FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE

by M. ORENDA

  Voss stares at the man.

  “This is first contact, Jared,” Wexler says. “The steps we’ve made along the way have been extremely difficult and time consuming, but we’re almost to the point of real communication. The girl is in no danger whatsoever. She was designed for this, and inherently, it’s what she wants to do. They change when they get here. They change completely. They recognize Mars as their home. They understand they have a purpose here. Contact with the colony soothes them.”

  “Soothes them…”

  Wexler slants him a sidelong glance. “It sounds terrible, I know, the mixing of human and bacterial DNA, but it happens naturally. There are over five hundred strains of bacteria that thrive in your intestinal tract alone. You can’t digest food without them. They contribute to your immune system. They’re on your skin, in your food, in your mouth… everywhere. Approximately three pounds of your weight is living bacteria. What do you think evolution is? It’s not a solitary thing, not just the survival of the fittest in regard to one species. In many cases, we’ve evolved right along with other species, evolved to host them living inside us, to our benefit. This will give us the opportunity to communicate directly.”

  “And the risks, sir?”

  Wexler nods, as if he expected this. “We’re talking about a select number of individuals with the capability to interact with another species. This advancement bears no threat to the general population, I assure you. Why do you think you and your men were not infected? It’s physically impossible for you to be. We’ve been working for decades to create a handful of truly compatible human beings to facilitate this level of communication. If we succeed, the breakthrough will move us into a world of greater human possibility, a way to better understand this planet and what good we can do here. It may have important implications for Earth as well, ways we can improve the environment and the situation there.”

  “Improve the situation how, sir?”

  “We’re just at the starting point,” Wexler explains, answering the question without answering it. “We can’t yet put a limit on where this technology will take us, what applications it may have. We need to make it work. Then we have a lot of research to do. It’s painstaking scientific work.”

  Voss nods, knowing that painstaking scientific work is not his area of expertise, and not the reason for his instant promotion either. “Do we know anything about the attacks, sir?”

  “Information on this program has leaked out, obviously, and now we’re faced with a group of violent saboteurs intent on destroying it. They don’t like the fact that we’re developing technology they can’t control, and that it may have an effect on industry, power structure, or profits in Red Filter. They’ve killed people. They’ve damaged property, and the worst part is that they’re here somewhere. They’re not Earthbound terrorists, though it seems they may be working with a few. They’re homegrown. They have sophisticated weapons, spies, all of it financed by someone within my administration, or within the Block 12 companies, I don’t know who yet.”

  He looks away, his attention drawn to the window and its view of his sprawling capital, one of many cities in his planetary empire, its twilight hues deepening as night approaches. “When the War of Last Nations destroyed Earth, everything changed for the people of Red Filter too. We organized, constructed a society that would not make the same mistakes, incorporated the Block 12 companies to rebuild the mother planet. Now we are the only thing preserving what was lost, the only hope for mankind to rebuild and reach its potential. We will not have a war in Red Filter. Not on my watch. We will not have our advances wasted, our innocent slaughtered… not here too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need you to help me protect these people, Jared.”

  “I am here, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, you are.” Wexler seems genuinely grateful for a moment. He draws a sharp breath, nods, reorganizing his thoughts. “About twenty minutes ago, one of our drones spotted the outline of a concealed shuttle near the derelict tunnel settlement at Arsia Mons. I want you to go out there and investigate it personally. I’m arranging a contingent of guards, and a pilot, for you as we speak. I’m afraid we haven’t got much, in terms of assault equipment, but take whatever you need from the armory.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you discover that the smuggler is there, I need you to extract Niri, and bring me everyone responsible for hiding her, Petra especially.”

  “Petra, sir?”

  “Yes.” Wexler looks back at him, taps the pads of his fingers on the desk, a gold wedding band catching the light. “She’s involved herself in a classified operation. She helped get you here alive. I recognize that, but she’s had plenty of time to come forward, as is her legal obligation, and she’s chosen not to, which puts her non-citizen merchant license at serious risk, not to mention her life, and the life of the girl she’s holding. We allow her to operate because she contributes. She provides certain luxuries to high-profile people, and we allow that. But she’s crossed the line, and there’s a price. She has to be arrested, debriefed and held until I can determine how much she really knows and what to do with her.”

  Voss nods, expecting as much.

  “I’ve tried to keep this as quiet as possible,” Wexler adds. “But the preparations for your departure will likely be noticed. Odds are, no matter what precautions we take, the enemy will be alerted the minute you leave Fort Liberty. If they can, they’ll attack you with everything they have. They don’t take prisoners. They’ll try to kill you, your men, and everyone at that station.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jared rises from his seat. “I expect they will.”

  DERELICT SETTLEMENT “PIONEER”

  ARSIA MONS REGION

  MARS DATE: DAY 10, MONTH 10/24, YEAR 2,225

  The Arsia caldera at dusk is no place for humans seeking comfort. Once a well of fire and molten rock, it’s now the parched remains of a shield volcano, hollowed out and howling with the force of storms, a windswept bowl of stone overlooking barren plain. The sun sets in contrast hues, haloed blue on the horizon, the sky turned pearl and losing its luster… ghost lands melting into shadow.

  Petra grimaces through the thick gloss of her visor, watching from her vantage on the summit as that cold sun sinks even lower, the temperature now at minus eighty-two and dropping fast, darkness seeping into the frozen cracks and rifts around her, night coming too soon.

  “Sentinel One feed,” she says.

  “One sees nothing,” Clara’s voice replies over the comm.

  Nothing. Petra glances across the summit, spotting the closest sentinel drone in its hiding place. It’s concealed itself well, crouching among the ancient crevices like a giant mechanized spider, its legs drawn up around its ammo cage, shield plates extended to help it resemble the pale rock around it, the barrel of its machine gun, and dark, iridescent lenses of its cameras, hidden between its armor.

  “Sentinel Two?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Three?”

  “Also nothing.”

  And that would be the way, wouldn’t it? Nothing on radar. Nothing visual on the horizon. Nothing detected by the three sentinel drones sitting along the summit, positioned just above the station, with their diverse spectrum of sight, thermal, motion and otherwise…

  Gut says there’s someone watching, someone waiting, but the best technology she can afford, and her own her own eyes, see nothing.

  “Not right,” she mutters.

  “You’re just spooked,” Clara replies, patience wearing thin. “You’re always spooked when hiding at First Settlement, you know that. History of this place, and history of you in this place, is no good. You got to stop pissing around and get back on the elevator. Station’s all warmed up. We got direct feed from the sentinels. No one’s going to sneak up on us.”

  “Something’s here.”

  “Yeah, your imagination, is what. You’re sitting among the first dead, you’re thinking of dark moments, and you’re losing it.” />
  Petra frowns, unable to argue that, or form a proper comeback, because there might be too much truth in it. The first dead, the ashes of a few hundred early settlers, are entombed along this same lonely section of the summit. Hundreds of iron markers bear the names of those who first set down here centuries ago, eagerly unloading their white habitat kits, rolls of silver insulation and electrical cabling, using what machines they had to tunnel deeper into the open lava tubes, create their own primitive human refuge.

  Most died, but those who didn’t left everything, a fleet of spindly terrain rovers half-buried in the silt outside the station’s elevator platform, a warren of interconnected habitat modules down in the lava tubes, generators which still run when the antique cells are changed, computers which still blink on and grind through lines of hard code to run life support.

  First Settlement.

  It’s been called that since before her time, and used by the same smugglers who taught her the art of barter and trade, men whose corpses never deserved iron markers on the summit, or any such lofty remembering, but bodies destined to mummify where they lay… where she’d left them.

  Dark moments here… yes.

  These are ghost lands, for her and for those idealistic adventurers who came hundreds of years before her, all of them surrendering to its brutality, in the end.

  “You’re spooked,” Clara says again. “And you’re tired. And you need a drink, for fuck’s sake. You got the sentinels in place. There’s nothing more you can do out there. Time to come inside.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Copy what? You coming in, or not?”

  Petra releases a frustrated breath through her teeth. “Coming.”

  She forces it, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and turning away from the softening glow of dust and chill, from the summit and its glinting reminders of human frailty. Night’s coming. And not the kind that calls for rest, either. They’ll be no rest in this darkness, just staring at screens, watching for pings or heat shadows, trying not to think of what idiocy will come from high minded ideals and pissing off Assaulters.

  She pushes the pace a bit, quickening her descent on the trail, her boots crunching over icy soil, stepping lightly between the rocks, mind cycling through a hundred scenarios, none of them good… all the way to First Settlement’s gate.

  The elevator waits under a metal housing structure, its heavy platform scarred with age, ready to lower her into the tube on a pair of massive hydraulic cylinders. It can carry people, vehicles, or equipment. It’s not particular, but it is sensitive, indicator lights glaring yellow as she steps onto it.

  It unlocks at Clara’s command and drops slowly into the murk, sinking below a thick layer of dark basalt and into its riveted metal channel, caution lights flashing. It lowers through two gate locks, a vehicle bay, and a storage depot, taking another five minutes to reach the floor.

  Jolting once, it sets down on a metal pad. The passage lamps flicker on, illuminating a wide path to the settlement. Petra walks the distance in silence, her gaze set on the white shine of cylindrical habitat modules ahead, external tanks, metal stairs and round windows, life where it shouldn’t be, power humming through cold stone veins.

  She climbs the stairs and the entry door unlocks, giving her access to the adsorption chamber. Shut the door and gases hiss, floor grates warm up, the combination diffusing whatever’s on the suit, drawing the calcium perchlorate into the adsorption filters, sensors checking for contaminates, bio or otherwise.

  A green light appears on the control panel, and the inner door slides open, offering a row of benches and lockers. Petra sets her rifle against the wall and unlocks her helmet, dismantling the suit with tired resignation, then tossing wet socks and glove liners onto a shelf without much regard for what’s going where.

  She moves to the hatch and the young Assaulter’s already there, looking exasperated, which appears to be what he does best, or at least the only thing he seems to do in her presence.

  “Sentinel drones?” he asks—or outright accuses—as she ducks into the open hatch, into fluorescent lighting and warm air, the walls sectioned by access panels and antique computer screens, pipes, fans and silver insulation, more like the inside of an old orbiter or surface lander, function before beauty.

  She shakes her head. “Not going to fire on your Colonel unless he fires on me, but we got others after us. Sentinels are the best chance we got.”

  “They’re a security risk.”

  “You’re referring to their hackability. The encryption on these is new.”

  “Compared to what? All your equipment belongs in a museum.”

  “Maybe, but the encryption is new.”

  He hesitates at that, like he can’t grasp how wrong she is. “This is not going to end well. This place is indefensible.”

  “It’s a stone bunker.”

  “It’s a collection of plastic tubes, inside a shallow cave, with an unconcealed access shaft which can be bombed to scraps of metal and toxic air.”

  It does sound bad, when he says it like that. Petra frowns. “I thought you guys never gave up.”

  “You have to contact Voss.”

  “Not gonna. How’s our girl?”

  Logan stares at her a moment then looks away, striving for focus, rubbing his hand over his jaw once in frustration. “I don’t know. Better than I would have thought. Sleeps too much, doesn’t eat enough, doesn’t say anything… but other than that, she’s fine. Detox went well. She doesn’t seem to have any lingering problems. Medically, I think she’s fine.”

  “And mentally… ”

  “I’m no expert.”

  Petra nods. “I’ll need to talk to her.”

  “Yeah,” he says, tired. “Good luck with that.”

  The compartment hatch is open, and inside it’s some vision from the distant past, from the delicate rituals of willow house women with their bamboo mats, their tea kettles, and their incense, pastel silk and golden statues, childhood memories that were never clear to begin with, but somehow manage to come rushing back when the timing is all wrong.

  Petra frowns, watching Niri through the open hatch.

  The girl is meditating, sitting cross-legged on a blanket which she’s folded along the floor grate. She’s cleaned up well, dressed in a white tech suit, her hair tightly braided and shining in the dim light, hands resting on her knees, eyes closed, mind in some other lofty dimension.

  Buddhism, or some such.

  It makes sense, with her coloring—skin so smooth and dark—that she should come from one of those places of ancient and timeless religion, flowers in the water, life after life, as if one can’t be plenty brutal enough. It’s the kind of deep thinking that leads to time wasting, and no real answers for what can’t be known, a veneer of calm laid over the nothingness.

  Petra releases a tired breath and steps into the compartment, choosing a nearby chair to sit in, and a moment to wait, having been scolded as a child for disturbing such quiet interludes with the divine.

  The girl doesn’t draw it out, however. She bows her head a bit then casts a curious look up at Petra, like she’s a different girl altogether, all straightened out, her eyes burning with a secret she’s anxious to share.

  “You understand,” she says. “The process of awakening, the dhyāna.”

  “I’ve seen such before.”

  “But you do not believe in it?”

  “Never really tried to.”

  Niri nods, glancing over the compartment, its confines cold and green-tinged in the weak glow of florescent tubes. “My mother was a teacher in the ways of the dukkha, the suffering that comes from impermanence, from the struggle to control that which changes, that which we cannot hold onto, or protect.”

  She drops her gaze then, maybe thinking of the mother which couldn’t be held onto, or protected, or the chaotic tide which upended all she knew. The miles are easy enough to see, drawn in faint circles under her eyes, betrayed in the way her hands rest heavy o
n her knees, as if it’s a long illness she’s recovered from.

  Petra watches her for a moment. “So that’s where we’re at? We’re thinking about things not being permanent, so not worth the struggle? Not worth the fight you gave Voss? Frustrating all those big Assaulters?”

  “That was a mistake.”

  “A what?”

  “Grief,” she says softly. “My mother, my father… to be taken away… I was fighting against it, but I succeeded only in producing anger in myself, like a child, like one who is ignorant. I accomplished nothing. My mother would say that I merely created additional suffering.”

  Petra nearly sways back in her chair. “Additional suffering?”

  The girl looks at Petra, and for a moment she struggles, like the concepts are so big that there’s no way to describe them. “It is the suffering of attachment, the suffering that comes from holding onto that which must be let go. I still feel this pain, yes, and it is difficult to bear, but these men had a purpose in bringing me here. It is different here. The things I hear… ”

  Petra looks askance at the pipes over their heads. “What things?”

  “This world is different.”

  “This world? You mean Red Filter?”

  “Yes. There is something here. I can feel it now. They brought me here for a reason, an important reason. What has been lost to me, has been lost. Anger will not replace it. Anger will only poison the future. Anger poisons the soul.”

  “And allows for the kicking of asses that need to be kicked. Let’s not forget that. Anger is sometimes the only thing standing ‘tween survival and capitulation. And that’s no small thing.”

  “There’s wisdom in all forms of emotion,” Niri concedes, like she’s talking to someone younger. “But we—I—must temper mine with compassion, especially now, when it matters most.”

  “Compassion for who?”

  “For you,” the girl answers without thought. “For your crew, those you care about, those who risked everything for me. For Logan, and for the men he cares about. For all of you.”