Martian Republic: The Fateful Secret

Chapter 4: Capture

Location: Bosporus Planum, Martian Republic

Timestamp: 5pm, +2 Standard Martian Time

Kelly peeked through the windows of Manufacturing Room 3, where high-efficiency 3D printers produced a plethora of plastic products from cups to exterior parts of SlatePCs. Although they still relied considerably on terrestrial exports for products, especially in the high-tech sector, new manufacturing techniques and advancements in ethylene usage had allowed them to be self-sufficient when it came to less advanced goods.

Kelly had always been obsessed with machines and often snuck into machine rooms in the settlement when she was a child. Glancing at her watch, she continued walking towards Cafeteria 4, keeping a brisk pace. She arrived to find Amy already there, seated at a small table in the corner and sipping a glass of water.

"So, any new developments regarding the sabotage stuff?" asked Kelly as she sat down.

"Not much. I managed to get rid of the malware that was planted and there's good progress being made on the repairs to the water supply system. I told the technition – Mitch that there was a bug in the software."

Amy lowered her voice.

"It's important that this whole thing is kept secret. We seriously can't afford widespread panic in the settlement. As you know, the community here is relatively tight-knit, making it really easy for news to spread. There's something crucial that you have to do tomorrow."

"So what is it?" asked Kelly, curious to know where she came in.

"You're going on an exploration trip with two of your friends tomorrow, right?" asked Amy.

"Yep."

"Alright, that's good. Having friends alleviates suspicion."

Amy pulled two sandwiches wrapped in paper out of a brown paper bag and passed one of them to Kelly. She could already guess what was inside, either tilapia or goat with most probably lettuce. Although hydroponic farming systems seemed to be able to produce enough food, technical difficulties limited the variety of food that could be grown. Aquaculture limitations made it only possible to rear certain species of fish and goats. Sure, meat could be lab grown but in the long run, its costs still rivaled more traditional methods of obtaining protein.

Amy passed her SlatePC to Kelly. It showed a map of the area around the settlement.

"Look at the red circle. That's where the secret auxiliary communication equipment is. Because all of our crucial systems are still connected via physical fibre-optic cables, the only way someone could hack in would be through splicing in. You will be tasked with placing some sensors around the place. This way, we'll be alerted whenever anyone steps into that area."

"Alright, that's a good idea," said Kelly as she finished off her food. "I've got to go back now. I've got a ton of homework to finish."

"Same here. There's a ton of stuff to do to clean up the damage caused by the sabotages," said Amy.

Suddenly, her wrist-mounted comm beeped frantically.

"An incoming call from Zerve," she said, glancing at it. "Sorry, I really have to get to Control Room 2 now."

She hurriedly shoved her SlatePC into her bag and jogged towards the tunnel that led to Dome 3.

Kelly sighed, thinking about the troubles that lay ahead. She felt that Amy, the closest thing she had to family, was being overworked to death trying to fix all these issues and the worst thing was that apart from planting the surveillance equipment, there was nothing else that she could do. She felt a feeling of helplessness, something a Martian rarely felt. On Mars everyone had everyone's backs but when faced with an external threat like this ...

She got up and walked back towards her living quarters. She pushed her door open and was promptly greeted by her virtual assistant, Alicka.

"Good to see you again, Kelly. How was the meeting?"

"Not great. It's disturbing when there are just issues that you can't fight," she grumbled.

"Well, sometimes that's where other people come in. Maybe with them you can form a force large enough to counter that problem," said Alicka.

"Yeah, but still ..." said Kelly her voice trailing off as she pulled out her half-completed book review. She sometimes had to remind herself that Alicka wasn't an actual human. "Just explain to me in detail what a Sabatier reaction is."

As soon as her homework was finished, Kelly walked over to the fridge and pulled out a plastic box. She pulled out a thin piece of meat about 6cm long and 4cm wide and a few pieces of lettuce. The meat was placed in a squat cylindrical Food-Heater which heated food to 100 degrees centigrade via electromagnetic radiation.

The meat was cooked in just four minutes. A hiss of cool air was heard as nozzles pushed air cooled by the Martian climate onto the food. She pulled out two hardened pieces of bread and munched on them. Out the window she could see a NIMF taking off. Its engine nacelles slowly angled to a horizontal axis as it rose in the air, zooming off northward, most likely towards the Martian Republic's capital, Terra Sabaea Settlement. Most of the new settlements after the formation of the Martian Republic were built around the Martian Equator and unlike the older bases nearer the polar regions, their inhabitants were mainly cosmopolitan.

She remembered the time a few years ago when she was there. She remembered the funnily shaped buildings, built like a blob of viscous fluid and almost entirely out of glass and iron on the outside. It was meant to showcase Martian engineering at its best but to her it just looked weird.

She then brushed her teeth and climbed into bed. She pulled the sheets over herself and began reading from her SlatePC. Paper books were uncommon as there was no way to produce paper indigenously on Mars.

She read the fist line of the page.

It was a dark and stormy night. The silouhetted man stood tall, hiding behind a tree. On the other side of the road, another man was, too, hiding in the shadows. They were both predators, waiting in anticipation for the same prey.

The tense wait was soon over. A black car pulled up on the curb, its headlights blazing. The silouhetted man sprang from his vantage point, holding a gleaming pistol. He fired two successive bursts, one narrowly hitting the other man and the other straight into the windscreen of the car, spiderwebbing the glass.

"Bulletproof glass!" he cried in rage as he fled into the dark forests nearby. There were at least four armed combatants in the car, enough to overwhelm even an assassin as skilled as him.

He sprang down the slope and took cover in a crowd. The combatants could no longer kill him without injuring innocent bystanders.

The SlatePC slipped from her hands onto the bed as she slowly gave in to the magnetic pull of sleep.