A very unusal Santa Sighting

This one comes from my good friend and writing partner Evan Trevane. As you’ll see, Santa really gets around.

My First Christmas on Mars

I found myself wandering along Mars Station Alpha’s outer interconnects on Christmas Eve, 2062. It was my first Christmas away from home, and I missed my family, my friends. I stopped, leaned against the railing, and gazed at the main complex, the rim of my helmet resting on the transparent arc of the tube. Outside, a bleak Martian courtyard separated the tube I patrolled and the officer’s quarters. Nearly all the officers had decorated their cube with miniature plastic Christmas Trees, twinkling lights, or welcome candles. And me, a PFC bachelor consigned to the dormitory, didn’t have enough room for a spittoon, let alone lights or a tree. “Join the Rangers, see the System,” I recited. Yeah, four walls, 25 cubic feet of oxygen, and three squares a day.

Part of me was glad I volunteered to take Christmas duty, but the other part was disappointed I hadn’t planned anything enjoyable to take my mind off being away from home during the holidays. And so I strolled, making my rounds through the outermost connecting tubes that spanned the colony like the threads of a spider web.

The overhead lights flickered for a heartbeat then snapped to dim Martian red. Klaxons sounded. “General Quarters. General Quarters. DefCon Yoke,” blared over my radio.

Christmas lights, all lights, extinguished around the colony — Blackout Conditions. Hell, they wouldn’t have a drill on Christmas Eve. Not tonight. That would be cruel.

“Battle stations Gamma. This is not a drill.”

A knot gripped my gut as I flipped on my heads-up display.

A ghostly tactical map, scrolling ops-printout, and battle stats floated before my eyes. Thumbing the integrate control on my weapon, I cycled through battle plans on the display until I came to Gamma, and swore. My battle station was almost a kilometer away, through a maze of interconnects, junction modules, and cubes. To make matters worse, the gamma plan meant a space-borne threat and I was in a Plexiglas tube on the outskirts. All airtight doors designated X and Y would be closed and sealed by now.

Glancing left, then right at the junctions, I had no clear plan. One direction looked just as good as the other. I transmitted a command to plot the fastest route to my battle station. A warning light flashed. The connection to central command was down. Damnit, blackout meant no wireless too. Fear gelled in my gut. I didn’t have time for this.

I selected DefCon Yoke”“Gamma on my portable, which gave me a canned route assuming the X-Ray and Yoke doors sealed in a gamma battle-plan scenario. A map flashed on the screen in front of my eyes. A green line traced my route and I broke out in a cold sweat. I had a serpentine path along the outside of the colony, almost entirely through interconnects”“-exposed and vulnerable.

Shit. I un-slung my M-41 and ran, crouching, toward the east junction. Once there, I spun to survey the status lights on each door””three reds, one green. As the computer had predicted, the paths leading deeper into the colony were already locked down. Their status lights glowed red.

I hit the next two hundred meter long interconnect at a full run, no crouching this time. Since the threat was from space and the upper half of the tube was transparent, I was observable anyway.

The next junction was a sixer: six doors. I spun around. All but two were sealed, the one I had just come through and one leading further around the outside of the colony. Alarm Klaxons sounded again. Second alarm meant all doors would close. I lunged for the east tube, just clearing the hatch as it slammed shut. The clang of locks engaged. The status on both ends of the connecting tube switched to red. Trapped, my heart leapt into my throat. They only locked all the doors when the threat was immanent. I energized my M-41 and waited.

I searched the night sky. A point of light moved against the field of stars. Moving at great speed, the intruder brightened and blazed red. The ass end of a ship, rockets firing, breaking in a hard decent, seemed to point directly at me. No wonder the threat had developed so fast.

Hands slippery on my weapon, my heart hammered hard as I watched the craft make an arc across the sky, growing brighter by the second. I checked my armament load: 20 explosive rounds and 200 .30 cals.

I’m screwed.

My weaponry would do nothing against the Naug’s smallest shuttle. But if they exit their vehicles, I could take a few of those slugs with me.

I switched the M-41 over to grenade launcher and waited, praying they wouldn’t notice me there all alone. As the red glow brightened, the rest of the object shimmered burgundy in the reflected light. The object was a complex, articulating thing and didn’t match any Naug ship I had ever seen. I flipped down my binocular lenses and my heart stopped. All I could think about was the story by Clement Clarke Moore and how I was the one who threw up the sash.

Out in the sky flew a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, with a ninth in front, his nose brilliant red. And to my astonishment, there was a tiny man riding in the open sleigh, dressed in a red spacesuit with bags of gifts piled high behind him. At that moment, my prayers changed. I wanted him to see me there, waving and grinning. I wanted to be the first one to welcome Old St. Nick to Mars Station 12.

The End

 Merry Christmas, everyone!

Ev