Trapped - Mars Born Book One Read Free Page A

glanced back over my shoulder. She moved, and for a second I thought I saw her eyes open, but then she lay still and I was sure she slept.
      The cargo hatch clanked open to reveal the outside world. Only a few stars were left and to the east the sky was just beginning to show its hazy blue sunrise. The HabRov was positioned at the edge of a scarp, and beyond that the Nereidum Montes towered. They formed a U around the Arygre basin, and had been an ever present feature in Rumer and my lives.
      Only 600 meters from the Rover to the South an ancient lava flow crossed the land. Its undulating ripples frozen in place. Rumer and I had not spent any time in the lava field, as our samples had all been taken from escarpments north and west of the HabRov, so there were no tracks from our boots or the tire marks from the Rover. Sometime geologically recent, maybe when humans were first descending from trees, a nearby impact had spewed ejecta over the land, fragmenting the flow. Millennia of erosion and gravity’s ever present pull had dotted the land with boulders and gullies. The occasional gust of wind picked up dust that gave the air a rusty tint.
      Our site could get very windy, the first day we had arrived the gales picked up so much dust it was difficult to see more than a few meters. So I was quite relieved that that morning save for the occasional breeze, it was still.
      “Wow...” crackled over the radio from Taavi.
      We stepped out and the door closed behind us.
      Because of the thin atmosphere, shadows were deep, so deep that even in midday they could be hard to see into. I clicked my suit’s light off and carefully passed the ring of boot prints around the HabRov. We would have to move slowly to not trip, but I didn’t want artificial light spoiling the magic.
      Taavi followed me. We walked for a few hundred meters and climbed onto a low boulder. It wasn’t even a meter high, but standing on it felt satisfying somehow. After a few seconds of looking around I moved to climb down.
      Taavi grabbed my arm and signed, “Wait.”
      We stood for maybe a quarter of an hour, the sky’s color slowly shifting above us.
      “It’s so... red.”
      Wind carried orange dust around us, like morning fog on Cradle’s lake.
      I laughed, “Is Mars not red where you are from?”
      “No. Not like this at least.”
      “Oh, right. Aurora is at the pole.”
      “Near the pole, yes,” he paused, and I followed his gaze to the east. The sun had just crested a peak, “This time of year everything is dark. We never get such fast, changing sunrises. It’s… stunning . I worry if I blink I’ll miss something!”
      What timing! As he spoke a blanket of sunlight washed over the peaks, illuminating the far slopes of the Nereidums and some of the tallest of the nearby boulders. My breath caught.
      “Look!” he pointed at a jagged one in the middle of the hardened lava river. The light had reached just its tip, making it look like a flame, like a giant candle, surrounded by shadow, “Come on!”
      Taavi jumped off the rock, looked back up and me and grinned, then turned to run.
      No way was I going to let him beat me! I bounded from the rock and crunched after him. Wow, did it feel good. Alive! I hadn’t felt a rush like that since I was child.
      Taavi was fast. But so was I. I caught up to him in just a few seconds, but couldn’t push past. We ran next to each other for a moment. I could feel the sand and rubble under my boots, and then nothing.
      I grasped for something, anything to hold on to, but all I found was Taavi as we both dropped into a pit of darkness.
      Ares!
      Was that Taavi’s leg I had landed on? He pushed me off of him, and I heard him curse under his breath, then, “A-are you okay, Emory?”
      “I don’t know,” it was completely black except for a dusty crack of light above us. I clicked my light on and checked the pressure gauges on my suit, “Get up! Let me check