Bones on Mars - A paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy romance

Contact

Spending time in an airlock was possibly the most soul-destroying waste of time imaginable. The calls to the field team at regular intervals provided little entertainment; they were terse, strictly protocol, and yielded no surprises. Bones and Leela were on their way; then they were in position. So far, they had observed nothing and sunrise was only fifteen minutes away.

No surprises were good in a way, but the roar of silence in the airlock did nothing for his inner ants, swarming his suit.

First Floyd counted bolts. Then, he counted icons on the touch-board. Once he ran out of icons, his gaze fell on PEMAR. He'd better check the thing was in working order. Leela was no technician. She might have bollixed something up.

"Bones to Base. Do you copy?" the communicator squawked.

Floyd extricated himself from the back of their transport and shuffled across.

"Bones to Base?"

Yeah, yeah, try running in a suit.

"Base to Bones. Copied."

"Okay, it's sunrise minus ten. Still nothing, apart from a nice peachy glow on the horizon. We're doing fine. Anything your end?"

Floyd gave the instruments a quick once-over. The perimeter screen displaying the tiny white figures of Leela and Bones was steady, the image crystal-clear. He then turned, scanning the inside of the airlock.

"Nah. All systems green."

"Long may it stay that way. Gimme a holler if you notice anything. Bones out."

This comms hadn't strictly been necessary, and only because Floyd knew Bones well did the tiny quiver in the man's voice even register.

Bones was shit-scared. So would he be, if he were standing in a Martian dawn, awaiting the unknown.

"Base to Bones. Roger and good luck. Base out."

Why was there a quiver in his own voice?

One of the two tiny white figures waved. The other, despite the distance, managed to convey a sense of disgruntlement.

All quiet on the Western front.

He squeezed his space-suited butt onto the support and glued his gaze to the screen. Top right, time ticked by all too slowly in large blue numerals that faded into the grayish-blue haze of the Martian morning.

He shouldn't have drunk the insta-caf. It churned in his stomach like an acid washer.

D minus one. Dawn was almost over.

Mesmerized, he scanned the screen for any movement other than the sun now spreading an opaque glow over the sky. The glow turned brighter and suddenly there was a glitter of light.

The sun was rising.

A wave of relief, tiredness, and frustration washed over Floyd and he sagged in his seat. Despite the suit, its hard surface dug into the small of his back.

No one had been there for the meet and greet. Well, what did they expect?

"Bones to Base. Do you copy?"

"Base to Bones. Copied."

"Well, I guess that was a bit of a washout, eh? No green Martians to say hello? No Pacificos. Nada. Just nothing."

"Maybe they're fashionably late?"

"Huh. You don't believe that yourself."

"Not really, no. Come back, this is pointless. Paulsen will have to accept that the skeleton's gone. And we have better things to do than arse around all the time."