New Short Story – Greed Over Good Sense

Two years have passed since Gretchen Blake and Frank Brentford of MarsVantage discovered an alien city, Bvindu Dome, buried under the Martian plain. Kept secret from everyone except for a select few, Gretchen and Frank plan to leverage the city and its technology to gain self-sufficiency for MarsVantage. Exploring it along with a small group of archaeologists, they’ve learned much to achieve their goal but publicly revealed very little…

Xi Zhai from the People’s Space Mining Company imagined the Republic Medal pinned to his chest. At last, an end to monotonous asteroid mining. Better still, the elevated social status would open doors—a comfortable office job at the company’s Ceres base or perhaps even on Earth.

Only half a day of work stood between him and everything he desired.

He piloted a gumdrop, a one-person mining scout ship, through a sea of atmosphere-borne Martian dust in the dark of night. Visibility beyond the cockpit’s plastiglass, which spanned the forward two-thirds of the sphere he sat within, was less than two meters. Because no landmarks were visible, he turned off the four high-powered lights, instead relying on the instruments to guide him to a safe landing.

Grit striking the ship created a constant, distracting hiss, like static over the comms. He preferred the utter silence during his long shifts prospecting for minerals in the Belt.

The filthy capitalist Americans wouldn’t detect him, even if they were scanning. All the debris cloaked his tiny ship, purpose-built to agilely explore and map the boulders and planetoids of the Asteroid Belt. He could land a football pitch away from their outpost, Mars City, and they’d never be the wiser.

East of their settlement over the horizon lay his destination, Bvindu Dome. He lowered the radar gain’s sensitivity to remove the swirling sand. Gray patches of various shades surrounded a green silhouette representing his ship in the monitor’s center. On the right edge, a jagged black stripe with red, orange, yellow, and green lines denoted ridges of various heights of the eastern range of the capitalist-named Maelstrom Mountains.

Five hundred meters below were two enormous sand mounds designated in yellow situated on either side of a blue horseshoe-shaped half-circle denoting an excavated entrance. He intently monitored the display as he descended to the landing zone behind the eastern mound.

Drifting into and getting mired in the sand could scuttle the entire mission. Worse, he’d run out of air if he couldn’t free the ship. Heat would fail when the gumdrop exhausted the fuel. He wouldn’t live long enough to miss food and water.

And no one would rescue him. 

The mountains grew on the screen as portions changed from orange to red. The gumdrop was now below their highest point. He flexed his fingers and regripped the controls.

Two years ago, Americans from a corporation named MarsVantage had discovered a buried alien city that they’d designated Bvindu Dome. Little was known about it, particularly any threat it posed to the Pan-Asian Alliance.

Their government inspectors’ reports failed to reveal worthwhile details. The site’s archaeologists had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped, not publishing papers since the initial discovery announcement.

A dust storm currently encompassing the entire planet had forced the Americans to retreat to the seven domes of Mars City. According to Intelligence, Bvindu Dome was unoccupied and unguarded. Conditions were perfect for learning the capitalists’ secrets.

He guided the ship with minute, precise movements until all four skids produced resonant thuds on the sandy ground. He transferred the radar map to his datapad and activated the pod’s homing beacon. After he opened an encrypted comm channel to the last transport in the PAA convoy preparing for the Mars gravity boost maneuver, he reported, “Control, Zhai here. I’m on-station.”

“Confirmed. Well done, Mr. Zhai. Our faith in your piloting skills was well-placed. Discover what you can of any alien technology our adversaries could use to threaten our ancestral homelands. If Intelligence is wrong and someone remains, leave immediately. You must not be discovered.”

“Acknowledged, control.” His comrades in Intelligence performed well under difficult circumstances, but their information was imperfect—no one gave up their secrets easily.

“You must be at the rendezvous point in five hours and twenty-two minutes. Any later, you won’t have the fuel to intercept with us. Nothing must interfere with the gravity maneuver. We mustn’t signal any irregularity to the American Space Flight Control.”

“The rendezvous time is noted. Zhai out.”

While accounting for the raging storm slowing him, he allocated thirty minutes to walk around the nearby entrance of Bvindu Dome and the same amount to return. That left four hours to explore, with twenty-two minutes as a buffer for the unexpected.

Four hours of work will demonstrate I’m equal to the honor of the task and worthy of the medal.

He touched the spacesuit’s wrist control pad on his left sleeve to set an alarm. Once it activated, regardless of what he’d be doing, he’d return to the gumdrop and head to the rendezvous point. Drifting in open space for several minutes was preferable to arriving a second late.

A posthumously awarded medal is worthless.

He swiveled his seat left ninety degrees and removed his headset. After fetching his white helmet from the entryway deck and attached it with a firm clockwise twist to his spacesuit, he donned gloves. He verified the suit integrity from the control panel on his left wrist. Once through the hatch and three metal steps to the ground later, he closed the hatch, sealing out the storm.

After undoing the Velcro of his spacesuit’s thigh pocket, he fished out his datapad, flipped open the screen, and displayed the map. The gumdrop appeared as a green dot next to his datapad’s position as a blue square. He activated his helmet light, which didn’t help much. From his other thigh pocket, he pulled a hand light and switched it on. The raging sand swirling in the darkness reduced visibility to virtually nothing like inside the gumdrop, though the ground at his feet was visible.

With every measure of patience his elders had bestowed, he methodically stepped to avoid the ever-present danger of falling and tearing his spacesuit. He occasionally verified his position on the datapad as he negotiated the eastern mound counter-clockwise. Upon reaching the blue horseshoe representing the excavation of the dome’s entrance, he descended the slope, taking small, even steps until the ground flattened twenty meters below the surface.

He faced a Pan-Asian Alliance-made airlock, which was no surprise—PAA companies manufactured most airlocks. A vehicle-sized hatch stood to the right of a personnel hatch. Two oversized buttons—Open Hatch and Close Hatch—were next to the personnel door.

The capitalists’ datapads and tractors were configured to provide the proper response code when the system validated an access request. Without it, neither hatch would open, and he lacked it. But there was a little-known workaround.

After pocketing his hand light, he placed his back to the sand-laden wind and wirelessly connected his datapad to the airlock’s control systems. He activated a program to transmit backdoor administrative credentials. His datapad contained the codes for all manufacturers and all of the models from the last thirty years. On the seventh attempt, he gained access. He activated the manufacturer’s troubleshooting program to communicate directly to the hardware controller. From the menu, he chose the outer personnel hatch and selected the Open Hatch command.

The door slid aside. The Republic Medal is as good as mine.

Once inside, he closed the hatch with a datapad command. The overhead lighting panels flickered before fully illuminating. Two steps later, he turned right to face the garage bay’s air door. He followed the same process for this hatch, bringing him to a space large enough to comfortably hold an American exploration tractor.

A fluorescent yellow tennis ball hung about helmet-high near the front wall. A smiley face in black had been hand-painted on it. The effort those foolish Americans had put into a joke would’ve been better spent exploiting the alien city.

Left of the ball, two pairs of red and green lights, a sign, and a wide hatch occupied the wall. The sign displayed a notice in English, which read:

Danger

Severe bodily injury may occur

Proper identification required beyond this point

Was MarsVantage expecting visitors?Perhaps their inefficient competition with Peter Konklin Interplanetary prompted the signage. The two green status indicators announced a suitable atmosphere in the garage airlock and the dome. Any fear of a pressure differential, which could send him flying and potentially tear his spacesuit, was allayed. He exhaled, fogging his faceplate for a few moments.

He took the ramp to the raised lip of the Bvindu Dome hatch. After opening it with a datapad command, he stepped through. The timer indicated that only twenty minutes elapsed to reach this point. He was ahead of schedule, which allowed more time to explore.

His helmet lights helped immensely now. After several steps, a warning in English appeared, displaying the same message as in the garage airlock.

Ignoring the second warning, he strolled over a black and yellow stripe on the floor. A vivid red flash preceded an intense burning in his chest. He slumped to the ground.

What happened?

On his side, he coughed blood droplets onto his faceplate. He inhaled with great effort, but his lungs burned for air. With much concentration, he moved his arms imperceptibly. His legs refused his will. The dark gray deck faded as darkness engulfed him.

When the sandstorm ends, Gretchen, Frank, and the archaeologists will return to Bvindu Dome to discover Xi Zhai’s body. With Washington’s patience waning for the release of Bvindu technology, will the trespasser’s death be the catalyst for the politicians to wrestle control of Bvindu Dome away? What are Gretchen and Frank prepared to do to prevent it?

For more information see the The Siege of Mars page.