The rover has been torn apart, but skillfully. Servos have been pulled but the guns and launchers preserved, as if someone is trying to convert the bot into a manual gun platform. The homemade sledge it was dragged here on lays in the shin-high Graingrass next to the wheelbase. The plants are mashed by foot traffic all around, and radiating out in several directions.
A closer look shows me they’ve pried a few grenades out of the cluster launchers, then cast them aside, probably disappointed that they’re smoke and not high explosive.
I’m thinking I need to search each shelter systematically when I hear the low thrum of several compressors, followed by the hiss of blown seals. Airlock. Light blazes out of pillbox slits as shutters are raised all around me. Then a trio of doors open on one side of the “square”, washing me with more warm light, which I now see is produced by simple handcrafted combustion lanterns. Bodies start filing out toward me—it looks like they may all be coming out of the same long underground room, maybe a community space.
I initially assume that they’re coming out to either greet or attack me (all bets on the latter), that they’ve seen through my visual cloak, but they seem to move oblivious to me. They’re simply pouring out into the square in solemn, silent discipline. I count over a hundred adult-sized shapes (and get hit by a fresh wave of stink). Only a select few have lanterns, but all of them have weapons that range from rifles and pistols to bows and crossbows. All of the long guns have been fitted with bayonet blades. They also all carry at least one non-projectile weapon in the form of a sword, hatchet or sizeable knife.
They’re dressed in combinations of multiply-patched colony gear and fabrics that may have been woven of processed Graingrass fibers. Each adult wears what appears to be one either decorative or semi-functional piece of armor, slung from their necks like the ornamental gorgets of the Napoleonic era. What they’re made out of looks like random pieces of H-A shells or what may be New Knight hand-forged plate, regardless of original function: some may wear whole breast plates, but most wear shoulder pauldrons, shin greaves, tassets, vambraces or other random pieces. I imagine there may be status or trophy value to them.
Under their layered clothing, their bodies are universally thin and gangly, adapted to Martian gravity, but they’re not as tall as the Pax, and certainly not the Katar. And they all wear breather masks, several of which look like they’ve been repaired and rigged beyond effective function.
They silently form a semi-circle around the center where the rover and I stand, like this is a practiced ritual. Then seals hiss from other directions, all around me, and more hatches open, only these discharge smaller groups that include children. Families, I realize dully. These hang back from the original larger group, almost shyly, as if either curious or bound by some duty to attend whatever’s about to happen.
Then, finally, I get spared my search. Armed warriors bring out Horst and Lyra through the central door of the main facility.
Both have been stripped to T-shirts and trousers, barefoot on the icy stones. Neither have masks or goggles, and by the way they move, they’re already suffering mild hypoxia. I see signs of abuse: Lyra has a dried bloody nose and a split lip. Horst’s left eye is swollen and his cheek and brow have been cut as if from a beating. Their hands are tied behind their backs, and their ankles tied together with cords, leaving enough slack to hobble but not totally immobilize them.
As they’re dragged toward me (well, toward the center of the square since they still don’t seem to see me), I hear an eerily familiar chant start to build all around me.
“Yoo-Ess-Ay… Yoo-Ess-Ay…YOO-ESS-AY… YOO-ESS-AY…”
One man steps through between the captives into the middle of the space. I have to step back so he doesn’t obliviously back into me as he turns and faces the crowd. He raises a rifle overhead, shakes it like a talisman, and yells
“COLD DEAD HANDS!!!”
They all repeat the sentiment as one, then fall silent.
“Istos, our Great Constitution prohibits cruel unusual, so we give you to Mars. If you make it through first night’s freeze, the UV will peel your skin and toast your eyes unprotected. None of you have made it more than three nights, but that’s still plenty to make confession. Tell us what we want, and we may give the precious gift of a bullet.” He pokes himself in the temple with a finger, his gloved hand mimicking a pistol.
Horst and Lyra try not to shiver, their breath coming out in milky clouds, but stay bravely silent.
“Stake them out!” the leader decrees.
And I think I’ve let this go on long enough.
“Your Great Constitution also prohibits taking of life without due process, and guarantees trial by jury of peers, right to counsel, and to confront and present witnesses.”
I let myself become visible, my armor going black. They all jump back a step and level their weapons on me, shaking from the shock of my appearance out of thin air, their leader almost falling backwards over his own feet getting himself well away from me. I keep my hand casually close to my gun.
“Since I’m nothing resembling a lawyer, I present myself as a witness for the defense.”
One of them impulsively fires his rifle. I bob my head sideways to avoid the shot. I’m sure it appeared to them as a blur (and had the unfortunate side-effect of shaking my unruly mop of hair loose from its pony tail).
I see Lyra grin with her abused lips. Horst gives me a look of caution, as if I didn’t already know these people were a bit nuts.
“What are you?!” the leader demands from behind the sights of his own rifle, the trembling tip of his bayonet pointed at my nose.
“Long story. Bad ending. I was Colonel Mike Ram, formerly of UNMAC, which I expect doesn’t make me very popular around here…”
“ISTO!” I get shouted at by the entire throng before I finish my sentence. “ISTO!!”
“Fascist, Socialist, Marxist, Communist,” Horst semi-explains when he sees my confusion. He gets a rifle butt in the gut for his helpfulness.
“Not a good idea,” I warn them. “I am trying to be civil. And there are others like me. Most would be patient with you. Some might even be generous. One, however… Perhaps you’ve met him? Red hair, beard, high forehead, strong nose, sick sense of humor…?”
I see what I was hoping I wouldn’t: Recognition in their eyes.
“You have seen him.”
“Stranger. Quarter-year ago. Out of the wastes—came from the northeast, from the direction of Alchera—none’s come from Alchera since my father’s young days. Wearing rags. Not even a blade to him, just a stick. Mad as a Libby. We gave him to Mars. He smiled like a fool as we staked him, like we was playing. Then he vanished middle-of-dark, snapped his wires and snuck away, no sign since.”
Asmodeus wanted to see the place first-hand.
“What did he tell you?”
“He raved,” their leader discounts. “Said the Yoo-Enn Istos were back, taking over the planet, taking homes and freedoms, killing and imprisoning, bombing and burning. We didn’t believe—he was ox-starved, blue-brained. But then we saw the ships.”
And he stoked them with the best kind of propaganda: the kind that’s mostly true.
“He didn’t lie,” I allow. “But he did play your fear. Earth has come back. They came to rescue, but they also fear that the planet is contaminated from the old corporate labs, so they’ve been demanding everyone here relocate, surrender arms…”
That brings the expected growl from the crowd. They start chanting “Cold dead hands” again like they’re pumping up for a fight.
“They’re scared!” I repeat over them. “They’re in a war with that man, the redhead. He’s attacked colonies like yours, infected the people with technology that turns them into mindless drones for his army, walking corpses. He’s slaughtered hundreds. And you can’t kill him. Let me show you…”
I reach for my gun; a big, sloppy act. Then I stand there with open arms, my feet planted, while they shoot me. I close my eyes
and take it, let the bullets slam my armor, cut into my face, ping off my skull. It hurts, stuns, staggers, but I stay up until they realize I’m not going down. Then they watch my wounds close, watch my armor consume their bullets as it reshapes, repairs.
When I open my eyes, I make them glow. Then I ripple in and out of visibility a few times, just to seal my point.
“These people…” I point to Horst and Lyra. “They wear UN uniforms, but they’re helping me find the redheaded man. So are the people on the big armored vehicle you saw in the crater. Let us go in peace, finish our mission. Those like me can help protect you from what the UN would do to you in their fear.”
I get silence for several very tense seconds. I’m afraid I’m not selling this. I’m afraid I am going to have to take life to save life.
“Tell us!” their leader barks at me. “You say Earth came rescue! What about Yoo-Ess-Ay?” He even says it like he’s chanting it. “What happened to Yoo-Ess-Ay?!”
“As far as I know, as far as they showed us, the place is still there, the people still call themselves Americans… But after the bombing there was a crisis. A world government took over in the aftermath, took power over the other nations. I’m not any happier about that than you are. But it wasn’t a war, not really. The people, broken and desperate, gave up their freedoms for what they thought was a greater good.”
I’m not trying to make this worse, but the more I tell them, the more I think maybe I should be picking up a rifle, pumping it over my head and chanting along with them. I can’t honestly say it’s out of the question. Maybe it can save thi…
“Our sentries aren’t responding!” someone pushes through the crowd to tell the leader. “Payne and Lexington… We left them guarding the Gap.”
And I get turned on again.
“I’m sorry,” I try. “They fired on me and mine. I didn’t intend…”
An older woman shoves her way to the front of the crowd, shakes off hands that try to restrain her, and starts emptying a pistol at me. I think I hear her screaming something about her son over the gunfire. I take the shots, take my punishment, however meaningless.
She realizes the futility, falls to her knees sobbing, but all the other guns are pointed at me again. These people just don’t…
“Watch your friends die, monster!!” she spits at me, shakes the supporting hands off of her as she reloads, and turns her gun on Horst and Lyra. I’m torn within the barest second between shooting her and trying to throw something at her (though that went wrong the last time) when I hear the whistle of a high-vel round whip over my head, watch the old woman’s brains spray all over her fellows, watch a man behind her collapse clutching his gut because the bullet went through her and into him.
Fuck.
Chapter 6: The Thought That Pulled the Trigger
My enhancements track the angle of the offending round back up-slope, originating from about where I left the Knights, but that’s clear enough to the so-called Sons of Liberty. They start to shout about “Istos” and “Redcloaks” and scramble into defensive positions—the entire area is dug and piled with handy trenches and earthen walls. Soon, the night is ablaze with gunfire, lancing up into the surrounding heights. The Sons of Liberty don’t seem to care much about conserving their ammo. I see only a few using night vision gear to find their targets in the darkness—the rest must either be firing to their fellows’ point-of-aim or unloading blindly at where they’ve learned to expect attack to come from.
The Knights are far more conservative and efficient: I hear another high-vel round come flying in, see the head of one of the men holding Lyra burst. I turn to the slopes, light the Knights up in my enhancements, and wave wildly for them to cease-fire. But that doesn’t stop the Sons.
In the chaos, the fighters charged with guarding Horst and Lyra start screaming that they’re going to execute them, forcing them to their knees with guns pressed to their heads.
I need to act, I need to do something about this.
I get an idea, glance back at the rover to confirm my concept, then dive for the bot. I don’t go for the main gun. Instead, I get a hand on the smoke launchers, hack in to the firing mechanism and start popping grenades all over the clearing. The Sons start taking shots at me again, despite knowing the futility of it, but I’m happy to eat their ammo as the smokers begin to burst and mask us all in what I expect in better light would be multicolored billowing clouds.
I kick one canister of what I think is red or pink at Horst and Lyra, use my camo to vanish in the haze, then charge straight for them. I spread my arms and catch each of them in quick succession, knocking aside their guards and throwing us for the nearest potential shelter, which is the long bunker they just emerged from.
I toss them through the still-open door, which is a repurposed colony airlock fused into the rock, and slam and lock it behind us. Then I need to move fast to seal the other two exterior doors and drop the blast-grade shutters over the slit windows. I’m not fast enough: There’s already a man with a tactical shotgun inside the lock to my left, and two more riflemen come running through the lock to my right. I pick up a table—a use-worn antique folding mess table probably from the original colony—and flip it at the single fighter, then sling a matching aluminum bench at the other two.
I run over the top of the one man, pinning him under the tabletop as I stand on it, slam that hatch shut and spin the manual lock, setting my nanites to fuse it. Then I bounce the table into his forehead by stomping on it. It makes a satisfying gong-like sound as it slams his head into the hard-pack floor, stunning him.
I run back the other way, across to the other hatch, wielding another light bench like a quarterstaff, swatting aside the weapons that try to shoot me, breaking two legs, a nose, a jaw and an unknown number of ribs before they go down. The bench is twisted into unrecognizable scrap in the process. Then I have to shove more Sons out through the hatch before I can shut and lock it in their faces. I can hear them shouting and hammering on the other side, trying to force their way in.
Room secured, I finally get a look around, find a valve that lets compressed air hiss into the chamber. Then I make sure that Horst and Lyra didn’t take any stray shots. Thankfully, they were both smart enough to grab the deck while I met gunfire with flimsy furniture.
I find their confiscated gear, piled next to a kind of podium that I expect was used in their “trial”. Displayed prominently behind it is an antique American flag alongside their own single-star version.
The America theme continues as a series of wall panels that circle the room. Skillfully carved into the laminate are representations of US landmarks: The Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Pentagon viewed from above, the statue of Lincoln in his memorial, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the St. Louis Arch, the Liberty Bell…
While Horst and Lyra quickly get themselves more appropriately dressed, I take a few seconds to appreciate the architecture, the engineering of the place:
It isn’t a cave. There’s a welded metal frame, holding up a rock ceiling that’s been artfully cut, fit and glued together with pressure-seal. The ceiling is low—barely over two meters in places—but the room itself is an impressive seven-by-twenty meters, filled with tables and benches like a community center or mess hall. There are rifle racks near the hatches, enough to hold a hundred weapons, but they’re all empty.
“These people are a special kind of nuts,” Horst grumbles as he gets his cold-weather suit on over his L-As. “They think they’re the last Americans, but they’ve devolved to Revolutionary times or some shit. They all have historic names, think we’re all out to subjugate them.”
“Are they wrong?” I challenge lightly.
“They asked us if we knew about the ‘savages’, the ‘red skins’…” Lyra adds, resetting her mask and goggles over her battered face. “Apparently they’ve had encounters over the years.”
“Justified or not, they’ve got nothing but hate for outsiders,” Horst condemns
. “And they didn’t strike me as the most educated lot on the planet.”
“They seem to have made do,” I defend, scanning our surroundings.
“Maybe not for long,” Horst gets more urgent. “You realize you just painted them for an orbital strike?”
I feel fresh ice in my gut.
“We should probably be going,” Horst confirms. “Preferably as fast as possible.”
“I thought the smoke had to be coded,” I make what I suspect is an empty defense.
“Yeah. But blowing it all is going to look like the ‘Horse was destroyed.”
Lyra shoots me a look of horror.
“How well can they see it in the dark?” I hope.
“It’s radioactive,” Horst crushes. “Orbit’s seen it.”
I listen through the stone roof, but can’t connect to Orbit, can’t hear anything but the Son’s own coded link chatter as they rally a defense against what they assume is a major offensive. The rock may be interfering. I need to get outside.
The gunfire is still popping intermittently out there. And the banging on the hatches is getting more violent. Then the whole room gets shaken by what I’m sure was a grenade blown against the center hatch. It’s buckling on its frame, the sealed rock around it cracking.
I’m wondering if there’s another way out of here when I realize we’ve got more problems: There are exits on either end of the chamber. I didn’t see them initially as they were hidden behind the artistic panels, some of which are designed to slide. I can hear Sons incoming, coming at us from both sides, and there’s no way those panels will keep them out for any length of time. Horst has taken a weapon from one of the men I disabled, and tosses Lyra another.
“You had a plan to get us out of here, Colonel?” he asks urgently.
“I was hoping to either reason with them or put the fear of me in them.”
“I don’t think they’ve got enough sense for either of those to work, sir.” He crouches down behind some toppled furniture that won’t do a thing to stop a bullet, leveling his stolen rifle on one of the panels. Lyra does the same facing the other way.
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 30