Colin Taber - RED - Burning Skies

The tech laughed again.

Yong flipped the solar panels on its cap back and opened the unit up. He then pulled its memory card. After that he, reinitiated the unit so it would download its operating system again, put in a blank memory card, and then left it to go through its processes.

The hub was just finishing its reboot when the tech suddenly appeared beside Yong.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

Yong tried to maintain a relaxed demeanor, but his heart was thumping as he slipped the original memory card into a pocket. “I think it’s all fine. It got a bit glitchy out there. Commander Tung has suggested to mothball it and use it for parts.”

The tech nodded. “That would not be the first time we’ve retired a unit. They’re not very tough, but I guess they last longer out there than we would.” He laughed.

Yong grinned and chuckled at the tech’s joke, although he’d heard it or a variation of it about a million times over the past few years.

Finally, he wiped his hands on his jumpsuit, leaving the faint trace of orange fines there, before he stepped back and said, “Well, I’ll leave it to you. Like I said, just mothball it.”

The tech nodded. “Did it at least get good pictures of the blast?”

“No, it wasn’t particularly functional at the time. It got the shot you saw that we shared around the base feed, but nothing else, and then got knocked out of the air by the shockwave.”

“Alright, I’ll take care of her.”

“Thanks,” said Yong, and then he turned and left the hangar, heading back to the command room.

Yong was pleased with himself as he stepped back into command and took his seat. He’d been gone nineteen minutes, but that was fine, as his work was up to date and no comms had come in.

He looked at his display and pondered what he should get stuck into. Night had fallen outside and he still had hours to go on his shift.

Nothing was urgent, so he began to review the new orbital insertion data for the series of cargos ship that had begun coming in. More than anything, he was looking for notifications of more upcoming arrivals. Everyone in Mars Command One knew that the more ships that arrived, the closer they must be getting to the unveiling back on Earth of the Chinese presence on the red planet.

Yong worked through the reports, and then began to check what was scheduled for the rest of the week. Engrossed in his work, about thirty minutes later he was distracted by an alert sounding off.

PING!

The message was a direct request to him from Beijing Command.

His breath caught.

They had noted the return of the hub, and wanted to know why it had taken so long to come back to Mars Command One.

Yong cursed under his breath, realizing they had been watching for it.

Ghost and Wei settled back into the rover, having left Sanctuary behind.

She powered up the vehicle and said, “The batteries are not fully charged. The rover is fine, but that damn coupling on the trailer must have been loose, as the batteries there are flat. I should have checked it!” She shook her head, berating herself.

Wei said, “It’s okay. You were exhausted. We both were. Stims can only push you so far.”

She was still frowning, but her anger at herself eased. “The uphill road will tax the rover’s batteries, but we should be alright.”

Wei tried to reassure her, “And the solar will kick in at the top, so we’ll be fine.”

“We’ll end up depending on the second bank of panels on the trailer to get us home tonight. We’ll need them to charge the batteries, or we’ll spend the night stuck out in the open until dawn.”

Wei understood. He specialized in comms, hydrology, and soil generation, but like all squad members had training in all basic life support systems.

She checked over the displays in front of her and then turned back to him. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

She revved the engine and then began to turn out of the overhang, the chasm road opening up in front of them. Before long, the gentle slope became steeper.

The climb was slow going, the vehicle weighed down by the trailer with its dusters, solar panels, extra batteries, and salvage from Ghost’s previous trip.

Wei offered to drive for a while, but Ghost refused. “No, I’d trust you with the rover if we were just going straight or following a clearer road, but there’s areas of soft sand and some tight gaps the higher we get. It would be too easy to clip the side and have the rocks peel us open.”

“Well, if you need a break and you think there’s a safe stretch, I’m happy to help.”

She gave a nod and focused on the road ahead.

After a while, his curiosity got the better of him, so he asked, “How many people are there at your habitat?”

“Not many. A couple dozen. We have enough space and life support now to host plenty more. One of our problems is we only have two vehicles.”

He understood. “How often do you send people out?”

“We try to stay around our habitat. Any trip on the surface, whether in a suit or by rover, is dangerous. But sometimes there will be something we badly need, so it is worth the risk. When that lander crashed, back where we camped on the first night, we had both rovers going out there together and filling up with salvage for weeks.”

He frowned, but understood.

After all, it was all about survival.

She grinned at his obvious discomfort. “The joys of being a Renegade.”

He surrendered to it and gave a weak smile.

She laughed. “We don’t have to send people out like we used to. We’re no longer desperate. Now, we only go out if we’re targeting specific materials. The crashed lander, for example, gave us a huge store of ration packs, but also some robo units we could repair. There were also some intact foundation packs.”

“Soil makers?”

“Yes, and you know one of them is worth a couple of pig farms of manure.”

Yong didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing in the utility tunnel, but he’d gone as ordered by Commander Tung. Apparently there was an odd sound that needed to be checked out, although he had no idea why he had been called on to deal with it. Normally, if Yong had received such an odd request, he would have suggested that someone from maintenance would have been better suited to look after it, but the last line of the order had convinced him there was more to this than met the eye.

That last line had been: …seeing as you’re experienced now in dealing with matters of radiation.

So, Yong had accessed the corridor to the reactor, utilizing a temporary pass in Commander Tung’s name. He went in with a rad counter and a pile of questions, making his way along the white corridor that had been dug into the mountain, listening for an odd noise.

But all he could hear was the usual hiss of life support.

Finally, he approached the two doors at the end. He knew one went to the reactor, the other to a control room. But as he closed on them, he noticed a puddle of liquid on the floor.

He stopped and examined it, the fluid leaking from a vent in the wall.

That was when he heard something other than the hiss of the ventilation.

“Yong?”

It was Commander Tung, his voice distant, but he couldn’t be seen.

Yong looked around, but stood alone.

Yet it didn’t take him long to focus on the grill in the wall. He knelt down and listened.

The air hissed as it was pumped through the base, occasional rattles from unseen machines joined by the rhythmic beat of motors and pumps. But that wasn’t what he was listening for, not now.