Lazarus Rising

1.20 Mars

Mars, planet of mystery, home to the long extinct Martian race. The Red Planet; of which Charisa had spoken in hushed tones late into the sleep cycles on their trip. The marvels of its canals, reaching out across the desert sands as far as the eye could see; the ruined temples, once beautifully profound edifies, now transformed into outlandish wind sculpted shapes through which the hot desert winds ran, playing hauntingly beautiful tunes to themselves. Mars, with its ancient citadels, hanging from sheer cliffs of dizzying height, turned into fusions of oxidised metals and polished, rainbow dyed stone by the passage of time.

Cheyanne longed to see the images Charisa had carved in her mind with her evocative tales of the planet. The Steps of Nigh, the Rings at Achien, the Shuddering Sea and the eerie landscape of the carved Dreaming Warriors. And more than anything she wanted, just once, to encounter the archaic creatures, reborn from ages gone by, that had been bought back to life by the Terraformas sent from Earth.

Belted tightly in her seat next to Charisa and Lazarus, she held her breath as the Mnemosyne battered her way through the planet's outer rings. With a whirl of red cloud they broke free of the stratosphere and the room churned in a grainy orange light tumbling through the triangular windows above them.

"Drop the shutters," Called Shelvocke over the noise. "Let's have our trajectory marked, please."

As the walls slipped away the cabin was drenched in a sea of blood red rays streaming from the simmering ball of the sun hanging low over the horizon. The sudden brightness made Cheyenne cover her face and look away. Within a few moments she was able to drop her hand and look out. With the shutters down they were sitting in a transparent pyramid on top of the pinnacle of the Zig, revealing the breath-taking panorama of the planet's surface streaming by below them. Reflected up on one of the slanting screens a line of green lights marked the path of The Mnemosyne over the plains to the soaring mountains ahead.

As their altitude fell, the open desert they were crossing swept by in a blur of algaic greens and flashes of thread thin irrigation channels. Suddenly the Mnemosyne was cast into the shadow of a deep valley, vertical walls soaring far above the colossal ship. Acres of exposed cracked earth and shattered cliffs displayed an astounding plethora of reddish tints that glistened like precious stones in the early morning sun. Walls of oranges, ochre's, vermilions and cinnabar reds raced past in a kaleidoscope of tumbling colours.

Ahead Cheyenne picked out a line of dusky towers, soaring ominously above them as they approached. They quickly turning into derelict, crumbling ruins as they closed and flew past. Like tall, twisted sea shells, they were of an inexplicable design and bizarrely unfathomable origins. She felt Charisa touch her hand to attract her attention. "One of the Martian Temples, incredible isn't it? We are in the Kasel Vallis in the Oxia Palus. The Captain is taking us South East toward our destination."

They broke free of the valley shadows, back into the searing light. Cheyenne blinked and turned away. When she looked again, far off, sitting in a broken depression was a bubble of twisting light, sited at the intersection of two aqua tinted canals. The semi spherical surface shifted in a cauldron of swirling tints, its colours morphing into one another, like a gigantic chameleon resting in the open sand. "That's the Bio at Chryse Planitia, the next nearest one's at Pettit," Shelvocke shouted over his shoulder. "It was settled about fifty years ago. They have to filter the light to protect their crops, so what you see is the reflection of the sun's rays off the domes protective platelets that are formed by its energy shield. They'll be our neighbours."

Ahead of them a series of Tornados arose from the desert like of troupe of whirling dervishes and danced hypnotically across the desert floor. Fluid twisters, kilometres high, of mottled rose and purple, like the titanic turning columns of an unseen castle grew to a fantastical width and height as they approached. Cheyenne could feel the Mnemosyne being urged toward them, sucked in by the huge eddies that whipped around them. In an instant they were engulfed by a series of storms. The ship rose and dropped, the hull resounding with the tumultuous noise of a billion sand grains whipping along the outer surface. Outside they could make out dark lines of dull ruby lightening flashing across the hull. As quickly as the storms had arrived they passed in their wake, to relinquish them again to the soothing rumble of Mnemosyne's engines.