Colin Taber - RED - Burning Skies

Mars Command One started to return to normal, the shift cycle falling back into place. Commander Tung looked over his crew as they sat at their workstations studying their displays. All of it seemed so mundane—and so different to the drama of only a day earlier.

Two men in the command crew were coordinating the approach of a flight of huge cargo landers that would first be parked in orbit, and then later brought down in a crater just to the north of Mars Command One. The contents of the ships were all robotic units and specialized modules. Even the inside shell of the landers themselves came apart in large, transparent sections that could be reconfigured, joined, and sealed to create a huge dome.

The cargo ships had been large enough, and their launches so numerous, that they had caused a stir back on Earth threatening to finally reveal China’s secret to any searching for such a truth. Tung had received word that the Shanghai hacking teams had never had to work so hard to snuff out every blurry photo of the launch vehicles, internet rumor, or blog entry, but they had managed. And now that the vessels were arriving in Martian orbit, that meant a pivotal sequence of events wasn’t far away from unfolding.

When all was ready, the landers would be brought down, unloaded, and then dismantled, before having their pieces reconfigured in the crater they would be setting down in.

The dome would be assembled quickly by robotic units and cranes.

A lot of work had already happened under the crater rim. There were also multiple nurseries full of plants being grown in tunnels that would be used to green the dome. When the crater was capped, sealed, and pressurized, the huge habitat would be turned into a beautiful parkland, something fitting as a proud statement in itself as China finally shed its Martian veil of secrecy.

From that point on, Mars Command One would greatly expand, with much of it freely visible on the surface.

There would be no more hiding.

And there, in a domed crater, with green grass underfoot, by flowing water, and with giant bamboo soaring overhead, Mars would be declared not just a Chinese province, but a thousand people would be brought together in one place and shown off to the distant home world of Earth.

China would celebrate while America would be in uproar!

Commander Tung smiled at the thought, as his gaze drifted from the two men checking on the cargo ships’ upcoming orbital insertions to Yong. The officer sat at his display, working his way through his routine reports and comms check-ins with the first ring bases, all of which were now into their third habitat expansions. Yet, Yong seemed to only be going through the motions. He was distracted, as if fatigued, but Tung knew that he wasn’t it.

He knew what was bothering him.

Yong was troubled by Wei’s rescue and all the unknowns behind it.

Tung realized he was going to have to watch him.

Wei stayed awake and maintained his watch as Ghost followed the path she knew so well. The route was mapped out and projected on the windshield, so she could drive with no lights on, helping to avoid detection. But that meant putting full faith in both her memory and the route she had mapped after previous transits. While she was confident they would be safe, she acknowledged that something as simple as a fresh rock fall from any of the hills they passed alongside could be disastrous if she hit something at speed. But it was a risk they had to take.

They were both now taking stims to keep alert.

The hours rolled by and the night went deep, and then, two hours before dawn, Wei spotted something. “There’s a light behind us. Elevated.”

Ghost sounded exhausted when she answered, “How far away?”

“It’s small and distant, but a bright blue. It’s no star, it’s artificial.”

She cursed.

Wei was concerned at how tired she sounded. “Do you want me to take a turn driving?”

“No, not here at night. Sooner or later you’d get caught out by something, and we can’t afford to stop because of an accident.”

“How far to go until Sanctuary?”

“Not far, perhaps an hour.”

“Can you keep going?”

She snapped back, showing her fatigue, “Yes!”

After a moment, he said, “I’ll let you know if it gets closer.”

They drove on as the horizon began to brighten. The light revealed a stark cliffside only a hundred meters to the side of them, emerging from the gloom.

Ghost called back to Wei, “We’re here. How far away is the drone?

“About the same. I think it may have gotten a little closer, but if it wasn’t for the blue light, I don’t think I’d be able to see it.”

“Good. Come back up here and buckle up.”

He did, squeezing through the cab.

She said, “I’m going to power up the dusters to their maximum setting and do some crazy driving to throw up a screen of fines, then we’ll take the way into Sanctuary.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Just hold on.”

He sat down and belted up.

She hit a few switches and the dash lights dimmed as the power was drained by the dusters, the roar of the units clear, even though they were back on the trailer and outside.

Not long after, she began to zigzag as she drove along the feet of the cliffs where drifts of fines and banks of dunes lay. Her maneuvers quickly turned into a series of fishtails that threw up even more dust into the air behind them. The dusters scattered the fines, turning the view out the back of the rover into a shadowed veil of tan and orange dust.

Before long, there was little to see. She then turned around, letting the wheels throw out a great spray of fines before driving away from the cliff and continuing her fishtailing.

Soon, she then turned back and continued to let the wheels churn the sand. The haze drifted over them, the visibility dropping as the growing glow of dawn was stifled.

Ghost spent another few minutes driving down along the cliffside fishtailing, with occasional detours into banks of fines and sand, but she eventually doubled back and drove towards the cliff wall.

Wei had watched it all in silence, holding on to his seat, but when she finally lined up the cliff and drove straight for it, hitting another button that started generating a grinding noise from behind the vehicle, he finally cried out, “Where are we going?”

She laughed as they closed on the cliff. “Hold on!”

And then she set them to their fastest speed.

Almost blinded by the drifting haze, Wei could see little detail but the nearing bulk of the towering cliff. Aside from the occasional fishtail to throw up more dust, Ghost did nothing to drop their speed.

The rover charged on, Wei tensing as the grinding from the back of the vehicle only got more intense. Finally, he gasped out, “You’re going to kill us!”

She laughed again, holding them straight on a path for the looming cliff.

Wei braced himself and closed his eyes.

He heard Ghost hit a button and the grinding stopped.

After a moment, Wei opened his eyes and found himself in darkness. He turned around and looked behind them, where he could make out the red gloom of the dust cloud they’d churned up showing as a vertical line. “We’re in the cliff?”

“Yes, in a chasm; it’s narrow and hard to see. The cliff face is so rugged with fissures and spills of rock that the following drone will likely miss it. Instead, the machine will probably follow the dust cloud as it drifts off, thinking we’re in it. Whoever is controlling the drone might work it out, but we’ll be bunked down in Sanctuary by then. We’ll stay through all of today and tonight, not leaving until dawn tomorrow. We’ll also be taking a different exit.” She chuckled, but then sighed, her exhaustion resurfacing.