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Better to just ignore him. Let him screw up and wash out on his own. That wouldn't be too hard for him.
They trudged single file, ascending an enormous red sand dune, Laura at point, Caleb close behind. Their fingerprints were swept away in seconds, giving Caleb the eerie, disoriented feeling that the group had simply appeared in the middle of the dunes.
"I'm no expert,"
Abebaw said, "But I remember reading something from a disc once about a Martian dust storm back in 1971. Within seven days it encompassed a sector 6,000 kilometers across. I think it took another two weeks to envelop the rest of the planet."
"Now here's a man who knows how to build morale," Counter quipped.
"Rimal, why don't you grab a satellite image---just to calm my nerves," Spitzer said.
"Good idea," said Caleb.
"On it."
"This blows," said Batra.
"The hike, the planet, the IDF, what?" Cross asked.
"I think I got a rock in my shoe."
"Um, excuse me," Rimal said. "But Laura, I think you'd better take a look at this."
Caleb put his hand up, signaling the group to halt. He and Laura went to Rimal, who held up the pocket-sized Satellite Image Receiver so that they could see a digitized view of the plane taken from orbit.
Rimal pointed to a dark blob that Caleb wanted to believe was just a little smudge of dirt on the screen. "Don't...say it," he told her.
Laura sighed deeply and slumped. "Say it."
Rimal touched a button on the SIR. The image zoomed in on the blob. A data table appeared on the right side of the screen. "Storm is moving at 3 klicks per hour, with wind speeds varying from 100 to 200 kilometers per hour at its eye."
"Damn," Caleb said, then looked away.
"All right. So we ride it out. 3 klicks per hour. What's the storm's diameter?"
"It's not exactly circular, but I know what you're looking for. It'll take about 55 minutes for it to pass over our position."
"This blows," Batra said. And it was obvious he wasn't talking about a rock in his shoe.
"I say we turn around and beat the thing back to the ship," Jacobs offered. "We have no shelter. And those winds......we don't know what's flying around in them."
"It just might be us soon," Counter said.
Spitzer hesitated, then said, "At the risk of sounding like a cliche, we're Israeli soldiers, first in, last out. I'd rather face that storm than two wings of those aliens."
"I'm in," Cross said.
"Me too," Batra added, resignedly.
"Let's do it," Abebaw grunted.
Cross pointed to Berkson. "How about you, Jon?"
The tank scanned the horizon, holding a hand up to his helmet to block the glare. "We came this far..."
Counter folded his arms across his chest. "What I wanna know is if we're gonna ride this storm, then how the hell are we gonna do it? Just stand here and see what happens?"
Caleb looked to Laura. "We have no....." He cussed himself out for opening his mouth.
"We'll hold hands," Laura said.
Spitzer snickered. "Yeah, right."
Laura went to the man and took his hand. Then she turned and snatched Batra's hand. "We're a team," she began slowly. "We sit in a circle, no one out of sight, no one out of reach. We keep our heads low, our gear packed tight, and we wait."
"And pray," Batra added somberly.
Caleb found himself smiling at Laura. An incredible woman had emerged from a tortured child. he still had a lot to learn, but she, she understood the moment better than anybody. He envied her, but that feeling did not go so far as to make him refuse to obey her. In fact, looking at Laura as she inspired the group, he felt utterly proud to know her.
"Hey, if we sit near the dune's crest, on the backside of it, maybe the side facing the storm will act as a slight buffer," Berkson said.
Laura bought the proposal with a nod. "Let's do it." She started for the head of the line.
Surprise, the tank has a good idea. He's really interested in what's going on around him.
It took fifteen minutes to reach the dune's crest. They settled into a tight circle, made sure their packs were strapped snugly onto their backs, their rifles slung across their chests. Caleb sat between Laura and Counter. He took their hands, then scanned the faces around him: Berkson looked vacant, Batra licked his lips and swallowed, Rimal creased her brow in worry, Abebaw actually looked bored. Counter, Cross, Spitzer and Jacobs wore identical expressions: lost in thought, each assumedly in a personal vision of what the storm would be like.
A circle. Hands held. It was necessary. Practical. Gave them hope. Indeed, they were a group of people sharing an interest: survival. But Caleb couldn't help but see the spirituality of the union. Caleb remembered how, whenever his grandparents would come over for a holiday dinner, everybody would hold hands at the table and say a prayer before eating. Billions upon billions of families had done the same thing over the centuries. Now, ten soldiers sat a very long way from home, holding hands and maybe thanking God in advance for his mercy.
Rimal broke her grip with Batra and looked at her SIR. "Dust storm ETA: 19 seconds." Frantically, she clipped the device back onto her suit, just as Batra retook her hand.
Caleb felt the ground shake. He had switched his link so that he could monitor both the troop channel and the external noise of the planet.
He regretted it.
The dust storm hit, an invisible, caterwauling hammer striking a constant blow. Within a millisecond, wind-whipped sand turned day into night and buffeted his suit as if fired from a powerful cannon.
His nerves made their way to his throat and gave him a keen sense for the obvious. "Hang on!"
Caleb looked back to the once-sharp crest of the dune; layer after layer of it was being stripped away, the storm filing their shield down to a blunt edge.
Ahead, Berkson, Batra, Rimal, and Spitzer were indistinct amid the sandy torrents. Counter and Cross were partially visible, and it shocked Caleb to see that they were being buried. Then he looked down. His lap was gone, covered.
"We might have to stand up!" Caleb said.
"Not now!" Cross said. "We'll only give the storm a bigger target that way."
In one sense she was right. But if they were buried over their heads, yes, they could still breathe, but getting out.....
Things remained constant for the next 20 minutes, after which two things happened.
The wind died to about half its former speed, and Laura ordered everyone to stand up, which took about 5 minutes, as they were buried up to their waists.
With his legs sunk in up to calf-height, Caleb felt confident about his footing. The surrounding sand aided in his balance. Even if the wind picked up, he still felt rooted enough to fight it.
Then Jacobs's earlier question of what was flying around in the wind was answered at last.
Most of the rocks had collected at the tail end of the storm for a reason that was beyond Caleb. The sand had been bad enough. Now missiles varying in size from plums to grapefruit pelted the Israelis.
Batra screamed and fell to his knees, dragging Berkson and Rimal with him. Abebaw and Spitzer no longer liked the odds of standing and opted to sit, tucking their helmeted heads into their chests.
A rock hit the back of Caleb's helmet just as Laura yanked him down, and he cussed aloud. He leaned forward as far as he could, trying to keep his head low. He was breathing so heavily that he fogged his visor, but he wasn't going to reach back and lower his suit's temperature to adjust for the imbalance.
To someone not in it, the storm presented a curious dilemma: suit-breaching rocks above, swiftly rising sand below. Presently, Caleb concluded that the sand was the lesser of the two Martian evils.
Laura called roll for the 3rd time since the storm had begun. Eight names shot back at her over the link, then Caleb added his own.
As the sand continued to rise and the rocks streaked overhead, a few grazing his helmet, Caleb felt the increasing desire to fight back instead of quivering like a coward against a malevolent yet flawed enemy. If Rimal's math was correct, less than one quarter of the storm was left. He could stand and make a mad rush for the clear air beyond, and, maybe, the others would follow.
Asshole. Is that working together? Yes, you've still got a lot to learn. You're not a coward for lying here. Your presence helps the group.
In a few more moments the storm slowly dropped off into a whimper. Grains of sand peeled away from deeper layers, slowly, artistically, silently. Caleb lifted his head and saw his shadow in the sand. He didn't have to look back to know that the sky was clear, the sun shining. Were this the moment after a total eclipse on Earth, the insects would begin to hum, and the birds would resume their chirping. Roosters would announce morning at 5:00 in the afternoon.
Looks were exchanged, looks that asked, "Are you all right?"
"There was a time when I used to like being buried in the sand," Spitzer said.
A cursory inspection revealed that the dune had been through not a meteor shower but something akin to one. The fine sand was freckled with rocks.
"Storm picking up speed and changing course slightly," Rimal said, reading her SIR. "Good news. Don't think it'll hit the ship."
"We've burned some valuable oxygen here, folks," Laura said, releasing Caleb's hand. "Check your gear and let's hustle."239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZczAu9XcR
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They stood atop a hillock, looking down at the tracking drone which sat a half dozen meters away. It was like an old piece of furniture sitting in an alien living room, eroded, half-buried in the sand, its solar array foil flapping in the freezing breeze.
"Didn't they count on storms when they built that pile of shit?" Counter asked.
Spitzer aimed her directional Gieger Counter at the drone. "Point-oh-one-seven rads."
Cross arrived next to Spitzer, sloughed off her pack and withdrew the circuit storage box. She opened it and produced 3 small plug-in modules.
Seeing that Cross was on the ball, Laura said, "Good. Replace the transceiver units and let's get back. We've got about 10 hours of daylight left."
Counter and Berkson dropped to their knees before the tracker and used the butts of their rifles to shovel away the sand and small rocks that had collected there. Seeing that they weren't making much headway, Caleb signaled for Abebaw and Batra. The three soldiers joined Counter and Berkson, and in less than five minutes they were using their gloves to wipe the tracker's legs free of sand.
"All right, gentlemen. Let me in there." Cautiously, Cross reached down towards a small, square compartment, its surface etched with line drawings of Earth that the briefing said were the same ones carried by two ancient spacecraft: Pioneer Ten and Eleven.
"There's an eject switch in there somewhere," Rimal said.
Cross found and pressed a button. A small drawer containing a micro-CD slid toward her. She lifted the golden disc from the drawer. "This it?"
"That's the Earth message," Batra informed the group. "They made it a requirement in the 21st century that all off-Earth installations had to have one. It's got pictures and sounds of Earth in case some E.T. ever came across it."
Berkson stepped around the tracker, then got on his haunches before another door. "Let me have it."
"What do you think you're doing?" Laura asked.
"I read about this," Berkson said. "Don't worry, it won't explode."
Cross looked to Laura, who shrugged, then gave Berkson the micro-CD.
The tank tapped open a door, then inserted the disc into a tiny, metallic disc-drive. "Everyone. Set your links for proximity scan and lock. You're gonna love this." He tapped a switch.
Caleb, along with the others, adjusted two knobs on the com-panel at his hip.
And his ears filled with slow, sad, passionate music. "Mendelssohn."
"Yeah, I know this one, too," Jacobs said. "My sister used to play it constantly at home. It's his Piano Quartet No. 3 in B Minor."
"Opus 3, in fact," Spitzer said.
"Why, Spitzer. I didn't know you were a connoisseur of the arts," Cross said.
"I'm not. There was a list of the disc's contents in the briefing. I guess I was the only one who read that part."
"If only this had been our first contact with them," Laura groaned and looked askance to Caleb. "They never would've killed the colonists."
Caleb was about to say something but thought better of it. He listened to the music, tones like waves that bobbed him and carried him closer to Zara. There was no way of knowing how the aliens would have responded to this. Ironically, it might have incited them to even greater violence. If Laura wanted to believe that a first contact of this nature would have prevented what had happened, then that was all right. But Caleb had already tried, convicted, and sentenced the aliens to death. Their first contact with him would be a salvo of laser fire from his fighter.
Mendelssohn was cut off, replaced by a recording of a blaring shofar, the traditional Jewish horn, and a poor performance at that.
"I was liking that," Abebaw said. "Put it back, Berkson."
"If they had heard this," Batra began, "they would've wiped us out a long time ago. And I wouldn't have blamed them."
"Hmmm. I'll see if i can skip a sector---" Berkson stopped himself, or rather was drowned out what had to be the oddest thing Caleb had ever heard.
The Israelis broke into laughter as a singer seemingly shouted over noise that was supposed to be music but sounded more like a racing combustion engine.
"What the hell is that?" Cross asked.
Caleb glanced at Counter, who moved subtly to the racket. "I know this," Counter confessed. "I heard this in my 20th century history class. This was called Heavy Metal Rocke. I think this group was called.....38 Special. They went this-a-way." He spread his legs and fanned an air guitar, bouncing them to and fro, then dropped to his knees and leaned back as far as he could, his face contorted in agony or pleasure.
Caleb chuckled.
'But Counter, this ain't .38 Special," Spitzer said. "It's Anthrax. Listen. You'll hear the title of this way. They called it 'The Deathrider.'"
But Counter wasn't listening; he was too wrapped up in singing along.
BOOM! BOOM!
The thunderous sounds had come from behind him.....
BOOM! BOOM!
---and then overhead.
"Look!" Spitzer shouted, pointing to the near horizon.
A fiery streak arced 80 degrees across the sky and vanished behind a volcano's summit. The sky above the volcano strobed with flashes of light so intense that, for a second, Caleb could see the lava lines of the elevation before he had to shield his eyes.
Counter gasped. "Whoa!"
"One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand..."
An explosion echoed Laura's words, followed by a quake that knocked Berkson onto his ass and made Caleb and the rest of the Israelis fight for their balance.
"On Mars," Laura said, even before the tremor stopped. "About fifteen or twenty klicks out."
"A bolide, maybe?" Spitzer guessed.
"A ship?" Batra asked.
Laura considered the horizon. "20 kilometers there, 20 back. That cuts into our oxygen ration in a big way."
"I'll lower my oxygen flow during sleep," Counter said, his tone just shy of begging.
"Me too," Cross added.
Caleb studied the others. Berkson looked doubtful, but he didn't voice an objection. Everyone else appeared as charged as Counter.
Laura looked to him for a decision. He nodded, and she addressed the group. "We all go. Check supplies at regular intervals and report."
Caleb removed his rifle from his shoulder and pointed its business end at the volcano. "I got point. Abebaw, you're pulling rear guard."
The big Ethiopian brandished his weapon. "Ready, willing, and loaded."
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