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Mars in the Milky Way.

The planet Mars glows like a brilliant burning ember amongst the Milky Way stars of the Scorpion. Note the smaller glowing red star beneath Mars known as Antares. Dark lanes of dust between the stars of the Milky Way obscure the light of the stars behind. Taken through a 50mm lens. Photographer Greg Bock.

Background

With the incredible advancement
of nanotech and biosciences,
humans have managed to get
their foot in the door
to exploring the local galaxy.

A small team is resident on Phobos
to do research on Kleeches
(lifeforms that corrode metals
and plastics).

Live Kleeches are taken from Phobos
in special containers for penetrative
research, Kleeches are hard to catch,
the work is dangerous,
the environment is deadly.

The Rim Wars
Humans come up against the
deadly and brutal
enemies of the Kleeches.

I started writing this short story whilst playing an online game,
I've moved the rest to the stories archive.

Outpost and Science Station: Bunker Zebra 2175

Illusion shifts in behind his console and launches his scope,
zooming in on Bunker Zebra.

He adjusts his visor and zooms in on the western
perimeter, checking for any changes in the plasma
field, he finds none and moves on quickly checking
the southern and eastern perimeter.

A loud buzz makes him jerk and he
get's up to cycle the airlock, allowing his
robodog indoors before the dust swirls inside.

Returning to his console, he ignores the
bleep of spam and pans north to check
the northen perimeter, his heart skips a beat
when he notices a small glitch in the plasma field,
very close to the colony barracks.

He increases his zoom and flicks to infrared,
immediately noticing the three blips moving
along the perimeter in a northwesterly direction,
he wastes no time and sounds the alarm.

Several clicks away, an alarms goes off,
notifying the orbital defence system of a
possible breach.

"Damn, we haven't had trouble with Kleeches
for over two cycles, why now? " he thinks to
himself, shifting his eagle eyed gaze to
further north west, looking for something,
anything, that will indicate why the Kleeches
are moving in that direction.

He finds nothing, tosses the visor and
get's into his skin, the skin wraps around
him, insulating him, the nano's entering
his pores and boosting his adrenaline,
he whistles for Robodog, cycles the
airlock and heads northwest at an
easy trot at 140km/h.

Subvocalling the ODS, he downloads
the defensive map and the latest
info on Kleech defense, noticing the
.01 second lag, filing it to log,for
later investigation.

Harsh winds scour the surface, and
Illusion stops for a moment to shed,
before revving it up to 160km/h, now
very close to where he first saw the breach,
adjusting his thrust every so slightly.

'Damn this potatoe' Illusion cusses as he
crawls over the edge of the tiny crater,
wiping dust from his skineyes. He rests
for a moment, taking time to match
his position to Stickney crater, just
a few minutes away.

Control Centre

Cindy wakes up to the alarm,
jumps from her bunk and heads
straight for the shower,
washing away the nightsweats
after another bout
of Kleech nightmares.

Adjusting her skin,
she exits her bunk
and heads straight
to the command centre,
checking Illusions
position as she glidedives
across the central hub
and kicks her way
through the portal.

Taking command of the ODS scope
she focus's on Illusion's position,
zooming in, until she sees him
crawling over the crator, switching
voice, she listens to him
cussing and smiles to herself.

'' Hey baby, working up a sweat mmm,
see you have three little fuckers just
north of the outer rim...wait a sec..
they're moving again, backtracking,
god, I think they've detected you.."

" shhhs, I'm on to them Cinds, cover me
with ODS, target to level 3, I want to bring
them in to the lab." " Roger that Illusion, auto
target set to level 3 and tracking out"

All business now,Cindy watches as Illusion
assembles the nanonet, nervousely watching
the Kleeches pick up speed as they head
straight for Illusion.

The Kleeches come to an abrupt halt,
sniffing the tech, identifying the binary
traces of Illusions position. They click
their antennae, communicating this
new source of energy to each other and
turn around to track, find and absorb it.

Swiftly racing across the dust they
send ahead tiny electromagnetic impulses,
"information gatherers", listing the
variety of energies Illusion will
supply them with, excited at this unexpected
luck, they fail to detect the presence
of the nanonet spores and run
headlong into the net, antennae squawking
for backup when they realise what
happened.

Illusion whirls the net far and wide,
capturing the Kleeches and shuts the
net down, but not before the Kleeches
manage to send off one friggin big
em-pulse screeching for help.

Bagging his trophy, Illusion wastes no
time, knowing full well that other
Kleeches will be on their way soon,
scattering some fuso grenades he
let's rip back to base, thrusting
all the way.

Watching Illusion kick up dust as he
b-lines back to base Cindy keeps
a fine eye out for incoming Kleeches,
noticing the slight flicker in Illusions
biostat filter, 'he's skin needs an
overhaul damn, he always neglects
that !' she thinks to herself whilst
powering the ODS down to level2.

Illusion reaches the airlock, cycles
himself in, grinning like American Mcgee's
cat as he impounds the Kleeches and
watches his credits increase.

Situation

Science Officer Zerg gently coaxes the two
surviving Kleeches into the flask and seals
the flask with a twist of the wrist, switching on
the protective plasma field, steering the
flask by robotic arm into the skimmers
hold and fastening it in the cradle.

Illusion watches the skimmer detach from
the base arm and dedims the portalwindow
once the skimmer's whitehot blue trail fades
leaving only a very slight afterimage.

Today is he's 3 569th day out from earth and
he's in a contemplative mood, thinking back
to his childhood, to that fateful day when
he and several million others lost everything.

Big Shroom3 as it was called later years,sweeping clean and sterilising everything in it's path, bringing an end to an ara.A violent rebirth, forcing the world to change in one fell swoop.

For years the scientific community had been
speculating about sudden change, the
acceleration of technology, of a singularity
event that would change humanity, bumping us
up the next rung of evolutionary progress, but
no-one could have predicted that it would take
2 nuclear bombs spread across the face of
the once great United States of America and
one in the UK to shock humanity into the vital
changes needed to survive a crumbling, polluted,
poisonous planet, with hundreds of small scale
resource wars and the devastating effects
of the SarsHI5 virus, all laying waste to what
had been a beautiful green and blue planet
bursting with life.

Determined to do his part he heads back to the lab,
annoyed and depressed, thinking : 'Today I'm gonna
find a use for that dead fucking Kleech, even if
I break my back doing it.' Kicking off the observation
wall he corkscrews through the portal, along the
nexus tunnel and fins sharply to the left, towards
the lab.

Arrival of The Grim

Homing in on the beacon,
Grim expands his array,
now fully armed with blackhole beams,
he stalks.

The Kleech corks deep into the frozen soil,
fleeing the terror and certain death
the grim brings.

Corking out of control, in vortex,
the terrified Kleech is incinerated at
the plasma perimeter.

The Grim manoevers across
the deadly terrain,
his magneto fringes expertly
adjusting course, constantly.

Scanning the plasma field,
he notices the powernode,
moves across and beams.

Bunker Zebra

Orbital Defence sounds the alarm
and Illusion's bunk is flooded with
adrenogas, instantly bringing him
to full alertness and activating his
skin.

Receiving the incoming packet from
the ODS, he access's the design of
the plasma field generator, picks up
his toolkit and heads for the airlock.

Cindy places the skin onto the
ODS Armoury scanner,
flaps it out neatly,
straightening the limbs,
pinning it down on the x frame,
at the nano nodes.

Sealing the scannerhatch she flips
the switch, auto-installing the upgrade.

Turning back to the console,
she checks the gridmap
and notices the two blinking red dots,
near the plasma field generator.

"Wait a sec Illusion, your skinsuit's been upgraded,
meet me at the armoury locker..did you get that?
just now ? It's the ODS, there's a breach near the
plasma field generator, ... zooming..oh god what
the heck is that?"

ODS: possible breach alert:
Tracking one Kleech and one unknown.

Zooming in on the scene down below, Cindy
sees the fleeing Kleech and draws in her
breath when the she sees The Grim.

Hitting the n-scan button without hesitation,
she takes a penetrative scan of the Kleech
and The Grim, immediately realising that
The Grim are something else.

Watching Illusion step into his new suit,
she stifles her grin, helping him into it.
Impressed with the new configuration, he
hugs Cinds and heads back to the airlock,
picking up the blackhole nth-shield and
pasting it onto his right hip.

...working the story

====================================
almost forgot to mention the FARMS,
..more about THEM later * * *