Nightmare on Mars E-Book

Kai Kean

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 65

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Deep in the mines of Mars there can be found caves that contain unknown entities that are dangerous and mysterious changing the very rock of the dead red planets around us.

Leseprobe

Nightmare on Mars

Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Copyright

Chapter 1

Mars is a dusty, miserable desert. I will never understand why anyone wanted to colonize it. I've been here for almost four years. Fortunately, my contract will soon be completed and I will be allowed to return to Earth.

I look down at the horrific red sphere here from Bios 3. It's been a while since I was last down there. We, who are part of operations on Mars, work in shifts. As you know, Bios 3 is the largest settlement outside of Earth, followed by the Ganymede refineries. At present, Bios 3 is home to many thousands of individuals. A transport ship from Jupiter is currently docked before taking the final voyage back to Earth. I miss the blue sky and the rain on my skin...

As I sit here, I wonder why anyone wanted to inhabit Mars permanently. It is by no means an appealing place to be. The reader might ask why I am here...

The answer is quite simple. I went to Mars for money. On my four-year contract, I'm going to earn more than I could in thirty years on Earth. It's something that draws, but I also have to say that it wouldn't do with less. Space is a disgusting and unappealing place.

I'm just glad I'm not working on the harvest vessels at Jupiter or as a miner on the astroids. The Astroid Miners have their base here at Bios 3 with us Martians, as they call us. They are worn out, it is nerve-wracking for them to navigate to and land on the astroids.

Mars is more calm, but although Mars may be considered the most acceptable planet, it has its unpleasant sides. I don't quite know what happened to us down in the mines on Mars, but I'm writing this story based on that. I won't pretend to have any insight into what we found and what happened, but it was scary and I feel it deserves to be told. Otherwise, it will simply be filed as another unfortunate incident in the corporate archives.

My name is Silas Schmidt and this is my story.

It happened about a year ago now. We had come down with one of the two space elevators and were on our way to the mines. We drove in a standard mars rover. I am glad they are closed, the thought of having to drive with the dust flying directly around us with low visibility is unpleasant. The storms can be terrible on Mars. Endless dust storms that fill large areas where it becomes almost impossible to move.

How long has man dreamed of colonizing this dusty rock in the dark? How many resources and lives have been lost? It's sad! Colonization has not been met with much success. My personal assessment of Mars is that it is a terrible place. I'm here for the money, nothing else. Those who once came here with a vision of creating a community must have been idiots!

It is a terrible place where endless resources have been wasted in failed terraforming experiments.

The surface is scarred by the astroids that had their orbits changed to hit Mars. It was part of the attempt to increase the mass of the planet and perhaps restart its thermal processes.

Huge amounts of Venus' atmosphere have been transported to Mars to increase the atmosphere's thickness. Then the dust storms could get even worse! The cosmic radiation makes the surface of Mars sterile. I've never bothered to be out in the dust with the radiation from above. It's much safer here at Bios 3 protected by its magnetic field.

It was a long drive from the space elevator to the mine where my story takes place. The tracks we drive in are constantly covered with dust. Fortunately, we have an effective satellite network around Mars that always tells us where we are. If the equipment works!

Our team drove in two vehicles. I was driving with my eleven colleagues and of course the driver and the commander of the vehicle, who only drove us out there. They are spared having to work in the mines. We made up team 2. Team 1 drove in the second mars rover.

You have to give the designers credit. There are windows in the rover so we can look out. Just sad that the only thing we had to look at was the dusty surface of Mars. It is hard to believe that some of the extremophilic bacteria that have been brought here actually thrive on the planet. Life is steadfast, I have to say. After so much effort, we managed to colonize Mars for the microbes! It is a bit tragic, when you consider that there are no longer colonists to be found. Of course, there are some who work in space for the sake of the adventure. It is usually they who break down first when they find out how empty, lonely and monotonous it actually is.

We drove through the dust overlooking the ruins of the colonization attempts. They now stand as monuments over the hubris of humanity. There is something eerie about these empty settlements that testify to broken dreams and hopes.

Anton Zingler pointed out some ruins that lay a little south of our westbound route.

“I've read that the ruins over there are the Shambala settlement. It is the one where the entire population was killed when they opened the pressure locks. The bodies have never been removed, but are said to still be there as mummies.” He said.

Maria Teresa Herzl, who drove our mining vessel, shook her head and looked at Anton.

“Anton, it's not exactly the most motivating thing to tell us about ghost towns full of corpses. Mars is uncomfortable enough without hearing about that.” She said reproachfully.

One of the new members, named Simon, had listened to Anton's story.

"But why did they open the air locks?" He asked a little too curiously. He should have known better than to fill his head with all sorts of unpleasantness.

Anton, of course, smiled widely that there was someone who gave him the chance to tell the colonial history of Mars. Anton had written books on the experiments of terraforming and colonization on Mars.

"What they found out from the backups of the colony's central system when help arrived was that they had found something and that afterwards something had happened to their biosphere, so they began to lack oxygen. Panic erupted and someone opened the locks so they were all suffocated by the glorious air of Mars. Some of their vehicles were also found, where the crew was also dead. Some of their vehicles were never found ...” Anton said.

"Well, what had they found?" Simon asked.

Anton shook his head.

"Nobody knows. Nothing special was found in Shambala. They chose to close the colony and except for the backups of the central system, everything was left behind. No one knows exactly what happened... The backups of the system tell only about the system's functions and the colonial records. However, based on them, it can be concluded that the systems were sabotaged, but who and why is unknown."

"It's just how it goes on Mars." I said laconically.

"It's not funny!" Maria Teresa told me.

I looked at her and shook my head. Of course, it wasn't fun. By the time colonization reached its zenith, Mars had had over a million settlers. Now the planet was dead again and many of those who had hoped to create a new world were now just left in the dust. It wasn't comical. It was a tragedy!

“I know Maria, but it wasn't meant to be fun... This planet is doing something to us. It is as if it has a hatred for life. Every time I come down here to the surface, I feel unwelcome. Almost as if the ruins around us are Mars' trophies over its dislike of us.” I said calmly.

Simon looked at me in surprise. He had recently arrived and seemed a little too enthusiastic about Mars.

“Now you're exaggerating. It doesn't seem to be that bad!” He said.