Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [14]
With a visible effort, Dr Parker forced himself to grow calm. “Yes, well, it’s a mystery to us. We heard a garbled message from MS3. Frankly, it sounded a little hysterical. But one of the men said something about an ‘attack.’ And then their broadcast just stopped.”
“An attack? By what, or whom?”
“That, Lieutenant,” Parker replied, the frost returning to his voice, “is what you are here to find out. Their signal cut out before we learned anything useful. And we were under strict orders to stay put and wait for your Team. We still have three of the military rovers. I suggest you and your men take them and go have a look.”
“There was a message just moments ago,” Professor Zaro noted. “It came from your frigate. They passed over the location of MS3 but were unable to discern any useful details from orbit. They tried a direct relay to the station but could raise no response.”
Jackson nodded and turned to address the Shamani consul. “We saw a Shamani ship in orbit over the planet while we were dropping. Your people don’t know anything about this?”
“None of my people were at MS3 at the time this began. The ship you saw is the Gladiola. It is a simple supply ship. It was not over MS3 at the time of the attack and, like your own frigate, cannot make out enough detail from space to give us useful knowledge about the damage to the station. Even so, our offer to send down one of our shuttles to investigate was refused by your government. One might almost think they believe we might have been involved.”
“Were you?”
“Lieutenant Jackson, that’s just about enough,” Parker interrupted. “There’s no need to insult the consul de campe. We’ve been working side by side for months, and I assure you, her concern for our people at MS3 is genuine. In fact, you’ll be taking her along as a technical adviser.”
“Perfect.”
Three: Down in the Valley
The Valles Marinaris made a garish slash across the face of Mars. The largest canyon in the entire solar system gaped deep and dry, a red the color of old iron rust. Formed by gushes of liquid water eons before and easily visible by telescope from Earth, from a distance it resembled a grinning, leering mouth along the planet’s equator. Up close, the Valles Marinaris presented an almost insurmountable obstacle to any land traverse of the Martian surface.
Nevertheless, three little rovers, dwarfed by the vast chasm, scooted soundlessly along the planet’s flat surface, rolling right up to the edge of the rim. They came to a stop nearly in unison, a kilometer between each vehicle, all three halting a couple of meters from the canyon’s northern edge. The south rim was so far away that it vanished behind the curve of the planet, but the landscape in the immediate foreground tumbled precipitously into the depths.
As the turret gunner in the command rover—the car in the center of the small formation—Chief Harris had the best view. From the raised bubble dome behind the driver’s compartment, he could see down into the canyon, across the first of several broad shelves that formed a series of gigantic steps leading to the unseen channel in the very bottom. The ground a couple of klicks below was as flat and featureless as any desert on Earth and nearly as airless as outer space.
Harris’s eyes immediately picked out the lone anomaly on that vast dusty plateau. “I got the station complex, LT,” he announced. “At twelve o’clock, maybe five klicks from the base of this cliff in front of us.”
“Good eye, Harris—I see it, too,” Lieutenant Jackson replied from the driver’s seat. The third Team operator in the rover was Gunner’s Mate (Missile) Richard Rodale, known as Rocky to one and all. He had his launcher cradled in his lap and watched through the side window without comment.
The fourth passenger in Jackson’s rover also was keeping silent, though Harris knew that she, too, was studying their objective with more than passing interest. From his position behind her, he was glad that he couldn’t see the woman’s eyes. Though she had been attached to their Team for