Seconders Read online

  Seconders

  by Chris D Gregory

  Published by Chris D Gregory at Smashwords

  Copyright 2022 Chris D Gregory

  Smashwords Edition, License notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Dedication & Quotation

  Prologue

  1 Leaving

  2 Survival

  3 Leo

  4 Tharsis

  5 The Seconders Coming

  6 Foundations

  7 Rise

  8 Fall

  9 Fracture

  10 Exodus

  11 Tithonium

  12 Two Strains

  13 Life on Mars?

  14 The Bringer of War

  15 Phobos

  16 The Horsemen

  Epilogue

  About Chris Gregory & Other Books

  *

  Dedication

  For Seán, with love

  Quotation

  “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly overcrowded planet.”

  Stephen Hawking

  *

  Prologue

  Sol 1, Mars orbit – J. Wojcik

  Floating or falling? He felt himself sink into his seat, a familiar pull returning after the long void. The altimeter countdown accelerated, the arc of the horizon flattened to a line, and he began to see the granularity of the surface by eye. Jan Wojcik was falling.

  He knew of the feeble atmosphere below but had no sense of it yet. The glider was in free-fall with Wojcik and his four passengers inside, so he gripped the joystick as if it would pull them from their dive. He may as well have flapped his arms for all the good it would do, there was nothing to push against. Not yet. No one spoke as no one had anything to say. A distant sun caught the pale ridges of the Pavonis Sulci, throwing the folds into shadow: inexplicable scars on the face of the world which hurtled towards them. The shadows appeared to writhe and shift, suggesting the planet was alive, observing their descent. The thought unsettled Wojcik, despite its lack of logic. All he could do was trust the surveys and simulations that the thin traces of atmosphere would catch the wings and slow their fall.

  He felt a tremble, as if the glider were alive and quivering. Then he could feel it shudder, shaking amplified through the joystick that he clutched. He focussed on his training: hold it steady, don’t fight it, watch the rate of descent. The numbers on the altimeter were slowing and the ragged lines of the Pavonis Fossae ahead resolved as if caught in the focus of a camera lens. They were gliding.

  Wojcik could see cracks that split the parchment ground below. The surface appeared grainy, like sandpaper, though he knew those grains were stones and boulders that could shred the glider. He could see a change of tone ahead: a long pale strip cut into the grain, that stood out as something not of this world. It was a landing-strip cleared by droids of the worst stones and boulders. He had studied photos but was reassured to see it and he tilted the joystick to tip right, turning the glider’s nose towards the strip. He switched power to the wires over the leading edges of the wings which induced an ion wind, a stream of charged particles that augmented the ghostly vapours outside. He felt a little lift and more response from the flaps. Now he was facing a wall of red rock crowned with a grey crust. This was the sleeping giant, Pavonis Mons, with its crater hidden from view above him. When he judged the glider to be far enough over, he levelled out again, aligning with the runway.

  For half an hour they flew in reverent silence, with rust and ochre plains drifting beneath them. Craters stared up at him like empty eye sockets and distant mountains dared him to approach. As he neared the runway, he pulled a lever by his side and for a few heart-stopping moments all Wojcik could sense was something fluttering, floundering behind him… then he was thrown forward into his webbing and all breath was forced from his lungs. He heard involuntary grunts from behind. Slowly he sank back into his seat as the glider adjusted to the pull from the parachute, slowing their descent to a speed at which, theoretically, they might not be killed when they hit ground.

  He could see individual rocks sliding past in a blur of blacks and tans. The near end of the strip broadened, beckoning him onto its sanctuary, while the rocky wilderness lay in wait all around. The airspeed indicator had slowed enough to show a chance of surviving the impact with the runway. Ideally, they should be going much slower before discarding the parachute. If he released it late, they might overshoot into the boulders beyond. If he released too soon, it could foul on the ground and break the craft in two.

  The edge of the runway was almost on them. He pulled the release catch and pushed the nose of the glider down, anticipating the sudden upward lurch as it broke free from the parachute. For a moment he stared straight down at the ground: he had over compensated. He struggled to pull up again and gritted his teeth as the landing skids churned the soil.

  Bang. A shudder and a shriek of metal told him that one of the skids was torn off. He stared at orange sky until the horizon returned and he wrestled the joystick against the craft’s helter-skelter. Here came the ground again.

  Bang. Another collision that jerked the glider up and to the left (so it was that skid we lost, thought Wojcik). He hauled the joystick and tail pedals, fighting the pitch and yaw. More sky followed by horizon.

  Bang. He felt helpless and fought the urge to vomit.

  Bang. Not so hard this time, but still wild.

  Bang. He was on the verge of yelling out when a crunch told him that the last skid had been ripped off and the glider was thrown into a sickening slide. A spray of red dust covered the cockpit dome and camera lenses so he could see nothing, only feel and hear the frame of the craft trying to shake itself to bits, while thrown forward into a web of belts… and then back into his seat.

  Silence.

  He paused to fill his lungs again, then Charlie Peters spoke up behind him.

  “Are we nearly there yet?” she called.

  “Shit!” exclaimed Shanks. “I hope we are. I ain’t doing that again.”

  Wojcik turned around to check everyone was still alive and got four thumbs up, one or two a bit shaky. Poor Sunil was still vomiting into the inside of his helmet. As they all had EVA suits and visors on, he decided to risk opening the cockpit dome. There was a click and a hiss as the residual air rushed out. He couldn’t quite believe what he saw: the nose of the glider rested against a boulder the size of a rhino. Looking over his shoulder he could see the edge of the landing strip and a gouged channel in the red dust behind that stretched back almost a kilometre.

  “Do you think we should have asked the droids to make the runway a little longer, Jan?” asked Charlie as she peered in the same direction. He allowed a thin smile to pull at the edge of his mouth, he enjoyed her wry sense of humour in the face of such a savage arrival. He liked the way she got the ‘y’ sound at the start of his name just right.

  “No” said Jan. “I think they got it spot on, don’t you?”

  Charlie grinned. He could see a sparkle of amusement in her eyes and a flush of near-death adrenaline. “Better call us in” she reminded, “and find out where the first gli
der team are.” A frown crossed Jan’s face. Of course, where was Pieter Storhaug and the first glider? He opened a channel to the ship in orbit.

  “Second glider calling Armstrong control, we made it… just.”

  “Full report, Wojcik,” answered Captain Bulman. Like most of Jan’s colleagues, he was nervous of Hal Bulman, so he made a prompt and business-like reply.

  “Sir. Charlotte Peters, John Shanks, Sunil Patel, and Johanna Einarsdottir, all giving me thumbs up. No injuries to report. Belly of glider two is ripped to shreds, but ultimately repairable.”

  “Congratulations, you’re the first.”

  “Sir? Where’s Pieter and the first glider crew?”

  “Glider one wrecked beyond repair, Storhaug, Goswami, D’Souza, Konar, and Qian are all dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “You’re the first living human beings to stand on Mars.”

  1

  Leaving

  20th April, Cologne – V. Meier

  Verena Meier’s mother was hiding. She wasn’t surprised, after all, Lena had been known to hide before, sometimes for days on end. But it made Verena sad, guilty, and angry that Lena wouldn’t come and say goodbye.

  Raindrops beaded on the window. A grey ceiling of cloud stretched out over the rooftops of Cologne, just the same as yesterday, just the same as the day before. Verena would not miss the eternal sweating rains but, now that she stood on the verge of going, she realised how much she would miss her parents. It hit her with the force of a punch to her stomach.

  Verena turned to face Lex Meier and asked him where her mother was hiding. He smiled sadly and told his daughter that Lena was on the balcony, potting fuchsias.

  “Aber…”

  “Ja, sie weiβ.” He confirmed what Verena suspected, that her mother could not say goodbye again, that it was too much for her. He told Verena not to cry or she would start him off too.

  “Es tut mir leid.”

  He told her not to be sorry. He told her how proud of her he was, and that Lena was too, though she wouldn’t come to say it. Lex smiled and Verena looked at her father’s slender frame; for the first time it appeared brittle to her, as if he had aged without her seeing. Only his smile reminded Verena of his inner strength, which had so often carried her and her mother... her Mutti. Lena may have looked strong to the casual observer, but both father and daughter knew her better.

  “Kümmere dich um sie, Papa.”

  He nodded and promised that he would look after Lena, just as Cathal would look after Verena on their journey to another world. Verena stared at the floor, knowing that her partner would indeed do everything to protect her, but there were some things no one could protect against. Verena knew five of the first team had died trying to land on Mars, but that was still classified and only their families and the Mars team knew for now. Mission control didn’t want that news going public until there was some positive news about finding ice water local to the landing site, which had been worryingly elusive so far. Instead, Verena found something bland to say. She promised to send vids and tell them about each stage of their journey. Lex said he was counting on it, that he wanted something to brag about to his friends, especially if Verena and Cathal had a child.

  Verena reminded Lex they would have to build the habitation dome and plant crops first, that it would be at least a year before they were encouraged to have kids. Lex reflected that a year was not so long to wait and suggested that she did not put it off for too long. He said he looked forward to a grandchild and that Verena may enjoy much love if she had a child of her own.

  Verena apologised for breaking his heart.

  Lex said his heart would not be broken, that he and Lena would always love Verena, no matter how far away she was. Verena closed her eyes tight to hold back her tears and thought of something mundane to say. She asked him and Mutti to send vids, which Lex promised to do, but he warned that Lena might take some time before she joined in. He found something equally mundane to ask, checking Verena had remembered her antibiotics.

  “Ja Papa, natürlich.”

  Verena’s iSpecs projected a message onto the bottom of the lenses to tell her the auto-cab was waiting below. Already. Lex hugged his daughter tight, and Verena didn’t dare speak in case her voice broke. Lex took a small dark green bound notepad from his pocket and slipped it into Verena’s hand. He told her to keep drawing and make her parents proud.

  “Ich verspreche, Papa,” whispered Verena and clung to him, but ever so gently he slipped her arms from his shoulders and walked her to the door.

  He smiled and told her she had a shuttle to catch. Verena said he made it sound like a bus, and he wondered whether one day it may be just like that. That’s my Papa, thought Verena: a dreamer. She hoped to take a few of his dreams with her and make them come true. She steadied herself to go and cast one last look around the family flat: the neatly set dinner table with the spires of Cologne cathedral on the place mats, the holo-wall projecting views of the Black Forest, Lex’s favourite reclining chair, slightly worn around the arm rests, and Lena’s hand-knitted green cardigan draped over the back of it.

  “Sag Mutti, dass ich sie liebe,” she whispered.

  Lex promised that he would indeed tell Lena that Verena loved her and took her in one last embrace. Then he opened the door for Verena because that is what parents do for their child. And Verena was their only child.

  26th April, Geostationary Space Station Collins – V. Meier

  Verena pressed her forehead against the viewing glass, overcome by the reality of the journey ahead of her. She had slipped away from the rest of the team, outside the dock chamber, to gather her thoughts and take a last look at planet Earth. She had spent so much of her life planning, measuring, and organising and yet she had never planned the moment of leaving. She had taken training flights on the shuttle and made many simulated trips, so that somehow this journey had not felt real, not until now.

  Verena pictured her mother’s face when they had last embraced only weeks before. It was a face of intolerable pain and loss, that she couldn’t bear to say goodbye to her only daughter, whom she’d loved and nurtured from birth. Lena had seen how Verena loved drawing imaginary places as a child and encouraged her. She had helped with Verena’s homework and shared her joy at winning the prestigious scholarship from the European Space Agency to study space architecture at the Humboldt University. Lena had basked in the glow of her daughter’s graduation and enrolment with the Mars Project. But she had never imagined that Verena would be one of those to go and build it, and the agony of her loss tore out her proud heart.

  Verena took much comfort that her partner, Cathal, was coming with her. About half the second Mars team had been selected as pairs and there were already some romances developing among the others. A fact that was positively encouraged for a team of colonists, unlike any other space mission before. One team already on Mars, one about to board and one still preparing for their flight in a year and a half’s time. Three teams of fifty people: a total of one hundred and fifty colonists, all in accordance with Dunbar’s number.

  Cathal told Verena about the evolutionary psychologist, Robin Dunbar, who had suggested that one hundred and fifty people might be the maximum number one person could know and be friends with. But others built on Dunbar’s work and proposed that it should in fact be the minimum number of people required to make a stable functioning community. One hundred and fifty people made up of leaders, engineers, technicians, medics, scientists, miners, explorers, surveyors, trainers, builders, and farmers. Most doubled up their skills as pilots, therapists, teachers, artists, or musicians. Verena was the architect, going to survey the site and supervise the construction of Tharsis Eden One. Cathal was the psychologist, going to observe the practical application of Dunbar’s number. Not for the first time, Verena wondered what kind of future they would have.

  She could hear shrieks of laughter and sobs of emotion through the dock door. Fifty people nervously waiting for the pre-flight
checks to end and boarding to commence. The energy was intense, and, despite her calm pragmatic nature, Verena had finally succumbed to it. She had fled the dock chamber to look at Earth before she deserted it forever.

  Verena would not miss the rain, the flooding, the starvation, and the mass of self-inflicted human misery on late twenty-first century Earth. She knew very well why she was going to Mars, just as she knew how many would have fought to stand where she stood: on the threshold of a new life, a new start on a virgin planet. But she was surprised by the force with which the fact of leaving had hit her. Verena was following her dream, to build a new habitat on a new world, and yet she grieved, not only for her parents and friends, but for her home planet. She had never realised how she was a daughter of Earth as much as a daughter of Lex and Lena Meier. Not until she looked down upon that shipwrecked world, smothered in rainclouds and sweating with pollution, did she realise how much she would miss it.

  At long last carbon fuels were being retired in favour of renewable energy, but only because the cost was no longer counted in dollars but in human lives. The Arcadian mineral exploitation vessel incident had pushed humanity to the edge. One of the huge multi-national sailing rigs had been hijacked by its crew after too many deaths in pursuit of untapped oil beneath the seabed. The mutineers were followed by a growing wake of refugees from the flooded coasts of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but naval vessels were sent to bring the mutineers to rough justice. So many died that there was a global outcry and carbon fuel investments were at last being abandoned.

  The central core of the Mars mission was to test a closed ecological system, a CES, in an environment where there was simply no other option. If the Mars colony worked then there would be a wealth of knowledge gained, and there may even be hope for the future of Earth. Poor Earth. Fragile Earth. It had nurtured life for millions of years, but it took only a couple of centuries for mankind to start strangling their host like a disease. Verena wondered whether she was joining brave explorers and scientists, seeking to save the human species, or rats leaving a sinking ship to wreck. She felt like she was scurrying aboard one of the last lifeboats.