They wound their way through more tunnels, like a maze. Twists and turns, several airlocks, the journey was endless, although there was no sign of any pursuit. At last, they stopped in a wider chamber, also lit by the translucent plastic walls. There were more people gathered there. He counted fifty or sixty, and they stared at them in open curiosity. He’d managed to regain some use of his legs, as the built-in diagnostics assessed the damage, rerouted power to different muscles, and he could walk again, albeit at about the speed of a two-hundred-year old geriatric. Jamison did the introductions.
“People, we have visitors. Luther, Rose, and this sorry specimen, is Noah Cage.”
A rebel trooper forced his way through to confront them; a huge man, a biosuit tight around his massive body, his face a twisted mass of scars and broken bones, crudely repaired. His lips parted in a demonic scowl.
“Cage.”
* * *
The tension crackled, as thick as the atmosphere outside the armored Plexiglas viewports was thin. They’d surprised Vos when they suggested he attend the hastily convened crisis conference. After the debacle in the spaceport, Hartmann had raged against him for almost a half hour for failing to intervene. He assumed they’d sideline him and Bowen, but it wasn’t to be. Master Sergeant Diego Guzman brought him the invite ten minutes after Hartmann had swept from the room.
“The General wants you. Just you, not your monkey.” He tossed a vicious glance at Bowen, staring out through the viewport.
No pleasantries, no courtesy. A thinly disguised order, and he fought back his mounting irritation.
I’m Sheriff Vos, not some overawed rookie MP, a football to be kicked around by some General throwing a hissy fit.
“What does he want?”
A smirk. “You’ll find out when you get there.”
He stared down the harsh, brutal face. “No, soldier, I’ll find out when you run and ask Hartmann what it’s about. Soon as you can answer my question, I’ll decide whether I go. Or not.”
The shock on his face gave Vos a rare moment of pleasure. He turned on his heel and came back several minutes later. “Sheriff, they’re putting together a major operation to attack the rebels. Now that Cage has joined them, it’s in our interests to take a more active role in putting down the revolt.”
“There’s a revolt? Everyone said Mars was at peace.”
Guzman’s face flushed red. He’d said more than he should have.
“Screw you, Vos.”
He arrived in a long, low conference room in a lower section of the security tower. It was more of a bunker. Triple reinforced viewports, and a massive airlock door. They were already there, sitting around a long, white plastic conference table, on white plastic chairs. The walls were white, apart from the inevitable security monitors. The impression they gave was of sterility, yet the expressions were at odds with the carefully crafted presentation. As if they concealed something dark. Dirty.
Is it a metaphor for this entire planet? Is it sterile, an antiseptic façade, hiding a decaying inner core? No, that’s hard to believe. But something doesn’t fit right. What?
The crisis meeting revealed the true extent of life on Mars. The bit they didn’t want other planets to know about. Mars was a haven, a paradise; move your family here and live the good life. Fat paychecks, luxury housing, and the knowledge you were at the cutting edge of the most advanced technology known to man.
They didn’t mention the tension and the fear. The Director of Security, Vladimir Laszlo, kept a neutral expression on his iron face. He didn’t fool anyone. Beneath the surface, the attack had rocked him. They’d bested his troopers. Killed several, and got away with a valuable cargo. He was the man at the helm, and he was scared.
“They can’t get away with it.” His voice was calm, controlled, “We’ve taken as much as we can stand from these scum, and the Board of Directors has decided to finish them, once and for all. What we’re proposing will scour the planet of these terrorists. If anyone has any doubts about going into these rat holes and wiping out these filth, he’d better spit it out.”
He shouldn’t have asked, but he’d taken a gutful of their bullshit. “This, er, Board of Directors, Sir. Who are they?”
The answer was a single word. “RedCorp.”
“What about the other corporations?”
“Screw ‘em.” He waved his hand to dismiss them, as if putting them out with yesterday’s garbage, “RedCorp is Mars. Any other damn fool questions? Good. Here’s what I propose. They need air.” Heads nodded, “So we’ll smoke ‘em out by attacking their air supplies. Drive ‘em out of their caves and tunnels, and when they come out, choking their last gasps, we’ll be waiting for them.”
Hartmann’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “We’ll kill them, all of them. Bastards, they’re turning this paradise into a shithole. They don’t deserve to live, just as long as Cage is dead when the dust settles.”
The door opened. A messenger entered the room and passed a device to Laszlo. He scanned it quickly, nodded, handed it back, and looked at those seated around the table.
“That message came from the Board. They’ve authorized emergency measures. We’re to clear out this nest of vipers, and here’s the important bit.”
He glanced around as he spoke. Trying to be the big man, but Vos wasn’t impressed. These Martians were all scrawny creatures, a consequence of life on Mars. Slight, and weak compared to him, and he liked that feeling.
“No prisoners. None. Apparently, we’re operating under a time constraint. Two of our early warning buoys on other side of the Belt have lost contact. We’ve requested a patrol, but it will take months to get something out there. Probably just an impact strike from another lump of rock out there.”
He hesitated, and that piqued Vos’ interest.
The Belt. What’s out there that is worrying him?
“This could be something.” He continued, “And it could also be nothing, but they don’t want their corporate troops engaged with these rebels if they might be needed for planetary defense. Use maximum force, and finish the job. Go in hard, and go in fast.”
Vos noticed the concern on their faces and wondered why.
Planetary defenses? Who could possibly threaten Mars, the most powerful military force in the System? Every time Earth tried it, they failed. Only one name came to mind, and he discarded it at once. Titan.
Vos shook his head.
No way. And what does Titan have, anyway? Gas mines and terraformers, assuming any of them still lived out there. Hell, the distance is ridiculous. Any military strike against Mars or Earth is impossible. Yet if not Titan, who are they afraid of? Some other moon, come colony I haven’t heard of? Earth even? No way, they couldn’t muster the will to attack the local parking lot.
He was still mulling it over when a junior officer in RedCorp uniform, wearing a captain’s badges, shot Laszlo a questioning look. “Director, that could be a problem. There are a number of children with the rebels. Sir, we can’t order our men to fire on them. They’ve done nothing wrong.”
He stared back at her, and she shifted uneasily. “Captain, I’ll say this once more. No prisoners. Might I remind you of the penalty for disobeying an order?”
A pause. “No, Sir.”
“Good. The operation begins tomorrow, at dawn. I want every drone in the air, locating the sources of their air. Send the Crawlers down into the tunnels on a standard hunting pattern. If they run into opposition…”
“Call for ground support?” suggested the junior officer.
“Idiot,” complained Laszlo, “Their instructions will be proximity detonation. We have drones for a reason. I want our troops everywhere, covering every hole these parasites could crawl out of, and they’re to shoot on sight. The machines are the beaters, and our soldiers are the hunters. Got it?”
He looked around the room again and paused when his gaze fixed on Vos. “Sheriff, you’ll doubtless be wondering how you can help. You came here in pursuit of a fugitive, am
I right?”
“Of course, Sir.”
“Right. And you think you can catch him, here, on Mars?”
Vos nodded slowly.
“Very well. I’ll assign a security team to accompany you and your deputy, and you can join the physical sweep through the tunnels. General Hartmann, you can lend a couple of your MPs to join them. I’ll use the others in the surface operation.”
Hartmann gave him a sharp look. “What kind of surface operation? Anything we need to be involved in?”
“Nothing at all, General. It’s a new wide-area detection system we’ve developed. If it works as we plan, we’ll have this wrapped up in twenty-four hours.”
“That’s good news, Director. Kill the bastard, and we can all go home.”
“There’s more than one bastard down there, General. We want to get them all.”
Hartmann stared back at him and didn’t reply, but everyone knew just what he was thinking. For him, it was about one man. A vendetta.
After a brief pause, Laszlo nodded. “That’s all, people. Remember the Rules of Engagement. No prisoners, we clear out this nest of vipers, once and for all. Men, women, children, kill them all. If they’re dead, they can’t breed more traitors. Start with this group that attacked the spaceport, and we’ll expand the operation across the settlements. We begin at 06.00 tomorrow. I want this initial phase wrapped up in twelve hours. By 18.00, the settlements will be free of this plague, and we can go back to doing what we do best.”
“Living the good life?” Vos couldn’t help saying. He felt lightheaded after the change of focus. The way the simple operation to arrest a fugitive had become a major military one. Confused, facing too many unanswered questions, wondering if anyone had the answers.
Laszlo smirked. “On Mars, what we do best is making money. There’s something, it may interest you, being as law enforcement is your business that we’ve been developing. Some of those rats are sure to escape. We’ve got a way to tie up the loose ends.”
“What kind of a way? A new weapon, a detection system, what?”
He chuckled. “Something like that. I’ll send someone to bring you along. Say about 14.00.”
The Security Director strolled from the room. As he passed Vos, he was tucking his compact device into his jacket. On the screen, before it disappeared from view, Vos caught a glimpse of a familiar logo. A logo he knew well, which was as it should be. Dawson Public, his employer on Earth, the corporation that ran law enforcement in many of PanAm’s counties and states. Laszlo saw the direction of his gaze, scowled, and tucked the device out of sight.
That’s an odd coincidence. What’s the link between Dawson and RedCorp? Do they share information, and if they do, how long’s it been going on? The war ended four years ago, so I guess there’s no reason they shouldn’t communicate. Then again, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Why do they keep it a secret?
Vos and Bowen were the last to leave. They swapped a look, and Bowen summed up what was on both their minds. “Sheriff, that directive. It’s the…”
“Children.”
* * *
The man came at him, wearing an expression just recognizable as a smile. Just. Broken, blackened teeth, bared in a frightening display of ruined dental work, almost like a row of stones in an ancient monument. He wrapped his powerful arms around Cage and pulled him in.
“Sonofabitch, you’re alive. I thought you died in that missile attack.”
He worked himself free and looked at the face, but he couldn’t place it. “Who are you?” He studied the stranger, and something stirred in his mind, but so long ago, it was...could it be?
“Dammit, how could you forget an ugly bastard like me? Name’s Tony Reyes. 3rd Platoon, 5th of the 1st. They pulled us back that day, you know, when your outfit got hit. I’m really sorry, but they gave us the order to pull back. Maybe we could have done something, maybe not. But still…”
He had him now, the famous Tony Reyes. When the battalion threaded across the harsh terrain, and crawled through underground passageways to hit the Martians from behind, Reyes was the man they always chose to break down the final defenses. People said he could rip out an airlock door barehanded. He was a frightening sight charging down an enemy, and more than one unit had turned and fled at the sight of the awesome soldier. Cage held out his hand.
“Yeah, I remember you. Good to know you survived.” He turned to the man who’d saved him. “So you were Captain Jamison, 5th Company. You guys were in the thick of the fighting.”
Ray nodded. “We saw some action, fired a few shots, sure. Tony’s right. We weren’t there when it mattered, that day they hit your outfit. Maybe we could have put up some opposition, maybe not, and we’ll never know. But at least you’re alive. They told us you were dead.”
He tried not to think of that day. “I was the sole survivor. The airburst tore them apart; they didn’t stand a chance.”
Jamison paused and gave him a strange look. “Did you just say you were the sole survivor?”
He recalled that last battle, as he had every day since. And once again, the doubts and recriminations threatened to tear him apart. He should have been with them. Even if he couldn’t have done anything, he could have died with them. Since then, he’d suffered every minute of every hour of every day. Rose sensed his turmoil and moved next to him. He felt her body press against him, and part of the anguish lifted.
“Just me.”
He paused and looked at Reyes. Then back at Cage. “That, er, isn’t entirely accurate.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Martians found one man alive. Took him away, we assumed he was alive, otherwise they’d have left him there with the other bodies.”
“Took him where?”
A shrug. “We don’t know.”
Which left too many questions unanswered; if they’d taken him alive, where was he now? And the million-dollar question, “Do you know who it was?”
“We went back afterward, although they’d given us the order to pull back further. When possible we collect the dog tags, you know the routine, try to inform the families.”
“So you know who died.”
“Yep, we made a list and handed it in to headquarters. That was just before the war ended.”
He glanced at Rose, and her olive skin had gone several shades paler. Her voice was a whisper. “Was Rob Romero on the list of the dead?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
A woman pushed through the group and approached Jamison. “Ray, it’s time to move off. We’ve picked up signs they’re getting nearer. They’re using crawlers again. We can’t fight them. You remember last time!”
“Crawlers?” Cage asked her.
She gave him an impatient look. “It’s the newest development from their weapons laboratories. They’re small arachnid robotic scouts about half a meter long, and when they pick up sound below the surface, like movement, breathing, voices, they’ll zero in on them. Keep following, until they come to an obstacle. Then they detonate to destroy it.”
“So what’s the problem? There must be a dozen obstacles they’d have to get past to reach this point.”
“The problem is the ones coming behind. They swarm in packs, like rats. There’ll be scores of them. When one destroys itself to break down a barrier, the rest roll over the debris and keep coming, until the next one. Unit destruction brings them in like ants over food.”
People were rushing into a side tunnel, and the crowd thinned until there was just Jamison, several officers, and Cage’s group. As well as a young woman ramming a backpack into a narrow cleft in the rock. She nodded to the leader. “It’s done.”
“Follow the others. We’ll be right behind.”
She disappeared, and Ray explained what they’d just watched. “Explosives. Collapse the tunnel roof on top of the crawlers and they’re scrap metal. Bring down a few thousand tons of rock; so even the ones behind them can’t get past, no matter how many blow themselves up. We need to move o
ut. Dana is our explosives expert, and she’ll have set the detonation for five minutes. That’s all the time we have left.”
They followed him from the cavern and threaded deeper into the subterranean world of the Red Planet. The Humans moved more quickly, but they were not as deft and agile as the experienced Martians.
After several minutes, they heard the blast, and a shockwave punched into them. Jamison gave an approving nod. “That’ll take care of them, at least for now.”
“What happens next? Is that it, will they give up until the next time?”
“That’s how it works, yeah. We take a circular route to our main base. How’re you doing for air? You may need it later. The seals are less effective when we reach the older tunnel system.”
He checked the display. “I could last for around ten hours. More with a shorter recycling time, but it won’t taste good. Rose, how about you?”
She and Luther had just finished checking their own displays. “Seven hours.”
“Luther?”
“Nine.”
Jamison grimaced. “It’s not a lot. I’ll have to bear it in mind. You’re not used to the way we live on Mars. Air discipline will make the difference between life and death. Until it becomes second nature, you have to keep thinking about it, every second. Keep calm; breathe easy so you don’t use up your reserves. Use any ambient air you come across.”
“Got it. How long to reach your base?”
“Two hours is my best guess, but you can relax, they won’t be able to follow or track us. They’ll try to shift the roof fall for a short time, but when they realize how far it extends, they’ll give up and move their attention to another area. That’s the way it works. They’re long on technology, but short on patience.”
“You’re sure they’ll give up.”
“They always do. Move out.”
At the half way mark, after negotiating endless, primitive but effective plastic and aluminum airlocks, Jamison called a halt, “Ten-minute rest, there’s no sign of a pursuit, so we’re safe. We can slow down.”
The cave was larger, about ten meters to a side, with a high, soaring roof. Jamison saw him looking upward. “You know what you’re looking at?”
Last Life (Lifers Book 1) Page 18