MARS: Baroque Revolution

by Matthew Ellis

  He thought about the question again for a long time. This was proving to be much harder than he anticipated. He hoped to finish this task in less than a day. That didn’t seem possible anymore. As he thought, the Capitalist came into view. He got out of view of the massive ship. The last thing he needed was to be discovered. That would lead to him being captured or killed. He sped to the opposite side of the planet and continued thinking.

  He had a breakthrough. He thought, “If I were trying to hide a ship, I’d put it somewhere close but far away. I’d want it to be close enough to deliver supplies to the troops, but far enough away that it wouldn’t be detected. I think I’d put it on one of the moons. I think that big moon.”

  Jack headed toward Phobos in search of General Rich’s second ship. Phobos is the closer of Mars’ two moons, but it would still take him all day to get there in his small ship. He had just enough life support to make the round trip and orbit the moon a couple times. If he found the ship, he’d have to figure out how to stretch the life support.

  As he flew toward Phobos, he became apprehensive and uneasy. He worried that General Rich would spot him with the Capitalist’s sensors. He asked Lane to keep him informed of any sudden movements that Rich might make.

  Lane said, “I’ve got you covered. If anything happens and we know about it, we’ll pass the info on to you.”

  Jack said, “I appreciate that.”

  Jack continued toward Phobos. He was more at ease and relaxed with the assurance that his bosses had his back. The journey to Phobos from Mars is long and boring, so his mind had plenty of opportunities to play tricks on him. He saw things in the window that weren’t there, but he was smart enough to discern the illusions and ignore them. He almost hit a few things that actually were there, like small rocks and litter. He only had a few seconds to decide if things were real or not, but he always made the right decision.

  When he reached Phobos, he orbited the moon from east to west. That pass didn’t provide him with any information. Then he orbited from north to south. After he completed his orbits, he was completely frustrated. He hadn’t learned anything all day, and his body was exhausted. He headed back to Mars so he could get some sleep and try again tomorrow.

  When he landed, Lane met him on the runway.

  Lane asked, “What did you find out?”

  Jack replied, “Not a damn thing.”

  Lane said, “So you didn’t do what I asked you to do?”

  Jack said, “I searched in orbit around the planet, and found nothing.”

  Lane said, “That’s not true. You found out where Rich’s base camp is. That’s a pretty good find. Now we know how much time they need to get here.”

  Jack said, “Yeah, but I didn’t find a second DeNoPE ship.”

  Lane said, “You found out that there’s not a second ship in orbit around Mars. Did you look anywhere else?”

  Jack said, “I went to Phobos. There’s nothing there, either.”

  Lane said, “See, you learned that, too. You can keep searching tomorrow. There’s lots of places to stash a ship near Mars. The asteroid belt isn’t very far away; he could’ve parked a ship there.”

  Jack said, “I really hope I’m not going to have to search through millions of asteroids for a ship that may or may not exist.”

  Lane said, “That probably wouldn’t work anyway. The asteroids are moving away from Mars, so they’d have to keep the ship, if it exists, moving through the belt.”

  Jack asked, “So what’s my next move?”

  Lane said, “I think you should check out the other moon. That’s the most likely place for them to hide a supply ship.”

  Jack said, “What if you’re right and I find it?”

  Lane said, “You’ll get the hell out of there and report back to me and Scout.”

  Jack said, “What if I’m spotted?”

  Lane said, “Just don’t let that happen.”

  Jack asked, “What if it does?”

  Lane said, “Don’t let it.”

  Jack headed to his girlfriend’s house to relax after he hangared his ship. He needed to feel something other than stress, or he would lose his sanity. When he arrived at Jane’s house, he used his key to enter. Jane was waiting on the couch with the lamp turned on.

  Jane asked, “What took you so long? I called Lane half an hour ago, and he said you were already back.”

  Jack replied, “I had to write the report.”

  Jane said, “He said he was waiting for you to return, so why didn’t you just report to him directly?”

  Jack said, “I did, but everything has to be written, too. That way Lane can share information with Jordan, Clive and Scout as accurately as possible.”

  Jane asked, “So can you tell me what you discovered?”

  Jack replied, “No, it’s classified. If I leak information to you, it might slip.”

  Jane asked, “So you don’t trust me?”

  Jack answered, “We never know who’s listening, so we have to be super careful.”

  Jane said, “I think you just don’t trust me.”

  Jack said, “You know that’s not true. I have to make sure we win the war. The future of the colony’s at stake.”

  Jane said, “And our future.”

  Jack said, “Of course. “

  Jane asked, “Are you ever going to propose to me?”

  Jack replied, “Of course, just not right now. I want to make sure the future is a little clearer.”

  Jane said, “You want to wait until we win the war?”

  Jack replied, “That’s my plan.”

  Jane asked, “What if we don’t win?”

  Jack replied, “Then we’ll have bigger problems than planning a wedding.”

  Jane asked, “What if you don’t make it to the end of the war?”

  Jack said, “That’s not going to happen.”

  Jane sarcastically asked, “So you can see the future, or are you suddenly immortal?”

  Jack replied, “I won’t let myself die. I want to be with you too much to let that happen.”

  Jane said, “I’m worried about you. Every time you leave on a mission, I pray for you the whole time. I can’t bear the thought of you not coming back to me.”

  Jack said, “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll always come back to you.”

  Jane said, “You’d better.”

  Jane leaned over and kissed Jack. Jack returned the affection, which quickly escalated from kissing to petting. Then their hands started petting each other on the inside of their clothing. Soon enough, the clothes got in the way. Jane unzipped Jack’s flight suit and pulled it off him. Then Jack pulled Jane’s sweater off her chest to reveal her breasts. He started sucking her nipples as he unzipped and unbuttoned her pants. He kissed her midriff as his hands guided her pants to the ground. She wasn’t wearing underwear, so she was naked once her pants hit the floor. Jane removed Jack’s underwear. They were both naked and full of passion.

  They continued making love for the next two hours. At the end, the bed was soaked and sticky. It was late, so they replaced their clothes and temporarily separated.

  Jack left Jane’s house and went home. He was so tired that he fell asleep as soon as he laid down. He had a long journey ahead of him in the morning, so he would need every second of sleep he could get.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  New Plan

  General Rich’s forces were severely depleted after the battle in Freedom. The Allied Earth Army lost 200 people, many to defections. The Air Force lost another six pilots and five planes. Rich needed to come up with a different plan of attack. His first plan was obviously not working. He called his senior officers into his office on the Capitalist.

  Rich said, “We got our asses handed to us in that last battle. What went wrong?”

  The commander of the Air Force said, “We didn’t know they had two military bases. We didn’t know their military was almost the whole colony. They surprised us.”

  Rich
said, “That only gets them so much. We lost 10% of our army and more planes than we can afford to lose. We need to figure out how to beat them before they decimate us again.”

  The Operative said, “If we’d brought drones, we could be using them to gather intelligence or attack these people without losing any planes or people.”

  General Rich said, “When we came here, I thought this would be easy, so we didn’t bring any drones.”

  The Operative said, “I hope you’ve learned something from the past few days.”

  General Rich said, “I have. We’re going to receive a shipment of supplies and reinforcements which includes drones.”

  The Operative said, “I hope it gets here soon.”

  General Rich said, “It’ll get here as soon as we can get the ship built, loaded, and launched.”

  The Operative asked, “So, what should we do in the mean time?”

  The commander of the Air Force said, “We should attack them on two fronts. Now that we know that they have two military bases, we need to destroy both.”

  Rich said, “But we’re ignoring a line of attack. We could use our small spaceships to attack them from space.”

  The commander of the Space Force said, “That didn’t work so well last time. We lost that battle as well, and we lost it pretty badly.”

  Rich replied, “Last time, they had weapons we didn’t know about. If we try again, we’ll be better prepared.”

  The Space Force commander replied, “I don’t foresee a different result.”

  The commander of the Army said, “We should find a way to sneak up on them.”

  Rich said, “That’s damn near impossible. The whole planet’s full of wide open space except the small parcels where they’ve set up their towns.”

  The commander of the Army said, “But we can go under the towns. We could dig trenches and tunnels that come out in their towns.”

  Rich said, “This is nearly the twenty second century. We’re not going to try and replicate labor-intensive 150-year-old tactics. Besides, the soil is very unstable and the air is too cold and too thin. We’d be killing our own people if we tried to dig tunnels here.”

  The commander of the Air Force said, “Why don’t we just nuke ‘em? That would put a quick end to all of this.”

  Rich said, “We’re not using nukes. Too much is invested on this world to destroy it.”

  The Army commander said, “But the bombs would only destroy the settlements.”

  Rich angrily said, “We’re not nuking anything. That’s final. Now drop it.”

  The other commanders looked at each other. They were confused by Rich’s attitude. Everyone else agreed that nuclear weapons were the most effective way to win the war. There would be nothing left of the colonies, and nothing to clean up. The General’s refusal to use the bombs was inexplicable.

  The commander of the Space Force said, “So what’s your plan?”

  Rich said, “I say your forces attack the satellites and power generators in space.”

  The space commander said, “That shouldn’t take long. It’s just a quick shot to destroy those things.”

  Rich said, “You’re a fool if you think it’s going to be that easy. They’ve got weapons systems on the satellites, and they’re programmed to not only evade attack and return fire, but to also alert the people on the surface.”

  The space commander said, “So they’ll know we’re attacking their satellites. They’ll come and defend their resources.”

  Rich said, “That means they’ll aggressively defend themselves. Not only do you need to worry about the threat from the criminals, but you also have to avoid being blown up by the satellites themselves.”

  The Air Force commander said, “We could use that opening to attack their towns from the air and the ground. Their military will be so involved in space that they won’t be able to defend themselves on the ground.”

  Rich said, “We can try to take out some of their resources on the ground as well.”

  The Army commander said, “We should attack their water supply. That’ll make this a quick skirmish. Without water, they’ll come crawling to us or they’ll die of thirst.”

  Rich snapped, “We’re not going to do that. I’m not going to be a party to what amounts to a genocide.”

  The Army commander asked, “How is it genocide? We’re using a tried and true battle tactic.”

  Rich answered, “Because they have no other source of water. We’d be murdering them just to win the battle. It’s no different from the Nazi’s treatment of their enemies.”

  Mention of the Nazis brought an immediate silence. Even after 150 years, their war atrocities were held in the highest contempt.

  Suddenly, the Army commander had another, more acceptable thought.

  The Army commander said, “We saw a mine and refinery during the last battle. We should try and disrupt their production of metal.”

  Rich said, “Good idea. That’ll make them less able to make weapons and ammunition.”

  The Army commander said, “So we’ll take away their communication, power, mining, and refining. That should severely disrupt their military capability.”

  Rich said, “That sounds like a solid plan to me. Let’s put it in motion.”

  The commanders left the briefing room. The commanders of the Army and Air Force returned to Mars to relay orders to their troops. The commander of the Space Force called his troops into the launch bay to prepare the first part of the plan.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Space Battle

  The launch bay doors opened and the Space Forces’ ships sped toward the Martian satellites. Thirty ships moved in three directions to attack the three satellites. The number of ships seemed like overkill to The Operative, but General Rich learned earlier not to underestimate the Martians. He wanted the best odds he could get.

  The Allied Earth Air Force launched a separate but simultaneous attack on the Martians. They sent 18 planes from the tent city to Freedom. The Martians wouldn’t be able to fight on two fronts simultaneously, so they would have to choose which battle to focus their resources.

  The Allied Army did not participate in either battle. They were severely depleted and waiting for reinforcements. They lost over 200 people and a lot of equipment in the battle of Freedom.

  The Allied Air Force was instructed to destroy the mines and the refinery. The commander unilaterally decided to destroy the biodome.

  He commanded, “I want two planes at that big monstrosity in the center of the city. I want it destroyed.”

  A pilot asked, “Isn’t that the center of their colony?”

  The commander replied, “It is. That’s why I want it destroyed.”

  The pilot asked, “Won’t it be heavily defended?”

  The commander answered, “I said destroy it. Do whatever it takes.”

  The pilot said, “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  The first group of Space Force ships reached the communications satellite. As soon as they were within 1000 kilometers, a signal was sent to every phone, television, computer, radio and beacon on Mars. The Martians scrambled to get their ships into space before the satellites could be destroyed.

  Lane ordered, “I want every Star Brigade ship in space in ten minutes.”

  Clive said, “The Air Force needs to lend support. I want all planes in the air giving cover in eight minutes.”

  The Start Brigade and Air Force troops obeyed. They were in position ahead of schedule.

  The second group of Space Force ships reached the power transmission satellite, and it sent a similar signal to the surface. It also moved away from the oncoming ships and fired lasers at them.

  The third group reached the final satellite, and it fired a missile at them.

  A Space Force pilot said, “Oh shit, that thing just fired a missile at us.”

  Another pilot said, “What should we do?”

  The Space Force commander said, “Take evasive action. Don’t let th
at missile get near you, but don’t lose sight of the satellite, either.”

  The Space Force ships tried to evade the missile, but it split into five missiles.

  A pilot said, “The missile split into five.”

  The commander asked, “So you broke it up?”

  The pilot said, “No, it split into five separate missiles.”

  The commander said, “Continue to evade. Everyone go in a different direction. Don’t let them get near you.”

  The missiles were all seekers, so the ships could not evade them.

  A pilot said, “They’re all seekers. We can’t evade and stay in range to target the satellite.”

  The commander said, “They can’t get all of you. Continue moving in different directions.”

  Each missile hit and destroyed an Allied Earth target. The remaining pilots were shocked that they’d been ordered to risk death to complete a simple mission. They could not, however, mourn for their fallen friends or evaluate the orders they’d received. The remaining ships gave chase as the satellite moved away from them.

  ***

  The Allied Air Force was flying toward Freedom as they saw debris falling to the planet’s surface from space. The debris was the remains of the Space Force ships that were destroyed by the Martian satellites.

  The Martian Air Force was already in the air to support the Star Brigade and ready for the Allied Earth force. When the Allied force arrived in Freedom, a dogfight ensued. Most of the Allied planes directly engaged the Martian planes from the east, but a couple came in from the north and didn’t engage the Martian Air Force.

  The pilot of the first Allied plane radioed, “Did anyone spot us?”

  The second pilot replied, “I don’t think so. We can take out our target.”

  The first plane reached the biodome first and dropped two of its four bombs on it. The second plane flew over the biodome ten seconds later and dropped two more bombs. Then the pilots flew toward the battle zone above the mine.

  The Allied Air Force commander said, “Anyone not engaged with enemy fighters will fire on the mine or the refinery.”