been expanding since the day they took it.”
Marsden Mines had been part of the eastern fringes of Bear State until a few years ago, when the Union’s creeping expansionism had finally surrounded it and cut it off from the rest of Bear State. No-one had heard anything from them since, or from any of the people who had lived and worked there. Burrows knew of at least two families here at Home One who had lost relatives in the process. The satellite photos showed that the settlement was still there - but it was Union territory now, and had expanded rapidly since the takeover.
“Colonel Hayes has also been making more preparations, especially in our eastern regions,” Burrows replied. “Our own patrols regularly check that area, and our sensor grid there can pick up the Union probe teams the moment they start moving.”
“It’s not the moving that I worry about, Jack.” Felmann’s voice was bleak. “It’s the fact that they don’t stop that keeps me up at night.”
Burrows bowed his head to that. He and Felmann faced the same struggle, albeit on different fronts.
“Councillor, I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I just know that I can trust my team, and I am going to keep trusting Colonel Hayes and his people to keep us informed.” Burrows shrugged. “Beyond that, we just need to be prepared.”
“Speaking of which - I believe you have a new team member to initiate into your mysteries.” A smile cracked Felmann’s face, and he patted Burrows on the shoulder. “I have a good feeling about him. See what you can do, with the time you have.”
“We will, and thank you.” Burrows nodded to Felmann, and the two men went their separate ways.
From the main dome to the vehicle park took a handful of minutes, and after a quick detour to grab his carbine and bandoliers from the buggy bay, Burrows soon found the appropriate side tunnel that led to the airlock chamber for the rover bay. Getting inside and donning his suit was a matter of minutes, after which he had to wait for the chamber to finish pumping out the atmosphere and prepare him for the conditions in the rover bay.
When the light finally flashed ready, Burrows opened the outer airlock door and stepped out into the depressurised rover bay. The entire team was already there, suited up in CDM khakis, with Ian in the leak-test suit standing out in their midst. The leak-test suit was bright yellow, and had so many white patches covering it that it was starting to resemble a polka dot pattern.
“Finally - our brave leader shows his face,” Dixon chirped over the suit channel, and there were snorts from the others. “You are missing the show - we already popped his cherry.”
“Duty called - I had to be respectable with Councillor Felmann,” Burrows replied. “I assume you’ve met our newest recruit then.”
“Finally, yes. Met him, and even poked him too. He’s taking it well.”
Burrows strode closer to where they stood at the side of the bay, alongside the mottled CDM rover that took up the rest of the space, and inspected Ian in his suit. The leak-test suit was specifically used for training people on breach protocols, and each white patch was where a breach had been made so that the wearer could practice sealing it. Its chest had an array of external readout panels visible, so that the instructors could watch the suit pressure and integrity easily enough from outside. For the moment, everything was green.
Ian’s face was bright behind the visor, and he gave a thumbs-up when Burrows nodded at him.
“The first one went well. It was a lot easier than I expected.” Ian pointed at a fresh patch on the left thigh of his suit. “Patching it with both hands is easy. Now I have to do one hand only.”
“Sounds good to me. Go ahead.” Burrows nodded at them to continue, and Pope stepped up with a metal-cutter in his hands. The little rotary tool could chew through metal in moments, and pressure suits even faster.
With a final check and confirmation from Pope, he activated the tool and drew it across Ian’s left forearm. Fabric sprayed out of the cut, followed by a faint haze as the suit’s interior atmosphere - almost pure oxygen - started gushing out into the sub-zero bay temperatures. On the suit’s chest, a line of indicators started flashing red.
Ian wasted no time, reaching into one of his belt pouches and withdrawing one of the emergency patches which would heat up and chemically bond to any surface once activated. Face screwed up in concentration, he rapidly applied and activated the patch, before pulling out a second one to cover the rest of the gash. On his chest, indicators flashed from red to amber, and then slowly began to turn back to green one by one as the suit managed to repressurise itself.
Burrows led the light applause once all the indicator lights were back in the green. Ian’s face was clearly flushed, but he grinned along and took a mock bow to accept their applause.
“Not bad for your second time. One-handed is always a pain, which is why we practice it the most.” Reyn indicated two more points on the suit. “Now you have to do it left-handed, and then we’ll do one on the back of the suit.”
The third test took a bit longer, Ian fumbling with his second patch, but he got it sealed in not much more time than it had taken with the second breach. The final test was on the back of his left hip, an awkward spot that required you to half-twist yourself inside the suit while twisting the suit itself - and made worse by the fact that twisting the suit fabric made it almost impossible to get a firm seal with the patches. Ian was breathing hard by the time he managed to finish that one, and some of the suit indicators kept flashing amber even when the suit integrity re-established itself.
“Looks like your blood pressure levels are taking some strain.” Reyn leaned in to read the diagnostics on Ian’s chest, and checked the new patches on his left hip. “You’ve patched the suit, but your own systems are a bit stressed now from the pressure drops. Nothing major, but good to be aware of it.”
“Lesson two for today: suits repair faster than people. Even when your suit is intact again, your heart is going to bitch about it for a while.” Pope took Ian by the arm, and led him towards the rover’s side. “Get inside, and settle down while we finish loading up. Remember to drink some water too.”
Unlike the open-topped buggies which the colonists used for short-range work around the main base, the rovers were larger designs capable of being fully pressurised once under way. The CDM model was a fat cigar shape suspended on four man-sized wheels on each side, with articulated legs allowing each wheel to adjust and shift according to the terrain underneath. Sensor blisters covered the nose and tail of the main fuselage, and the bulbous cockpit windscreen always reminded Burrows of some vast grasshopper looming overhead. The ablative heat-sinks that folded along the rear half of the fuselage, which could extend outwards to improve emergency cooling, helped to complete the image. On the top of the fuselage, unseen from the ground, a number of drone hatches and weapon ports lurked, ready to unleash a payload of surprises at whoever caught their ire. The entire rover had been painted in desert khaki, with patches of darker reds and browns scattered across it in a pattern that would fool the eye quite easily at a distance.
Pope and Reyn guided Ian to the ladder that was tucked between two of the wheels, and helped him climb it to the airlock above. Once he had cycled in, the attention in the bay returned to the mission at hand.
“We should have a simple trip from here to Alvie. I’ll lead with the CDM rover, and you guys follow with the colony rover at our normal patrol separation.” There were nods from Reyn and Pope. The colony utility rover was in a neighbouring vehicle bay, and what it lacked in weaponry it made up for in sheer storage space. “Dixon, I want you on the sensor desk the moment we leave the north gate. I’m not expecting trouble, but it’s best to be sharp from the get-go here.”
“Roger that, captain.” Dixon sketched a salute. “I should be able to patch us into the satellite view as well. Then we can see what’s been happening with our neighbours well before we get there.”
“Good plan. Let’s make that a priority once the basic sensor suite is up and running.” Burrows turned to Pope next. “Is the colony rover prepped? Anything we need to know about there?”
“All fueled and ready. I ran the checks and preparations last night already.” Pope pointed at the CDM rover behind them. “I gave this one a quick once-over too, nothing stood out. We can run the short diagnostics now, and then be off after that.”
Burrows finally turned his attention to Reyn.
“Is your shopping list sorted? Are we hauling anything back to New Hopetown?”
“List is sorted, and I have empties and refills heading out.” Reyn cocked his head sideways. “Also some small deliveries for Alvie Ranch itself, from the botanists here.”
“What is it with you and the botanists?” Pope rounded on Reyn. “Whenever I hear about them, your name crops up. Are you looking for a career change?”
“You know, there’s a joke here about botany and spreading your seeds, but I don’t think now is the right time.” Reyn cleared his throat and reflexively raised his hand to cover his mouth - a pointless gesture in a pressure suit. Burrows saw the smile behind the cough and the hand though. “The delivery has nothing to do with me, anyway. It came up yesterday when I was there to assist them with something else.”
Pope turned a suspicious squint on Reyn, and then at Burrows and Dixon. Burrows kept a straight face, while Dixon just raised an eyebrow in question.
“Don’t look at me, you know I don’t work with plants - or botanists,” Dixon replied. “Not my type at all, either way you look at it.”
“Don’t look at me either,” Burrows raised his hands when Pope’s suspicion turned on him. “I already have my hands full with one botanist, and another on the way.”
“Yeah, I’m not convinced. You’re going to get interrogated on this trip, mister.” Pope shook a finger at Reyn, before nodding towards the closed bay door. “Speaking of which - shall we get going?”
The men split up, Pope and Reyn heading for the bay door while Dixon started the climb up to the rover’s airlock. Everyone had their carbines already with them, grabbed from tables and racks here in the bay, and Burrows slung his own one around his neck as well, alongside the bandoliers. He gave the vehicle bay airlock one last check to make sure it was sealed, then activated the bay doors from one of the wall remotes. There was no sound in the thin Martian atmosphere, but he could feel the rumble of the motors and the doors as they began to slide open. Outside, long shadows stretched over the vehicle park from the various surrounding bays, and the two waiting men quickly slipped out and disappeared across the sand towards the other bay.
Once Dixon was inside, it was Burrows’ turn to haul himself up the rover ladder and into the tiny airlock. It was a cramped affair, designed for maximum functionality on a vehicle that had the absolute minimum of space available for it, and Burrows did not bother taking his pressure suit off this time once the light turned blue. A hull breach on the rover was more likely than on one of the hab modules, which meant that you kept your suit on at all times unless you were parked and powered down for the night.
He did set his helmet aside though, once he was past the airlock, and racked his carbine and bandoliers in one of the nearby spaces. Dixon’s own weapon already lurked there too, next to the sensor backpack he had fabricated some years ago and now took with him everywhere. Burrows was still not entirely sure what exactly the pack was capable of, except that Dixon swore by it - and at it, infrequently - whenever they went EVA around the border regions.
Dixon was already at the sensor desk, buckled into the swivel chair that allowed him to access terminals on both sides of the rover interior, and Burrows squeezed past him to get to the nose area. Here, surrounded by more display panels, a handful of bucket seats were arranged to service the various stations that filled the head of the rover. Ian was already seated in one of them - the drone station, Burrows noted, although his hands were well clear of all the controls - and Burrows gave his one shoulder a quick squeeze before settling into the driving seat in the front of the section. Here, in a space which he always thought of as the eyes of the grasshopper, he could see everything in front of and around the rover - although the view at present merely showed the bay interior on three sides.
“How’s the heart feeling, Ian? Calming down yet?” Burrows asked over his shoulder as he buckled in and started the pre-mission checks. Lights began to blink across the control panels as his hands moved through well-rehearsed and memorised patterns.
“All good, I think. It feels like I’ve been running for hours though.” Ian sounded short of breath, but when Ian twisted around to look back at him, the young man gave him a brave thumbs-up. “Reyn said it will pass. It just feels a bit strange right now.”
“It’s the pressure difference here. The moment your suit ruptures and the pressure drops, your bodily fluids want to boil off.” Burrows turned back to the controls, checking the progress bars as they cycled through their diagnostic checks. “Horrible way to die, and even if you catch it in time, your blood vessels and surrounding tissue still take strain. Just keep taking deep breaths, and remember to drink water.”
“Sensor desk is up,” Dixon sang from the rear. “I can see seven shades of grey concrete all around us, in exquisite detail.”
“Let’s see about changing that, then.” Burrows grinned, and eased the drive yoke into reverse once all the diagnostics finished. The rover slowly began to trundle backwards, edging out of the bay like an insect emerging from its cocoon. Secondary vision panels around Burrows lit up as he manoeuvred the vehicle in reverse, giving him a clear view of the outside of the bay. Dust swirled across the parking apron outside, and once the rover was clear Burrows sent the remote signal for the bay to close itself again. No need to have it standing open and collecting more dust while they were gone.
Around them the other bays of the vehicle park loomed, dark and ominous in the long shadows of the early morning, and when Burrows switched on their external lights they threw sharp spears of white light into the surroundings. Ahead of them, the colony utility rover had also rolled out onto the apron, and was waiting for them to pass by and take point. Burrows obliged, switching the throttle to forward drive and slowly inching the CDM rover past the bright shape of the other rover. Even here in the shadows, the white paint on the utility rover wanted to shine. It was a great way to find vehicles that had been stranded by storms or caught in dust slides - but it was a terrible inconvenience when you wanted to sneak up on people. The CDM paint scheme, with its layered composite paints, would be dark to both eyes and sensors for a lot longer before it got sniffed out.
Just outside the vehicle park, the road turned from crete-casted slabs back into packed regolith, and Burrows deftly guided the rover down the marked lane towards the north gate. No-one else was up and about this early in the morning yet, and only the sleepy blinking of the navigation lights followed him as he gently slalomed around the breakwater and into the northern gate. On his rearward sensors, he could see the utility rover following him at a distance, and Burrows had to grin when he thought of the botany discussion that Pope was probably having at that point with Reyn.
Reyn would not be obvious or open about his affairs though, and unlike Burrows, Pope rarely paid close attention to human social cues. His suspicions would find no foothold in Reyn’s smooth exterior.
Outside the gate, and the crater wall, the first rays of morning were slanting low across the land, and Burrows found himself lost in the sight of the red dunes for a moment. It reminded him of the Sahara, some days, when the dunes were low and the wind was not yet up. Dust swirled in the distance, part of the perpetual horizon haze that covered much of Mars, but here, up close to it, each dune was a clear, sinuous thing that seemed to catch the eye with its sharp details.
Colony installations drifted past as they drove, solar arrays and wind turbines scattered in with sensor masts and small concrete bunkers and a handful of geodesic domes, and then the grey statues of the perimeter road appeared ahead. Burrows pointed them out to Ian as they approached.
“That’s Larry, at the end. He acts as one of our nav markers around here.” Burrows pointed one of the external cameras at the statue, and pinged a ranging laser off it. On the rover’s thermal displays, Larry’s head lit up like a torch. “If you ever get lost in the dark here, just look for Larry.”
“Also, on the topic of names: you are now officially aboard the Exeter-66, the finest CDM rover in all of the Southern District.” Burrows patted the console next to him. “You’ll get to know her like the back of your hand over the next few days, if all goes to plan.”
Past the statues, Burrows turned them east onto the perimeter road, and the rovers began their trip to Alvie Ranch.
Next chapter: TBC
