Dire Planet

Chapter 11: Return of the Sinthral

October 23, 2000, The Surface of Mars

Arnold Stechter gazed blankly at the sensor screen, his exhausted eyes no longer comprehending the blurry shapes that swam before it and his ears not comprehending the warning alarm that repeated its distress call every three seconds. Fearing that a Chinese attack was imminent, he’d been awake for the last sixty-three hours—watching the sensors, looking out the Plexi-glass windows of his geodesic oxygen dome for any sign of movement in the red sands.

Finally his adrenaline kicked in, pushing away the sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations involving a woman he once dated back on Earth. He shook his head violently as though to clear away the mental cobwebs and sprang to his feet. The sensors showed three intruders had passed the perimeter alarms, which were set one hundred yards away from the dome.

Arnold Stechter looked out the window—Phobos and Deimos shed their amber light on the undulating waves of sand—but enough shadows existed in those rolling dunes to hide thirty or forty men. He reached for the intercom; maybe he wouldn’t survive the night, but at least NASA mission control would know what happened to him. He put the intercom against his lips and pressed the transmission button, but a streak of flame crossed from a dune seventy yards out from the astronaut’s base camp.

Before the first word could drop from his lips his transmission tower exploded into fragments of metal. As quickly as the explosion blossomed the flame withered and died, snuffed by the nitrogen heavy atmosphere. Stechter’s jaw fell, and mumbled, shocked words dropped out. “They’re using rocket-powered grenades.”

The Chinese astronauts had set up their base camp some ten miles from that of NASA camp, and Stechter had been living in fear ever since. Now that fear had become realized. The Chinese weren’t going to play friendly; they intended to establish the sole beachhead on Mars at any cost.

If the United States were allowed to have a base on Mars they might easily set up a radio base to jam any and all Chinese transmissions to nuclear platform satellites orbiting the Earth. That would put China and the U.S. on a level playing field again. China obviously wasn’t interested in a level playing field.

Already they had cut off Arnold Stechter’s only lifeline, and now he was at their mercy. He had watched them disembark from the Chinese lander, and knew that there were three astronauts. His sensors showed that all three of them had crossed his perimeter.

NASA hadn’t seen fit to provide Arnold Stechter with any weapons. Every ounce within his spacecraft had been accounted for, and including a firearm and ammunition would have cost an extra four or five pounds. Besides, Mars was a dead planet—what possible need could he have for a weapon? Now, Stechter would gladly have given up half of his equipment for even a .22 pistol.

One stride sent Stechter floating twenty feet to the opposite side of his geodesic dome. A variety of tools and equipment lay against the wall, and he picked up a short spade with a light, but sturdy, aluminum head. On the west side of the dome the airlock door gleamed dully in the light from the overhead glow lamps. Stechter positioned himself beside the door with upraised shovel, waiting to strike the first man that came through that door.

He realized that one well-placed rocket powered grenade could blow his entire home to pieces and kill him in the process, but he reasoned that the enemy already would have done so if they didn’t have other plans.

Resources were in short supply on Mars, and probably they wanted to avail themselves of whatever NASA equipment and rations they could take from him. A grenade would destroy everything. 

For long minutes Stechter waited. Despite the moderate temperature within the dome his face and body were drenched in sweat, and his arm quickly tired from holding his impromptu weapon. Were they ever going to come?