Ryan Taylor awakens from hibernation to a mystery that he, along with his crew, must solve in order to continue their mission. How they solve it and what they find is astounding.
Walking on Mars took some getting used to. The gravity is only a little better than a third of that on Earth and the soil, or regolith, is mostly dry and dusty basalt. The atmosphere on Hellas Planitia is about as good as it gets on Mars, but being very thin compared to Earth, it doesn't hold much heat from the sunlight. Our suits had to adjust for the temperature, but it wasn't that bad.
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The main entrance to the colony looked like an old fashion phone booth. Most of the colony was underground because it helped shield much of the solar radiation that bombarded Mars. The first thing we noted was that the door was not secured. We entered the vestibule and descended the steps that led down to the colony proper.
We were able to go through the air lock without difficulty. Evidently, the colony was still under power from a solar panel farm nearby. Once the air pressure was up to normal, we were able to enter the colony's main complex.
"We didn't see anyone. It appeared deserted.
"Looks like no one's home," Bridget said.
"I don't like this," I said looking around while I kept one hand on my laser pistol's handle.
"Doesn't look like there's any boggy men down here," she said, noticing my anxiety.
We walked toward what appeared to be habitat rooms. It didn't take us long to find someone.
"He's been dead for some time," Bridget said after a cursory examination. "There's a burn mark on his forehead. I would say that he was shot through the head with an energy weapon."
After searching through many of the habitat rooms, we only came up with another male with a similar wound.
"This looks like there was a battle here, but I don't see any evidence of damage," I said.
"How many colonists were here?" Bridget asked.
"Good question, but I would assume that it was several hundred judging by the number of habitat rooms."
"There's no other bodies. Where did they go?"
"Good question. Unless we can find something that would answer that question, we'll have to assume that they were taken away."
"Maybe they were abducted like the dome city people said they experienced."
"That's a good possibility, but why would aliens want to abduct humans?"
"The main reason for alien abductions is for scientific reasons," she said. "Although, most of those accounts were proven to be false."
"I don't want to spend any more time down here than necessary. Let's search for any clues and then get back to the ship."
She nodded. We didn't find anything that would indicate what happened to the colonists. We walked back to the shuttle and returned to the ship.
