Across the water, at this point maybe fifty meters away, was a building carved out of the stone of the cavern’s wall. A series of squat, square openings every so often at ground level with some slits – windows? – at irregular intervals higher up. This unit seemed about forty meters tall and stretched off to her right for perhaps five hundred.
Not knowing how deep the water might be, or what might be in it, she stripped off her gloves, pushed them into her belt, and knelt. One finger into the water. Up to her nose. Seems okay. Then a drop onto her tongue. Salty? But sodium or potassium? Not like our Great Ocean, and I have only heard of the oceans of Old Home.
Looking about, Alicia picked up a rock that just fit into her hand. She stood and lobbed it about half the distance, twenty-five meters. The ploonk it made indicated some depth.
She stood still and waited. Both to watch the ripple pattern and to see if she attracted any attention. The ripples move off to my right, so there is some flow here. Perhaps the water comes from an even deeper spring at this point and makes its way north?
To her left, she could just barely see where the lake ended. There was no path around it, but it might be shallower. I want to see what is in that building, if anything. I don’t think this is reckless behavior that Mom and Dad will punish me for. Making her way there, she paused again at the water’s edge to put her line back to her nose and turn the feed back on, in case she suddenly found herself underwater. Alicia cautiously stepped out into the water.
Halfway across, she was thigh-deep and only moving one careful step at a time. She paused when the next step had the water to her waist. It’s only another fifteen meters. I can swim that if I have to. Three more steps had it no deeper, and after she quickly ascended. She once again became motionless to look and listen, checking if she had attracted attention.
Nothing. She took her nose-line out. Now, let’s go see what’s here!
Coming to the edge of the building, Alicia saw it was not hewn out of the rock but made of slabs pieced together in the manner of some of the ancient megaliths on Old Home: no mortar, and seams perfectly tight. The first entrance was low, about one by one meter. Were those who made this short and stocky? She pulled her flashlight and shined it into the opening.
There was nothing in the room, perhaps five meters square, but along the walls were what appeared a combination of tile mosaics and etches into a dull metal. Closer, she saw both of what seemed like some kind of script interspersed with images. The images, though…
“Were these the original Martians?” she breathed.
Both in rooms such as what she stood in, by the lake outside, and in some kind of marsh, Alicia looked at what she would have called a fat crab. Oblate spheroid; if the door opening was anything to go by, a bit more than a half-meter wide. And wider than tall.
“Not like Earth crabs,” she noticed. “Two legs on each side and those stout claws, with delicate, articulated pincers. So hexapods. Otherwise, they do look like crabs,” she continued around the room. Some images showed several together, some smaller. A family? In most of the images, the crabs were holding tools of some kind.
On the back wall were small cuts into the stone, leading to an opening the same size as the door, but overhead. Born and raised on Mars, but constantly trained by her family, Alicia had strength more like a girl from Old Home. She gathered herself and jumped, just catching the edge and pulling herself up. If Dad saw that, he’d clout me. I need to exercise more. Heck, I should probably spend half a year, an Earth year, back on Old Home to get myself together.
Sitting, she shined her light about. This was a room without one of the slit windows, so nearly completely dark. Off to her left was another opening in the ceiling with a faint light. Just as in the first room below, there was nothing in it. It did have some mosaic images, but more of their writing in that metal.
I could take my knife and prolly pry some of this off the wall, but that kind of vandalism would have me expelled from my planet. I shall commit as much as I can to memory, to share once I’m rescued.
At that thought, her stomach gave a small growl. More cheese and a little jerky was washed down, with water. I shall reduce my rations. That gives me enough food and water for three days. If I drank that water in the lake, it might kill me from dehydration or shock. I’ll just have to pray they find me in time.
Which she did, tucking her legs under and lowering her head to the stone floor.
“Almighty God. Lord Jesus. I thank You for allowing me the miracle of being the first human to see this place. A place of Your creation. Another sentient species. You are so amazing, God! But, I am a little scared. I know You will take care of me, one way or another, but do wish to see my family again. Until then, I’ll keep looking about at this miracle of Yours. I ask and pray all of this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
She leaned up, crossed herself, and stood.
“That’s better! I’m gonna see if I can get all the way to the top!”
Her grandmother exiled to Mars by the Russian Empire, her mother ordered there by Empress Faustina. Now, native-born Alicia Alvarez, carrying Hartmann demi-human blood and ability, leads a hard life on a hard colony world.
A life made harder when, on a mining expedition, she missteps and slides over four kilometers under Mars’ great plateau. Surviving the drop, Alicia walks out into a wonderland of a lost civilization, hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.
In the dark, she is able to find food and water. But she also finds she is not alone and her life in danger. Worse, she makes a discovery that may provoke a war between her home planet and Earth.
Although back on the surface a team is thrown together for her rescue, Alicia must fight to stay alive until help can reach her.
One-time design engineer, some-time pharmacy technician, full-time father and writer. Clayton Barnett continues to reinvent himself even into his dotage. Having tried his hand at writing visual novels a couple of years before, he thought that was all over. However, when unexpectedly confronted by National Novel Writing Month of November 2014... a throw-away line from Prof. Glenn Reynolds of UTenn-Knoxville linked with an image of Hatsune Miku in Clayton's mind, and he was off. Twenty six days later, he'd his first novel, "The Fourth Law."
Book Trailer for Privateer
Enjoy this excerpt from Hinterspace 2: The Quick and the Dead
As Ash all but fell into the open top of the hover and Novak punched in the security key, she wondered how it was that this was now her life. Running from people trying to kill her. Killing them before they killed her. Losing people left and right.
Somehow, her life had gained a notoriety she had not longed for. She tried not to blame her sister, because she couldn’t believe that Sanita was actually Eloise’s fault, but it was a struggle.
The hover came to life and Novak pushed the throttle forward, just as energy bolts began flying past them. They pulled their masks back on.
“Stay down!” Novak said, a hand on her back as she crouched down as far as she could. They quickly left the energy bolts behind, but she feared whoever it was that had infiltrated likely had transportation of their own.
She was just beginning to hope she was wrong when Novak ground out, “We have company. Here. You drive.”
They switched spots in a cumbersome tangle of legs and arms. Novak began searching for a weapon and came up with an energy weapon beneath the seat.
“Is it charged?”? she asked, her question becoming redundant as he worked the charging pin. “And where am I going?”
He pointed to a small pillar of rocks on an outcropping of rock on the other side of the canyon. “Dortaya usually keeps a small ship there for emergency transport. Or, at least they used to. I guess I don’t know if they still do.”
Energy bolts began flying by their heads again and Novak leaned over the back of the seat to return fire, the powerful whine of the rifle’s shots sounding again and again.
“Two down, one to go!” Novak shouted in triumph, aiming again.
They circled around the pillar of rock and a shallow cave came into view. The shadowed outlines of a ship were within and someone was already running around, pulling the cover off of it. She realized the news in Dortaya travelled fast.
“Finally! Got him!” Novak whipped around and slid down into his seat again. She looked around at the hover. Energy bolt marks were burned along the dash and the hood, where they had skimmed over the top.
She pulled the hover to a stop and almost tripped in the attempt to get out. They ran up the shallow, flat, rock incline up to the entrance of the cave.
“Newbold sent on ahead, let us know you were coming,” the man said. He was younger, trim, wearing nondescript coveralls, though he looked quite capable of any manner of work. Novak whooped on seeing the ship, his mouth creasing into a grin that was at odds with the direness of their situation. His eyes flickered to her apologetically as they moved under the ship’s belly.
“I didn’t know if it would still be here. I know this ship, the Litaea. She’s a bad mother,” Novak said, already pulling down hatches and checking systems. The main loading ramp dropped and Ash ran inside. After a moment, Novak joined her and began powering up the ship. The man who had been prepping the ship dropped into the second seat and Ash sat down in the sensor station behind them both.
“Boston, isn’t it?” Novak asked.
The young man’s mouth dropped open and then he turned red, his head bobbing up and down. “Y-yes, sir. I didn’t think you’d remember my name.”
Novak’s mouth creased into a charming half-smile as he kept flipping switches to power up the different systems. “I remember you. You still good at weapons?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said with pride.
“Good. I get the feeling we’re going to need your talent today.”
Ash powered on the sensor station, relieved to see the interface wasn’t so far different from the Maverovna’s that she wouldn’t be able to use it.
“The Litaea is good to go,” Boston announced.
It was interesting to see this side of Novak – the urgent side, the man of action that stopped at nothing to complete the mission. But it was hard to stand by and let him take lead, to have so little control over the situation as it wasn’t her ship.
Energy weapons fire began walking its way along the side of the ship as the drive came online and she braced herself, her eyes rapidly searching the small space for an evac pod or an EVA suit. She was so unprepared!
“We’re taking fire, sir. I’m bringing the shields online,” Boston said.
“Negative, all power to the drive. Lift off in ten seconds.”
Ash hoped they continued to live for the next ten seconds. Her eyes caught on the sensor display. “We’ve got two birds incoming. Gunships. Heaven help us. Are these Tropica defense ships?”
“Great. No idea,” Novak murmured. He engaged the thrusters at full and they were shoved off the deck and into the thin air of the planetoid as he reoriented the ship toward Sanctuaria.
“Who is this?” Boston asked. The gunships began spraying them with rail gun fire, the plugs slammed into the thickened aluminene armored hull, sending resounding booms reverberating through the ship. “Returning fire. We can’t take much more of this!”
“Don’t know.” Novak shoved the throttle forward at maximum speed. On a normal law-abiding facility, this sort of acceleration was illegal, but he wasn’t letting that stop him.
Ash felt her scream essentially evaporate into silence as she was shoved back into her seat, the air whooshing out of her lungs. Several times in her training she had been forced to experience what it was like to have to get up to scattering length without having a normal inertial dampener response. It was just as sickening now as it was then.
“Shields now!” Novak ground out. The sound of the weapons fire on the hull died away as they pulled away from the planetoid.
“Two in pursuit,” Ash reiterated. A third showed up on the screen. “Make that three. I’m sending a comm to the Maverovna to meet us. We can’t go back to Sanctuaria.”
“Tell them to hurry,” Novak said tightly.
Ash sent an encrypted message to Knuckles and then went back to reviewing the sensor data as Novak spun and twisted the ship in the effort to avoid the weapons fire of the gunships. They streaked away from Tropica toward Hinterspace.
“Scattering length achieved,” Boston announced.
“Dump the tetrion and get us out of here,” Novak said.
Ash shut her eyes against the pressure as the ship shot forward again, bringing them up to 1K miles/second sublight within two minutes.
She received a comm from the Maverovna. It would take them ten minutes to get to the designated rendezvous point. She’d count herself blessed if they lasted another five.
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