Pale Mars Read online

  Copyright © 2016 by Garnett Elliott

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.

  The story herein is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover images Adobe Stock; Design by dMix.

  www.beattoapulp.com

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Also by Garnett Elliott

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  Praise for Garnett Elliott and the first adventure of the Krasnyy Sokol crew in RED VENUS …

  "Garnett Elliott takes the Cold War into space in this rip-roaring planetary adventure tale that wouldn't be out of place in the browning pages of an old issue of Imagination or Imaginative Tales, two of my favorites from the '50s. Check it out!"

  —Bill Crider

  Anthony Award-winning author

  "Garnett Elliott's RED VENUS is an exciting science fiction thriller that is at once pulpy yet high tech, crackles with sharp characterizations, a full-tilt pace, plenty of twisty surprises, and action galore … Oh, and did I mention the hostile planet teeming with fierce, grotesque creatures who fly and crawl and ooze out of the muck to relentlessly stalk and strike at practically every turn? Buckle up tight and get ready for a maximum-G thrust into outer space adventure!"

  —Wayne D. Dundee

  Author of Fugitive Trail, By Blood Bound and the Joe Hannibal series

  "RED VENUS is a solid, old school pulp sci-fi story, equal parts adventure and intrigue. But it's also an insightful 'what if' narrative … a terrifically fast-paced alternate history with great characters and pacing. I loved it, and I'm pretty damn hard to please when it comes to sci-fi."

  —Heath Lowrance

  Author of Hawthorne: Tales of a Weirder West

  PROLOGUE

  At the close of World War II, Russian and American forces scrambled to secure the remains of the German V-2 rocket program. A secret hangar at Peenemunde yielded an undreamed of breakthrough; a prototype V-5 fission powered rocket. Both sides seized schematics of the V-5 and other technological wonders contained in the hangar, but the USSR made away with the actual engine. The Space Race had begun.

  Efficient, high-powered rocketry soon opened up the solar system for exploration. Venus and Mars were found to be habitable, after a fashion, and mining colonies from both superpowers probed the rocky depths of Mercury for uranium ore. As the Cold War bled into the cold void of space, conflicts erupted. But the two great nations somehow managed to avoid mutual destruction, even as their pawns played cat and mouse among the stars. In time, a new force emerged to threaten both ideologies …

  CHAPTER ONE

  Black smoke hung in tendrils throughout Shaft 03, bearing the stench of burnt flesh and hot metal. Nadezhda Gura, young kapitan of the Krasnyy Sokol, ran as if all the ghosts of Hades dogged her heels. Rock ice walls slid by in a blur. Each bounding step launched her high into the air for a dreamlike moment, before her feet returned to solid ground. Ceres had less than one-third of Earth's gravity. She'd found it an annoyance on first arriving here, but a great advantage when running for her life.

  She passed a side tunnel, and the hulk of a half-melted mining robot. A short distance away sprawled one of Lieutenant Bohdan's streltsy. The space marine's crimson uniform had a fist-sized hole through the chest, where a drill bit had bored through. No need for her to slow and verify death.

  "Imperialist!" shouted a voice behind her. "Oppressor!"

  She risked a backwards glance. At least a dozen pitchblende miners had closed within five meters, rags wrapped around their goiter-swollen necks. Filthy hands clutched picks and sharpened tamping rods, while others held fusion torches. Makeshift weapons, but they'd proven effective in the colony's cramped environs. And the miners knew all the twisting tunnels by heart.

  "Boyar lackey! When we get ahold of you …"

  She could've drawn her Topchev sidearm and roasted half of them, before being overrun. A portion of her conscience—a small portion, growing smaller by the moment—actually felt sorry for the miners. The working conditions here rendered the colony little more than a gulag in space.

  So she ran on.

  Smoke-haze grew thicker ahead. Something metal clanged off the wall half a meter to her left; a thrown tamping rod. She dodged right and thumbed the mike at her throat without slowing.

  "Alyona, contingency plan, stat. Prep the Sokol. Repeat, prep the Sokol."

  The tunnel forked. She took an abrupt turn onto a catwalk. Ore-processing machinery hummed below, liberating usable oxygen from tons of rock ice. The smoke wasn't so thick here. She could see down the connecting tunnel to Shaft 02, partially obscured by one of the Sokol's landing struts. Sight of her ship brought desperate hope.

  Static burst from the mike's receiver. Alyona's voice, responding. Ahead came the thunder of the Sokol's mass-reaction engines, churning to life.

  Ten meters away.

  Five meters.

  Feet scraped against the catwalk. The miners must be seconds behind. As the tunnel mouth grew wider the whole ship came into view; a streamlined teardrop of ceramic steel, flanked by delta wings. The airlock hatch above the ladder was opening. A balding head stuck out. Yegor Bortnik, the Sokol's navigator. He paled when he saw what she'd brought with her.

  "Down," he shouted, just as she cleared the tunnel. Her body reacted on its own accord. The fused rock floor came up and clipped her chin.

  A loud whine issued from the Sokol. Atop a wing, the ship's starboard turret glowed with ruby light.

  Nadezhda shut her eyes, sparing herself almost certain blindness. Volcanic heat passed above. Even at its lowest setting, the Sokol's fission-ray would've cooked her had it come any closer. She waited the space of two heartbeats and looked behind.

  A cloud of expanding gas marked the space where her pursuers had been. Anger and relief welled as she scrambled for the ladder.

  Yegor helped her into the airlock. "Is Alyona on the bridge?" she said, out of breath.

  "Of course."

  "Then get yourself strapped in."

  "Wait a minute. Where are the streltsy? Lieutenant Bohdan?"

  "Dead."

  His owl-wide eyes blinked behind thick lenses. They'd hauled the Lieutenant and his squad of six marines all the way from Luna Control. Months spent cramped together in the Sokol's steel belly. "How …?"

  "The miners used their robots as suicide troops, and set traps with explosive charges. I'll give you a full debriefing later, but right now we're getting out of here."

  She shoved him aside. Hurried through the hold and up another ladder, where she almost bumped into Gennady Nureyev, hunched over a fire control panel. The black-haired Tatar looked up from his screen, grinning. "How's that for precision shooting, Tsarina?"

  Insolent as ever. She ignored him, brushing past to crawl through a padded tube into the control module. Her co-pilot Alyona already had the board lit. Green and red gauges flickered like Christmas morning. Nadezhda slid beneath the webwork of straps covering her flight couch. Launch procedure required donning a vacc suit, but this was no time for protocol.

  Alyona raised an ash-blonde eyebrow. "I take it labor negotiations failed?"

  "And then some. How's
the reactor?"

  "Eighty percent."

  "Good enough." Nadezhda craned her head to look out the starboard portal. A small horde of rag-wearing miners came boiling out the tunnel she'd just vacated. The lead-most dragged an explosive charge by the straps, big enough to ground the Sokol permanently. "Hit the retros."

  "Aye, kapitan."

  Rocket wash buffeted out, scattering miners like dead leaves. The Sokol rose on gouts of flame. Pressure descended, but it wasn't the chest-caving kind. Ceres didn't have much of an escape velocity.

  "Kapitan, what about the gate?"

  The Sokol's front portals, now angling up, displayed a closed iris shutter dead ahead. Nadezhda snapped open the ship's com. "Nureyev, are you still at fire control?"

  "Aye, kapitan."

  "I want both batteries on that gate. Now."

  Twin violet beams stabbed out from the Sokol's wings, converging on the shutter. The metal vanished in a curtain of molten slag. A short distance above, the curved teeth of a second shutter were already closing. Beams flashed again, and now there was only a circle of spinning starlight. Nadezhda opened the throttles for full burn.

  Clear. The slate-gray surface of Ceres fell away.

  She started to rub her eyes, but stopped. Whenever she closed them she saw a fusion torch cutting Bohdan's torso in two.

  "Charge the radio," she told Alyona. "I'll have to break the news to the premier himself."

  The spirit of Bolshevik revolution had come to Ceres.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Escaping the whirling chaos of the asteroid belt left Nadezhda white-knuckled and exhausted, and the Sokol dangerously low on maneuvering jets. But there would be plenty of time to rest later, after the morale issue of Bohdan's loss had been dealt with. A hum of servos sent the ship's fuselage spinning, generating the illusion of gravity. Nadezhda unbuckled her flight straps. She opened the ship's com and gave an order: effective immediately, the marines' bunks in the cargo hold were to be dismantled and jettisoned. Better to remove all traces as soon as possible. She assigned the bulk of the work to Gennady, ship's engineer.

  "What's going to happen to Ceres now?" Alyona said.

  "Command will route in the Zhukov from the outer planets. Once her marines have blasted everything alive they'll send for more political prisoners to replace the miners."

  Alyona shook her head. "Just like on Mercury."

  "Mining fissionables is a grim business." Nadezhda added: "I'll put in a recommendation for Bohdan and his men to receive Red Stars. It'll make it easier for their families."

  She should be feeling more grief, she knew. Lieutenant Bohdan was a fellow Ukrainian, and had tried to court her in his unassuming way during the Sokol's five-month voyage. But the truth was, she'd been through worse on Venus. Much worse. Losing her ship's original crew to that humid hell-planet had stripped what remained of her empathy. Now an old woman's spirit possessed her twenty-nine-year-old body.

  She delivered a eulogy in the ship's hold after it had been emptied, quoting Alexander Nevsky while the crew listened with bowed heads. Once or twice during the service she could've sworn she saw the ghost of her old lover, Lev, peering out from behind a stanchion.

  * * *

  The Sokol's mission as a troopship was over. Yegor plotted a fuel-efficient return to Luna Control. Acting as ship's surgeon, he used a hypogun to administer doses of ursine hibernatus. The drug extended the sleep cycle while slowing down metabolic rates, making for a less monotonous voyage. Nadezhda felt relief when her turn came. Of course, sleep meant dreams …

  Curled up in her crèche, she saw familiar clouds parting over a vast black ocean. Monstrous silhouettes lurked behind fog, stalking her as she waded through waist-deep muck that rippled and gurgled with hidden movement. A splash, and a demonic amphibian's head broke the water's surface to her left. Yellow fungus covered the thing's eyes, coated the fleshy interior of its mouth, opening to let out a hiss …

  She woke abruptly. Yegor straightened above her, hypogun in hand. He'd just finished injecting her forearm.

  "What was that for?" she said.

  "Amphetamine. To counteract the hibernatus. We've had a development."

  She slid out of the crèche, her heart thudding. "Meteors? Something wrong with the engines?"

  He held up a spool of magnetic wire. "This just came through on the security channel. I was only authorized to hear the first part."

  "Assemble everyone in the hab."

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, she had the samovar boiling and her crew hunched around the dining table. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. Four played over the com, drowning out the slow throb of the ship's thorium reactor. "What's this all about, kapitan?" Alyona asked. Her eyes were still puffy from her hibernatus shift, finished when Nadezhda's had started.

  "Yegor knows more than I do at this point."

  The navigator leaned back in his chair, frowning. "You need to hear it to believe it."

  Nadezhda's fingers shook as she threaded the message spool into a player. Damn stimulants. She hit a switch and a string of coded gibberish vibrated out over the speakers. Moments later a nuanced male voice spoke.

  "Greetings, crew of the Krasnyy Sokol, and my personal greetings to you, Kapitan Gura."

  Gennady sucked in a breath. "That's Admiral Onegin."

  "Quiet," Nadezhda said, dialing up the volume.

  "I have, of course, received the sad news about your mission to Ceres. Command does not view the failure there as a reflection of your abilities."

  His emphasis on failure seemed to imply exactly the opposite.

  "Given that time lag renders normal conversation difficult, I have taken the liberty of anticipating your questions during this recording." There was a pause as the speakers made tea-sipping noises. "In brief: the Sokol is to change its present course and head for Mars at all speed."

  Looks exchanged around the table.

  "I can imagine your reactions. However, at roughly eight million kilometers your ship is now the closest spacecraft to Mars. There has been an accident at the American colony of Chrysetown. Details are few, perhaps as a result of nationalistic pride, but our understanding is the colonists' lives are in danger. Therefore, you are being tasked to assist in any manner possible."

  More tea-sips. "I would remind you that Chrysetown is the only colony on Mars, and a rather limited one at that. The American warship Fist of Freedom has already left the orbit of Callisto to effect a rescue, but is over three weeks away. Comrades, we are living in delicate times. Any display of goodwill could go a long way towards restoring diplomatic relations with the U.S. Accordingly, this mission has been assigned the highest priority."

  Onegin's voice paused for a long moment. "The rest of this message is highly sensitive. Kapitan Gura, your ears only."

  She switched off the spool.

  Gennady had been listening with unusual concentration, his head bowed forward, fingers tented beneath his chin. "You realize," he said, "this is all some kind of smokescreen."

  Alyona sputtered agreement. "A diplomatic mission? Since when has Command cared about diplomacy?"

  "I doubt," Yegor added, "the Sokol could serve as much of a rescue ship, if we did have to evacuate the survivors. We've got additional food stores because of the marines, but an entire colony …"

  "You heard the Admiral," Nadezhda said. "'Highest priority.' That means a firing squad if we disobey."

  "We should at least hear the whole story." Gennady looked at the others for support. "If we're being asked to risk our lives, we deserve to know why."

  Nadezhda let her irritation show. Always pushing, that one. The engineer seemed to think his affable good looks could bypass rank. "I will inform you exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it. Nothing more. Do I make myself clear?"

  Gennady turned to Yegor. "Are you going to just take this? You know I'm right. She can't tell us to—"

  "Mr. Nureyev." Nadezhda scraped her chair back. "If you're not ou
t of this room in five seconds I'm sending a message to the Admiral I've got an insubordinate officer delaying the mission. Five …"

  "I'm going, I'm going." Gennady's full lips pouted.

  "Four …"

  "Tsarinas and their delusions of power." He scuttled out of the hab.

  "Any objections from you two?" Her navigator and co-pilot kept their eyes downcast. "No? Good. Now let me listen to the rest of this in peace."

  She waited until they had followed Gennady up the ladder to command deck before resuming the message. And because she trusted other officers like she trusted Siberian wolves, she dialed the volume to its lowest setting.

  "Now then, Nadia," came the Admiral's voice, quiet as a whisper. "It's time to be frank …"

  CHAPTER THREE

  At twenty-five thousand kilometers out the Red Planet glared through the Sokol's viewing portals, a vast swath of crimson capped at the poles by silver-white ice. Nadezhda had accelerated the ship to two G's for as long as the crew could bear it, despite protests from Yegor about wasting fuel. She alone knew the reason for their hurry. Now, with Mars coming up fast, she could only hope the ship's just-as-frantic deceleration would be enough. "We should be matching orbital speed in ten minutes," Alyona said.

  "Keep an eye on that radar."

  A thin smile crept up one side of her co-pilot's face. "Worried about the Americans, huh? Is that what this is all about? Beating them to the rescue?"

  "Alyona, nationalistic concerns are my worry, not yours."

  "So this is about the Americans."

  She kept the sigh to herself.

  Half an hour later they had the ship in high orbit. Nadezhda took hold of her long, red-gold braids and began coiling them in preparation for a vacc suit. Alyona helped pin the coils in place. Her own pale hair was kept at the regulation length of two inches; another distinction of rank.