Colin Taber - RED - Burning Skies

Yong was speechless, but finally stuttered out, “This is amazing news!”

Liu Yang agreed. “It is, and that’s why we must take care of this other matter of Beijing Command’s request for data from the hub drone.”

Yong nodded, digging into his pocket to retrieve the memory stick. “I took this from the drone and replaced it with a blank. I also reinstalled the unit’s basic programming.”

Tung took the record of the hub’s trailing of the Renegade rover. “That is a start, but it won’t be enough. We can rework this and put it back. Perhaps the solution is just to wipe the data after the blast, cutting it when the shockwave hits the unit, followed by a system reboot at a time that allows for it to reawaken on the surface and then return to here.”

Liu Yang agreed. “I have people who can do that on a safe system.”

Tung passed the data to her. “We should keep a copy of the original.”

“I suppose,” she said as she took it, and then stepped away from the window and opened a handheld comms unit. She sent a message, added the stick, and then passed on the data. She then called someone. “Use my log copy to check the times. You need to go into the data feeds and wipe it from just after the time of the nuclear blast. Do it when the shockwave hits. Cut everything from then until it’s airborne again and returning. Throw in a reboot screen between the two.”

Such quick data work wasn’t going to fool an expert, but she knew she could call in a favor with sympathetic ears at Beijing Command. They would ensure the data review done at their end cleared it and told the story the edit would illustrate.

Tung and Yong were looking at her, the question in their eyes.

Who was she talking to?

“Of all of us, I’ve been on Mars the longest and can tell you there’s more happening here than six Mars Commands. No one has the footprint China has, but there are other factions in play, and we are not all rivals. We can’t look at those factions that way. Ten years ago, one of them saved the crew of Mars Command Two’s Base One Four, and in turn, those people saved Wei just days ago. There have been other rescues and emergency supply runs.”

Tung was nodding, learning just as Yong was. “We know the surface is hostile to life, and it’s a surprise to hear of other parties being out there, but it makes sense. I have seen enough anomaly and exception reports to know that there are unexplained orbital insertions and flybys. Others are here.”

Yong was pale, nervous at what he was finding himself sliding into, just as Tung had been a day or two ago. “But what happens if we are found out?

Liu Yang raised an eyebrow. “By who, Beijing Command?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Then it’ll be our turn to be rescued and we get to meet Wei firsthand.”

Yong replaced the edited memory card in the hub and then left the hangar behind. No one had been there, the tech off duty, leaving the space smelling of worked metal, grease, and dust.

When he returned to his workstation, he replied to Beijing that the unit was in for servicing after it had been knocked out by the shockwave from the nuclear blast. He would flag it for a tech and have the data made available as soon as it was looked at, which was expected to be in about six hours.

With his stomach in a knot, Yong then logged off and ended his shift.

The next time he logged on, at the beginning of his next shift, he could see that not only had Beijing Command seen his message, but the hub had been serviced and the data downloaded directly by Beijing. They’d had it for a few hours.

Taking a deep breath, Yong knew it was going to be a long day.

By midmorning, Wei and Ghost had left the last of the chasm behind. The last stretch of the meandering climb, which had tightened considerably, finally opened onto a rocky plateau dotted with drifts of tan and ochre sand dunes. Ahead, beyond the dunes, a set of ruddy mountains stood in the distance.

They both squinted at the bright sunlight after spending the last few days in the gloom.

Ghost stopped the rover and checked the displays. She cursed, “Damn, the rover panels are charging, but not the trailer.” She was already rising from her seat.

He put a hand out to stop her and said, “I can do it. I know the couplings.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, unconvinced.

“Yes, really. It’s the same rover model we had and the same cabling and couplings.”

She shook her head. “No, I should do it.”

He stopped her again and said, “Please, let me do something. I feel useless.”

She paused and then relented. “Alright, but double check it, as they keep working themselves loose. The coupling got damaged back on my way to Base Five Two.”

Wei nodded, grabbed his helmet, and then hurried out the airlock.

He could see why the coupling kept working itself loose. Like Ghost had said, the real problem was that the coupling had been damaged. He could make it fit, but the socket needed to be changed over for a lasting solution.

Satisfied with his work—at least as much as he could be—he headed back inside.

She asked, “How did it go?”

“It’s done, but won’t hold. That socket is a mess.”

“Yes, we will change it over back at home.”

“You don’t have a spare here?”

“No, we’re low on them.”

He nodded, accepting that her answer probably indicated the truth of what life as a Renegade was like. He asked, “How much juice is left in the batteries?”

“Only ten percent.”

He sighed. “Lucky we made it. How far to home?”

“We’ll get there late tonight.”

He smiled with relief. “It was good to be able to stretch out and shed my suit in Sanctuary. Is your home habitat much bigger?”

She started driving again. “Home is called Xanadu, and it’s a lava tube habitat. For us it’s a good size, and now well over ten years old. That’s ten years of building up not just the soil, but the ecosystems. There’s not that many Renegades, so it works fine, but we are planning for the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“The biosphere we’ve established is in three sections, you know, so that we have some redundancy in case of accidents.”

“Yes, you have to be careful,” he said, his voice softening as he thought back to the breaching of Base Five Two’s habitat.

She nodded, her own manner shadowed by her own memories. “Xanadu is actually what we call the main chamber. We had only just established it when we had an accident that should have been the end of us. Ironically, while the incident claimed some of our people and set us back, forcing us to rely on salvage for the first few years, through it we discovered, developed, and secured our power source. Ever since then, at home at least, we’ve never had to worry about a lack of electricity. That helped let us focus on building the Xanadu habitat and smaller backup spaces geared solely to water filtration and food production. We also learned a lot in those early years—we were forced to. We innovated through sheer necessity and eventually got to the point where finding better ways of doing things became our greatest strength.”

‘What happened at the beginning? Did you have a breach?”

“No. I’ll show you when we get there, but it was a pathogen of sorts.”

“But you managed, the Renegades?

“We lost two people. It was terrible, but the rest of us survived, living off the barest of rations for years.”

“And this power source?”

“I’ll show you. You have to see it to believe it, but it’s why we have enough space now back at Xanadu for thousands of people, even though there’s only dozens of us currently there. And why we’re almost ready with our next habitat project.”