Mars Burning (The Saving Mars Series-)

by Cidney Swanson

  “No,” said Jessamyn, undoing her harness. “You have to go. Without me. Without Ethan. I’m staying until the last possible moment.”

  “I…will…” Ethan, who had been silent the entire time, broke off from his attempted speech and began to hum once more.

  “Eth! No! You come back right now!” Jessamyn slid free from the over–shoulder harness and pushed toward her brother.

  The humming ceased abruptly. Ethan opened and closed his mouth, as if attempting speech. No sounds came out, though.

  What was her brother trying to say? “I will,” was a positive, affirming statement, wasn’t it?

  “We’re getting off the ship and back on the station, Ethan and me,” said Jess. “You and Zussman can leave now, if you want,” she added quietly.

  “I’m not going without you,” Pavel replied.

  “Perhaps, Miss Jessamyn,” said Zussman, “For the sake of Mars’s future, it makes the most sense to remove ourselves forthwith.”

  Jess wasn’t sure she knew what “forthwith” meant, but she shook her head. “I’m staying. By tomorrow, Mars could be ruled by a madman. You heard what Mei Lo said. The time is now.”

  Ethan’s hum had begun again, growing steadily in volume.

  “I just need to figure it out,” she said, glancing to her brother. “He was onto something. Something big.”

  Pavel undid his harness. “Let’s get back onboard,” he said. “Zuss? You in?”

  “I would not think of leaving in the station’s only escape vehicle, sir,” said Zussman, looking very offended at the idea.

  The three had to assist Ethan back onto the station; he continued humming all the while, but Jess also noted he had begun to move the fingers on his right hand.

  “That’s a good sign, right?” she asked Pavel, her voice muted, her gaze indicating Ethan’s fingers.

  Pavel nodded.

  She swung herself around to face her brother. “It’s going to be okay, Ethan. We’ll have you out of the suit in no time.”

  Zussman had already removed her brother’s helmet and gloves.

  As they moved from the docking level of the station back to the work level, Ethan reached for a board velcroed to the wall. The crew used it to leave messages for one another when sleep schedules kept them from speaking.

  “What is it, Eth?” asked Jessamyn.

  But Ethan, still humming, had already begun to write on the board. Jess didn’t know whether to be elated or disturbed by his attempt to use non–verbal methods of communication. It wasn’t something he’d tried before.

  She soon learned why. His motor control, never good when he entered this state, did not allow him to form letters in anything like a timely fashion. For five minutes, Jess waited while her brother wrote what looked like IWI.

  Pavel tapped a chronometer when Jess looked over at him, and she agreed. Time was a–wasting.

  “Eth, you keep working on that,” she said, softly. “You’re doing great. We’re going to bring you on over to your station, but you just keep working on the rest of the message.”

  Ethan gave no indication as to whether he heard his sister or not, but he managed to bring another stroke downward on the writing surface. Jess had no idea what an “IWII” was. Was he explaining something using mathematical symbols?

  Restoring the program she’d copied from Ethan’s console half an hour earlier, Jess scanned through her brother’s last several pages of input.

  What am I missing? she asked herself.

  And then Pavel tapped her shoulder gently.

  “You should see this,” he said.

  Jess turned and studied the uneven scrawl her brother had been working at with such determination.

  There were three words, unevenly spaced, but unmistakable: I WILL LOSE, said the message.

  And below that, a single word, misspelled: FLEA.

  60

  En Route to New Tokyo, Mars

  With only hours until voting commenced, Mei Lo examined the latest polls. Cavanaugh was taking a severe dressing–down for having suggested that the recent threat to Mars was the fault of her current leader’s policies.

  But Cavanaugh had neglected to take into account people’s gratitude that they weren’t starving to death. Mei Lo smiled grimly as she flew to New Tokyo for a final address.

  Hours earlier, Cavanaugh had moderated the tone of several of his remarks, in an apparent attempt to deflect attention from his earlier accusations. Perhaps, he suggested, the incumbent had a perfectly good reason for having employed the Mars Raiders—heroes, mind you—to do the work of accessing the Terran satellites. Perhaps his own beloved sister would have walked at his side today if only Mei Lo had not required of the Raiders an additional assignment.

  “No, Kipper wouldn’t be at your side today,” Mei Lo murmured as her Cloud Runner made the final approach to New Tokyo. “Not in this lifetime or the next, mister. Hades and Aphrodite! I’ll tell you what I won’t miss tomorrow,” she said to her driver. “I won’t miss having to listen to his drivel about his dear Cassondra, his favorite sister. Ugh!”

  “Best way to make certain is to beat the bastard today,” replied her chauffeur. “You go out there and remind the people of New Tokyo why they elected you in the first place.”

  Her driver brought the Cloud Runner, never an easy ship to land, to a shuddering halt. Mei Lo couldn’t help remembering the landing Jessamyn had made, damaging the ship to save the planetary dog. Jess had a thing for blowing up ships, thought Mei Lo, smiling and shaking her head. She released her five–point harness and stood, donning her new walk–out suit.

  “They never fit right when they’re new, do they?” asked the Secretary General, sealing her suit.

  “No, ma’am,” replied her driver. “But you look great,” he added. “Not a speck of red dirt to be seen.”

  “We’ll soon take care of that,” said Mei Lo, sighing. New Tokyo was having a windy day. She would be coated in orange–y tan dust within seconds. She stepped outside.

  “Madam Secretary,” called a voice she recognized.

  The sun, low on the horizon, was reflecting off the speaker’s helmet. Mei Lo dropped her eyes to the name printed on his walk–out suit. General Mendoza. Mei Lo’s brow furrowed.

  “What in Hades brings you here?” she demanded.

  Mendoza replied, “You’ll want a secure channel for this, ma’am.”

  Mei Lo fiddled with her helmet comm so that she and the general had a private line. “What is it? I’m speaking in less than ten minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of that. But you need to hear this first.”

  A crackling recording played in her helmet. Mayday, mayday! This is the New Houston Water Treatment Facility. We are under attack. I repeat we are under attack!

  Mei Lo picked up her pace as she strode toward the building where she would speak. She would be giving a different address, it seemed, than the one she had prepared.

  “We’ve evacuated the building in New Houston, ma’am,” said General Mendoza, keeping pace beside her. “But at this point, we are expecting a report of roof collapse. None of our counter measures have alleviated the—” He broke off. “Hold on.” The General was listening intently to a new comm.

  Mendoza’s helmet wasn’t reflecting glare now, and Mei Lo saw his face drain of color.

  “Brace yourself,” said Mendoza. “There’s been a second attack.”

  “Madam Secretary!” Another voice crackled in her helmet. “Madam Secretary, please respond at once!”

  “I’m here,” said Mei Lo. And she began to run.

  61

  Station 92–AE

  Jessamyn re–read her brother’s message:

  I WILL LOSE.

  FLEA.

  Since when had Ethan misspelled simple words? She pulled herself around so she could look her brother in the eye.

  “You can’t say that, Ethan. We cannot lose. Do you hear me? All of Mars is counting on us to gain control of the Terran sate
llites. Losing is not an option. And neither is running away. Mars needs us.”

  Ethan closed his eyes and shook his head infinitesimally from side to side. When he opened his eyes once more, he stared at the message he had written, and began to hum.

  What was it he’d been so excited about last night? And why on Ares hadn’t he woken her up to talk about it?

  I WILL LOSE.

  Ethan’s hands, still fisted, coiled toward his wrists. His body had begun to move, but the movement was toward the fetal position.

  “You’re going the wrong way, Eth,” Jess murmured. “Come back to me.”

  Lasers. Janitorial subroutines. Mei Lo’s pending election. How did these things fit together to reduce her brother to this state?

  She ran through the code on his screen. Eth had found a way to shoot lasers. And he’d figured out how to place the lasers in shielded mode, which would protect them from debris in space.

  It struck her as odd, her brother’s interest in asteroid–avoidance mode.

  “What were you doing, big brother of mine?” she murmured, running her finger down the lines of coded instructions. Her brother grasped the tablet covered in his shaky writing, focusing all his attention on it. He stopped humming and tried to speak once more, but no words came out.

  Jess returned her gaze to the written words.

  I WILL LOSE.

  Her brother was never wrong.

  “I need to make sure I’m understanding you,” she said softly. “Eth, do you mean you can’t beat the Terran hackers? You can’t get control of the satellites? Ever?”

  His eyes closed slowly, one time. It was an agreement. Her brother could not do what Mei Lo had asked.

  Ever.

  It felt to Jessamyn as though the air in the station had been suddenly evacuated. She couldn’t breathe. Her brother had to fix the satellites. They were all that would stand between Mars and an invading army.

  She took a ragged breath. Get a grip, she ordered herself. These were her circumstances. What could she do with them?

  She looked at her brother. He was trying to stop humming, and long pauses without sound punctuated his attempts.

  She thought about the shields again. Why would Ethan care about protecting the satellites from space debris? It made no sense.

  “Unless…you weren’t trying to protect the lasers from debris,” she said softly. Turning to her brother, she spoke. “You figured out a way to keep Lucca from firing them, didn’t you?”

  The lasers couldn’t attack if they were shielded. It was a lesson Jess knew all too well: don’t fire anything up when your equipment is in a protective protocol. She’d blown up the first cycler her dad had given her as a result of forgetting this rule.

  “This is how to beat them, isn’t it?” she asked her brother. “By shielding the lasers, we stop Lucca firing them.”

  But Ethan hadn’t known about Lucca’s attack last night.

  “You only learned about Lucca’s attack just now, Eth, when I told you.”

  Her brother’s head nodded a fraction.

  “So you were working on something else last night,” she said.

  He nodded again and the humming stopped. Closing his eyes as if to concentrate, he placed his front teeth on his lower lip and exhaled, making an “F” sound.

  Jess clenched her fists tightly, willing Ethan to come back to her.

  The “Ffffff” sound continued.

  What had Ethan been working on last night? And why had he wanted a good night’s rest badly enough to risk a sedative?

  Jess looked at her brother’s work once more, then back to his message: FLEA.

  Something tickled at the edges of her mind: Sand Flea had been the model of her first cycler. She pushed the irrelevant memory aside, ignoring her memory of the bright flash of its destruction.

  Her brother continued to exhale: Ffffff. It was an improvement on humming, anyway.

  She ordered herself to focus on her brother’s wafer, running through the coded lines of instructions to the satellites.

  But the childhood memory kept intruding. The bright flash on all sides. The wild ride, tossing like a pebble in a storm as the ship destroyed itself.

  Stop, she ordered herself. Focus. You’ve got a job to do.

  The memory tickled like a loose tooth she couldn’t leave alone.

  She remembered her brother saying, Everyone knows a cycler will explode if you drive with the thrusters shielded. Which had been so helpful after the fact.

  She shook herself. She had minutes left.

  “Ethan,” she said, touching her hand to her brother’s. “What were you working on?”

  And then she saw the connection.

  Ffffff…

  “‘Flea’ as in, my Sand Flea, Eth?” Her heart pounded a wild staccato.

  He attempted to respond. “Ffffff—flea.”

  “Eth,” she whispered. “You want us to blow up the satellites?”

  62

  Station 92–AE

  Jess’s thoughts were scattering wildly, like Mars marbles spilled on a slick surface. Her brother had figured out a way to destroy the satellites. Last night it would have been a contingency plan. But today? Today after Lucca had targeted and destroyed a monument on Mars?

  She shook her head slowly.

  “I will not be responsible for a decision of this magnitude,” she said.

  Pavel looked over and Jess explained.

  “You have to do it,” said Pavel. “Your brother’s right.”

  “It’s not a decision I can make, Pavel. Don’t you see that?”

  “It will take twenty–six minutes, minimum, to get a response from Mars,” said Zussman.

  Or longer, she thought, considering it was Jessamyn Jaarda, reprobate ship thief, making the request.

  Pavel fidgeted. “Lucca’s soldiers are on their way. They could be here much sooner than twenty–six minutes.”

  Jess cursed softly. Then she turned to her brother.

  “No wonder you wanted a clear head,” she murmured. “But you didn’t have this morning’s news about the lasers firing on the Rover Monument. That changes everything, doesn’t it, Eth?”

  She gazed into her brother’s down–turned eyes, but there were no answers there. He didn’t know which was the right choice either. Jessamyn turned to Pavel. “I need to comm Mei Lo. Please get everything ready.”

  Pavel ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Zuss has been looking through those lines of code your brother was working on yesterday. He might find something—”

  “No,” said Jess. “Ethan says he can’t win that way. I need…I need permission, Pavel. I can’t do this on my own.” Her hands felt clammy as she pressed them together. “I can’t be responsible. We have no proof Lucca intends to fire the lasers again. What if destroying them is the wrong choice?”

  Nodding, Pavel readied the communications console to send a message.

  “How did you do it?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper. “Back in Yucca, when you fired on the Red Hope? How did you know it was the right decision?”

  Pavel, fussing with settings on the communications panel, responded quietly. “It wasn’t a hard choice, Jess. Your life was on the line. I thought I was protecting you. Firing on the Red Hope was the easy part.” He paused. “Watching you while I did it, now that was hard.”

  Jessamyn nodded.

  Ethan’s humming had resumed. It now seemed a part of the array of blips, buzzings, and other noises in the work station. Jessamyn smoothed her wrinkled clothing, pulled her hair back, securing it in the neckline of her shirt.

  And then she began her message to the Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial.

  63

  Squyres Station, Mars

  The interesting thing about Cavanaugh Kipling, liar extraordinaire, was that he held some truths as immutable. Among these sacred truths was included a steadfast belief in his own ability to read people. Experience suggested to him that he had an unusual knack for understan
ding what motivated people to act. It was a leap to assume he understood their core values or goals, but it was a leap he had felt comfortable making in the case of Lucca Brezhnaya.

  Accustomed to securing his ends through whatever means necessary, he simply didn’t consider that Lucca might be doing the same thing. Not that he assumed she was transparent in her dealings with him, but he had truly believed she wanted what he wanted: open trade between the two worlds.

  It had never occurred to him that she might be playing a different game altogether.

  And so, when the first facilities fell, Cavanaugh turned to what had served him so well in the past: words. He sent a desperate plea to Earth. But this time, Lucca remained silent. She refused to answer his communications.

  So he sat down and listened to all of the messages between Lucca and himself, grasping, at last, that he had allowed himself to be played.

  It was the only possible conclusion. And it meant Lucca had never intended to establish long–term diplomatic relations. She had wanted the spies—the Raiders—more than ever she had wanted the other things Cavanaugh had to offer. And, as destruction rained upon Mars from above, Cavanaugh had to admit she made no distinction in her own mind between the Martian traitors on Earth and the Martian traitors on Mars.

  Cavanaugh Kipling’s final speech in New Tokyo had been canceled, of course, with the election suspended. There was talk of postponing the election indefinitely. He laughed grimly. Soon, there would be no one left. The election no longer mattered.

  Nothing mattered.

  Cavanaugh’s life had been made of clever reconstructions, but there was no reconstructing the truth that Mars was doomed.

  He donned his walk–out suit and boots and exited his hab, feet crushing the red earth turned purple by the sunset. He recalled something from school about Agamemnon treading the purple carpet reserved for gods.

  Cavanaugh took a last deep breath of the air supplied by his walk–out suit. And then he carefully removed his helmet, ignoring the warnings, and dropped it to the ground. Then Cavanaugh Kipling walked out on the Marsian plain until he could walk no more.