S Morden - No Way

The rock sailed into the tire plates, and bounced against the man’s life support. The man stood up, saw Frank crouching over in that Mars-efficient running stance, and dropped the power cable. He dithered. Climb up and try and get the buggy going, or flee? Neither. He was frozen on the spot as Frank dug his boots into the friable Martian soil and ate up the distance between them. Only at the last moment did the other man try and escape.

Frank struck him from behind, and sent him flying, properly flying, feet off the ground, turning in the air, arms and legs wide. Frank skidded to a halt on his shoulder, and started to pick himself up. The circling M2 buggy came around and drove straight at him.

But slowly enough that he could jump backwards out of the way, sliding along on his life support. The buggy slowed right down for the interloper to climb up, and then it was off again, dust spurting from the wheels, showering Frank in grit before it was out of range, following its companion in the direction of the river valley. Yun was still calling. Still right in his ears.

“Lance. Status?”

Frank lay on his back, and flipped out his suit controls. Green lights all the way down. “Intact. Yun? Yun, we’re coming to get you. Just hold on.”

“Yun?” said Lucy. “You have my word on this: we will bring you back home. Back here.”

“There were too many of them! There are at least six of them here. I tried. I’m sorry. Please hurry. Please.”

Frank stood up, staring at the shrinking dust plumes. “Lucy, if we’re going, we need to go now.”

She ignored him. “Yun. Listen to me. The more you struggle, the more oxygen you’ll use. You have to let them take you. We will come for you. We’ll secure the base. We’ll call home for help. You will be released. We will bring you back.”

“They’re getting away!” said Frank.

“There’s nothing we can do! We are unprepared for this. So woefully unprepared. And that—that is on you, Lance. Franklin. Whatever your name is.”

“XO would have worked their way through your entire crew to get to me if I’d told you everything from the start. I told you as soon as I could. And you chose not to believe me.” Frank retrieved the gas cylinder from where it lay on the dusty ground. “Goddammit, sorry, Yun.”

“Come and get me. Please. Please, I’m frightened.”

“We will,” said Lucy. “I promise. Soon, Yun. Be strong.”

“If they open up her fucking suit it won’t matter how strong she is!”

“That is enough. I’ll finish up out here. You go inside.” Lucy was standing over by the satellite dish. “Go. Before you say anything else you regret. Over an open channel.”

“You’re not in charge of me.”

“Right now, you are either part of my crew, or you’re something I have to worry about. You can choose which it’s going to be. But you go off on that buggy, you’ve made your choice, because you are going to put Yun in more danger than she is even right now. Maybe, ‘Franklin’, we can come to some kind of accommodation here that doesn’t involve anyone else dying. What do you think?” She obviously and deliberately started flicking the fuses on the dish to off, working her way down the line. “You want to help Yun? Or do you want to do the other thing?”

Frank could barely see the two buggies climbing the side of the volcano, hidden within the curves of the valley. A faint haze of dust. Nothing else.

“Yun?” he said. “We’ll get you out of this. If Jim’s there, tell him we’re coming for him too.” Frank turned his transmitter off. He couldn’t bear it a single second more. Whether or not Lucy had anything else to say to him, he didn’t care. He plugged the buggy back in and stalked over to the cross-hab.

He racked his suit. He allowed himself a moment where he could just rest his forehead against the cool, humming machinery of the oxygenator, then went to make sure the base was secure.

The M2 guy subdued by him and Isla was hogtied—literally, hogtied, wrists and ankles bound together with cable ties—on the floor of the yard, away from any of the exercise equipment. The guy twisted his head as Frank passed by, and they stared at each other.

The man peered out through his broken faceplate. A fragment of plastic clattered to the deck. Gaunt. Ragged. Yellow-eyed and gray-skinned.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” said Frank. He took a knife from the kitchen and checked all of the crew quarters, upstairs and down, including the airlock. He peered inside, saw it was clear, and on leaving, left the inner door ajar. Just like he had done when he was alone.

He re-emerged in the yard, did the same to that airlock, then scouted out Comms, and below it, Control. There were flashing lights on some of the telltales. He’d let Lucy deal with those.

Back through the yard.

“Look, I was made to do this.”

“Shut the fuck up. Now.”

He went through the greenhouse, top and bottom, making absolutely certain there was no one hiding between the racking or behind the tall green plants. He fixed the outside airlock, and even plunged his arm into the tilapia tanks, just to make certain no one was hiding in them.

Fish squirmed against him, but there was nothing more substantial than that.

He checked the below-deck in the cross-hab, then the part he’d been dreading: going back into the med bay.

Fan was leaning, heavy-knuckled, against one of the gurneys. Isla was next to him, arms around him. There was a shape, a body, covered, shrouded by a green medical sheet. Frank looked around for Leland. Where he’d fallen and lain buried under the staging was rearranged but no less chaotic, but Leland had been retrieved, evidenced by bloody marks that once again stained the med hab floor.

“Fuck.”

Frank wheeled away in time to catch Lucy coming back in through the airlock. She cracked the seal on her suit, and crawled out of it onto the floor.

“You didn’t pull your punches,” she said.

“I’ve got—”

“The one you hit, who ran out through the gym’s airlock?”

“That’s not import—”

“Faceplate blew out. He’s dead.”

“Lucy, just…”

“What?”

“Leland. He. Just go through to the med bay. Just go through.” He gestured to her abandoned suit. “I’ll deal with this.”

She halfstumbled, half ran, and while he racked her life support and spacesuit, he could hear her cry of pain and loss echo down the corridor towards him. Then she was back, marching through to the kitchen area, and he stood in her way.

“You’re going to let me pass.”

“No, no I’m not.”

“I want some answers.”

“You’ll get them. Not this way, though. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear. But if you want the truth, you’ll have to wait.” Frank held his arms wide, and backed up until he blocked the through-passage completely.

“Franklin. That is your name, isn’t it? Franklin? Until I can work out exactly what to do with you, and what your status is regarding this mission, I’m simply not going to listen to anything you have to say.”

“What are you going to do? Fight me too?”

“If I have to. Whatever it takes to ensure the safety of my crew.”

“Like turning the dish off. Blocking XO from the main computer. I watched you do it.”

She balled her fists. “Get out of the way.”

“No, ma’am.”

“You shouldn’t even be here!”

Frank blinked away the sudden pain. “Don’t you think I know that? I tell myself that every single day. They killed my crew. Now they’re killing yours. You, me, we’re on the same fucking side. We always were. I tried—goddammit I tried so hard—to protect you from them, but they fucked it up. They fucked it up, and us with it.”