Something Off

A soldier's story on Mars

“You know what I miss most about home?”

Sergeant Isaacson didn’t even glance in his squadmate’s direction. He kept up his slow, deliberate pace, the fine red dust under his feet billowing up lightly with each step. His eyes were busy, attention divided equally between watching the rocky dunes on the gray-orange Martian horizon and checking the radar in his helmet display. One could never be too cautious, not out here.

Another noise rang out on the squad comms–a groan from Vic, the weapon specialist. “Sarge, he's doing it again, are you really gonna–”

“Ignore him.” Isaacson’s reply was practically mechanical. “Eyes out for Rusters.”

“It's the wind. The air, really. The oxytanks always seem so off, and even at Base it tastes…wrong. Earth air….it's just more alive, you know? Seriously, when's the last time any of you felt the wind?”

“I dunno, Marcus.”  The sarcastic yet undeniably anxious voice of Levine, the point man, crackled onto comms. “You want to feel the wind, why don't you open your helmet and take a nice, deep breath?” 

That earned a laugh from Vic, and a pained sigh from Marcus, who brought up the rear. “What? I'm just saying.”

“You've been ‘just saying’ it every goddamn patrol.” Vic muttered venomously. “I'm sick of it, Levine's sick of it. Hell, I bet Sarge is sick of it too, he just don't say it cause….”

“All quiet on comms. Now.” 

Isaacson wasn't quite yelling, but all three other men knew what his tone of voice meant. There wasn't going to be any arguing, or complaining, or questioning. They would go quiet, or else.

The chatter on comms gone, Isaacson let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding in. They'd  been lucky. Very lucky.

The Elysian Deserts weren't safe. Back in the Martian Revolution, the Iron Liberation Front hid among the Dunes and rocky hills, using them as a staging ground for their guerilla raids on Earthborn soldiers and civilians alike. Even five years later, with the ILF long since crushed, there were still holdouts. These rogue partisans–“Rusters”, as most Earthborn called them–certainly didn't have the coordination or firepower of their former selves, but still posed a threat to monorails and prospectors alike. 

That was why Isaacson and his team were here. Recon patrols were necessary, to spot Ruster activity on the ground before it got anywhere close, and if possible to end them. They were underequipped, underfunded, and undermanned to be sure, but when the Earth Expeditionary Force needed them, the Reconnaissance Forces always responded.

The four-man team moved in silence, tense but focused. The Dunes, both red and black, loomed over the sandy depression. They were lucky yet again. Sandstorms were common, and while the heads-up displays usually worked well, nothing Earth's techs had cooked up yet could fully replace the human eye. For now, the Desert was quiet.

Too quiet.

The silence was broken by Levine, his voice low. “I don't like this, Sarge. Hair's standing on end. Anything on scanners?”

That was never good. Levine was jumpy, yes, but never for no reason. Isaacson’s eyes flitted between the barren, sandy landscape and his heads-up radar. “Got nothing. Vic, Marcus, check radar and visuals. Something's off.”

Behind him, the two gray-armored figures of Vic and Marcus swiveled about, unshouldering their weapons in preparation. Both were experienced soldiers, and knew that “Something's off” usually meant a gunfight.

Vic was the first to respond. “I, ah, don't see anything. You sure about this?”

“I got nothing too, sir.” Marcus, relatively speaking, was still new to the squad, new enough to still bother with titles. That said, he wasn't a bad soldier, not at all. “There's a hill half a klick away at A-forty-five dash eleven-North. We could set up area scanners, sir.”

Hmm. For a split second, Isaacson considered the idea. Area scanners were powerful tools, generating EM waves strong enough to penetrate through small mountains and even several dozen meters underground. If there was anything wrong, they'd find it. On the other hand, it did mean pinning his entire squad down in one place, for a delicate procedure that could last up to ten minutes. It was a risk. 

But was it a worse risk than being blind?

“Alright. Squad, double time to A-forty-five dash eleven north. Move!”

At once, the squad snapped into action. Levine set the pace at a steady lope, and Isaacson and the others matched it and followed close behind. Their formation compacted from a loose line across the red Martian dust to a near-perfect single file. No words were exchanged between them; none had to be. The time for chat and banter was done. Now, it was time to do their jobs.

As the team continued their advance, the dark, rocky hill Marcus had mentioned slowly coming into view, something started bothering Isaacson. Levine might have been the first to notice, but now he could feel it, too. Something was wrong about this place. Perhaps it was the red-black dunes, their ovoid crescent shapes a little to perfect for comfort. Perhaps it was the ground, strangely flat here even by the standards of the Elysian Desert. Perhaps whatever band of Rusters scoured these sands managed to rig up some kind of scanner-resistant suits, and were even now waiting….

No. That was just blind fear talking. And if Isaacson had learned anything from his tours, he knew fear could kill a man just as easily as an enemy mag-rifle.

They were at the base of the hill now, at the bottom of a rocky scree full of sharp, angular stones. Wordlessly they climbed, grabbing onto the jagged edges of larger rocks with their suits’ armored gloves, all the while doing their best to avoid the sharpest edges of the small dark volcanic ones. Once Levine had made it up, he said what the others were no doubt thinking. “Careful. Last thing we want out here is a microtear.”

From there, the rest was easy. The last dozen or so meters of hill were solid, stable rock, at an angle gentle enough for a child to climb. Soon, all four soldiers stood at the top, surveying the arid landscape of the desert around them.

None of them stared for long, though. They had a job to do. Already, Marcus was unloading the collapsible antenna, as Vic unfolded and calibrated the receivers. Levine knelt down, plugging his helmet into the interface and readying his heads-up display for the uplink.

Isaacson took watch on the highest outcropping, mag-rifle resting lazily on his lap as his helmet zoomed out to its maximum view range. From the hilltop, he could see yet more dunes beyond the horizon, rolling like a rusted sea under a pale sky. Perhaps another man might have thought it striking, even beautiful, but Isaacson barely noticed. Instead, his eyes were practically straining, trying to pick out anything moving, anything at all. Mars didn’t have a biosphere, after all, and rockfalls were uncommon out in the desert. If something was moving out here, odds were it was likely to kill you.

 That was the kind of mindset you needed, if you wanted to survive a battle on Mars. It was what carried both him and Levine through their tours in the Revolution, and let Vic survive his baptism of fire in his first battle against Rusters. Nothing was certain, nothing was safe. Make one small mistake, and you’d die in any number of horrible ways. The only thing you could trust was your wits, your weapons, and–hopefully–your team. If you couldn’t….

“Sir?”

That was Marcus, crouching at the now-assembled area scanner relay, head turned to him expectantly. “Scanner’s up. Ready to activate on your order.”

Before speaking, Isaacson allowed himself the luxury of a long, slow, deep breath. “Understood. Levine, you ready?”

“Your mark, Sarge.”

“Got it. Activate in three….two…one….Go!”

“Activating now.” With that, Levine tapped the side of his helmet, and the scanner thrummed into life. 

The whole squad felt the broadcast immediately. It wasn’t quite static, not quite a noise, but a wave, a wall of vibration slamming through them like a gust of electric wind. Supposedly, if Mars combat suits weren’t hardened against radiation, an hour of these scanners running could kill a man–an assertion that, after operating one for four years, Isaacson believed unreservedly.

The machine pulsed again, then again, sending shock after shock of EM waves through the squad and across the desert. Then, almost as quickly as they had started, the pulses stopped. The waves were traveling now, slamming into the contours of the rocks and dunes, bending and refracting until they matched it perfectly. Soon they would return, the machine would read them, and finally, Isaacson and his squad wouldn't be blind.

They waited one moment. Another. Everyone was silent. Everyone was tense. Finally, after what may have been a few seconds or a full minute, Levine spoke.

“Alright, signal's coming in, it's rendering. Just a second….”

His voice dropped to a monotone, and his body recoiled as if struck. 

“Oh. Oh God. Sarge…the Desert, they got….”

He never got the chance to finish. 

With a great terrible thump, two sections of distant desert exploded,  great rusty black plumes of sand and smoke erupting as if from a hidden volcano. Immediately, Isaacson’s soldier's instincts triggered. He threw himself to the ground, pleased to note that the others did the same just as fast. 

But something was wrong. He didn't hear the rapid supersonic whoosh of rocket engines, or the streak of dumbfire artillery arcing towards its target. Instead, there was only a low, ominous buzz, like a cloud of mechanical locusts, growing slowly deeper and louder.

Isaacson’s blood froze. He knew that sound.

Vic rose slightly from his prone position. “Shit! Are those….?”

Breathlessly, Isaacson completed the sentence. “Yeah. Ferrodrones.”

The Ferrodrone was, relatively speaking, a simple weapon. Resembling nothing more than an overgrown starship torpedo, they possessed rudimentary combat AI, low speed and maneuverability even for an atmosphere craft, and a laughably short deployment range. In fact, they were so poor in the air that they were one of the few craft a pilot wouldn't brag about shooting down.

Of course, the ILF hadn't built so many of them back in the War for their dogfighting skills. No, the Ferrodrone was an ambush predator. The revolutionaries buried thousands of these devilish machines beneath the Martian sands, lying in wait for any unsuspecting Earthborn patrol or convoy to happen by. On detecting a strong enough signal–from a vehicle or, say, a portable area scanner–they would launch from underground, annihilate the source with its impressive array of missiles, then pursue any survivors until it ran out of fuel and crashed.

It wasn't a dogfighting machine because it didn't need to be. All it needed was enough firepower to absolutely annihilate anything on the ground.

And right now, “anything on the ground” meant them.

Isaacson thought fast. Outrunning Ferrodrones on foot was impossible; they’d be overtaken and blown to pieces. Vic’s railgun could in theory shoot one down, but that was practically impossible. They only had one chance, and that was if they were very lucky….

“Levine! Do you see anywhere we can take cover?” He was far beyond hiding the panic in his voice.

Frantically, Levine snapped his head to and fro, as if trying to spy a way out with his eyes. For a brief, devastating moment he was silent. Then, thankfully, miraculously, he spoke. 

“I–I think so! Maybe! Some kind of opening at the base of the hill!”

“THEN LET’S GO! RUN FOR IT, BOYS!”

Isaacson had already taken off, rushing down the rocky slope with all the speed his instincts allowed him. Levine followed soon after, tearing the interface from his helmet and launching into a full-on sprint in an attempt to lead the team. Next was Vic, then Marcus, both a little slower than their two seniors. Behind them, Isaacson could already hear the thump and whoosh of rocket pods firing.

The last of them had just cleared the initial slope of the hilltop before the missiles struck.