Mustangs on Mars (954 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: sci-fi
Rating: 1.94 on 39 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2006-08-24 17:25:24 EDT
The chrome sparkled in the sun, picking up a pinkish tint from the surrounding red landscape.
"Ooo unn op, egg?"
Oren's voice was a crackle in my ear. I shook my head and heard a snap and pop in my earpiece. The transmission cleared up and I thought of how I had sunk all of my available allowance into the car, forgetting that the suit that kept me alive outside the domes needed some serious upgrades and repairs.
"I said, are you gonna stop, Greg?"
I shook my head slowly, steering around a series of jagged rocks.
"Not on your life, settler."
Back on Earth, settler was a word applied to losers, washouts, manual laborers. People who never won the lottery.
Here on our homeworld, settler was the same as buddy, or pal, or friend.
The sky was a hazy pink-gray. There had been a windstorm earlier this afternoon, kicking up kilotons of red dust.
We called the windstorms hurlers. They didn't do much of anything besides hurl tons of dust into the air and toss anything that wasn't tied down a fair distance.
The wind was calm now.
Oren laughed and shouted, "Me neither, NO-bag!"
On a world where the atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide, we were all NO-bags, walking around in suits filled with nitrogen and oxygen.
Oren spun his wheel and cut in front of me, stirring up a rooster fan of dust that blinded me for a moment.
I felt the right front tire hit a biggish rock and I was airborne, soaring a good twenty meters before landing four-square on the stony soil.
The dust cleared with the help of my windshield blowers (the antique wipers were just for show) and I leaned on the gas pedal, giving the car a little more go-mix.
That's what we called the special blend of air and gasoline in the trunk tanks that kept the pistons popping. G for Greg and O for Oren. Go-mix.
"You know," Oren said as I pulled up alongside him, "If our dads find out about this, we'll be completely locked."
I glanced over at the vague shape of his bulky suit and helmet behind the driver side window of the other car. "You got that right."
We would be locked if we were caught. What I didn't tell Oren, who was a masterful mechanic but as quick as a bag of dust in all other aspects of life, was that getting caught was inevitable. Getting caught and locked, as in locked inside the habitat like little kids or first-timers. Grounded. Surface privileges suspended.
We were both eight and a half years old. We were bored out of our suits. We had tinkered and changed a pair of one hundred year old combustion engines, destroying their value to any collector, and we had stolen the cars that ran on those engines and had taken them outside the habitat.
We stole the cars from the Museum of Earth, where my dad is a part-time curator, tending to exhibits no one ever takes the time to see. Everyone said the old cars were valuable, but no one really gave a darn about Earth these days.
And now we were racing across the Martian landscape at sixty miles per hour —almost a hundred klicks an hour— in our antique, souped-up cars.
Driving Mustangs on Mars.
My dad won a settler lottery twelve years ago.
I've gone online and read a lot of the old 'golden age' science fiction stories about Mars, and the first Earthlings there were always astronauts and specially chosen teams of scientists working toward terraforming or mining precious metals.
Mars wasn't settled as the Americas were half a millennium ago. There wasn't any elite class overseeing slaves.
Essential supplies and habitats for the first group of pioneers were shipped across space. This first group had one job. They arrived with a single nanofactory. When that factory began to reproduce itself, the Firsts were able to create habitats and rovers and process food and water and breathable air and wander the Martian landscape like the Johnny Appleseed of ancient lore, spreading nanofactories far and wide.
When the massive starboats carrying settlers like my father reached Mars, they simply dumped whole families in drop-cans onto the surface. There are a few hair-raising tales of settler parties who couldn't locate the nanofactory in their designated land parcels and perished, wandering the plains until the air in their suits ran out, but most of us made out okay.
I was just a little kid then. My memories are hazy.
Earth was a gray and white ball. I do remember that. And I remember feeling so light, and dad saying that the gravity on Mars was less than half what it was back on Earth.
Maybe that's why my parents always like to go dancing at the community center on Saturday nights.
Mom and dad say Earth was once blue and white, and beautiful, back when they were kids, but what I remember seeing through the starboat ports looked like a washbasin full of dirty laundry.
In school I learned all about Earth. I go to Shepard High School in Sinai city. Since all the parents and teachers and farmers, old people, still follow Earth time, they think of me as sixteen years old, but we are on Mars now, so like every kid my age and younger we follow Martian years, not old Earth ones. Of course, some of the old timers still measure in feet and miles and not meters and klicks, so go figure. Although learning the old measurements from my mom, who grew up in the United States, helped a lot when Oren and I were refitting these Mustangs.
Only the rich can live on Earth these days, sealed in habitats just like us Martians, protected from a harsh environment.
They say that in a thousand years or so the terraforming projects we have only just begun will start to change things. One day people will be able to walk the surface in regular clothes, but for now its pressure suits all around.
I grew up with it, so I don't know anything different, and dad grew up in the north on Earth. He says getting suited up to got outside is just like getting dressed for a cold winter day.
My dad also loves to say, "When I was a boy back on Earth we really had it tough. This is nothing. I'll take Mars over a Canadian winter any day."
And then my mom laughs and tells him he is so full of crap.
My dad is a bit of a dork, but he can also be funny.
My mom is just cool. Yeah, up yours. I said it. My mom is cool.
Back on Earth the rich are surviving just fine in their sealed domes, with their own farms and armies and nanofactories and such.
The middle class, like my family, either struggle to survive or hope to win a settler lottery for a spot on the Moon or Mars or Ganymede. I don't know why the heck anyone would want to live on a moon. That's just retarded.
The lower class is dying off. Sometimes we see video smuggled from Earth that shows scary stuff. In the Eastern Hemisphere plague and famine are killing millions, just like something out of the old Banned Bible (that every settler family has a copy of), and a nuclear war wiped out these people called the Israilies and all the countries around them and ruined most of Yourup.
I'm not sure about the spelling on those last two things. Since all the families here came from North America we really only study the histories of Mars and America and Canada in school. Dad says that to protect themselves from a world growing more and more crazy America and Canada signed the NORAD Isolationist Treaty in 2041. That was so long ago I don't really care about it... but you bet I will if it comes up on a history exam.
Maybe it's because Mars is all I have ever really known, but I think we have it better here than anywhere in the solar system. It isn't as messed up as Earth, it isn't as boring as the Moon, and while Ganymede might be cool, a pair of starboats loaded with settlers once went off course when taking a shortcut across the system and got trapped in the sun's gravity well.
On the solnet you can download audio files of people on those boats screaming as they were cooked alive.
Gross.
Once the settlers who made the smart choice were dropped on the surface of Mars in the one-way drag-chuted drop-cans that became the first habitats until we got the nanofactories up and running, the robot starboats just turned around and headed back to Earth for another load of passengers.
We were on our own.
Earth wasn't helping us. They were getting rid of us.
They left us with a few basic supplies, and that's it.
As our parents like to holler when they have had a few drinks, Mars First!
We built safe, sealed habitats. We connected our shelters with pressurized tunnels of nanotube-reinforced Kevlar. Just a few years ago we raised domes over some of the larger clusters of homes, creating towns, then cities.
Without nanotechnology, we would be screwed.
And nanotech helped us retrofit the cars for a race on Mars.
Of course, we needed more than just a few modifications. The car had tires reinforced with nanotubes. Fuel tanks contained a mix of air and gasoline. Transparent seals kept out the cold. It was a lovely day on Mars, and the temperature outside was -60° C. I had an environmental control unit beside me where the passenger seat once was. The car also needed special lubricants, to keep the wheels and gears from locking up in the cold. We used a lot of Ares Grease, the Martian machinist's favorite, which contained an enzyme that broke down trapped Martian dust before it could accumulate, but was safe for almost any other application. The engine was almost completely sealed against outside temperatures and atmospheric pressure, with vents controlled by a special valve assembly.
We were completely dependant on the nanofactories for all the parts we needed to modify the cars. Oren and I still had to do all the physical installation ourselves. It was hard work, but we had fun doing it in our fort, a Kevlar shell half a klick from Wellstown, our borough on the east end of Sinai City.
Nanofactories could build anything, but we had to use access cards for the privilege, paying for the work we needed done with the allowances we got from our folks, and from money we earned on summer jobs.
So we had no money, and we would probably be in deep trouble when our parents found out what we did, because sooner or later they always do, but it was worth the risk.
We were driving Mustangs on Mars.
The private use of internal combustion engines like these was banned on Earth ten years ago. They were collected and turned into scrap metal, which was later used to build the massive starboats and their hundreds and hundreds of disposable drop-cans.
Aside from the military (which now ran the government and had the rights to everything from hovertanks to ambulances) and some very rich and powerful men on Earth who might cruise around in private cars hidden away from government eyes, we were probably the only people in the solar system sitting in the driver's seat and feeling the thrill of gas engines. Everything else ran on electric power, like our big-wheeled rovers.
But rovers never went this fast.
I could feel the reinforced tires tearing into the soil under the Martian dust, soil that was perfect for growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables if you were willing to dig down deep enough to reach it.
Some of the biggest farms were out here on the edge of the Sinai and Syrian Plains, wide spreads of corn and apples and everything else growing under clear domes that filtered the light just right for plants from Earth.
Up ahead was a dark line that ran across the horizon.
We were on a part of the plain just a bit higher than the land before us, and that dark line ahead was the longest, deepest valley in the solar system.
I looked in the rear view mirror. There were two long dust trails behind us. Sooner of later someone would see them and wonder what was going on. Behind the faceplate of my suit I was grinning like a little kid.
"You gonna stop?"
That was Oren, and he was laughing.
"No way," I said. "You gonna?"
"I'm no chicken," Oren said. He accelerated, and I kept pace with him.
We were approaching the edge of a cliff. If we didn't break soon, we'd never stop in time. We'd just slide too far on the red Martian dust.
That cliff marked the edge of Valles Marineris, the great scar across the middle of Mars that was four thousand kilometers long.
Neither one of us was stopping.
Holy cow.
Both Mustangs went right over the edge of the cliff and we began our long, slow fall toward the valley floor, four kilometers below.
We were whooping like idiots.
This was it. The big moment.
Racing the Mustangs across Mars had been one thing.
This was going to be even better, if we survived to talk about it all.
As our old Fords dropped nose first toward a valley floor still too far away to see with any clarity, I gave Oren a thumbs up, and got one back in return.
I reached under the dash and pulled a lever, knowing Oren was doing the same.
We deployed our wings and rudders.
The wings and rudders were made of Kevlar, with a coat of silvery blue Mylar. They were extended on carbon graphite struts which unfolded with a pulley and cable system that doubled as a very simple controller, turning our one hundred year old automobiles into gliders.
As we soared over the ancient landscape of the rift valley, Oren shouted in my ear.
"Settler, this is the best idea ever!"
He was right, you know.
User Reviews
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-11-30 20:56:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-08-25 21:10:04 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:14:01 (#)
Ranking: 1
1.5
Give it to me, Bubba!
____________
Give you what, shitstick? I doan unnerstan. . .
<you are still a talentless asswipe, but that is neither here nor there>
********
Keep in mind, KindaNews, I think that now and then Jack's stuff deserves a 1.5, but I am too fucking lazy to enter two ratings, so I just drop the +2. Just as you should drop trying to argue with me. I do as I wish, regardless of mental midgets like you.
Submitted by Kale (user info) at 2006-08-27 23:09:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by whysenheimer (user info) at 2006-08-25 21:24:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2006-08-25 11:58:31 (#)
Ranking: 2
Mustangs = automatic +2.
Ha ha jacky pulled out his alter to bump up his widdle biddy watings.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-08-25 21:10:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:14:01 (#)
Ranking: 1
1.5
Give it to me, Bubba!
____________
Give you what, shitstick? I doan unnerstan. . .
<you are still a talentless asswipe, but that is neither here nor there>
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2006-08-25 17:13:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very different.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-25 16:59:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-08-25 16:39:02 (#)
Ranking: 2
i wish i could see the ass on the car so i know what year it is.
:(
--
It is a '66 DROF. Can't you tell?
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-08-25 16:39:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WHERE'S REDEMPTION ROAD ASSHOLE!!!!
i love mustangs. i don't care if people make fun of me for liking a ford. although i don't really like them from the mustang II till they redid the body style in '05. also, they must be an 8 cyl and manual. i am going to purchase and restore a 64 1/2 one day.
i wish i could see the ass on the car so i know what year it is.
:(
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-08-25 16:24:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
retaliatory +2
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2006-08-25 11:58:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Mustangs = automatic +2.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2006-08-25 11:27:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome, Loved it
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-08-25 08:59:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't particularly like this....
I loved it.
I loved it so much that I stood the little legs up in the back of the keyboard just to type this review. Now I'm going to put them down.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-08-25 01:54:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll read this tomorrow. A +2 for now, 'cause I be a;; dronked op. . .
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-08-24 22:06:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
<squirt>
Submitted by FuckTheArmy (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:53:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What would the other colonies say about that, huh? What about the floating cities on Europa, where they barely get enough sunlight to run an electric wheelchair?
It gets my mind ticking over. I like that.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:15:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Quite liked this. I'd read it even if it was in Playboy. It reminded me a bit of part of the book/movie "Silent Running", only I like Mustangs a lot more than six-wheeled go-buggies.
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:14:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
1.5
Give it to me, Bubba!
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:13:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2006-08-24 19:32:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by whysenheimer (user info) at 2006-08-24 19:22:51 (#)
Ranking: -2
too_many_sycophants
------------------
None of you can see me, but I'm a rather lovely shade of surprised right now.
Submitted by whysenheimer (user info) at 2006-08-24 19:22:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too_many_sycophants
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:46:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:44:24 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:42:21 (#)
Ranking: 2
Pure brilliance.
Can I just say...
--
True enough. But this is another lunchtime special.
Now, about $$$cash$$$ payemnts for doing an editing job for me one day...
============
Even more impressive then.
I thought I bashed my stories out (each one takes no more than 30/45 mins to write and edit) but in my case I think it shows !
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:44:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:42:21 (#)
Ranking: 2
Pure brilliance.
Can I just say...
--
True enough. But this is another lunchtime special.
Now, about $$$cash$$$ payemnts for doing an editing job for me one day...
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:42:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pure brilliance.
Can I just say that the line:
I've gone online and read a lot of the old 'golden age' science fiction stories about Mars, and the first Earthlings there were always astronauts and specially chosen teams of scientists working toward terraforming or mining precious metals.'
would have read so much better if it'd said:
I've gone online and read a lot of the old 'golden age' science fiction stories about Mars, and the first Earthlings there were always astronauts and specially chosen teams of scientists working toward terraforming or mining our precious metals.
Would have just made a little more personal to him at that early stage in the story.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:41:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good shit. A story like this is always best told in first person.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:30:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:18:14 (#)
Ranking: 2
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee Papi.
--
Does anyone have a tissue?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:19:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:05:30 (#)
Ranking: 1
I know a girl who strives to better this planet every day
And there is a boy who knows his actions won't change a thing anyway
And out their bedroom windows they both stare
Those that hurt most are the ones that give a fuck to care
And I know that's life but it still sucks.
--
If you didn't actually read this I'm gonna stick a 9 iron up your ass.
Unless there's already one there.
Or maybe I'll just SAY it's a 9 iron.
When it is actually a wood.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:18:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee Papi.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:13:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:02:00 (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack - you're the reason I'm here.
LOVE this...keep it going.
--
I have such a filthy mind...
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:10:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Yee-hah.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:10:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was so great.
I just have one question.
Will you marry me?
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:05:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I know a girl who strives to better this planet every day
And there is a boy who knows his actions won't change a thing anyway
And out their bedroom windows they both stare
Those that hurt most are the ones that give a fuck to care
And I know that's life but it still sucks.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:05:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-08-24 18:02:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack - you're the reason I'm here.
LOVE this...keep it going.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:54:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dang,. you know JonnyX is a sucker for sci-fi...
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:53:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good 'voice' here.
Damn I loves me some stories like this.
Submitted by gank (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:46:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought maybe you were going for a Thelma & Louise ending at first.
Good, good.
Submitted by houseman (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:42:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack you are awesome!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:42:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:35:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
Great writing, as always. Did you see your vidwhore yet?
--
Shit, I forgot. I'll email myself to check it out at home tonight.
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:35:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great writing, as always. Did you see your vidwhore yet?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-08-24 17:27:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
At DROF, quality is job 1.