Stilicho bit his lip. There would be no time for any fun the moment he landed on Mars. His boss needed answers right away. “How many people are on Eridu Colony as of right now?”
“Excluding the twelve that are missing, there are five thousand, one hundred and twenty-six men and women in the colony,” Maia said.
“Out of those, how many are security personnel?”
“Twenty-eight at present.”
Stilicho rubbed his lips with his finger. He couldn’t deploy the entire security department out to the construction site in Chryse Planitia- it would have to be a small team. Himself, an engineer or two, a medic, and the rest would be security officers. “Can you access the inventory for any armaments in the colony?”
“Yes, Errol has allowed me full access to all corporate databases,” Maia said. “There are fifty handguns with an average of sixty rounds each. Twenty semi-automatic rifles with an average ammunition count of ninety rounds each. Forty-eight stun guns and one hundred ninety-eight tear gas defensive sprays are accounted for. The rescue team took two stun guns and two tear gas sprays with them.”
“So they didn’t take any real guns, then,” Stilicho said.
“That is correct.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m assuming that the eight consultants that are on this flight will be augmenting the total complement in Eridu Colony. I’ll need to assemble a security team to act as bodyguards when I head over to the site, any ideas?”
“There will be pros and cons,” Maia said. “The security personnel that are already in Eridu have the experience of being on the planet for a number of years, and so they would have knowledge of EVA operations as well as the terrain. The advantage of the reinforcements that are traveling with you is that they are all ex-military special forces, with extensive combat experience, and they have less muscular atrophy due to having just come from Earth.”
Stilicho smiled. “Good old Errol, he figured that if there’s gonna be a fight, then hire the best. What’s the background of the security officers currently in Eridu? None of them have any military experience?”
“Out of the twenty-eight currently on Mars, there are six,” Maia said. “But their average age is forty-four, and none of them served in special forces. The others are ex-law enforcement officers, and none of them have SWAT team experience.”
Stilicho nodded. The current compliment of security personnel were geared towards a law enforcement focus; investigating and preventing crime in the colony were their goals. “Okay, so maybe we could use a mix. Bring along an old security guy from the colony with us to have some experience, and the rest will be in the group that’s traveling with me. Who’s the best candidate to lead the security contingent?”
“Based on my analysis, the best candidate is on this flight. Matthew Trevanian, goes by Matt or Trev,” Maia said. “Age forty-one. Former US Navy SEAL, he joined Darkwater LLC after his honorable discharge. According to classified records, he achieved the rank of master sergeant, and was awarded the Silver Star medal for his actions in the Spratlys Conflict. Also underwent training in microgravity combat.”
“Darkwater? I’m not familiar with that company.”
“A private military company that provided contractors for both corporations and numerous government agencies. They became infamous for a shootout that killed and wounded hundreds of civilians during the Second Belarus War,” Maia said. “After the congressional investigation that went nowhere, they later changed their corporate name to Spartan Reactions Limited.”
“Oh yeah, now I know who they are,” Stilicho said. “I thought only Air Force space troopers were trained in microgravity combat and all that.”
“In the past twelve years, US Navy Seals have begun to incorporate space combat training as part of their curriculum as well,” Maia said. “It seems that the Navy brass was jealous that the Air Force had a monopoly on all military aerospace operations, so they quickly implemented a program that would enable their own personnel to be deployed in these operations too. The Army and the Marines are also trying to start up their own program, but the Air Force is predictably fighting them tooth and nail in order to be the only branch of the military to have that capability.”
“Typical government types, they so love their monopolies,” Stilicho said. “I’m assuming this Trevanian guy is also the team leader of this group?”
“Yes he is,” Maia said. “The others have high respect for him, so that’s why he would be my candidate to lead your security contingent.”
“Okay, I’ll go with your assessment,” Stilicho said. “What about the frigid chick that’s on this flight with me, what’s her story?”
“She is NASA Special Agent Darian Arante,” Maia said. “Age thirty-two. Has been with the agency for ten years since her graduation from college. Her assessment reports are good, though nothing spectacular. Never married, no current relationship. Based on her psychological profile, it seems that she is completely dedicated to her job.”
Stilicho raised an eyebrow. “A NASA special agent? What’s she doing here? Did Errol tell NASA what had happened?”
“I can find no records of Errol making a report of the recent problems to his NASA liaison,” Maia said. “Miss Arante uses a government virtual private network when sending out her emails, so I am not sure as to what her intentions are. The only correspondence I can access from ACE Corp is a demand from NASA that she be included on this flight, and that suitable accommodations be reserved for her when she gets to the Martian surface.”
“Can you hack into it?”
“I could,” Maia said. “But please be aware that if I do, it would be considered a federal offense, Stil.”
“Do it anyway,” Stilicho said. The stakes were too high for him not to know. “Send an email to Errol too, ask him if he knows anything about it.”
Maia paused for a minute. “One moment … email sent. Password cracked. It seems she used a very basic code to access her account. Her net search history is not encrypted so it makes for a very interesting set of subjects that she is accessing.”
“Well, now that you have everything, please enlighten me,” Stilicho said.
“A lot of her web searches and correspondence to her superior concerns my creator, Karl Rossum,” Maia said.
“What?”
“As you well know, Karl completed my architecture and algorithm just before he disappeared,” Maia said. “Karl turned over my program to Errol as his parting gift, who then modified it and as you can see, I am the final product.”
“Right, I already know that part,” Stilicho said. “Why is she coming to Mars?”
“Based on the updates to her superior, it seems that she is convinced that Karl Rossum came to Mars soon after his disappearance on Earth,” Maia said.
“What? Are you kidding me? Karl Rossum is so well known that everybody would have found out if that had happened,” Stilicho said. “It’s an insane theory. Why would she think that?”
“She apparently listened to a two-year old audio recording that was found in Karl’s workshop,” Maia said. “The voice on the recording is that of Karl’s son Joseph. Joseph apparently pleaded with his father to come and rescue him.”
“This is getting weird,” Stilicho said. “Did you say two years ago? Does that date coincide with the previous synodic transfer period?”
“Apparently it does,” Maia said. “The transfer orbital period would have given Karl Rossum a perfect opportunity to leave Earth in disguise, and make his way to Mars.”
Stilicho shook his head. “Blasted Chinese. Send an email update to Errol, tell him that the Chinese might have smuggled Karl into Mars during the last transfer orbit.”
“Update sent,” Maia said. “Though I think you are missing the obvious here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Errol and Karl are like brothers,” Maia said. “They knew and trusted each other for decades when they started up Flux Motors.”
Stilicho scowled. It was Errol
. He was the one who sneaked Karl over to Mars. “Check the passenger lists of all ACE employees as well as tourists that flew to Mars two years ago. Crosscheck with Karl Rossum’s biometrics, as well as anyone who isn’t accounted for.”
“One moment,” Maia said. “One name stands out. Oliver Dodd. The birthdate on his passport is the same birthdate of a child that died in infancy. He was listed as a replacement employee in the communications department of the colony, but present shift logs show that he has never worked there. The picture on his passport is a near biometric match with Karl using facial recognition. I am accessing a vehicle inventory checklist- it seems that one rover was taken in for maintenance and never brought back to full operational capacity. Looking at the rover logs that particular vehicle should still be in the colony hangar bay, but it is not there.”
Stilicho frowned and leaned back along the wall of his cabin. So Errol must have gotten him onboard one of the Martian flights as an employee, and given him a rover to search for his son. He stayed silent for nearly ten minutes.
“I’ve got an email reply for you- from Errol,” Maia said. “It’s in full video.”
Stilicho sighed as he looked up at the wall mounted monitor. “Play it.”
Errol’s face came to life on the screen. “Hey, buddy. I hope you’re enjoying your flight. Yeah, I’ve got a confession to make. Two years ago, Karl came to see me in private. He looked like hell and I could tell something was bothering him. Karl told me he got a message from his son through the Mars relay, telling him to go to over there and find him. I thought he had gone nuts, and I did everything I could to discourage him from going, but in the end, he was my dear friend. So I set him up with a new identity, and gave him one of the rovers- then I erased his name on the logs because that’s what he wanted. In return, he gave me Maia and the keys to his own company. There was no way his son would still be alive, and maybe … maybe he knew it too, but I guess he wanted to find the body just to be sure. So I let him go. He’s probably dead out there somewhere. I think he knew that anyway. Well, that’s it. I’m sorry I never told you about this, but I figured it was a completely separate issue to the problem we got now. I thought it would be okay until NASA started calling me and demanding I put one of their field agents up on that flight with you. I know this puts another brick up your butt, but if you could do your magic, I’ll have a big bonus for you when you come back. As always, if you need anything, feel free to email me again. Take care, Stil. Bye for now.”
Stilicho bit his lip. “Jesus H Christ.”
Maia lowered its voice to indicate concern. “What will you do now, Stil?”
Stilicho looked at his watch. “Go eat lunch, that’s what.”
Chapter 8
Darian double-checked the seat restraints to make sure she was strapped tightly to the crash chair. The escape module was constructed to hold two hundred people, but there were only a total of ten of them, so there were plenty of empty seats. The eight security consultants who had been traveling with her for the past month sat near the sealed outer doors, ready to leap into action in case of a malfunction during reentry. The remaining male passenger was sitting at the opposite side of her, as they both chose seats near the central accessway. The module had a circular layout, with their padded crash chairs facing upwards to the ceiling. Darian had been studying the personnel files of the other passengers for some time, and she was somewhat surprised to find Errol Flux’s personal envoy to be present in the same ship. She had surmised that the rumors of disruptions along the Mars net relay were true, and it was probably such an acute problem that the head of ACE Corp would send in his most trusted subordinate to fly to Mars, despite having never been to space.
Captain Deladrier’s voice was calm. “Attention. We are about to begin entry into the Martian atmosphere. Please stay in your seats and prepare for high-g acceleration.”
Darian’s smartglass readout in her helmet visor was linked directly with the ship’s sensors. It indicated that the Duran Duran had already detached from the orbiting driveship over two hours ago and they were about to enter the upper layers of the Marian atmosphere. Although landings like these had become routine over the last twenty years, there was still a tremendous amount of danger when it came to setting down on the Red Planet. During the early days of Martian exploration the Soviets had no less than nine failures to try to get at Mars, before their tenth mission finally succeeded in just getting into orbit, much less land on the surface. The thin atmosphere meant that ships would be entering the Martian atmosphere at hypersonic speed if they didn’t have parachutes to slow their descent, and quite a number of unmanned landers in the past ended up as nothing more than bits and pieces on the ground.
“Acceleration. Stand by,” Captain Deladrier said over the intercom.
Almost immediately, the room began to shake. At first it seemed to be nothing more than a slight, droning vibration, but Darian knew the worst was yet to come. Less than ten seconds later, the shaking became even more pronounced, and her world began to spin. Darian had undergone high-g training years before, at NASA’s new training facilities in Texas. Every astronaut candidate had to strap themselves onto a massive centrifuge that spun them around a circular room, and a quarter of them had dropped out during training because they could not withstand the high-g forces that they were subjected to. The liftoff from Earth had been bad enough, but this time the reddish tinge in her vision meant that there was an excess of blood flow to her eyes and brain. It was an indication of negative g-forces, because the ship was accelerating downwards faster than the rate of natural freefall.
The live updates on her readouts indicated that the transporter now had a speed of Mach-25 as it entered the Martian atmosphere. Older spacecraft used parachutes to slow their descent, but the Duran Duran was using an aerobraking maneuver, flying sideways and using its hull to slow its plunge. Darian was now being suspended almost upside down as the room had tilted over to its side, the intense vibrations made it feel like the walls around her would suddenly rip open, and hurl her helplessly outside, into the thin upper atmosphere. The disorientation was total, and Darian actually closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. During astronaut training at NASA, she had been given a boxer’s mouthpiece to wear, so that she wouldn’t bite her tongue off. Darian actually brought her old mouthpiece with her, and she had placed it over her teeth, just before donning the helmet. With the exposed terror of finality coursing through her body, Darian bit down hard on the mouthpiece, hoping and praying that things would somehow turn alright.
After a long minute of near-panic, the room began to tilt once more, bringing the module back to its original angle. She could hear the roar of the thrusters underneath her as the ship had gone fully vertical again. Despite a huge sense of relief washing over her senses, Darian knew the danger wasn’t over yet; if the engines had fired too late or too soon, there was still a chance they would crash onto the landing pad. If any of the engines gave out, there was a danger of the ship tilting over even if it landed on the pad, with the possibility of dying in a massive fireball the moment the ship broke apart on the ground.
Captain Deladrier’s voice was heard once more, like a mother soothing her terrified child. “Landing struts deployed.”
The vibrations gradually began to die down as Darian felt the ship land on solid ground. There was still the danger of any of the three landing struts giving way, and it would still topple the ship sideways, but as the seconds ticked by and the angle of the room didn’t change, then it was clear that it had been a perfect landing. Only when she heard the engines being shut down did Darian finally open her eyes and let out a muffled sigh of relief.
“Mr. Jones, you can wake up now,” a warm, calming voice said.
Stilicho slowly opened his eyes. He was still strapped to the chair while Asha stood over him. “What happened?” he said.
Asha smiled. She had taken her helmet off and her long hair was finally drooping over her shoulders, instead of floating around
the back of her head while in space. “You passed out during the Martian atmospheric entry. But that’s okay, it’s a common occurrence.”
Stilicho gulped as he began to unfasten the straps to the chair. His voice was hoarse, and he felt a weight on his chest. Gravity felt like a long lost friend who had returned, and was now giving him a suffocating bear hug. “Okay.”
Asha helped him take off the last of the restraints. “We’ve touched down safely at the International Colony of Hellas Planitia- otherwise known as Eridu. Welcome to Mars.”
Stilicho stumbled forward for a bit as the carry bag he had slung over his shoulder made him unbalanced. Four and a half weeks in space gave him a wobbly gait, even in the low Martian gravity. Asha had told him it would take a few days for his body to adjust, and he was cautioned to take things easy for now. His main luggage was being unloaded and delivered to his suite at the hotel, but he had insisted on bringing his carrying bag with him. He could barely feel his legs, but Stilicho knew that he needed to get stronger quickly, since there was plenty of work to be done. Looking at his watch, he could see that Errol had scheduled him to meet with the colony director later that afternoon.
He was now teetering slowly along the transit tunnel that led towards the passport control section. The other passengers had already disembarked ahead of him and Stilicho was alone. TV screens along the walls sent back vivid commercials of life on Mars, and the many amenities that tourists could avail of. Stilicho nearly spat out a glob of saliva in contempt. He felt like a decrepit old man that had just woken up from a thirty-year coma.
A uniformed attendant stood by the side of the concourse. He was young, tall and lanky, with an ACE Corp baseball cap at the top of his head. “Do you need any help, sir?”
Stilicho shook his head while shuffling past him. “I think I can manage, thanks.”
Right after he said those words, Stilicho’s knees started to buckle. He fell forward, his hands extending outwards to cushion his fall. The attendant quickly reacted as he grabbed Stilicho’s arms to stop him from face-planting onto the ground. “Easy there, Mr. Jones,” the attendant said. “I can have them bring over an electric cart for you.”
The Piranha Solution: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 1) Page 10