A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) (34 page)

Behind them, the flames as the van caught alight properly made a cheerful seeming blaze against the chilly Martian night.

*****

When they next stopped, more than two miles further on around the city to the north, they were all looking at Hamilton with a “What the Hell are we doing?” expression on their faces.

“Okay.” He began. “Here’s the deal. We hoped to get to Olympus undetected and to be able to take a look at the Science Institute before planning how best to make our move. That’s failed. We have two choices right now. We can either abort the mission, and try to get back out to space and make the rendezvous point, or we can press ahead with the mission under the threat of increased security.

“Right now, I would guess, the early responders to the freight lockup will be arriving at the terminal. They’ll discover the stunned employees, get a garbled story from them. They’ll check the security footage from the terminal and find it wiped, courtesy of Mr. Jones. That will slow them down long enough for them to access the off-site data storage backup for the terminal. Then they’ll see the footage. Even though they won’t have any faces to go with the assailants, they will likely realize that the suits are military issue. That’ll almost certainly result in calls to Imperial Security. The local police won’t like handling this on their own if they think the military are involved. Those calls will result in someone in ImpSec seeing the security footage, at which point they’ll make the suits as Marine-issue.

“At that point, the military are going to get seriously interested in this. I know we took the ship insignia off the suits, but that won’t matter. ImpSec will think that the military is running some sort of operation and will make appropriate enquiries. Things will escalate. At some point, they will all realize that none of them is responsible for what happened. And at that point, this place will be locked down tighter than a crab’s backside! We’ll likely have spotter drones in the air and a massively enhanced security presence. They’ll be checkpoints everywhere. Going to and fro will be impossible.”

Hamilton paused for a moment to let it sink in.

“How long do we have?” Klane asked. She already knew, or had made guesses about all of this, but she was playing along with him for the benefit of the others.

“Figure, five to ten minutes before the locals get the footage from storage. Another ten before they can get someone in ImpSec to look at it. Then maybe another half hour before the military get it and deny all involvement. Maximum before lockdown is an hour, max. Add another twenty minutes for ImpSec and the military to get their assets in place, depending on how well equipped the local ImpSec headquarters is and where the nearest military base happens to be. Make no mistake, in ninety minutes this place will crawl with the security.”

“What should we do?” Carl frowned. “Run for it? Or try to hide?”

“It’s unlikely we could get back to the starport before the lockdown took effect. Besides, they will have traced the cargo we jumped out of, that will lead them back there. They’ll be eager to find the ship we came in on. So the port will also be swarming with security personnel. We wouldn’t get very far.

“As for hiding. It has some merit. But Olympus will become an impossible place to move around in. There’ll be so many checkpoints. I don’t need to remind any of you of the danger of being recognized by a camera. And there will be plenty of those. Both fixed and mobile. We won’t be so much hiding, as be trapped.”

“So what’s our best option?” Klane asked, still playing the helpful role.

“I propose we continue on mission, commencement immediately. Rames and the rest will just have to take their chances. They’re in a better position to abort than we are, anyhow.”

“I don’t get it,” Jones frowned. “If we can’t get out, what’s the point in kidnapping someone? Won’t that just stir the hornet’s nest even more?”

“Probably, but I suggest a modification to our original plan.” Hamilton said, pulling a small transmitter from his pocket. “We give ImpSec and the military something more important to do than look at video of four people in military-issue suits stunning a few laborers.”

He flipped up the protective cover on the transmitter casing and pressed the button beneath.

*****

Far above and halfway around the planet, the bulk carrier was still unloading its cargo of refined metals onto the huge orbiting terminal.

The physical explosion aboard the tiny vessel stuck like a parasite to the carrier’s neck was never in danger of threatening the massive craft’s structure, nor that of the even more gargantuan freight terminal. The explosion did blow the maintenance craft to pieces. However, the explosion was just the driving force behind the immense electromagnetic pulse that was generated.

The mark ten warhead generated a pulse that was effective to a radius of fifteen kilometers. The terminal, and every ship attached to it shut down immediately, their electronics fried by the burst of energy.

The ships that were nearby, in holding patterns awaiting a loading berth, also went dark, powerless. Beyond fifteen klicks, there were malfunctions and shutdowns, vessels going on to emergency power and all manner of unpleasant, but less critical failures. Further away and there was little problem.

However, the detonation of the warhead was felt far away indeed. Although not strong enough to cause damage beyond that range, it was nonetheless detectable by almost every sensor in the system.

Comms systems went crazy. The request by Olympus police for ImpSec to review footage of a local crime vanished to the bottom of an ever-increasing queue of more urgent matters, leaving the local police to deal with the freight incident as best they could.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The original dome that had housed the first colonists on Mars was a sturdy structure indeed. From a distance it presented a smooth hemisphere to the eye. Up close, the geodesic nature of the construction was apparent.

The framework was metallic, likely some early alloy ancestor of modern plasteel. The massive, triangular panels that fit into the frame, each six feet on a side, were made of steelglass. Time, and Martian dust-storms, had frosted the steelglass to a semi-opaque state, making the interior of the dome difficult to discern.

According to the data that they had obtained, the panels were each a foot thick and were bonded to the framework at the molecular level, so the entire structure was immensely resilient. The whole structure was designed to withstand almost anything that could be thrown at it.

In the early post-dome living days, criminals had attempted to cut through the panels in places. The scratches and small, shallow holes they had managed to inflict a testament to the strength of the structure.

The group had driven to the north edge of the dome, well away from the actual northern entrance, which was a natural checkpoint. To try and enter through the actual portal would have meant identity checks and discovery. As it was, they had to rely on Jones’ expertise in avoiding modern security devices. Several times during the drive he’d veered suddenly down a side-street in order to avoid cameras and scanning devices. The outer edges of the city might have been left to the criminal element to do with what it would, but the center was an entirely different matter.

All it would take was for one of their faces to be caught on camera, or a scanner to detect the stunners they had, and all hell would break loose. Luckily for them, Imperial laws mandated that all such cameras and scanners had to be clearly marked and highly visible. So spotting them from a distance was not an issue. Of course, those were the official ones. There were any number of less obvious detectors scattered about. But Jones was wise to them, as well.

Eventually, they had to leave the car and proceed on foot down narrow alleys and even through buildings in order to avoid the increasing security presence.

Hamilton was thankful he’d blown the EMP. If this was the normal security network, then they’d have never got anywhere near the dome with patrols and drones to contend with as well.

The others had been less happy about the detonation, worrying that people might have got hurt as a result of the system shutdowns that resulted. Hamilton and Klane had exchanged glances at that point. Both of them knew that a certain civilian cost was likely inevitable in any military action. But whilst they accepted that, however reluctantly, the others were not so minded.

Hamilton reassured them, pointing out that the blast would bring rescue crews running at full tilt to the scene. Orbital space, he assured them, would be swarming.

Again, he exchanged glance with Klane and she helped him out with reassurances of her own.

The reality was that some people would likely die as a result of the EMP. Anyone outside in a suit would have their systems shut down and find themselves either suffocating or freezing depending on the circumstances of their activity. Likewise, anyone in an airlock, unless it was quite large, would most likely die of suffocation before help arrived. Those in smaller craft, would likely find death by freezing a probable outcome unless help arrived promptly. Some, whose vessels were on reentry trajectories, would be incinerated, or bounced off into space to freeze. There would be collisions due to failed docking maneuvers or approach vectors.

In short, there would be a number of deaths. Hamilton felt bad about it, but the truth was there was little choice considering the circumstances. A few deaths now to save billions might be cold comfort to those whose relatives had perished, but it was some comfort, at least.

The majority of the freight terminal, and the ships servicing it, were automated, however, so casualties would be kept to a minimum.

Once the group had navigated the final few hundred meters to the dome they had to find a way in. All the regular entrances were guarded heavily, of course. But then, they had never intended to get in through any of them.

Hamilton and the others had climbed the exterior of the dome until they were at a point directly above the Mars Science Institute. The climbing had been difficult at first but, as the curve of the dome began to level out, it became easier and easier.

However, no matter how tough the dome was perceived to be by the authorities, it stood little chance against the plasma cutter that Klane had brought along. It was the same one that Hamilton had used to cut a way out of Tantalus Station.

Reaching a point above the Institute had taken only twenty minutes. Once there, it took Klane less than a minute to cut a circular ‘plug’ right through one of the panels, the short beam of the rescue tool cutting the steelglass as easily as if it were made of wax. The angled sides that Klane had cut prevented it from falling through into the interior of the dome.

There were no alarms, of course. The structure was deemed “impermeable” to criminals, so no form of security was installed. However, having cut a circular hole in it, the main problem for Hamilton’s team was removing it. Steelglass was not a particularly light material, and a foot thick plug of it was beyond Hamilton’s ability to move. Even after drilling a hole through the center of the plug and putting a t-bar cable through to lift it, the plug remained firmly in place.

Carl came to the rescue. The big Enjun’s physiology was tailor-made for feats of strength and endurance. With a grunt of effort, he slowly lifted the plug up until it slid free and scraped across the remains of the panel to come to rest against the plasteel support.

With the steelglass plug removed, they lowered a cable through the hole all the way down to just above the roof of the Institute, some forty feet below.

Jones descended first, to check the security layout. They all wore their Marine spacesuits again.

Inside the dome it was a lot warmer, almost like a pleasant summer evening. Outside, the chilly evening of the not-quite-there-yet terra-formed atmosphere of Mars had left the breath steaming in the night air until they had put their suits back on. Inside the dome, it was rather pleasant.

Jones was not a natural at rappelling, but he made the journey safely, dangling a few feet above the flat roof of the Institute whilst he used the suit’s built-in sensors and software to check for any security on the roof. For several minutes he dangled there before giving them the all-clear and dropping the last few feet to the roof itself.

Klane was next down, making short work of the descent, with the others following one at a time with varying degrees of competency. No one made a mess of the short descent and Hamilton was the last down.

From the roof, looking up, the hole wasn’t even visible in the darkness. Come morning, however, it would be different.

Hamilton hoped to be long gone by then. His current thinking was to grab a scientist, grab a vehicle and take off toward one of the other Martian cities and their attendant spaceports. It would be easier to find a vessel from there than it would be to try and get through Olympus starport’s increased security. Not that getting off planet was going to be at all easy, considering the heightened security his EMP burst would engender.

The other option was to simply run and hide for a while. Mars was big enough that no amount of searching would turn up people that didn’t want to be found out in the wastes beyond the cities. Grab enough supplies and lay low for a while, then come back once the security forces nervous trigger fingers had relaxed and then make an escape.

He fingered the transmitter that had set off the EMP as it sat in his suit pocket. There was a third option that none of the others knew about yet. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to use it.

As exit strategies went both of the former options were pitiful. But they had known from the beginning the escape was going to be difficult. All they could do, as they had all along, was rely on their wits and take the opportunities as they arose. As for the third option, it was a desperate act that put lives at risk.

I guess I’ll know soon if I need to use that one
. He reasoned.

In the meantime, they huddled together on the roof, discussing via the suit-comms how best to get into the Institute.

“The door to the roof is heavily secured,” Jones told them. “I can break it, but it’ll take time. I’ve not seen that level of security before. Oddly, though, the roof itself is almost devoid of any security. There are sensors and the like all around the edge of the roof, but they all point outwards. But there are a lot of them. We’d have never got near the building from the ground level.”

“Doesn’t matter.” LeGault pointed out. “We’re here now!”

Jones shook his head. “It matters when we try to leave. I doubt our kidnap victim is going to want to climb that!” He indicated the cable dangling down from above.

“The research section is on the upper floors.” Hamilton reminded them. “That’s why we came in from above. I guessed the security up here might be lighter than elsewhere. No one expects anyone to do what we did.”

“How do we get out with our target, then?” Klane asked.

“If we can get inside, I can shut off the security long enough for us to get outside at ground level.” Jones offered. “I’ll need access to their security suite, though. They’ll be guards and such for you strong-arm types to deal with.”

Hamilton and Klane nodded. “We’ll deal with any physical obstacles. You sort out the security once we’re in.” He told the black man.

“Just how do we get in? If not through the roof door, then…” Johnson asked.

“Ventilation system.” Jones suggested. “Big building, big vents. I’ve already checked and there is a lack of security. It’s actually quite shoddily designed, if you ask me. We access the vents, get into the building proper and then shut off the rest of the security.”

“There is a slight problem I foresee.” Carl’s voice rumbled. He had moved to the front edge of the building, near where they huddled, and peered over and down.

Hamilton quickly drew a feed from the Enjun’s suit-cam and saw the big man’s concern.

The front of the Institute had huge wide stairs leading up to an impressively grand entrance. Beyond the stairs a circular road ran past the Institute and a number of other large, impressive buildings that formed the heart of the domed area. The very center, however, had been turned into a carefully propagated and maintained park for the wealthier residents to enjoy.

Now entering the park and setting up on the grass were a large number of very obviously military personnel and vehicles. Hamilton could see at least fifty engineers and as many actual Infantry. On a variety of low-loader vehicles, military hardware was being spread out around the park and tents were being erected in between.

“What the hell is going on?” Jones murmured, having picked up the feed himself.

For a moment, Hamilton wondered if his EMP distraction might have had exactly the opposite effect but then dismissed the notion. The EMP had gone off barely an hour before. Even given the overhyped efficiency of Imperial forces, there was no way the low-loaders could have gotten here from the nearest military base in that time. He knew it was an impossibility. So the men setting up in the park below were here for some other reason.

It was Klane that figured it out first.

“Damn!” She cursed. “It’s a bloody recruitment drive!”

And then it all made sense. The military was preparing a big show to encourage new recruits. Put out some hardware, tell people all manner of lies about how much fun military service was and you’d hook plenty of fish. Come morning, the place would be all set up, awaiting the gullible, and the desperate, to enroll.

“Great!” Hamilton muttered. “That’s all we need! A bunch of grunts pissed off at drawing this detail. I guess we’ll be leaving by the back door then!”