Somewhat more, largely transitional. Thanks for the comments and reviews, ED and Tikatu. :)
36: Strike Three
Earth-
In the midst of confused digging-out, of fires being doused and victims tended, Earth received yet another burst of transmission. The new images were horrid and omnipresent, for the Mysteron invaders were still able to co-opt and distort human broadcasts.
Before Earth's news and entertainment networks learnt to vary their signal and adjust NASA's code, video was streamed to every receiver on the planet, showing the WorldGov spaceship reaching Mars and being attacked. Unable to look away or to shut off their screens, they witnessed the X-90's violent destruction and the subsequent capture of both pilots. To their utter shock, Captain Scarlet's demise was then displayed for them; his scrambling, solitary last stand at a Mars base garage, and his crushing defeat.
But the Over-Mind's true cleverness was revealed by what came afterward. Instead of threats or demands for surrender, they next broadcast Captain Black's heroic "escape" from possessed astronauts and attacking machines; showed him valiantly fighting to reach safety on Sol 3.
By the time he contacted Earth with the news that he'd got away clean and was speeding home, the public was ready to believe anything he said. And when Black warned them not to accept any broadcasts from Endurance Base or its possessed inhabitants, WorldGov didn't argue. After all, the man was a hero, battling against terrible odds to escape his alien captors.
Crucially, though, not everyone believed him. WASP and NASA were holdouts, and certain members of Spectrum, as well.
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Mars, Endurance Base-
Contact with Earth was of paramount importance. Unfortunately, it was also tough as hell to arrange, because very little equipment remained in a useable state.
John methodically searched the base with Linda, checking its out-buildings, sickbay and server center, but repeatedly coming up blank. Not because the computer equipment had been demolished. Far from it. Because energy beings had no need for keyboard, screen or USB ports, and so had mutated these interface points out of existence. Basically, the entry gates weren't just locked; they'd vanished entirely.
John Tracy and Dr. Bennett spent an increasingly worrisome afternoon canvassing the base. At one point, leaving the waste-treatment facility through an oddly stretched doorway, John looked up at a lavender sky full of gathering clouds and remarked,
"Smells like snow."
Linda followed his glance, sniffed audibly, and then said,
"I'll have to take your word for that, Sunshine. What does snow smell like, exactly?"
John smiled at the treatment facility's uneven concrete floor.
"Clearly, you've never lived in Kansas or Wyoming," he said, adding, "It, um… smells metallic, sort of. Wet, cold and metallic. In Wyoming, there's nothing between you and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence. Here, we don't even have the fence."
Linda shook her head, grimacing a little.
"I grew up down south, John, in Cross Creek, Florida. The only time I saw snow was on TV. Once or twice through an airport window, maybe… and then again at the Antarctic Training Station, from inside the colony mock-up. Not the same, I guess. But rain and thunder…? Those, I can tell you all about."
He squeezed her hand by way of response, picking a route across a cracked loading dock to the rover workshop. They stepped cautiously, because floors had a way of terminating abruptly, with no guard rail or bright-painted warning stripe. Energy beings had no need for such things, after all, or stairs, either.
Beneath a giant rent in the dome, John dropped from the dock's snow-dusted edge to the ground, then turned and reached up to assist Linda. Most likely, she didn't need the help, but enjoyed coming into contact with him; even pretending to slip a little, so he'd catch and hold her. Whatever her motive, it felt good, so he went along with her ruse.
"Why do you think you got sent back to a different part of the base?" the doctor asked him, as they ducked through a slumped and gaping doorway.
"Umm…"
John was not a quick liar, and his perfected copy had been too emotional to leave a clear record of events on ancient Mars.
"I headed off to, um… take care of some physical matters, and I guess that all the distance covered for privacy's sake must have been magnified on our return trip. Uh… temporally, as well as spatially."
Her brown eyes narrowed a bit.
"Meaning…?"
"Just that I got here before you did, by nearly a day and a half. Allowing for the planet's rotation and revolution, I wound up with a spatial translation of about a kilometer, due east of your arrival point."
Damn. That almost made sense. Dr. Bennett was willing to believe it, anyhow. The more important question… what had become of the other colonists… they didn't discuss. Except for a few power-suited corpses, there weren't any remains to bury, and no-one else was present but Roger's repair crew, the trash dump animals, and Cho.
Hand on his weapon, John cautiously moved from the workshop door to a bank of computer equipment. He didn't hold out much hope of salvagability, because the walls outside were deeply scored, as by giant mechanical claws. Still... worth a try, right? The interior was dim, but orderly, with sagging, twisted furniture in more or less the right place, and what seemed to be a genuine effort at clean-up.
"Someone's been here, already?" the tech-rep asked, puzzled.
"I'll check," Linda whispered, hitting her belt-comm. As she talked with Roger Thorpe, John drew closer to the workshop's computer station. Its view screen had lengthened, he noticed, while its keyboard seemed to drip off the table and onto a chair, like frozen putty.
For a moment, John pictured instruments and machinery brought to sudden, confused life, trying to squirm away from their long-time confines. Then he thrust the image aside, together with thoughts of all the robotic rovers he'd programmed here to explore the surface and prospect for minerals. All in the past.
He'd brought a recycled diagnostic scanner from the garbage dump, and now John approached that altered workstation with the unit clipped to his belt and an output cord held in one hand. Maybe, this time…
"John, be careful," Linda warned him. "According to Roger, we're the first recon team to get this far. Kyril and Jennifer are on the other side of the base, and Ilon's with Rachael and Pete, exploring what's left of the launch pad. Scarlet's just… standing there."
Nodding, John tossed her his sidearm.
"I'll take precautions," he said, looking for a place to plug in. "Watch the room, and shoot anything suspicious... Including me, if my actions seem at all questionable. There could be some ghosts left in the system, in which case attempted interface'll get real ugly, real fast."
Outside, meanwhile, Kim Cho had come to a startling conclusion about the mauled power-suit, which lay quivering and sparking beneath a wrecked loading crane.
"Roger," she murmured to her protective almost-fiancé, "I believe that this mechanism yet lives."