Battleground Mars Read Online Free

with Saul and took a shower. His friend was still asleep, snoring like a faulty steam engine. He began to wake as Rahm was dressing.
    “Jesus Christ, this is a weird feeling, this constant low gravity. I could sleep for another day.”
    “There’s not much else to do, Saul. Knock yourself out.”
    He spied the bottle on the floor next to the bunk. “But I’d go easy on the sauce.”
    “Don’t worry," Saul smiled. "I ration myself when I’m working in the field.”
    “Good idea. I’m going to grab some chow and then head back to the library.”
    “Yeah, I’ll get some exercise time in later. I’ll come and find you when I don’t feel so spaced out.”
    “Saul, you are spaced out. We’re already fifty thousand miles from Earth.”
    The big man grinned. “That could explain it. I’m going back to sleep.”
    He turned over and started to snore again.
    Rahm pushed half of his cold breakfast to one side, left the canteen, and went to the library. Kacy was there already, studying her technical manuals.
    “Back for another lesson about Mars?” she asked eagerly.
    “Not exactly, no.”
    “What, then?”
    “I was looking for something more about the Taurons.”
    Her face fell. “Oh, right, the aliens. I’ve been looking for materials about them, but I can’t find anything very helpful. It’s weird, you’d think that after all of the problems they’ve had, there’d be some information we could use. I mean, if we ever come across them…”
    She was interrupted.
    “They don’t want to frighten people away, so they keep it under wraps” Josh DeVries, the old crew boss exclaimed as he walked in. “Do you really want to see what they’re like?”
    Kacy shook her head uncertainly. “I’m not sure I want to, not if they’re that horrible.”
    “We need to see them,” Rahm stated firmly. “We have to know what we’re up against.”
    Josh nodded. “You’re right there, my friend. Sit down at a terminal and I’ll bring up a video clip.”
    While they watched, Josh scrolled through the media directories until he found what he was looking for. A video clip tucked into a little-used directory, labeled, ‘Mars Miscellaneous’.
    “I found this when I was looking for some better search parameters for mineral-bearing strata on the surface.”
    He hit play and the clip came to life.
    “My guess is that someone set up the camera to record a typical drilling operation, maybe for publicity purposes. Or perhaps it was for training. The rescue party found the camera afterwards, most of the data had disappeared but there’s enough to give you an idea.”
    As they watched, a drilling crew in pressure suits and helmets unloaded a rig from a buggy. They piled it on the surface and a technician monitored the remote console while the drillers wrestled the equipment into place at the spot the techie indicated. They saw the drill start to turn. Then two shadows appeared, dark and menacing. They came out of nowhere, as if they’d just materialized out of the ground. Like phantoms.
    “They’re natural warriors, these creatures, every single one of the sons of bitches,” Josh spat.
    The two creatures stood to their full height and Kacy gasped. They were monstrous, about eight feet tall, so big that they towered over the drilling crew. Heavily muscled, their bodies looked similar to some of the artist’s impressions of prehistoric velociraptors. They differed in two important characteristics. The first was their heads, which were flatter, with powerful jaws and eyes set more forward on the face, more like humans. The second was that unlike the velociraptors, they were vastly more intelligent. And they were anything but extinct. They didn’t hesitate, they were so fast. They just rushed in for the attack. Although they carried sidearms, they only used their claw-like hands to slash at the crew. Three of the men attempted to draw their pistols, but the Taurons smashed them to the ground with quick, machine-like