Free Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series) by A J Marshall

the gateway to a scrapyard – and stopped with the wheels of the vehicle on its edge. Like a huge furrow ploughed by a giant they were made dwarf-like by it. The scale of it all, the brokenness, and in the distance the trench slewed to the right, as if the plough had come across bedrock and diverted. And there, at its end, a contorted mass burned.
    Both men thought it but dared not say, for they already knew they were as good as dead. They saw a large curved piece of metal alloy, its edges twisted violently and jagged. On it, clearly visible through the scorching, were the letters:
    H E R
    Matheson turned slowly and looked back in the direction that they had come. Tyre tracks indicated their stressed, haphazard journey. The landing module was too small and too distant to be seen, but nevertheless Matheson scanned the horizon for it. He thought about the inside of it. That capsule of life: functional but fragile, with a futile future. Despite the computers, the systems, the computations, the integration, protection and opportunity, its promise was only temporary solace. The Lander was helpless, like a baby without its mother.
    So how would it come? As heat exhaustion, oxygen starvation, dehydration? Matheson bowed his head as his mind replayed his life, which he summed up in an instant: frail and seemingly pointless. He was not aware of Aldrin climbing from his seat, who then walked and frequently stumbled towards a pile of smouldering debris as if he recognised something in it as personal. Their intercom crackled for a time with heavy atmospheric static and the rumble of another distant volcano erupting seemed threatening, like the gathering menace of an approaching thunderstorm. This and the surrounding wreckage – which sporadically burst into flames as gas pockets vented – muted Matheson’s curiosity. He watched Aldrin’s haphazard progress – the lone figure walked now as if he was drunk, staggering, with his arms hanging lifelessly by his sides. Matheson could have called him back as there was no change in their communication status. But there was no reason to; there was no point in warning his friend.
    Presently and with the debilitating disbelief of a betrayed man, Matheson dragged himself from the buggy. He stood by it on the grey and yellow ash and the patterned soles of his boots made deep impressions. Footprints; for a time man had been here. He arched his back and gazed up at the hazy sky that was heavy with acid – there would be no succour from there. Then, with both hands, Matheson felt for the metal rings that linked his bulky spherical helmet to his suit. He slid his fingers around the smooth curves until each hand hovered over the release clips. Straining his neck, he managed to get a finger beneath the left-hand clip and pulled it up and turned it, releasing it. Instantly, a red light illuminated on his wrist-mounted suit-conditioning control panel. He looked up, slowly, unaffected, and spent two or three thoughtful minutes watching his buddy who was quite distant by now. The sweat that had run from his temples and down his cheeks had all but dried and he could taste salt on his lips.
    Aldrin meanwhile had turned towards a large section of wreckage that was half-embedded in the towering left-hand wall of the trench. It protruded precariously and a twisted boom of former gantry with a broken end reached out for the other side, arching, like a half-constructed bridge across a wide valley. It loomed above Aldrin as he approached it. Matheson watched him pause momentarily and then disappear. Seconds later an explosion rocked the charred carcass of superstructure, to be quickly followed by another and the ensuing wall of flames clearly denied any retreat even if second thoughts had turned Aldrin’s intention.
    Matheson shook his head. He looked down at the marks his boots had made in the dust and then up again at his friend’s blazing mausoleum. Perhaps it was fitting, he thought, like a Viking . Then