By David C. Daoust
Danielle Donaghy popped off the transport with a hop in her step- happy to be back home at long last. The suitcase dragged along behind her, as her rustic boots clumped against the hard steel floor. Chillier than she’d imagined, she pulled her rough brown jacket tightly around her as she scanned the crowd for her ride out of the spaceport.
Both the rustic boots and rough brown jacket were a contrast to the light dress that covered her torso, stopping just above the knee. While the boots and jacket were fairly common on Mars, the dress didn’t really fit the culture. It was comfy and she liked it, but it was much trendier on earth. Her flowing green hair, however, marked her as a Martian. Many of the young, that supported peace on Mars, started dying their hair green to show solidarity, solidarity against the war on mars and pro- a United Mars. Deeming themselves ‘Martians’ rather than the splintered culture that gave them Venusborn and Earthborn.
Danielle had just spent the last three years on earth, attending University. Unlike most attendees, who returned home during the summer months, for Danielle this was her first trip back since.
In all honesty, she was lucky to make it through the blockades back when she first left. If she’d known how bad it would get, she probably would have never left. First trip home in three years, all because of the War. It had only now become stable enough for the Earthborn transports to risk the trip back. She still had another year of University to go. Now, she was free to return home. Free to visit her brother– who was clearly not here to greet her.
She grimaced a bit as she decided to check closer to the exit.
People milled about the spaceport, heading out or heading in. They were all hauling luggage, or standing off to the side, waiting to board their transport. Most prominently of her surroundings, were the long Earthborn standards that draped every available wall.
The trip back and forth to earth was not as bad as what it once was, not with today’s propulsion systems. It was still a pretty long trip in cramped quarters, especially this time of year. Felt good to finally be able to move about, walking somewhere farther than the nearest washroom.
Danielle made it briskly to the north entrance, long curving stairs wrapped either side, while four escalators where constructed between them, leading down into a great antechamber that featured the exit. Mostly people were packed on the escalators, very few had sparse enough luggage to want to use the stair. She headed to the far-right stairway and paused a moment to see if she could spot him from afar.
Suddenly, a pair of rough calloused hands covered her eyes from behind. Momentarily startled, she smiled. She had a pretty good idea of who it was. She grabbed at the hands and spun on her heel; her skirt twirled around her legs as her long green hair arched behind her. Beaming she was not surprised to find her brother smiling back.
“Danielle!” he greeted in an over the top bubbly manner that was meant to make her laugh.
She did, and the joy in his eyes, at her return, was answered with her own.
Her brother was a large man, with broad shoulders, a disheveled head of auburn hair, that looked like, at one point, was cut short. Clearly long overdue for a haircut and especially a shave. His mustache curved around to his chin, and the stubble around his jawline was starting to lose the right to be called ‘stubble’. He seemed older somehow, harder around the edges.
“Hi, Harry,” she said as the two embraced warmly.
“Welcome home!” the disheveled, oversized man said as he grabbed her bag.
He smelled like an odd combination of sweat and steel. It was normal, though Danielle had not missed it on earth, where everyone was cleaned practically to the point of sterilization and/or perfumed. His clothing was all rough brown, rustic, like an old-world cowboy. One of those things that marked the Earthborn.
Harry was Earthborn through and through, much to Danielle’s chagrin. Danielle was raised Earthborn, of course, but the War, and her own fight for a United Mars, put a bit of a taint on the old classification. She considered herself a Martian. She spent most of her time at university protesting the war. Many of those that joined her, at one time, were considered Venusborn. ‘Martians’ were pooled from both sides, their voice however, rarely made it past a whisper on Mars. Now she was free to bring her fight home, to convince those around her, the truth of all her ideals.
Harry tended to live for his Galliant. Like every other Earthborn on Mars, he cared only for his freedom.
Galliants were the humanoid machines used to traverse the wastes, massive robots piloted from within great cockpits within its head. The first Galliants were used in the Arctics, ferrying goods from one buried domed city to the next.
Their Galliant was old, one of the oldest still in operation. Harry proclaimed this a good thing, ‘they simply did not make them the way they used to’. It was, in fact, passed down from their great grandfather, like some ancient armor passed through the lineage. They’d had it hauled up from their arctic habitat when their family made the leap from earth. Owning a Galliant, was really what got them up there to begin with. They were one of the first to be offered a position on Mars; the first to be contracted. All thanks to the machine itself, as it could be used to speed up early construction.
Danielle was being led in the opposite direction of the exit. A bit confused she followed along, chatting about old times, she could only puzzle where she was being taken. They’d entered what Danielle could only call a hangar. They were crossing along a narrow walkway suspended several stories off the ground, when Danielle caught sight of the massive metal heads poking up in the distance.
“Galliants have hangars now?” Danielle asked as she realized where she was.
“Of course,” Harry said, then explained, “Can’t just leave them out- they’re targets nowadays. An unmanned Galliant is a big ol’bullseye to the Skrags.”
“Skrags?” Danielle didn’t like the sound of it. Sounded to her ear- like an insult. A derogatory term for the Venusborn, maybe? ‘Could only work against her cause.
“Skrags-,” Harry repeated then defined simply, “the machines the Venusborn send out of their hidey-holes…”
Danielle dropped the misplaced outrage at the derogatory term, but still had no idea what a ‘Skrag’ really was.
They approached the parked machine and Danielle got a better look at it, albeit from above. As happy as Danielle was to see the family machine, she was appalled to find it decked out in armaments. Missiles loaded to its back, with massive machine guns attached to the old Galliant’s arms, along with extra plating, heavy plating, where once there was no need.
“Well, what’d you do to him?” Danielle blurted out, clearly horrified.
Harry followed her gaze down to the armaments and nodded, his brow creased and his mouth twisted in thought.
“We’re in a war, Danny,” Harry stated before he punched the lock. A door popped free and slid up, leading directly into the side of the massive machines head. Once a small bridge lowered between the walkway and the door, Harry waved her forward and said, “Come on. We need to reach Luxxon before nightfall. We’re a lot closer to the Front than I’d like.”
Danielle didn’t like the sound of that. She just nodded and crossed to the other side. It felt good to be back in the old Galliant. She’d accompanied her brother many times before she left for school, and her father before that, when she was still in pig-tales.
The Galliant was unique in that it held a small AI program. ‘Fergus’, that was his name; the name of the AI, and by relation, the whole machine, she guessed. Most Galliants were just vehicles, her great grandfather, however, had acquired this AI system. It was pretty old actually, an antique even when her great grandfather was young.
“Hey Fergus, did you miss me?” Danny said aloud as she brushed her hand against a wall in passing.
It didn’t answer. Danny wasn’t surprised, it tended to only answer to the commander.
“Come’on Fergus, you remember Danielle,” Harry prompted.
“Of course, I would never forget,” the voice was hollow, somehow electric, and didn’t seem to flow right. The phrase itself felt like an unfinished sentence, like it suddenly muted at the end, but it was about what Danielle expected.
Fergus was actually the inspiration for her studies. One of these days Danielle was going to fix that old AI.
“He’s not much for conversation,” Harry explained as he pushed past her, through the hall that led to the cockpit.
Harry casually dropped her bag in the corner as he hopped in the pilot’s seat. With several quick flips of switches, one above his head, two off to the right, the machine suddenly roared to life.
Danielle could feel the vibration through the souls of her boots. She quickly took her seat next to him as Fergus took its first step forward. With a quick confirmation through the coms, they were clear to exit. It sounded like Harry knew the guy in the comm-tower, told him to ‘watch-out, out there’ as the giant robot strode out of enclosure.
Before Danielle knew it, they were flying over the red dunes of Mars, headed north, to Luxxon; One of the first domes erected on Mars and, most importantly, her home.
Despite the talk of ‘War’ and ‘Fronts’, the two siblings fell to chatting, rehashing old jokes… Danielle shared her tales abroad and her brother listened intently, asking for details at times but mostly just listening to his sister gab.
Suddenly, they veered off course, mid-flight, the whole cockpit shook seconds later. The lights within the cockpit suddenly went dark, replaced by a flashing red light.
“What was that?” Danielle asked, startled by the sudden jostling.
“We got hit…” Harry explained, equally as startled, “Just nicked the right leg.” He explained as he ran a full diagnostic. He immediately grabbed for the comm. Announced what just happened over it. There was no answer, nothing but fuzz from the other end. “They’re jamming communications.”
“Hit?” Danielle asked, “By what?”
Harry spun the machine around midair, scanning the horizon.
A missile flew right past the view screen, arching from below.
“That,” Harry guided the head down. A red reticle appeared on the viewscreen in front of them, targeting, what at first appeared to be a sandy lump, until the system got a lock on it and highlighted the whole thing with red glow, “A Skrag.”
Danielle was taken aback by the size of the thing. Six mechanical legs dug deep into the sands; the legs seemed to arch up into the body itself. Heavily plated, it was like crawling tank. Its head was small and triangular, like an arrow head, it too molded back into the body. Protruding from its back was a turret, which suddenly spun down, into the body itself, and disappeared.
The Skrag was suddenly on the move, the six powerful legs pushed it forward through the sands at incredible speeds; it must have detected the lock.
“We’re on our own,” Harry said as he jetted around, readying his weaponry and chasing after the thing, “Just hold tight.”
“What? Harry! Let’s just get out of here,” Danielle reasoned, having no interest in being involved in a battle, “Look, it’s retreating.”
“Can’t– that thing is a killer. If it wasn’t for Fergus detecting it before us, we’d be a scorched pile of ash right now,” Harry explained as he did what he was going to do anyway “Orders are to destroy these things on sight.”
“You’re going to kill someone?” Danielle was appalled.
“I wish. That’s not a someone,” Harry glanced at her, seriously, “It’s a drone… Those cowards never leave their bunkers. They all hide behind their shields.” He paused a moment with a grimace, before saying, “You need to understand: We smash their tech- they just build more. They smash ours- people die. We can’t let that thing get the drop on someone else.” He then muttered to himself, “How the hell it got so far into our territory, is the only real question here.”
Danielle was familiar with the Venusborn technology. They had developed it themselves, to ward against dangers experienced on Venus. It was proprietary technology, owned by the Venusborn ‘state’; they never shared it with the rest of system.
No one else could match it- no one else understood the technology enough to.
It was said these ‘impenetrable shields’, that protected them so well, is what prolonged the war for so long. And what, ultimately, trumped the Galliants.
Danielle understood what he was saying: For every Galliant lost, a man was lost. While the Venusborn were safely piloting their Skrags from within shielded bunkers. She fell silent as her brother gave chase.
The Venusborn Shields were emitted by giant reactors built within their home cities/bunkers; they were unable to apply them to their machines or really anything that could move. Thus, the Skrag itself was only protected by its armor.
Danielle found herself gripping the arms of her chair tightly, heart racing in her chest, as the Galliant swooped past the scurrying Skrag, landed firmly some distance ahead of it. Missiles slid up from its back and launched from each shoulder, as the Galliants’ arms raised to a firing position, ready to unload its machine guns.
The metal monster was far more agile than Danielle would have guessed, it leapt free of the path of the first missile and scurried under the second, partially burrowing itself within the thick red sands.
No sooner had it performed these maneuvers than Harry let loose with his machine guns.
The Skrag, having trapped itself under excess weight with the last maneuver, was much slower to react. The bullets drilled through the hull, sparks flew, and after an unusually load click, the whole thing blew up in a fireball.
A fireball Danielle only witnessed, from behind her hands clamped over her face.
This was the first real experience for Danielle Donaghy, the first real knowledge she’d acquired of the War on Mars, despite all the years she spent protesting. Despite all the years she spent telling others how it should work. She couldn’t believe it all. It would take her even longer to take it in; to process it all.
The remainder of the trip to Luxxon, was in complete silence.
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