Battle Earth I

Chapter 1

21 st March 2234.

Larson stepped across the barren surface of Mars in his self-contained suit. He carried a box full of samples that he’d collected that day. Approaching their shuttle he could see Ruby climbing aboard. It was a small ship, only ten metres long and able to carry just six passengers and limited cargo.

Mars was a research base. Humanity had reached the stars, but had done little to expand beyond the well-established Moon colony. Travelling times continued to prohibit further space colonisation, it taking twenty weeks to travel between Mars and Earth during the optimum time of alignment. Ninety-four people were stationed on the Mars research colony. For many years they had continued to develop the technology to develop the planet for further human usage. Ruby turned to see Larson moving towards their ship, she called to him through their intercom.

“All done?”

“Yeah, it never gets old does it?” asked Larson.

“Trust me, you spend a full year here, you’ll soon grow tired of it.”

Water had been discovered below the surface of Mars long ago, but the excitement of its discovery had soon died down. The research colony had existed for forty years. Terraforming was considered a vital research pursuit for those stationed there. While significant progress had been made in understanding how such a practice could be done, no developments had been made in implementing them.

With the established Moon colony, as well as the two successful space stations at LaGrange points L4 and L5, there had been little interest in budgeting immense amounts of government funds into developing a colony that would take several months to travel between. People accepted that Mars colonisation was an inevitable step for humanity. They just hadn’t quite reached its necessity nor found a way of making it practical.

Larson stepped up to the boarding ramp of the shuttle and turned back to look at the planet’s surface. It was a hard-edged and mountainous terrain that looked inhospitable to humans, but he still found it awe-inspiring. He only wished it was possible to walk on it without the cumbrance of his suit.

“Come on, it’s almost lunchtime!” Ruby shouted.

Taking one last glance, Larson turned and carried on up the ramp and into the shuttle, placing his box onto the racks before the seating. The ramp sealed behind them and Larson tapped a small button on the collar of his suit. The clear dome-shaped helmet hinged back and vanished into the bulky shoulder section. He breathed in deeply. The shuttle’s air source was far from the fresh air he loved so much on earth, but it was a relief after an hour inside the confine of his helmet.

“You know, Ruby, for someone who volunteered for this work you sure don’t seem to care much for the planet.”

“I care about it, and I’ll be glad once we have got it terraformed. Until that time it’s an ugly and lifeless wasteland.”

“Just think about it, Earth was developed over thousands of years, I wonder how we would do if we could start entirely from scratch on a similar world.”

“Don’t expect any kind of paradise. Whenever we finally get this world going it will probably just look the same as anywhere else,” Ruby replied.

“Such cynicism, alright, let’s get back and you can enjoy your precious meal.”

“This is Shuttle 12 to Ares, requesting permission to land, over.”

“This is Ares, we have lost contact with Shuttle 5, you are requested to investigate at their last known co-ordinates which are being sent to you now, over.”

“Confirmed, over and out,” said Ruby.

“So much for your lunch break!”

She looked at her colleague with an annoyed grin. It was a lonely life on the Ares colony, with few luxuries in life. She turned back to the controls and re-directed to the co-ordinates they’d been given, three hours to the south of the camp.

“What do you think happened to them?” asked Larson.

“Probably just a communications fault, it happens from time to time.”

Flying low over the canyon ridges the shuttle eventually approached the co-ordinates. The two researchers had left the colony ten hours previously and were feeling the fatigue kicking in. Unsure what they expected to find, curiosity kept them awake. As their ship soared over a large peak, the shuttle they were searching for came into view in the valley ahead.

“Exactly where they were supposed to be, so what’s the problem?"

“We still need to check it out, Larson, they’ve been out of contact for hours.”

She manoeuvred the shuttle down to a smooth landing just twenty metres from the other ship. Their shuttles ran an almost silent operation, with their highly advanced and efficient ion engines. They both flicked the switches to activate and enclose their suits and continue their personal oxygen supply.

“Grab one of the scanners, we’ll see if you can track them down.”

Larson sighed as he picked up the cumbersome device and slung it onto his back. The door lifted and the ramp lowered. They were once again stepping out onto the surface of the red planet. Larson looked again in awe at the harsh but fascinating and striking terrain.

“No sign of them, I’ll try the shuttle,” said Ruby.

Larson nodded, he was too busy taking in the view to care. Living in the knowledge that they were the only living inhabitants on the planet, they wandered freely about the surface with no worries. With the technology that they had at their fingertips, the limit of their oxygen supply was the only concern in their lives.

Ruby pressed the entry pad to the shuttle they had been sent to investigate. The door lifted and the ramp slid open, but no one was inside. She entered the vehicle looking around for any signs of their colleagues. Some of the research equipment was out.

“They can’t be far,” she said.

“Then why didn’t they get in contact? They’re just wasting our time.”

“Maybe they found something interesting and have been busy?”

They turned and looked around the valley. It was a familiar sight. Barren, with sharp mountain peaks and hard-edged rock formations. There was rarely anything to cause surprise on Mars. Everywhere but their research base was a lifeless and desolate plain.

“Alright, get the scanner out, Larson, let’s see if we can find them.”

He hauled the big case from his shoulders and placed it down on the hard rocky ground. He lifted the lid of the ruggedized computer. The oversized keys to allow operation in thick gloves made it appear as a caricature of their own personal devices. He tapped a few buttons and brought up a circular scanning device. It read movement within a hundred-metre radius. The dial began to spin and search for any signs of life.

As Larson watched the display, Ruby looked around the area of the ship. It was hard to find signs of footprints on the surface of Mars, it being so hard to rarely leave imprints. The dust often covered over what few signs of life were left.

“Got anything?” she asked.

“No, hang on, just got a reading!”

Ruby moved up to his side looking down at the screen as the dial continued to track around the scanner. She saw it flash once again as it got a reading. She squinted to look down at what it was.

“Four objects? I thought this was a standard two-man research team?”

“That’s what we were told, maybe the scanner is reading wrong,” Larson answered.

“Yeah, maybe. Let’s go take a look, it’s just over that ridge, you can leave that here.”

Larson gladly shut the screen and stood up to follow her across the surface. Up ahead was a rock outcrop leading to another valley in the rocky terrain. They went along the surface, each anxiously wanting to know the explanation for the reading they had gotten. There was still plenty to learn from the planet of Mars, meaning the potential for exciting new developments was always on the cards.

They reached the outcrop and navigated their way through the obstacles. They always had to be careful of the sharp and jagged terrain of Mars, as damages to their mechanical counter pressure suits was far from ideal. The risk of radiation was a small concern in low dosages, the complex repair work afterwards plus the difficulty and expense of sourcing new equipment was more of an issue.

As Larson navigated the close terrain he noticed that Ruby had stopped up ahead, standing like a statue as she looked ahead. He moved to her side and stood with the same dumbfounded expression as she had on her face. In front of them was what appeared to be a ship of some kind, but its surface was almost identical to the Martian terrain, making it blend in like a chameleon.

The ship was twice the size of their shuttle and completely unrecognisable to them. It had a bulbous body and large engines, with wings protruding from its hull. The camouflage effect of its bodywork made it difficult to make out much more than a rough shape. Before they could study it any longer, their eyes were drawn to movement on the surface in front of the vessel.

They could see what appeared to be their two colleagues, wearing the same suits as them. One was kneeling down on the ground, the other stood beside him. Ten metres in front were two other figures, though substantially taller and not recognisable at all.

“Who the hell are they?” asked Larson.

Ruby pulled out her binoculars from a pouch on her belt. Tapping a small switch, they expanded out into a high power device. She lifted them and looked on in horror at what she saw.

“What is it?”

She was still speechless. Having run out of patience, Larson snatched the binoculars from her hands. She put up no fight and was still stunned, looking in on the scene in terror. Larson lifted the binoculars to see what had shaken her so badly. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The two figures stood before their colleagues were well over two metres tall and wore some type of metallic armour.

Their suits appeared to have sprung lower leg mechanisms that more resembled a cat or dog standing on its back legs than a human. Their bodies tapered out into a broad chest section. A helmet-like device was embedded in the front of the suit, as if either they had no neck, or the suits were completely encapsulating their bodies. Larson was as fascinated as he was terrified by the sight. Nothing they saw resembled anything they had ever seen. A hundred questions began to roll around in his head, but before he could say another word, he saw the two figures lift something from their sides. Light flashed from the devices and their two colleagues spasmed with the impact of some kind of energy.

Ruby had to stop herself from screaming, realising that doing so would risk their lives. She dropped within the rock outcrop with Larson as they hid from sight.

“What the hell are they?” he asked her.

“I have no fucking idea!”

“Did they just execute those two people?”

“What do you think?”

“What the hell are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, okay!”

Larson crept up from behind the rock face and peered out into the valley. The two figures strode towards their ship and into a small lifting device that hoisted them into the vessel. He looked down at the bodies, still lifeless on the hard ground. A low pulsing sound resonated from the peculiar ship as it began to lift off from the surface. Keeping low to the ground, it soared off in the opposite direction from where they had left their shuttle.

“Are they gone?” asked Ruby.

“Yes, what are we going to do?”

“Get the hell out of here!”

“What about them?” he pointed to the bodies of their fallen comrades.

“They’re dead. I have no idea what we have just witnessed, but unless you want to follow them I suggest we make a run for it.”

“Right, let’s move!”

They got up from behind the rocks and made a dash for their ship, as quickly they could in the gravity on Mars. It felt like a long run back to the vessel. Despite the valley being just as tranquil and desolate as it previously was, they expected to be struck down at any moment. Larson arrived first, surprised to have made it. With seconds of getting aboard they were in the air. He reached for the intercom button to contact their colony.

“Wait!” shouted Ruby.

“What? We have to call this in!”

“And say what, that we just saw some unidentified beings kill two of our research team, but that we don’t have any idea who or what they are, where they came from, or have any evidence to backup our story?”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it happened,” said Larson.

“No, but this has to be handled properly. We need the base staff to take this seriously, not to think we have lost our minds.”

“Alright, you do it.”

She reached forward and hit the intercom switch. “This is Shuttle 12 to Ares, please come in, over.”

“This is Ares Command, over.”

“We have a Code Red, I repeat, Code Red, over.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they soared across the surface of the planet. Clearly their signal had caused a shockwave to the colony. Code Red was an emergency signal for extreme situations only, none of which they had ever experienced. Finally a signal came back over the radio.

“This is Morris, what the hell is going on?”

Morris was the research base commander, a leading scientist and project leader for over twenty years.

“Please switch to a direct and private channel, over,” replied Ruby.

A few moments later the Commander came back on the line.

“You’re on with me directly, explain to me what the hell is going on!”

“Sir, we just witnessed the execution of the crew of Shuttle 5 by two unidentified personnel, over.”

“What? Where are they now?”

“They left heading south in a vessel which appeared to mimic the ground’s surface and was approximately twice the size of our shuttle, over.”

“Did you collect any data from the scene?”

“No, Sir, we left in fear of our lives. I advise an immediate issue of the Lee Protocol, over.”

“Listen to me, Ruby, these are some extreme suggestions you are making, based on no evidence that you can present to me. I can’t risk widespread panic based on hearsay.”

“This is not a joke, Sir. We came close to death and some of our people were not so lucky. Now issue the damn protocol and lock the colony down!”

“I’ll issue it, but you’d better be right about this or you’ll be out the door!”

“Sir, I wish I wasn’t, we’ll be with you in just under three hours, be ready, over and out.”

She turned off the intercom and continued to stare out at the ground as their shuttle darted across the rough landscape, hugging the terrain. Larson looked over to her, but it seemed she didn’t intend giving anything up.

“Lee Protocol?” he asked.

“It’s an emergency protocol calling for all weapons trained personnel to immediately arm themselves and prepare for imminent attack.”

“We have a plan for that?”

“It was always a possibility, we just never expected it to actually happen.”

“What did happen?” asked Larson.

“I really don’t know!”

They finally caught sight of the Ares research colony, knowing they were all in big trouble. But somehow facing it in larger numbers made them feel much safer. The compound was still, all vehicle movement had been stopped and all exits sealed except for their docking bay.

“This is Shuttle 12 to Ares, requesting permission to land, over,” said Ruby.

“Permission authorised, over.”

The large steel doors slid open, revealing an almost full docking bay. Only their bay, Shuttle 5’s pad and the freight loader area were empty. The doors quickly shut behind them, sealing the environment and allowing people to again walk freely. Ruby brought the shuttle down to a quick and smooth landing. They could see that Morris and several others of the senior research team were waiting for them. They all wore pressure suits and several had pistols slung on their waists. Ruby and Larson stepped out to greet their colleagues who were grim faced.

“You’d better start talking, Ruby,” said Morris.

“I don’t know how else to say this, Sir. When we arrived at the co-ordinates we found Shuttle 5 empty. We followed our scanner to the site of four readings, where we witnessed the execution of the shuttle’s crew by two beings, the likes of which I have never seen.”

“You saw this too?” asked Morris.

“Yes, Sir, they had a ship with some type of chameleon skin to it. Their weapons appeared to be energy based devices.”

“Do we have any reason to think that any other organisations could be on the planet with us, Sir?” asked Ruby.

“Like who?”

“I don’t know, a private company, or a foreign military.”

“This is a joint operation by twenty-one countries, who would try and undermine that?”

Morris’ intercom on his wrist crackled as a transmission came through from their command centre.

“Sir, we have three vessels incoming, they are not responding to…”

Before the operator could finish a huge explosion erupted in the entry doors to the docking yard. They were knocked off their feet by the blast.

“Masks on! Masks on!” Morris shouted.

Larson and Ruby hit the controls on their suits and slid their dome-topped helmets over to revert to their own oxygen supply. They huddled behind a stack of large crates and watched as three small vessels passed through the breach swooping in quickly to land in the wide-open area used for supply deliveries. The vessels were mimicking their surroundings just as the one did before, now replicating the grey metallic surfaces of the docking area.

Within seconds of landing, six figures emerged from them and were already shooting at any people they could see. Morris looked in horror as he drew his pistol.

“What do we do, Sir?” shouted Larson.

He didn’t respond, only watched as four of their armed personnel tried to engage their armoured foes. The energy weapons fizzled as blue pulses ripped through the interior of the walls. Within seconds the defenders were lying dead on the floor of the docking bay, their bodies smouldering. Morris had quickly come to the same conclusion that they had previously. These were not humans.

The figures walked on thin metallic legs that appeared to be sprung, supporting their substantial bodies. They could only imagine that it was an armoured suit encasing whatever was controlling it. Morris turned back to Larson and Ruby.

“We are finished here, take your shuttle, you’ll have enough power and supplies to reach the Moon colony. Get a transmission out immediately reporting what you have seen, they must be warned!”

“How are we going to get past them?” asked Ruby.

They turned back to watch as the six soldiers continued on into the heart of the colony. They were certainly on a mission to purge it. Morris looked back at the two men he had with him, each was armed with the same personal defence weapon he had in his hand.

“We’ll try and hold them here as long as we can, you just get out and send that signal immediately!”

“What do they want from us?” she asked.

The shock had begun to pass as fear set in. All around them had long faces, they were realising that their lives were likely coming to an abrupt end. A number of the personnel had firearms training on the research colony, but never expected a need to use them.

“You know as much as I do, now get out of here!” shouted Morris.

He moved out from beyond the crates with the other crew and rushed to the door where the soldiers had gone through. They knew they were heading for their own deaths, but there was no choice left. Ruby and Larson watched as they reached the doorway. Morris looked back at them and nodded. They took the signal for what it was and leapt out from the cover and ran to their shuttle. The engines were fired up before the shuttle ramp was closed. Larson stumbled as they lifted off the docking bay floor as he was trying to make his way towards the cockpit.

“Come on, strap yourself in!” she shouted at him.

He jumped into the seat as she manoeuvred them out. He stared at the obscure ships occupying their docking bay. They were the same vessel type they had witnessed earlier. The ever-changing surface texture that camouflaged them against any terrain still made it difficult to fully make out any details on them.

“Time to get the hell out of here!”

She hit the power and they surged towards the smashed doorway where the attackers had blasted through. In seconds they burst out of the docking bay and quickly gained altitude. They had expected to see some monstrous vessel blocking their path, but there was nothing. Only the same barren and desolate landscape and sky they had become so accustomed. The shuttle broke out of the Mars atmosphere and into the cold darkness of space. There were still no signs of any other ships in the vicinity.

“We made it!” shouted Larson.

“Maybe.”

Ruby reached forward and programmed the transmitter to send a direct and live feed to their sister organisation on the Moon colony.

“You’re going to send it out live?”

“Yes, we have no idea how much time we have.”

She took a deep breath and started the transmission.

“This is Shuttle 12 of the Ares research base. The colony has just been attacked by unidentified hostiles. We are the only known survivors. The attackers utilised a chameleon type technology on their ships and attacked without provocation or any form of communication. They were well equipped and ruthless.”

“What’s that on the scanner?” asked Larson.

She looked down to see an object approaching them from the planet at high speed.

“Hold on!”

The shuttle surged forward as Ruby put full power to their engines.

“At this speed we won’t have enough power to reach any of the colonies!” shouted Larson.

“If we can’t outrun these bastards it won’t matter anyway!”

“They’re still gaining on us!”

“Larson, are we still transmitting?”

“Yes!”

“This is Shuttle 12, we are under attack by what can only be described as alien forces, we cannot outrun them, do not…”

The shuttle was hit by a high power weapon that ripped it open killing both aboard instantly, the remnants floated apart in a fizzling array of twisted metal.