Depth Charge - red earth

Chapter 5

The group of VIP's had gathered in one of the high security medical labs of the Synthetic Services division. It was well lit, and could only be accessed through one of two broad metal security doors. Three guards dressed in the same black outfits stood posted like statues, with their weapons at the ready.

Victor Hunt was among the contingent of high ranking military personnel, and was the first to speak. His heavy accent echoed around the sterile looking room. "Gentlemen, would someone like to illuminate us as to the purpose of this meeting?"

"Patience, Commander Hunt. Your illumination will be coming soon." The man who spoke was Arnold Tomlin, the governor of the five states. He was very sharply dressed, and was accompanied by his assistant, Tasha Boyd. Speaking louder he continued, "I would ask if you could all take your seats. I thank you all for coming on such short notice, but this meeting is of the utmost importance."

There were three rows of metal chairs that were placed in front of a non-transparent curtain that was draped from the roof to the floor in the middle of the room. Victor and the others took their seat, while Governor Arnold introduced Leonard to the fore.

Leonard stood in front of the group. "Thank you, Governor Tomlin. Thanks to all of you for coming in at such short notice. What you are about to hear is not to be disclosed to anyone outside of this room. It is information that is both amazing, and shocking; revealing disasters of the past, and yet, possibly holding the key to the future. But! If this information got out to the public too soon ... it could be devastating." Leonard tipped his glasses, and let a deftly silence hang in the air before continuing. "Each of you would know bits and pieces of our history. The military was involved in the very earliest stages of human inhabitation on Mars. Unfortunately, some vital pieces of the puzzle were missing; until recently."

Leonard indicated for his assistant, Heather Lowe, to turn on the projector screen. "Commander Hunt; your team recently participated in the extraction work of artefacts from an ancient room after it was uncovered during a routine procedure for preparing a building foundation. Would you like to know what they found?"

Victor Hunt nodded once and flared a look of contempt at Leonard. With the Governor's approval, Leonard had intercepted the items from Victor's team before Victor had a chance to examine them himself. Strange images flashed up on the projector screen. Images of what seemed like human habitation of the watery planet. There were buildings and structures and transport vehicles with wheels. Scenes of destruction appeared on the screen; rushing water, exploding volcanos, and quaking ground. It all seemed unbelievably out of this world. Then something unfathomable unravelled on the screen as hordes of hideous sea creatures were seen attacking the fleeing humans. "What's the meaning of all this?" asked Victor with an edge of concern in his voice.

"It is ... the reason our forefathers left the water planet to come here," replied Leonard. Thousands of years ago," his voice rose in intensity, "these creatures attacked our former planet and killed billions. Only a few survived and carried our life onto Mars. They were safe." Leonard paused and tilted his head for effect before looking up suddenly, "But now ... now we face a new threat! It is a threat that is suddenly upon us in proportions that we cannot yet gauge, and the impacts of which we are unable to predict."

Victor stood up in frustration. "Are you saying those water creatures are here on Mars?!"

"No. Well, not those ones, not that we know of ... yet."

"Then what are you talking about?"

Leonard held his finger up to his lips and asked Victor to be seated again. Victor didn't. Leonard asked his assistant, Heather Lowe, to push out the metal cart from behind the non-transparent curtain which had a very sizeable object on it. The cart was covered with a medical blanket. Now that he had the attention of his audience, he asked Heather to remove the blanket.

All of them gasped in horror. "Holey craters, what on Mars is that?!!" asked one of the officials. They all stared in awe at the hideous creature before them. A large curved horn protruded from the top of its head. The head itself was smooth and continued in a conical shape to follow the line of the shiny black curved horn upon it. Unlike the black horn, the head was splashed with sections of brilliant colours that had not been seen before by those observing. Brilliant iridescent yellow and greens crossed into one another, and were circled by a line of royal azure blue. The oval shaped stout body was peaked at the sides. The yellow and green decorated the two sides, while a coppery red was washed over the top of the body. All the colours had an unnatural metallic sheen about them. The underbelly was black and green.

Victor looked at the Governor, wondering why he hadn't informed him of this newfound creature until now. He was in charge of finding out what had caused the latest spate of grisly deaths, but surely as a commander in charge of the security of the citizens of Mars, he should have been aware of this ... whatever it was. "Well, what is it? Is it dangerous? I'm guessing it was what caused the recent deaths we've been investigating?"

"No, Commander Hunt. This one is dead, I can assure you."

"Don't get smart with me, Shaw. You know what I mean."

Leonard moved over closer to the creature and pointed to the scary looking legs. They were elbow jointed and had a four pronged section at the ends. "Despite this amazing find, we know considerably little about it. There is no real information in existence about creatures. I figure by the leg design that it is a digging type of creature. It's probably where they're living ..."

"They?" questioned Victor. "What do you mean, they? How many are there?" he demanded in a menacing tone. Of course Victor knew that something un-Marsly was causing the wounds on the recent spate of murder victims that he had been put in charge of, but he never expected anything of this size, let alone there being more than one of it.

Leonard was now put off by Victor's intimidating manner. "Um, well, we don't really know."

"You don't know? Well can you tell me what those things are on the side of its head?" Victor pointed to the yellow-orange antennae on either side of the head that seemed to be retracted into a ball.

"I ... we haven't worked that out yet, but we have sampled the protective shell and run it through our synthesizer replicators. It produced one of the strongest materials we have ever made; very sturdy armour indeed."

Victor was really fired up now. "So you don't know what they are, where they are, what they do, what they might do, and ..."

"Here are the facts," boomed Governor Tomlin, taking his control back of the meeting. "Several isolated deaths have likely been caused by methods of what might have been these creatures. This is the only sample of this creature that we have been able to obtain. We have no information in the archives that can even get close to telling us what they are. They are believed to live underground, and the recent crop destruction was likely caused by several of these creatures. So, yes, I'm sure there are more, but how many? We don't know. You have all been called to this meeting because we need to implement immediate protocols to detect and detain these things. Of course if they present any immediate threat, then feel free to eliminate them, but capture is the first priority."

"Detain? Surely you don't want to study them? We don't even know what they are capable of."

"At this point in time I can only go with the facts. There seems to be evidence of some human death, but they seem to be isolated cases. Victor, I want you and your team to work closely with the Synthetic Sciences division and learn as much about them as you can in order to make a proper evaluation. You will be given anything you need at your disposal to accomplish this task. In the meantime, the district rulers and I will be awaiting your findings."