Mountain of Mars

by Glynn Stewart

  It had been only three weeks since he’d returned to Mars. Only a month since the Mage-King had died, but he was starting to feel like he had a grip on what was going on.

  “We will, of course, present all of the information acquired under the black investigation to the Protectorate Supreme Court to validate the plea bargain made with Odysseus,” he concluded the briefing he’d given them on the last few weeks’ chaos.

  “Councilor Granger’s fate will not be presented to the Court,” he continued. “His deal was with the Mountain and was validated by myself and Her Majesty. As part of that deal, the exact reasons for his resignation and exile will remain classified for as long as Suresh Granger remains alive.

  “I will leave the investigation of Prosecutor Vemulakonda in the hands of more qualified individuals,” he noted. “I personally do not believe that the misdirection of her Inquiry was intentional, but that misdirection did take place. Madame Vemulakonda has already agreed to be placed under house arrest in the Mountain until that investigation is complete.”

  Her willingness to accept that investigation and confinement certainly didn’t hurt the presumption of innocence.

  “Our largest outstanding concern from the investigation of His Majesty’s murder is that the individual classified in our files as ‘Nemesis-K’ remains at large,” Damien noted. “All evidence suggests that he wasn’t aboard Choirgirl when we boarded her. It is unclear if he left as Choirgirl was leaving Earth orbit or if he was entirely absent from the Sol System.

  “The data extracted from Choirgirl and Relay Station VRF-Seven-Six-Five will allow us to neutralize much of what remains of the organization, but Nemesis-K is a critical threat that I do wish we’d captured.”

  Damien glanced around the room. He was reasonably sure, at this point, that the taint of treason had been removed from the highest levels of his government. Most of that seemed to have hung on Granger—and the Hands that had been corrupted by the Keepers.

  He was still going to be watching his back for knives.

  “The weeks since His Majesty’s death have been a struggle for us all, but I believe Councilor Ayodele has an announcement to make as well,” Damien continued, gesturing to the shaven-headed black man who spoke for Terra at the Council.

  “Everyone, it is my pleasure to report that we have achieved a complete first draft of the new Constitution,” Ayodele told them. “There are still aspects to be established and some months of work left, but we and Her Majesty have reached agreements on much of the fundamental structures that will guide the Protectorate in the future.

  “Our expectation is that we will be able to present a final document for Her Majesty to sign on January first, a bit less than four months from now.”

  That earned a smattering of applause and Damien smiled. He’d been the club, but it had been Envoy Velasquez who’d done the lion’s share of the lifting. It was a bigger victory than it felt, too, for all that it was a win of papers and agreements.

  He gave Christoffsen an arched eyebrow in question, and the Professor nodded confirmation.

  “A full briefing will be forwarded electronically to you all,” Damien told the Council, “but we have settled on a structure that we believe will make certain the voice of the people is heard at the highest levels of our government.”

  Not governors and their clients. That was the big victory from his point of view.

  “That leaves us, people, with one big, ugly item hanging on everyone’s plates,” he said grimly. “There will be small business to suck up the rest of this meeting, but I wanted Admiral Caliver to brief us on the status of the war.”

  Amanda Caliver stood as he tapped a release of the conference room’s display functions to her.

  “Our victory at Legatus clears the way for further campaigns against the Republic but has also exposed some critical weaknesses,” she said calmly. “From a naval perspective, we have stretched our resources to the limit.

  “It took longer for us to rearm Second Fleet than any of us would have preferred. Protectorate High Command is still coming up to speed in many ways and we bear some responsibility for that, but the truth is that our munitions production was never designed to stand up to the demands of a full-scale war.”

  The Protectorate High Command was less than six months old. It had been created after the war had begun, when Desmond had realized that the Martian military didn’t have a formal structure that could handle fighting a war.

  “We need to get started on changing that, don’t we?” Kiera said dryly. “We may have taken the Republic’s shipyards, but so long as they can build gunships and missiles, they’re going to stay in this war.”

  “Agreed,” Caliver confirmed with a small bow to where the Mage-Queen sat opposite Damien. “We did have new production centers brought online over the last few months, but with the need to replace the missile stockpiles of the entire fleet with the new Phoenix IXs, we appear to have drastically underestimated the need.

  “New factories have been ordered and old facilities are being restored or retooled, but we do not currently have the manufacturing capacity to support the level of active operations that Admiral Alexander wants.”

  And there, Damien realized, was the kicker. He knew that Alexander had wanted to already be in Nueva Bolivia by now. A lack of modern missiles had held her back.

  “Why don’t we simply use the old missiles?” the Mage-Queen asked.

  “We could, but the Republic’s current weapons significantly outrange the Phoenix VIII,” Caliver told her after a moment’s pause. “Until those facilities are online, we cannot provide Admiral Alexander with the munitions for more than one major fleet action every three months at best.”

  “Fighting a war on those terms requires far more cooperation than the Republic is likely to give us,” Damien said grimly. “How fast can we fix that?”

  “Our best estimate is that we should have production up to speed in another four months. Including transportation timelines, it will be closer to six months before we will be able to support a sustained offensive against the Republic.”

  “Damn.” Damien let the curse hang in the air. “Expedite that if you can, Admiral. Money is no object, but money can’t allow us to conjure missiles from thin air.”

  There were a lot of things Mages could conjure—or at least, transmute other objects into—but missiles were a bit beyond human magic.

  If the Reejit were the threat Winton had believed them to be, then humanity would need those missile factories. Hopefully later rather than sooner, but they’d need to keep them open after the war ended.

  That would take some selling but was a future-proofing problem.

  “We will do all we can,” Caliver promised. “A delay in the offensives might be necessary anyway. General McConnell?”

  The second representative from the High Command was the second-in-command of the Royal Martian Marine Corps. General Nevan McConnell’s boss had been smart enough to avoid the job, leaving the pudgy redheaded man to face Damien with bad news.

  “The occupation of Legatus has consumed any slack the Marine Corps can be considered to have ever possessed,” McConnell said flatly. “We have eight hundred thousand Marines. Just over four hundred thousand of those are assigned to the ships of Her Majesty’s Navy, leaving us with approximately eighty RMMC strike brigades.

  “The strike brigade is traditionally the largest deployable force the RMMC organizes, as it rarely takes more than five thousand exosuited troopers to secure a planetary capital, and we have never expected to need to impose more than regime change on any given world.

  “Currently, seventeen brigades’ worth of troops are tied up in various missions around the Protectorate. Eight are providing security in the Sol System. The other fifty-five brigades are on Legatus, attempting to impose order on a local populace that is barely reconciled to our presence at best.

  “Three hundred thousand soldiers, even Marines, are a drop in the bucket against a planetary populati
on of billions. There is no way the RMMC can take on responsibility for further occupied planets without a major expansion.”

  “So, we do what we did at Ardennes with the fleets,” Kiera told him. “Make arrangements with the system governments to draw units of volunteers from the planetary armies. Most of the MidWorlds have as many people under arms as the RMMC does. Most of the Core Worlds have more.”

  “That won’t work,” McConnell said flatly. “We need soldiers directly answerable to the Protectorate, which means we need to train new Marines.”

  Damien started to lean forward, but Kiera was already asking the critical question.

  “Why?”

  The word hung in the air, and McConnell turned to Damien in frustration.

  “My lord, I do not have time to explain the nuances of the relationship between the Protectorate and our member systems to a teenager,” he said flatly. “May I suggest that Her Majesty allow us to discuss these matters in closed council and be briefed later?”

  “You may suggest that, yes,” Damien said calmly. “I suggest you answer her question.”

  “Everyone here knows damn well why we can’t ‘borrow’ armies from the member systems,” he snapped. “Why waste time explaining what her tutors should have already covered?”

  “Very well,” Damien told General McConnell. “You may leave, General.”

  “What?” the redheaded man stared at him.

  “You will leave, General McConnell,” Damien repeated. “I expect your resignation on my desk by this evening. I will ask General Tunison to recommend your replacement as her second and the ground forces representative to the High Command.”

  “I don’t—”

  “There is only one person in this room whose presence is beyond question,” Damien said, speaking quietly enough that he knew everyone in the room would struggle to hear him.

  “Her name is Kiera Michelle Alexander and she is the Mage-Queen of Mars. You all serve at her will—as do I.

  “You are dismissed, General McConnell.”

  The room was completely still as every eye focused on McConnell. He opened his mouth to protest again, then looked over at Kiera Alexander.

  The Mage-Queen of Mars’s face was iron. She’d learned enough self-control not to have yelled at the man when he was dismissing her, but Damien could still read her.

  That was a good thing. It would fall to him to make sure she learned what she needed to—including when she did and didn’t have to suffer fools.

  He was, after all, her Lord Regent.

  Thank you so much for reading Mountain of Mars. The story will continue in The Service of Mars, due out September 1, 2020. For all the Glynn Stewart news, announcements, and more, join the mailing list at GlynnStewart.com/mailing-list

  Read on for a preview of The Terran Privateer, book 1 in the Duchy of Terra trilogy, or click to check it out in the Amazon store.

  If you haven’t already, check out the Starship’s Mage: Red Falcon series, starting with Interstellar Mage, featuring David Rice and crew.

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  Preview: The Terran Privateer by Glynn Stewart

  Enjoyed Mountain of Mars? While waiting for The Service of Mars, why not try the alien invasion space opera series Duchy of Terra, starting with The Terran Privateer, available now!

  Earth is conquered.

  Sol is lost.

  One ship is tasked to free them.

  One Captain to save them all.

  When an alien armada destroys the United Earth Space Force and takes control of the human homeworld, newly reinstated Captain Annette Bond must take her experimental hyperspace cruiser Tornado into exile as Terra's only interstellar privateer.

  She has inferior technology, crude maps and no concept of her enemy, but the seedy underbelly of galactic society welcomes her so long as she has prizes to sell and money to spend.

  But when your only allies are pirates and slavers, things are never as they seem and if you become all that you were sworn to destroy, what are you fighting for?

  1

  Admiral Jean Villeneuve of the United Earth Space Force charged off of his shuttle like an aggravated bull. He hated the Belt Squadrons inspection tours: days crammed into a tiny ship flying out from Earth, followed by weeks of squeezing through obsolete ships, many lacking even artificial gravity, to make a show of the UESF caring about its back-of-beyond postings—and their role in dealing with the increasing level of outer system piracy.

  Now the Space Force’s chief supplier of warships had decided to demand a detour at the end of his trip, bringing him to this strange space station even he, the Chief of Operations for Earth’s spaceborne military cum police force, hadn’t been aware existed.

  Villeneuve was a tall man, with the distinctive pale skin of someone who’d spent their entire adult life in space. His once-black hair was almost pure white now, still cropped close to his scalp to allow for the spacesuit helmets of his youth.

  Today he stalked into the Nova Industries Belt Research Station in his full white dress uniform, with its gold braid, its silly little half-cape, and the four gold stars of the only full Admiral Earth’s Space Force had.

  The station looked older than he’d anticipated when he got the “request” to meet someone from Nova Industries here. Most new stations were built as rough spheres, maximizing interior volume now that Earth had artificial gravity. The research station had clearly started as the massive ring of a centripetal gravity facility—and Villeneuve was sure Nova Industries had never reported this station to him!

  As he reached the edge of the shuttle bay, a trio of white uniformed aides trailing in his wake, the blast-shielded doors retracted to reveal a single man in a crisp black business suit. The man was young—far too young to be Villeneuve’s contact.…

  And then Jean Villeneuve’s brain caught up to his eyes and he stopped hard, staring at the frustratingly young features of Elon Casimir, chief executive officer of Nova Industries—and a man who had no business being a week’s flight from Earth!

  “Welcome to BugWorks, Admiral Villeneuve,” Casimir told him cheerfully. “I think you’ll be very pleased with the little demonstration we’ve pulled together for you today.”

  “You little connard,” Villeneuve snapped at Earth’s youngest multibillionaire. “If you’ve delayed my trip home for some stupid stunt…”

  Casimir held up his hands defensively.

  “Please, Admiral, I am many things—but I am never a waste of your time.”

  “BugWorks? Seriously?” Villeneuve asked the CEO half an hour later. Casimir had taken him to a surprisingly well-appointed private office and served up small glasses of the Admiral’s favorite French brandy. He could tell he was being played, but the man whose company manufactured the hulls, engines, and missiles that made up the UESF’s spaceships was usually worth his time.

  “In the grand tradition of SkunkWorks and EagleWorks,” Casimir confirmed. “They wanted to use Bug-Eyed monster, but it took too long to say.”

  “‘They,’ Elon?” the Admiral demanded, eyeing the younger man. Casimir did not look the part of a multibillionaire CEO. His suit was the latest style, but his brown hair was long in a way that was currently out of fashion and his face was chubby, his eyes a warm blue. He looked like everyone’s favorite cousin.

  “BugWorks has been Nova Industries’ main research facility for about fifty years, Admiral,” Casimir told him. “She was the first of the big ring stations built outside Earth orbit, arguably before we really had the capability to do so.”

  “Why wasn’t I aware this station existed?” Villeneuve demanded. “Mon dieu, Elon—if something had happened out here…”

  “We…may have allowed the UESF to think the station was decommissioned,” Casimir
admitted. “We’ve never really hidden it—the Facility is on all of the lists—but when we switched her to artificial gravity, we let your people think we’d scaled it back.”

  “All right,” the Admiral allowed slowly. “Why? That was a dangerously stupid thing to do—even underestimating the population out here could have caused problems!”

  “We had our own resources here if needed,” Casimir said calmly. “And…well, your people have been anything but supportive of research the last few years.”

  Villeneuve winced. There was a strong feeling amongst the Captains and Admirals of the Space Force that the weapons and systems available to them were good enough. Combined with a worry that major advancements would invalidate their own skills, they’d stubbornly resisted supporting research.

  The Chief of Operations disagreed, but he was just one voice. Even with the increasingly disturbing pace of losses to piracy outside the belt, the Chief couldn’t convince the Governing Council to fund research when all of his subordinates didn’t think it was needed.

  “Bluntly, the only research that the UESF has funded for the last ten years has been the hyperspatial portal system. We had a lot more that was really promising,” Casimir noted. “This facility was where we developed the artificial gravity tech, so we had a giant pile of engineers and scientists out here anyway, most of whom had been working on various Space Force or privately-funded research anyway.”

  “Qu’est-ce que tu as fait, Elon?” Villeneuve asked slowly. Even at seventy years old—a hale late middle age in 2185—he still slipped into his native French when aggravated and speaking to people he knew understood him. Elon Casimir spoke twelve languages fluently. Another thing to be jealous of the man for.

  “Ten years ago, my father sold our board on BugWorks,” Casimir said quietly. “He had the opportunity to fully explain it to me before he had his stroke.”