The Last Goatherd of Mars
Part 2
Wind screeched through the crack in Randall's helmet as he regained consciousness. There was grit in his mouth, and blood. Beyond his visor was nothing but a rusty blur of swirling sand.
"Ughh," he groaned, struggling to sit up. The wind made it difficult even with the aid of the suit.
His head throbbed. A warning was displayed on his HUD, flashing in angry red letters.
POWER LOW.
Randall had to seek shelter. The storm could last a day, even more. The power suit was great, but it was old. If the power ran out, the suit would lock up. If the suit locked up, he would either be buried and suffocate, or die of thirst.
Sand rattled against his helmet, as Randall fought the wind to rise to his feet. It was hopeless to try orienting by visual landmarks; he could barely see one foot in front of his face. But he knew roughly where he was in the ravine and the direction that the storm had blown in from. He took a gamble and started walking.
The Tauris Corp rover was not where he thought it should be. The low power warning flashed on his screen again. Fear started to rise to panic. Randall spun in a circle, flailing his arms in search of anything solid. Shuffling his feet, he stumbled over something soft. He dropped down and brushed off the sand. Randall lowered his head to get close enough to see what it was. He found himself eye to empty eye socket with one of his goats.
Randall knew where he was. He crawled over the goat until his helmet knocked against something hard. He felt along the side of the rover until he found the door. Randall climbed inside and closed the door behind him.
The whistling stopped, and Randall fumbled with the clasps on his helmet. He pried it off and looked around.
He was sitting in the passenger seat, and next to him was the dead Tauris man.
Randall sighed.
"I guess things got a little out of hand," he said.
He looked the man over. He had close-cropped dark hair and the deeply tanned skin of someone who made his living outdoors. The man's right hand lay limp at his side, palm up. It was covered in rough callouses. The man could have been Randall's brother.
The alert flashed again.
Randall made a frantic search for a power port that he could use to charge his suit. He found one behind the driver's seat, but it was dead. He remembered the power cells had been damaged in the crash.
"Damn."
The message flashed again. He didn't have much time left.
He worked at the fastenings of his suit. He couldn't get a good grip. He ripped off his gloves and tried again. Freeing the lock on the collar, Randall opened his suit and freed his left arm from its sleeve. He started pulling at the right arm, but it stiffened and froze.
"Perfect."
A new message popped up.
"Suit power depleted. Please recharge."
The wind howled outside the rover. Randall relaxed down into the suit.
"Audio message, Blackjack."
There was little chance that a message would get out in a storm like this; the HUD's range wasn't that great on a clear day, but with his rover out there somewhere as a relay, a small break in the storm could let a queued message through. It was Randall's best shot.
"Hey old timer. I've got myself in a bit of a jackpot. Had a dust up with a couple Tauris boys out on the south range. One is, uh," he looked over at the corpse in the seat next to him, "still out there somewhere. I'm hunkered down in a frozen power suit, near mom's favorite place out here. You know the one. Hope you get this before they go looking for their men. But if you don't, take care of my goats."
He'd done what he could. The rest was up to Mars. Randall spent a few minutes using his free hand to search for something he could use to take apart his suit. He took a pocket knife off of the dead man, but there were no tools. Randall thought about his rover. He had everything he needed in his repair kit, but that might as well be on Earth for all the good it could do him now. Hell, there was probably a tool chest in the flatbed right behind him. Randall banged his head against the headrest.
"One hell of a way to go."
Randall sat in silence, listening to the storm. He flicked open the knife and started etching lines into the dash. The light coming through the windows dimmed. The sun was setting. He closed the knife but kept it in his hand. After all, he may need to use it again soon.
...
It was dead quiet and pitch dark when Randall awoke. Disorientated, he struggled against his suit until he remembered his predicament. He pounded at his frozen right sleeve, but it wouldn't budge.
The storm had stopped. Randall peered out the window. He saw a light bouncing around in the distance, but thought that maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.
"Messages," said Randall.
Light flooded into his eye, and he snapped it shut. He opened again slowly and read the screen.
NO SIGNAL
Randall exhaled.
THUMP!
Something slammed into the window to Randall's right. He shouted in surprise. He gripped his knife.
Sand fell away from the window to reveal a patch of the Martian night sky. Randall stared at the window intently.
A face slid into view. It wasn't Blackjack. It wasn't even human. Randall sucked in a startled breath. The creature pressed its face against the glass. Its skin was olive green with dark stripes across its cheeks. It sniffed at the window through angled slits set above a small mouth that opened to reveal dozens of sharp jagged teeth. Large pointed ears stood out on either side of enormous eyes that remained closed.
Randall sat silent for a long moment. The creatures' ear twitched and it snapped its head up. In an instant, it disappeared.
Randall refused to believe what he just saw. It was impossible. There was no way that the old stories were true. It was just something that people made up to scare kids on stormy nights. Randall shuddered with realization: the Tauris man had been telling the truth.
Randall stared out the window; every muscle in his body tense, waiting for the creature to return. He heard something shuffling around outside. A face peered in the window. Randall shouted.
It was Blackjack.