A Colony on Mars

A Colony on Mars

WC: 1,955



The crowd surged on the ship, their protests echoing through the decontamination chamber. Most of them had never seen the loading dock; there weren’t many of us with keys.

The slim fitting breathing suit set me apart from the others. A few of the faceless bulky figures came to me, pleading admission. But I wasn’t a soldier today.

Today I stood among them, just as eager to dock the last ship back to Earth for a month as they were. My father stood at my left, a hand on my back to guide me towards the front. The room was miles long, but the fifty people surrounding us all waiting in the same area. All wanting to board.

When the first shot sounded, I pulled my father to a crouch, shielding as much of him as I could with my five foot, three inch frame. My suit was bullet proof; even the sterling white scientists’ suits didn’t have body armor. The rest of the civilian suits were even worse than his.

While we crouched, one of the loading dock guys ran over to us. “Dr. Karl, this is no place for a scientist or even a soldier. Go back up to the colony.” He looked out into the crowd. “Quickly.”

“My daughter and I want to board. We don’t want any trouble with Dr. Strauss.”

The dock worker grimaced, shaking his head. “You already have trouble. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see either of you involved in this. Go back.”

My father stood to argue, and I pulled him back down again as the automatic rifles sounded. The crowd of people cut off the view of the doors, and I looked to the sky for the warning bullet tracers.

“Papa, what are they shooting at? There aren’t any tracers in the air.” I said, pointing up.

“They’re shooting at the crowd. At us.”

“But there weren’t any warning-“

He shoved the bag he’d had over his shoulder in to my arm. “Juniper, run. You can make it past the field. Do you remember what I told you?”

“Yes. But I can protect you. Come on, we have to run.”

I stood, pulling his arm up with me. We made it four steps before a great weight pulled my hand from behind. On the ground, my father’s hand held a red flow spilling out over his white suit. Using his other hand, he gestured towards the northwest.

“Map… in the pack. Go honey, go now.”

Another bullet zoomed off my suit and pain shot through my upper chest. Giving one last look to my father I ran in the direction he indicated. My arms across my chest, I sprinted into the bubble and through it. The pink slime stuck to me as I ran past the colony, leaving my father, home and responsibilities behind me.

My only experience out of the colony was one training exercise. Thinking about my trainer made me wish there was time to leave a note. To apologize and hope that The Director would believe her innocence.

The wilderness in front of me was caked in red gravel. I gave the colony itself a wide berth to avoid the creatures that lurked outside of the glass walls, searching for a way in.

         It was too late to turn back now, too late to question my father’s words on our way to the dock. My brother and mother escaped the colony out into the wilderness of Mars before it had been sealed it off. How in the hell could they survive out here?

Father said there was air in the caves, that the creatures that haunted the grounds outside of The Colony had to sustain themselves somehow.

Outside the colony, everything was cold. Before, during training excursions, we’d always taken the Rover. My dad had written about beautiful, colorful sunrises on Earth. He told me the sun would shine overhead during the daytime, lighting up the world like a light bulb.

On Mars, the sun was so far away. It barely registered on the surface. Now, before the sun was supposed to be in the air, it was a blacker deeper than I’d ever known.

My father hadn’t thought to pack a light in his haste.

Pushing the hand drawn map into the dirt, I pushed my oxygen meter against it – letting the faint blue glow illuminate some of my path. Though wandering in the darkness felt without direction, my training had taught me to keep straight lines. The destination would still be directly in front of me. 

As my body cradled on the ground, there was a hint of vibration. My breath held, quieting the echo in the suit. What the hell was that?

Silently rolling the map, I placed it back in the plastic backpack and started marching forward again. In another two steps, the vibration came again. A heavier vibration this time, knocking my teeth together and pushing me to my knees.

My hand automatically went to my back before I remembered the shotgun was holstered to my duster. Instead, my hands fumbled with the zippers on my suit, forcing the pistol out from its holster on my outer left thigh.

More than anything, I wished Lilith - my trainer - was there. Everyone had always said my skills almost matched hers, but they didn’t. Not even close. Lilith held back when it came to fighting. She pulled her punches with the other black coats, purposely flung her knives a little off course. She wanted more than anything to be just another elite. They hadn’t seen her in the field, where Lilith had easily killed 35 rebels in the time it had taken me to dispatch five or six. Her knife throwing skills were ridiculous, and her hand to hand was unparalleled.

I might have been the best subelite we had, but Lilith was skies above me.

When the vibration returned, it came with a monstrous roar. Something wet and organic landed close to my feet. Risking exposing myself, I shot off a round towards the sound, shooting a stream of red tracers trailing my bullet.

The slight red spark illuminated first a black and bumpy surface close to my feet, then the rest of the beast which expanded another twenty feet past the original scene. The part by my foot was a feeler, the rest of the creature was still buried underground.

My breath sped up, knowing that the Baelif couldn’t hear me. The roar sounded again as I took a step back, the creature sensing the subtle vibration from its cave under my feet.

If I ran, it would follow me. But it was unreasonable to think it would be possible to stand there until it left. Baelifs were known for rooting themselves into the ground and feeding off the bacteria that grew inside the cave walls for months, or until a human accidentally came across one.

I stood undecided for a few minutes, trying to figure out a way to get around it. I wasn’t my dad; there was no way for me to tell if this was a young one or a full grown adult capable of swallowing me whole and digesting me over time. We’d all gone through training with Elite Marshall, whose extremities still showed the acidic-like scars from being partially digested.

Taking another deep breath, I used my upper body to pull of the knapsack and withdrew the map. After rechecking my position I adjusted the bag on my back and closed my eyes. Straight in front of me, perhaps a mile and a half.

The oxygen meter would start depleting quicker, and I calculated the pace against what I knew of my own breathing patterns.

One, two, three. I mentally counted before sprinting forward. The vibration under my feet accelerated as the sound of crunching ground sounded from behind me. The creature was forming new holes, drilling its way under my feet. Every few yards I ran to my left or right, stomping the ground to influence my own smaller vibrations, hoping to throw the creature off course.

Into the darkness in front of me, I continued to run and stomp, praying that my ability to change direction would win out over the creature’s senses.

Less than half a mile away from the mark on my father’s map, the ground in front of me disappeared, my body flung down viciously to the ground under the surface. I’d found another hole dug by a Baelif, with another one still chasing behind me.

As I stood in panic, hands grabbed me from behind.

"June, shut up. It's me."

Lilith's voice danced on my ears like Mozart. My eyes were suddenly useless with silent tears.

We stood in a huge expanse, not moving in the slightest. The crunching intensified, making the walls around me seem suddenly capable of collapsing. Suddenly, the Baelif stopped, only feet in front of me. Lilith flashed a light on the creature, illuminating the green slime. I fought the urge to not breath as we stood motionless.

"What if it doesn't move."

"No build up on the walls. There is nothing for it to eat here."

It seemed her words were meant for the creature as it retreated, crunching in on itself before pushing back out through the hole it had just created. Considering what we had seen had just been the head, my best guess was that the creature was between 75 and 100 feet long.

Even after it was out of sight, we stood completely still for a long time, waiting for it to be completely out of feeling range.

Before she could question me, I turned and hugged her, thankful that she was there. She patted me on the back with all brevity before pulling my shoulders back to face her.

"Why did you do it June? Why didn't you ask me for help?"

I stood agape for a moment before realizing that she could not see my face in the dark.

"For help? Do you have any idea-"

She shoved a piece of paper in my face, shining her light uncomfortably close to my face. It was a copy of my father's map with detailed instructions.

"Where did you get this?"

She rolled it, putting it in her clear sack and handed me a spare light. "He gave it to me. Who is Kere?"

A lump caught in my throat. "Why? How do you know that name."

Her light went to my left, illuminating a tunnel littered with the green acidic slime left by Baelif ingestion. She patted my back again, and started pulling me towards collapsed rock leading out of the cave.

"No, I'm not leaving. I have to find him."

"June, that slime is all that's left of the rebel group. I'm sorry. I got here faster in the Rover and waited for you to show."

I sank to my knees, feeling the last of my father's hopes drain from me into the death trap left by the creatures. "So what? I just leave? Go back so I can be killed? That was my brother, Lil. My father's dead, he was all that was left. Where do I go now?"

Her helmet looked out over the slime, then back up out of the cave. "You come with me, and I say you were temporarily brain washed. We go home, June. And try to figure out how to bring The Director down from the inside."

I nodded, taking one last glance at the remains. "Fine. What other choice do we really have?"

As we crawled up the rickety rock path to the surface, her whispered words were almost silent. "None. We don't have a choice at all."