| Original Fiction: Extreme Mars
By Kenneth Silber
posted: 02:11 pm ET
21 April 2000
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This was not a punch. This
was devastation.
Nick reeled backward. His
flexible face-mask bore a deep, fist-shaped impression. His eyes darted
up toward the pinkish sky, then back at his opponent.
Nick's feet were off the
ground, but only for a moment. He was dimly aware of a reddish-brown tuft
of powder rising as he regained contact. His mind raced:
How did it come to this?
How indeed? The mainstay
of the martian economy, it once was thought, would be deuterium, or perhaps
support operations for asteroid mining. But the success of Lunar-alai changed
all that. The ball's strange, slow zigzags had transfixed the tele-audience,
and made them want more. More speed. More action. More color, especially
if that color was red.
Extreme Fighting on Mars.
It was the ultimate sport, a marketing bonanza. Public interest never wavered
during the three-month trip; the cameras were everywhere as they trained
aboard the nuclear-thermal FighterShip. And then the six combatants were
left scattered around the giant playing field...
...Olympus Mons. Of course,
the site selection was a gimmick. True, it was the "tallest mountain in
the known universe" -- some three times higher than Everest -- but you
would hardly know that standing here. The old volcano sprawled across 550
kilometers (340 miles). Its slope was gentle, almost unnoticeable.
But the camera angles, wildly
shifting and slanted, made up for that. A tele-robot hovered nearby, its
lens focused closely on the two contestants. In the distance were other
cameras, some floating, some fixed. Overhead, orbiters and aerials monitored
the larger picture. Four fighters down, two left. Billions watching.
Nick dodged a punch, then
delivered a quick chop to his antagonist's moving shoulder. He could imagine
audiences cheering on Earth and the moon, and in the scattered "clay towns"
of Mars. His opponent, after all, was one of the most disliked individuals
in the solar system. But somebody had to play the heel.
Nick lurched forward, jumped,
jutted out his left leg in a flying kick. He rose nearly three meters (nine
feet) in the weak gravity, but missed as his opponent sidestepped and darted
backwards. Both threw punches, but made only the most glancing contact.
They circled each other warily.
How did it come to this?
This wasn't the time for such thoughts, but they were hard to avoid. He'd
had a different career once. Consulting. Business-to-business. Deuterium
futures. But then came the market crash of '22. When he decided to become
a fighter, Cindy walked out on him. He never saw her again.
And that made him angry.
He connected to his opponent, a fist to the odious face. His hand hurt
enormously, but he saw that he'd left a crater-like impression. And he
knew something more. This was worth it. The hard training, the sacrifices,
the lost options in life were worth it. Mars was worth the pain.
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