S Morden - One Way

It wasn’t that none of them were ever meant to go home. It was that none of them were ever meant to survive.

Well. Frank was going to have to see about that.

[transcript of audio file #145816 10/16/2047 0930MT XO Mission Control, White Sands Missile Range NM]

PL: What you’ve done is nothing short of incredible, Bruno. I’m thrilled, and amazed, and deeply, deeply grateful. XO couldn’t have done this without you.

BT: I wanted to hear you say that. I wanted to hear your approval. It means so much to me.

PL: He’s on his way, our glorious, noble astronaut. Ready to tend and nurture our investment, and ensure our successful completion of our contract. Lance Brack, I salute you, and your lonely months on Mars.

BT: He’s undergone years of rigorous training and psychological evaluations. He is literally the best man for the job. He’ll get it done, don’t you worry.

PL: What would you like to do now, Bruno? In the next few months, while we’re waiting for him to arrive.

BT: I’m not going to stop, Paul. Why would I stop? We have everything in place: the people, the plant, the production. We just keep launching.

PL: [pause] I know we were under budget, but…

BT: We have the money. Mars is within our reach, if only we’re bold enough to reach out and take it.

PL: I don’t understand, Bruno. We need to clear this with the board.

BT: I have cleared it with the board. They’re all onside. Are you?

[transcript ends]

Frank couldn’t hear anything except his own heartbeat in his ears and the hoarseness of his own breath. The gloves, the suit, the boots, the helmet, isolated him from anything in the environment that might give him clues as to what was going on around him. He was relying completely on one sense: sight. And even his peripheral vision was non-existent.

He kept watch on the base, and opened up his tablet. No signal. It couldn’t sync, and it was because his own suit transmitter was off. That might be why Brack had retreated inside—Frank’s suit wouldn’t give away his location, and he wasn’t close enough for the telltale hidden in his chest to broadcast either.

As soon as he approached the base, the system would automatically pick him up, and even if it didn’t light him up on the map, it’d push his vital signs into the medical monitor. It would tell Brack he was both alive and close, rather than as he currently was, in limbo.

Of course, Brack could afford to wait him out. He had the base. He could do pretty much anything he wanted now. He knew that Frank would have to come to him, and he’d know when that happened.

So, in order: Marcy. That could have been an accident. They were at full stretch that day, and they both knew they were low on air. But the scrubber in Marcy’s life support had failed first, and it could absorb waste gases for much longer than there was air. That was suspicious.

Then Alice. Alice was the smartest one on board. She was professional and knowledgeable and didn’t take shit from anyone. Yet once they were all defrosted, her work was over. In fact, she became a liability because she knew so much. She’d have spotted Brack’s painkiller addiction simply by counting the pills.

It left them short-handed to build the base, but there were no more deaths until it was done. Being two people down eased the food situation hugely. It would have been tight, starvation-tight, with eight mouths to feed, and it was no coincidence that they’d just squeaked it with six. Marcy and Alice had been culled, taking out enough of the crew to make the food go around. That the first two they lost were the two women? That, surely, wasn’t going to be a coincidence either.

Goddammit, Brack.

Zeus was next. Zeus was both physically strong and knew how to fight. He was also someone who would have felt it his duty to protect the others. He’d already done his job, and more, with the installation of the central heating. His dream of a steam engine had died with him, but maybe there were more panels in the stuff XO was sending later. They didn’t need his generator, and they didn’t need him.

Dee. Dee was just a perpetual victim. He’d set up all the control systems, and maybe he’d seen things he shouldn’t have in the tech manuals. XO probably knew what he’d been reading. Maybe he was a threat after all. So they’d got Brack to kill him next.

And how? It had been all too easy because no one had thought that the person going through the crew and picking them off, one by one, was the same person who was supposed to be overseeing their work, and making sure there was a functioning base to invite the NASA astronauts into when they finally arrived.

It would have been Frank and Declan and Zero next, whichever order Brack or XO wanted it done in, until all the convicts had gone. Except they’d ruined the planned order of execution by working out what was going on and talking to each other about it. The simplest thing—an honest conversation—had led to this. It had led to Frank hiding out in the frozen Martian night, not daring to approach the one place that he could live in.

Not that that was true. There was still the ship.

Brack had a gun, though, and the walls of the ship were going to be as much use as the walls of the habs at protecting him. Was there anything there he could use? Were there more guns, or at least better weapons than what he had currently? Probably not, and driving there would give away his position as much as it would going closer to the base.

All it would do would be to give him a different place in which to die.

It simply had to be here and now. At night, and on territory which he was at least familiar with. He had no advantages, and lots of problems. It still had to be done.

If Brack was still watching the buggy, then he might see Frank break cover. But there was a way around that. He left the shelter of the wheel, not hesitating, moving quickly, because a shot could come at any moment and he’d never know until it hit him. He grabbed one of the headlight array and turned it so that it shone directly at the space between the habs.

He couldn’t see anyone lurking there. And now, with a bright light aimed straight into their eyes, they couldn’t see him either.

If Brack wasn’t psychotic, and just a cold-hearted killer, it actually counted in Frank’s favor. There’d be only so much that he’d be prepared to bust up—only so much that he’d be prepared to let Frank bust up—before pulling his punches. And bullet holes in the hab skin were going to be difficult to explain away.

That settled it. He had to get inside, and fast. Close with Brack.

He couldn’t let go of the buggy chassis. He wasn’t the kind of guy who ran towards danger. He was deep-down scared. No, he was a coward. Last time, he’d chosen the easy way, the simple way, the pull-the-trigger way, just to make it stop, so that all the complex decisions he wouldn’t make collapsed into one course he couldn’t alter.

Being in jail had been so straightforward. He hadn’t had to do or be anything other than a prisoner. What had he been thinking to come here, dreaming he might have a future rather than only a past? He’d allowed himself to hope. Idiot. All his choices were going to end in abject, painful failure. He was going to die tonight, and the only difference he’d make was which part of Mars he’d water with his blood.

He was still going to have to try, though. If not now, in a minute, in an hour. At some point, he’d convince himself that not doing it was worse than doing it, and he’d run the short distance to the med hab, wondering if the next bounding step would be his last.

His arm ached where the bullet had cut his suit. If he was just bruised, then OK. If he was bleeding, then things would only get worse.