The Caves of Ceres (The Age of Aether) by Sawyer Grey

Author:Sawyer Grey [Grey, Sawyer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Horror, Space Horror, Mars, Steampunk
Publisher: Sawyer Grey
Published: 2017-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

PART VI

CERES, DECEMBER 11, 1887

WITH SO MANY TRANSPORTEES on the loose and behaving so irrationally, I didn’t want to leave the camp without one more attempt to bring back our missing people. I sent out six teams to make a quick reconnaissance of the facility and look for anything unusual, and then waited anxiously until they all reported in. None of them saw anything, but the party that went to the level adjoining the ice mines told of foul air coming through the entrance.

“If our runaways have gone inside there, they’ve undoubtedly succumbed to it by now,” Harding said.

That was a possibility. “Was it a smell of death?”

“No, sir. It was cold and stale, and a bit like struck matches.”

I expected Hazeltine to perk up in response to that, but he hardly appeared to be listening.

“Very well. We’ll go down first thing in the morning. Hazeltine, I want you and Harding to check out the ice mines. Take some of the space suits and use them to get into there if you have to, but I want to know what’s causing that smell is and if it’s going to be any danger to us here. I’ll go down with a team of our engineers to get the pumps working again. Red, you’ll be in charge here until we get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sharp crack of rifle fire jerked us all up out of our chairs and sent us rushing through the door.

Harding pointed. “It’s coming from over by the airlock.”

We had to push through a group of transportees who were staring down the corridor to see what was going on. Red got there first, swore, and tore his pistol from its holster. A single shot echoed through the hallway, and then there was only the muttering of the crowd.

“Get out of the way!”

I forced my way to Red’s side and stared at his handiwork with a growing sickness in my heart. A Marine lay dead inside the airlock, his Martini-Henry rifle by his side and spent brass cartridges scattered around the floor. With a shaking hand, Red returned his pistol to its holster.

“He had opened the inner airlock door and tried to open the outer one. When that didn’t work he tried shooting holes in the window.”

If he had succeeded at either, he could have blown all of the air out of the base. Fortunately the airlock had a failsafe to prevent both doors opening at once, and the doors were made from Martian metal which is almost impervious to anything we could do to it. That didn’t mean that someone couldn’t figure out a way to succeed where this man had failed.

“Harding, put a guard on the airlock. I want at least two Marines standing watch here at all times.”

That wasn’t good, for there were only so many Marines to go around. They couldn’t guard everything, and my crewmen weren’t really suited to the task. While they were Navy personnel, they were navigators, pilots, and engineers, not soldiers. I had

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