Martians were going to attack…though the black hill they called the Fortress and the empty shell of the Ship, bulking huge against the stars to the north of the base, were eerie enough to have you believing in anything after more than ten minutes or so.
He’d just completed this hour’s rounds, walking out to the fuel farm first, then swinging past the shuttle pad. Now he was trudging north through the sand, with the external lights of the base a welcome sight indeed. In their glare, he saw Groller, moving out from the shelter of the main lock. He waved, and Groller waved back.
He touched a control in the arm of his suit, switching on his armor’s comm system. You were supposed to leave it on all the time, but on low-alert status, most of the Marines kept theirs switched off when they weren’t using them to save the batteries.
As soon as he switched on, though, a blast of static crashed from his helmet speakers. Hastily, he tapped on the key that lowered the volume; the channel was completely blocked. He tried the backup…with the same result.
Damn. He saw Groller tapping the side of his helmet and knew that he was having trouble, too. That meant it wasn’t a fault in the suit, then—for which Kaminski was grateful—but a screwup with the comm center. No matter. One of them could go inside and report it.
As he walked closer, he noticed another armored figure standing in the main lock. That was strange. No one else was supposed to be—
The figure in the lock was aiming an assault rifle at Groller. It took Kaminski a frozen instant to realize that the guy was firing the rifle; he could see the rapid flicker of the muzzle flash, could see him struggle with the weapon’s climb as he loosed a burst at Groller’s back on full auto.
Kaminski broke into a clumsy run, unslinging his ATAR as he surged forward through loose sand. In the cold, the upper layers of the sand tended to freeze, the grains sticking together in a brittle crust, and each step was an unsteady stride-lurch as the crust broke beneath his boots.
Amazingly, the gunman appeared to have missed his target; Kaminski didn’t know where that stream of rapid-fire lead had gone, but it had apparently sailed past the unsuspecting Groller without coming near enough to hit him. He remembered the problems the Marines had had on the firing range; maybe the gunman was having difficulty with the local gravity as well. Kaminski came to a clumsy halt, raised his ATAR, and sighted in on the gunman.
Directly aiming a rifle in a space suit is next to impossible, if for no other reason than that you can’t get your eye close to the rear sight. The M-29, however, used a video low-light scan system that picked up the target picture through a camera lens mounted on the rifle’s back and fed the magnified image to the rifleman’s helmet electronics. In the green glow of his HUD’s image feed, he could see only that the target was wearing UN armor and seemed to be trying to brace himself against the open airlock’s seal for another shot. The laser rangefinder gave him a range of 243.6 meters. He dragged the crosshairs over the target…then cursed as the man ducked back out of sight.
Groller had seen him aim and obviously wondered what was going on. The Marine turned to look back at the main hab, saw nothing, turned again, his hands spreading in a what-the-hell-are-you-playing at? gesture.
Kaminski tried the comm channel again. Still blocked, and now he knew that somebody was jamming him. He started running again, signaling to Groller to get down, cursing wildly inside the ringing confines of his helmet.
The figure appeared at the airlock again…no, two figures, and one of them was cradling something long and vicious and deadly-looking, a rifle at least twice as long as an ATAR, and obviously much heavier and more clumsy. There was a green flash…
…and an answering flash against Groller’s backpack. A puff of white silently burst from the PLSS unit, propelling Groller forward and down.
Kaminski reached Groller an instant later. The other Marine was down on his hands and knees, wildly trying to reach behind him. It looked like his Number Two O2, reserve tank had been breached; oxygen was spilling into the thin, cold atmosphere, the moisture in the tank freezing as it emerged in an icy fog.
Damn! He could exchange fire with the unknown attackers, or he could try to save Jim Groller. That was no choice at all. Dropping his rifle, he skidded in on his knees, one hand steadying his friend while the other groped for the emergency cutoff valve that would close the system before it bled Jim’s precious air into near vacuum. Shit! The suit was breached too…the active camo surface was scorched away beside the burst O2 tank, and frost was forming rapidly around a hole a little narrower than the width of a pencil.
“Damn it, Jim, hold still! Hold still!” The man was thrashing about so hard that Kaminski had to drive his shoulder into the man’s side and knock him down, pinning him against the cold sand while he jammed the thumb of his glove against the breach. The armor was solid, if a bit slick with ice, and the pressure inside the suit was less than eight psi; he was able to stop the leak. One-handed, then, he began fumbling in his repair kit pouch for a self-seal patch.
When he looked up, several minutes later, he saw the two gunmen standing a few meters away, covering him with their weapons. The man with the assault rifle came forward and picked up the Marines’ ATARs; the other kept them covered with his bulky weapon—which Kaminski now recognized as an H&K Laserkarabiner LK-36, a deadly and powerful man-portable laser weapon powered off of a backpack power unit.
Lasers were unaffected by gravity…which meant they usually hit what they were aimed at. Carefully, bitterly, Kaminski raised his hands, but only after he checked to make certain that the patch he’d just slapped over the puncture in Groller’s armor was going to hold. The two UN troops closed in, then, urging both men to their feet.
It occurred to Kaminski as they were led back toward the habs that he and Groller had just become POWs.
And he’d not even known that they were at war.
ELEVEN
SUNDAY, 27 MAY: 1220 HOURS GMT
Marine Barracks
Cydonia Base, Mars Sol 5636: soltime +34 minutes MMT
Most of the Marines in the barracks area were asleep. The sole exception was Sergeant Randolph Gardner, First Squad, Second Section, who had the ten-to-two fire and security watch that night. He heard footsteps in the passageway, heard the hiss and thump of the pressure door opening, and centered himself on the hatch to give the challenge. He assumed, of course, that it would be Staff Sergeant Ostrowsky making the late rounds…or even Colonel Lloyd, checking to make certain that all of the watch standers were on their toes. He was not prepared for what he saw when the hatch swung open—the business end of an H&K pointed straight at his face.
“Do not give the alarm,” the man at the far end of the rifle told him in thick, German-accented English. “Do not speak. Give me your weapon.”
Gardner complied. His ATAR wouldn’t have done him any good in any case; it was unloaded, as specified by regulations. The platoon’s alert status was still green, which meant full weapons-safety protocols were in effect. He wasn’t even wearing armor, save for the kinevlar vest he had on over his greens.
“Down on the floor!” the man said, speaking quietly but with a deadly will behind the words. “Hands behind your head!”
Gardner hit the deck, fingers interlaced behind his head as one of the intruders stood above him, well clear of any attempted heroics, a leg-sweep or a scissors. Other UN troops filed quietly into the barracks,
