As science-worshipping totalitatians seek to overtake Mars, a defiant patriot stands alone against a corrupt system in Morgan Asher never wanted to be part of the Martian colonization effort, but agrees to leave Earth for Mars to fulfill his wife's lifelong dream. After arriving on the Red Planet, Morgan discovers a sinister plot: Scientific Fundamentalists (Scifes) have infiltrated all levels of colonial society, and they hold a deadly weapon in their arsenal—one capable of rewriting a person's thoughts and desires. Out of time and out of luck, Morgan must find a way to expose the enemies of liberty before their conquest of Mars is complete.
The Guns of Mars is here! |
Cover Art by Philip R. Rogers.
Cover design by Alva J. Roberts
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September 20, 2327 The frigid wind rattled the flimsy material of the pressure tent as Morgan Asher prepared for another evening among the rocks and dust of the lifeless wilderness. His eyes ached and he felt ready to pass out. He wondered if he would ever wake up again. Death was a definite possibility this night, and there were still a few things he needed to say before he succumbed to the eternal rest. Retrieving a laptop from his duffel bag, he prepared to recount the events leading to his current predicament. His throat was too raw, his breath too shallow to verbally relate his testimony, so he let his fingers do the talking. "Personal Log, Morgan Asher, Tuesday, September 20, 2327. "It’s been a week since I had to run for my life, out here, into the wasteland of Mars. My food ran out today and my recycled water’s starting to taste like urine. The carbon filters for my tent and suit are getting hard to purge and the oxygen doesn’t smell right. Or maybe that’s just me. I haven’t had a bath lately and smell like a sewer. "I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last out here, so I thought I’d better complete my account of recent events. I want to leave a true journal of what went on here, in case those dishonorable Scifes get away with their coup. I want to set the record straight and help defeat their revisionist history." He paused a moment, trying to think of where to go from there. He’d already jotted down much of the tale during the past week. The guilty parties had been named, his own involvement explained, and now he was stuck with the daunting task of making sense of it all. He still had questions of his own, ones he never expected to have answered in the limited time he had left. The carbon dioxide levels in his tent were rising and he found it hard to focus. His thoughts drifted momentarily as he resumed his writing. "My beloved Lorna, if by some miracle you have managed to survive, and someday have the fortune to read this, please know that my only regret is that I’ll never see you again, and we’ll never have those children you were looking forward to; well, unless Saturday night made the difference, in which case, I hope the kid gets on alright without me. Don’t let those dirty Scifes turn it into a little zombie, okay? And I hope the kid has your hair. God, I love that red," he began to ramble. A few sentences of gibberish later, he cleared his thoughts and continued. "Everything I have uncovered regarding the traitors and their puppet masters, I have related in this journal. It has a decent buffer, and it doesn’t seem to mind the vacuum or the subzero temperatures, so I expect it will survive. I only hope the right people find this someday." Morgan’s vision began to blur, his fingers numb from the cold. He’d written as much as he could. Shutting the laptop, he returned it to the bag and prepared for bed. He lay down on the lumpy ground, only a thin layer of plastic separating him from the dead soil of the Martian plain. He finished removing the last pieces of his spacesuit and used a hunk of chest plate as a pillow, the hard, rubbery material providing little comfort for his head. Flicking the switch on his LED torch left him in the dim glow of the miniature space heater staving off the lethal cold of Martian nights. As sleep overtook him, both from fatigue and asphyxiation, his thoughts drifted back to where it all began. That fateful first day of Spatial Orientation 101... |
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