Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1)
Contents
Title
Prologue
Chapter 1: Descent
Chapter 2: Jezero Crater
Chapter 3: Colony One
Chapter 4: Exploation
Chapter 5: VanHoff
Chapter 6: HAB
Chapter 7: A new sol
Chapter 8: Just the feeling
Chapter 9: COM
Chapter 10: Medlab
Chapter 11: Cold, so cold
Chapter 12: Nills & Gizmo
Chapter 13: Annis & Malbec
Chapter 14: Caves
Chapter 15: Bloods
Chapter 16: Walkabout
Chapter 17: The Analogue
Chapter 18: No return
Chapter 19: Bio-dome
Chapter 20: Recalibration
Chapter 21: Lies
Chapter 22: Research Lab
Chapter 23: XFJ-001B
Chapter 24: MAV
Chapter 25: The Garden
COLONY ONE MARS
by Gerald. M. Kilby
2016
There is no law on mars but your own
Published by GMK, 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Gerald M. Kilby All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, or electronic form without express written permission. Please do not participate in, or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorised editions. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies or events is entirely coincidental.
This book is written, produced and edited in UK English,
where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.
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PROLOGUE
What follows is the last known communication from Colony One Mars:
Sol #1:435 COM ID:N.L-1027.
This may be our last transmit for some time, we cannot spare the power. Sandstorm continues unabated, it will never end. We are down to 17% energy levels and have deactivated all non-essential systems. Solar array unable to recharge batteries due to darkened sky, running at only 7% efficiency. Plutonium power source has failed and attempts by EVA to find the fault have proved fatal. Those who have ventured outside to investigate have not returned. If the storm does not clear we will run out of power in approximately fourteen sols.
To add to our woes, a strange malaise has overcome many of us who still survive. A disturbing psychosis now affects one in three. We are prepared as best we can. We all know what is coming. We wait in hope, even though that now seems futile. Send no more.
ENDS
CHAPTER 1: DESCENT
In less than fifteen minutes Dr. Jann Malbec would be either walking on the surface of Mars or be dead, and there were plenty of ways for her to die. She could burn up in the atmosphere if the heat shield failed or be smashed to pieces on the surface if the thrusters didn’t fire. In any event, it was going to be one hell of a ride.
After months of floating around inside the Odyssey transit craft, en route to Mars, the moment had finally arrived for the six crew of the International Space Agency (ISA) to enter the lander and descend to the planet surface. The habitation module was already in situ along with a myriad of equipment and supplies. The mothership would now be parked in orbit where it would wait patiently for their return.
Jann strapped herself into the seat, gripped the metal armrests tightly and tried to breathe normally. Ahead of her, at the flight controls, Commander Robert Decker and First Officer Annis Romanov cycled through the systems check routines.
“Detaching in five… four… three…” The voice of the first officer squawked in Jann’s helmet and she felt a thud behind her as release bolts retracted. The lander detached itself, floating free from the mothership. A moment later thrusters fired to align it for the correct injection trajectory. Jann felt the force propelling her forward. Her grip tightened on the armrest; it bit through her gloved hand; it comforted her.
Gravity began to tug at the craft as it commenced its downward spiral. It shook. Gently at first. But with each passing second it intensified and deepened until the entire vessel rocked with a violent cacophonous rage. The first officer began to shout out the descent velocity and elevation vectors.
“Mach two point seven. Altitude fifteen point six kilometres.”
Jann tried not to think about the searing temperature building up on the craft’s heat-shield as it ploughed through the upper atmosphere. She gripped the armrest tighter and hung on.
It should have been Science Officer Patty Macallester sitting in this seat instead of her. But four weeks before the launch, Macallester started feeling unwell. An examination by the ISA medical team quickly diagnosed a viral infection. Not life threatening, but she would not be fit for the mission. So, after much deliberation and hand wringing by the ISA directorate, Dr. Jann Malbec got the call. She was officially next in line and checked most of the boxes for most of the stakeholders but she was bottom rung in terms of astronaut training. Jann knew the journey here was the easy part. The real test was beginning now. She would soon find out if she had what it took, or if she was just an impostor.
The craft accelerated through the thin upper atmosphere and Jann felt a sickening wave ripple through her gut as her stomach began to form a closer relationship with her throat. The staccato voice of the first officer echoed in her headset as she checked off stats. “Mach one point seven, altitude ten point one, lateral drift two point two. Get ready, deploying chutes…”
With that, three enormous chutes exploded from the top of the descent craft and the vessel slowed down dramatically. Jann felt like she was being vacuum packed into her seat as they all took heavy G. They were still hurtling towards the planet surface at extreme velocity. The thin Martian atmosphere, being only 1% of Earth’s, was grossly insufficient to slow the craft down for a soft parachute landing. At best it took just enough sting out of the free fall to engage the retro-thrusters.
“Detaching heat-shield in three… two… one…” Jann felt the thump of bolts as it fell away from the base of the craft to find its own way down to the surface.
“Prepare for chute jettison…”
For a brief moment Jann’s stomach resumed its relationship with her throat before she was vacuum packed to the seat again.
“Retro-thrusters engaged… one point eight kilometres… targeting on HAB beacon… lateral drift still at two point two.” The first officer and commander traded data, ticking off the distance to the surface and speed of descent.
“One point six… one point one… drifting…”
Slowly Jann’s body resumed some ability to move and she shifted in her seat to reassure herself that she could still do it.
“Five hundred… three fifty… two seven five… hold on to your butts… here we go…”
The craft thumped down onto the planet surface. Landing gear took the strain and there was a brief moment when the stanchions held the full force before springing back to a complete rest. The thrusters shut off, the noise stopped, and the craft was silent.
Stillness permeated the interior as the crew adjusted to the realisation that they had landed, and that they were all still alive.
“Holy crap,” it was Chief Engineer, Kevin Novack, who broke the moment. Then followed a multitude of cheer
s and hand slapping. There was a palpable air of excitement mixed with intense relief that they had all survived the ride of death.
“It looks like we’re about one klick from the HAB beacon.” The commander pointed to a flashing blip on the main screen. “ If our calculations are correct then the sandstorm should be about five kilometres west of us. Plenty of time to reach the Habitation Module.”
They had been tracking the storm for some time while still on board the Odyssey. After much deliberation with ISA Mission Control it was decided to land now before the storm had chance to grow. If left too long it could engulf the entire area, making descent too risky and mean waiting weeks in orbit for another window.
It was a sandstorm that proved the undoing of Colony One, the first human settlement on Mars. It raged for over six months during which time all contact was lost. That was over three-and-a-half years ago. The crew of the ISA Odyssey were here to find out what had happened to it — and the fifty-four people who had called it home.
Annis ran through the lander shutdown sequence, flicking off switches and putting the craft into sleep mode. When the time came to return to Earth, it would be woken up, refuelled from the methane/oxygen plant already on the surface and prepped for reuse as the Mars ascent vehicle (MAV) to rendezvous with the Odyssey orbiter.
“Prep for pressure equalisation.” A chorus of check echoed in Jann’s helmet as each crew member confirmed the integrity of their EVA suit. Jann lifted her arm to adjust her helmet. It felt like lead. After so much time spent in zero gravity her body struggled to adjust to a new way of working. She managed to activate the heads-up display that gave her a status on vitals; pressure, oxygen, temperature and a raft of other biometric data. The others were also moving very slowly, readjusting to the one-third gravity.
“Okay, let’s do this.” The commander unfastened himself from his seat, opened the door to the Martian atmosphere and headed outside. In a well-practised routine they followed in turn. Jann was last to leave. She felt totally uncoordinated as her body tried to remember how to move without floating. She clambered out backwards through the small hatch and fumbled to find the foothold that should be there — somewhere.
“See that on the horizon; it doesn’t look good,” said Annis.
“Damn, I thought we had calculated it was moving north of us.” The commander was agitated. “Malbec, hurry up. We’ve got that storm heading our way.”
“Sorry, Commander, can’t find the foothold.”
“Good God, would somebody please help her.”
She felt a hand on her boot and her foot was guided into the rung. She scrambled down, stumbled on the final step and ended up face down on the surface. She felt like she was glued to the dirt. “Gravity’s a bitch,” she thought.
“Come on Malbec, move it.” Decker was getting impatient.
Jann sat up, and with the help of Medical Officer Dr. Paolio Corelli and Mission Seismologist, Lu Chan, she was bundled upright.
“Thanks,” she managed.
They were in the Jezero Crater, a forty-kilometre-wide basin situated near the equator. It was a desolate, barren wasteland washed with a rose-coloured hue. It had a terrible beauty. Ahead of them, somewhere to the west lay the HAB, placed there by an earlier mission. It was their destination, their home for the next few months.
“We’ve got to move. Look.” Paolio pointed over towards the horizon. Rolling across it was a vast billowing sandstorm. It was moving fast — in their direction. Commander Decker checked his holo-screen, a red blip pulsed out the HAB’s location. He pointed off into the distance. “That way. Let’s go.”
They moved slowly, but with purpose. The last thing they needed was to be caught out in the open. Jann’s sense of balance was fragile and she struggled to put one foot in front of the other. She felt like an ancient deep sea diver, trudging along an ocean floor hunting for pearls, weighed down with brass and lead.
“Malbec, pick up the pace, let’s keep it moving,” Decker’s voice echoed in her head.
“Yes commander.”
Annis looked anxiously at the encroaching storm front. “We’re not going to make it. Dammit. Looks like we figured it wrong. Anyway, we’re committed now, no going back. Come on, we need to move faster.”
Jann dug deep and found a rhythm of sorts. They moved in silence all focused on one objective, get to the HAB before the storm hits. She looked up at the ominous billowing cliff of dust as it moved and reshaped itself ever closer. Annis was right; they weren’t going to make it.
“There it is.” They could see the white squat cylinder of the HAB, off in the distance, just before it was swallowed by the oncoming maelstrom.
“Stay close, we’ll lose visibility shortly, everybody stay tight keep everyone else in sight.”
The storm charged across the crater surface with impressive speed and Jann braced herself for impact. But there was none. The Martian atmosphere was so thin that she barely felt anything, it was eerie. Fine dust swirled everywhere and blocked out the world. Encapsulated in her EVA suit Jann had a strong feeling of dislocation. It was like she was not physically here. Like a ghost. She lost sight of all but Paolio and forced herself to move faster. Her balance failed, she tripped and tumbled forward.
“Help! I’ve fallen. I can’t see anyone.”
“Malbec, is that you? Goddammit, we don’t need this now. Everyone stop exactly where you are. That includes you Malbec, don’t move, we’ll come to you, just stay put.”
“I can’t see anyone…” She managed to stand up again but had lost all sense of direction. Everywhere she looked was a dense murky sea of dust. She turned this way and that, arms outstretched, she was blind. Fear rose up inside her, she fought to control it. The sound of her own breathing began to reverberate in her helmet. She was beginning to panic.
A hand grabbed her elbow. “It’s okay, Jann, I got you.” It was Paolio. “Are you all right?”
Her breathing calmed. “I’m fine… just got a bit… I’m okay…” The others came into view, materialising out of the ghostly dust.
“Follow me, we’re nearly there.” Decker moved off again. The rest fell in behind. Jann stuck close to Paolio. They walked for only a short time and finally the HAB rose up out of the dust like a lost ship in a fog. They found their way to the airlock door and one by one crossed the threshold and into safety. Decker hit the controls to pressurise the airlock. As soon as the alert flashed green they each started to remove their helmets and breathe their first taste of HAB air.
“Holy crap,” said Novack, “let’s do that again.”
CHAPTER 2: JEZERO CRATER
For three days the vast Jezero Crater was immersed in dust as the crew waited it out, cocooned in the relative comfort of the HAB. This was a two story pressurised cylinder approximately eight metres in diameter and the same in height. It was the culmination of intense design and redesign over thousands of hours and hundreds of iterations, each one inching it ever closer to ergonomic perfection. The ground floor housed the main operations area, a small galley dining space, and a utilitarian Medlab sickbay. There was also a large airlock with enough room for all six crew along with EVA suits. An open column ran up the centre of the HAB with a ladder and a small standing elevator, giving access to the top floor. It was divided into eight sections, like slices of a pie. It gave some private sleeping space for each crew member along with a ‘slice’ each for exercise and sanitary. Compared to the cramped confines of the Odyssey it was palatial.
For Jann the sandstorm was a blessing in disguise as it gave her body time to adjust to working in one-third gravity. More than once she positioned an object in mid-air, expecting it to float, only for it to fall crashing to the floor. It also gave her mind time to contend with the enormity of the responsibility that lay before her. She spent much of this time in the privacy of her room studying mission protocol and mentally rehearsing many of the technical procedures.
By the morning of the fourth day the storm cleared, moving off east
ward away from the crater basin. Jann sat in the HAB galley reading through the last known communication from Colony One. The message was sent over three-and-a-half years ago by Nills Langthorp, the thirteenth human to set foot on Mars.
“What do you think he meant by that last line on the transmit?” Jann directed her question at Dr. Paolio Corelli, who was making his second espresso of the morning. The HAB had its own fresh coffee machine, courtesy of the Italian Space Agency. Paolio, being a native, was very proud of it and relished any opportunity to instruct the others as to its operation.
“Who… what line?”
“Nills Langthorp, the Mars colonist. His last message had the line Send no more.”
Paolio waved his hand in the air. “Who knows. Many people have debated that over the last couple of years.”
“I know, but what do you think it means?”
He sat down across from her and sipped his coffee with all the theatre of a true connoisseur. “Most people think it meant send no more colonists. But I have another theory." He poked a finger in Jann’s direction. “I think the message was cut off.” He sat back.
“So you think there should be more to it?”
“Absolutely. I think what he was actually saying was send no more of that horrible Dutch coffee.” He laughed.
Lu Chan stepped into the galley. “We’ll be ready in ten for a preliminary mission brief.”
“That gives me just enough time to show you how to use the espresso machine, Lu.” Paolio jumped and grabbed a little cup from a storage unit.
“Paolio, show me later. I have to get ready for the brief.”
“Nonsense, you have plenty of time.”
Lu sighed, “Oh all right.” She looked down at Jann. “Better let him show me so he doesn’t keep going on about it,” she rolled her eyes.