Free Battleground Mars by Eric Schneider

temporary home on the planet. They all hated it, cursed it, and despised it. They called it a hellhole, a prison cell, pit of hell. But it was home, on all of Mars, it was one place they could relax, at least a little. They could feel safe, warm, in the company of their friends and colleagues and protected at least here by batteries of automated defenses and their own small militia force. Every one of them quickened their pace. They were going home.
    It took them half an hour to get back. They were all waiting for them, Damian Hacker, who was the commander of the Mars Militia had suited up with three of his men and were keeping a watch for them. The troopers greeted them warmly and helped them through the airlock. The rest of the crews were all gathered together, a small ground to welcome them home. Jacques Fechter stepped forward, Tobin Ryle shadowed him.
    “We were worried, Rahm. Tobin thought you’d all become dinner for the Taurons.”
    “Sorry to disappoint you, Ryle,” Saul Packer muttered. “Maybe next time.”
    “Fuck you, Packer,” the deputy blurted out. He stormed away.
    “So you lost my buggy?”
    “No, we can recover it tomorrow, just an electrical failure. Kacy said it’s probably the control board.”
    “I’ll detail a team to recover it. What about the recording?”
    Saul held up the small data drive. “Here. I’m going to watch it before we turn in. We want to know why we risk out asses to recover this.”
    “I’d prefer to look at it in private first, in case…”
    Fechter was left on his own as the crowed swept out towards the canteen, where there was a huge screen set up for entertainment and training films, as well as broadcasts from Earth. The stood in a wide semi-circle around the screen as Saul put the drive into the player. They watched the team set up the drilling rig, then the panic as they sighted the Taurons. Eddy Moss exclaimed, “Where are the fucking guns? They’re all over us.” Then an alien, a huge, monstrous distortion of a Tauron appeared in shot, tossed Eddy’s body over and started to rip off his limbs. The monsters worked in silence, the drilling crew screamed and screamed as they were pursued and ripped to pieces. The image of the huge Tauron ripping apart Eddy’s body would haunt many of their dreams for a long time to come. Just before the recording ended, the colossus seemed to sense the camera. He turned towards it and stood staring at it, drawing himself up to his full, terrible height. Then he shouted. It was a noise that shrilled around the canteen and chilled their blood. The terrible, eerie, tremolo echoed across the barren Martian landscape.

Chapter Three
     

    The following day the air scrubbers started to act up. The only warning was in the base control center, none of the drillers were aware that Jacques Fechter had blanched white and run around screaming for an engineering crew to go out and fix the problem. When they got back, they reported Tauron activity. A party of aliens had been spotted no more than ten miles away. The aliens had decided to operate nearer to Mars Base. And the cave. Every man pictured the nightmare scenario, an attack on the scrubbers. But this time there was no problem with enemy action, there were no reports of them coming closer. They breathed a sigh of relief when the scrubbers were back up to full capacity, there would be no need to initiate the emergency lockdown. Every man in the base dreaded it. They’d all gone through the drills, everything had to stop, all drilling operations, all unnecessary activity, and they were confined to their bunks to conserve air. It was boring, irritating and every hour meant a big chunk of money lost. No one wanted trouble with the air scrubbers. Rahm took his team out as usual to drill for trevanium. His crew took a spare buggy and went out with the other teams. When they got a mile away from Mars Base they started to fan out, dispersing over their target area to find the most productive