Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  Not many of the transients thought much of life on Mars. The colonists had frequently expressed between themselves that one either loved Mars or hated it and it took no longer than four weeks to sort it all out. Yet a stint on Mars was a career boosting guarantee for a transient. Whether one made the four to six year career round trip with one of the multi-national space agencies, or under the auspices of industry or a university, time on Mars rated the highest financial and professional rewards upon return to earth. Most of the transients were after this reward; few of them could understand the colonists’ way of thinking. The transients had their own view of the colonists, referring to them irreverently as “squatters”. They generally viewed them as oddballs, idiosyncratic and whining.

  To most transients, time on Mars was a sentence to be served. In their thinking, Mars was the bleakest of bitterly cold, lifeless deserts, and in their point of view, only the most deranged could imagine remaining there for life. As the weeks passed, to those who longed to be earth-side again - those who crossed each sol off of their calendars - the thinking of the colonists became more bizarre after each passing sol.

  But Mars was not inhabited by the American base alone. The Reunified Soviet Empire – or RSE nations – had also set up a base on Mars some half a decade after the permanent American presence was established. Their base was named Shturmovoi, after the famous Russian gold fields, and was located some 2065 kilometers southeast of BC1 across the southeastern fringe of the Amazonis Planitia, skirting just south of the Tharsis mountain range and located near the center of a feature called Solis Planum. The residents of BC1 called it “Sun Lake” because of its historic legacy, not necessarily because of its direct Latin derivation.

  The various Latin names for the Martian features were not all friendly to the English tongue, so the Martian geologic features began to take on more palatable names such as Sun Lake. The huge, cavernous Valles Marineris was simply christened “Mariner Canyon”. Amazonis Planitia became the Amazon Plain and so on.

  The Soviets intentionally arrested what they laughingly referred to as "the colonization nonsense" from the outset by rotating everyone off Mars without any exceptions. There were only a few radio exchanges between the RSE base, which the colonists referred to as the “Little Kremlin,” and BC1 due to the political tensions on earth, and the distance between the bases was greater than any Soviet or American vehicle was nominally designed to safely cover.

  At BC1, a re-supply ship had just arrived in orbit three sols earlier. The colonists were always excited at the arrival of each new ship. To the colonists, the transients would finally leave and take their poisoned perspectives with them. The fresh transients were usually easy to live with for awhile, and for the first few weeks, they were almost always wide eyed and pleasant.

  Peter raised his hand at the crowd. "Excuse me folks, but I believe we've got a date with destiny. There's a Marine guard somewhere out there who doesn't think we colonists can find our way over to the executive suites. So if you'll excuse us..."

  "Tell Sir Thomas he can go take a walk outside in his BVD’s, Peter!" said a roughened voice in the crowd.

  "I just may do that, Louie-Louie," Peter replied to the roguish looking facilities engineer whose real name was Louis Louis. Any other messages from the motley, disorderly masses?" Peter continued, obviously enjoying it all. Several responses were delivered all at once; a mingled, irreverent assortment of suggestions, some of which were anatomically improbable.

  Francis, Ashley, Toon and Geoff were soon laughing despite themselves, enjoying the spectacle of Peter directing the crowd so expertly.

  "Well then," Peter finally sighed, "that settles it! It's off to the dungeon." Offering his arm to Ashley, he inquired, "Shall we?" Accepting Peter’s arm, Ashley looked at Gorteau.

  "It seems you are in good hands, my dear," he said with a smile that was not as light-hearted as the mood of the crowd.

  Five minutes later, the Marine escorted them into Lipton's office, executed an about face and stood, hands folded behind him, at the door.

  Peter looked about him at the immaculate room. Hung on the walls were the evidences of Lipton's career: his Harvard Ph.D.; his commissioning certificate in the U.S. Naval Reserves; photos of a white water rafting trip with the former President; and a hand written note from the Chief Executive, asking him to accept the appointment as Director of the Mars Base. All were framed in clear, polished glass. There was nothing out of place here. Everything was ordered and correctly positioned; no dust, no lint, no disorder of any kind except the five of them, a stark contrast to the image of the office.

  Francis was not going to be intimidated. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to have a seat," he said as he sat down squarely in a white cloth-covered chair, a cloud of micro-fine red dust rising around him.

  Ashley smiled at him, sighing, "Oh, why not?" then also sat down on a pristine cloth couch. Her eyes closed briefly, savoring the comfort of the deep cushions.

  “Can you imagine hauling that useless thing over 220 million kilometers of space?” Toon asked, eyeing the couch.

  “Well… as a matter of fact…” Ashley sighed sincerely, her eyes still closed. Peter and Toon joined her on the couch at once.

  Peter looked at the walls then back to the rigid Marine who did not even shift his eyes. Here stood a living tribute to Lipton. The Marines stationed at BC1 had always been a sore point with Peter and the colonists. Lipton's position was equivalent to an ambassadorship, hence he rated Marine guards. But the usefulness of Marines on Mars was a joke, at best, as they served only as ceremonial stewards. Yet the cost of each human in the colony was quite extravagant in every respect, especially in the life support equation. Ceremonial humans were a cost far greater than Peter felt they could afford.

  As Peter reflected on this, Lipton entered the room, and the Marine guard snapped to attention. "At ease, corporal," Lipton said smoothly. He briskly approached his desk from behind them, holding a folder in front of him. PERSONNEL: CONFIDENTIAL was stamped on the front in red ink. Without sitting down, he laid the folder on the desk and walked around to its’ front, facing them. He wore white pants and a navy blue, double breasted jacket, his eyes framed in silver rimmed glasses. His black hair, just rimmed with the right amount of silver, was slicked back and flawlessly in place. This vestment was known throughout the colony as "Liptonesque.”

  Lipton was groomed for power, both figuratively and literally. Born the son of the United States Ambassador to China, he had been schooled and tutored for greatness. The way he carried himself in public, the way he spoke and moved his near-perfect features, the mode of his impeccable, starched attire, implied power and position. It was difficult not to feel intimidated in his presence. He had a precise vocabulary, and he used it circumstantially. He could perform individual surgery with his words and used them to terrify or solicit as he saw fit. He was the consummate confidence man.

  Peter truly believed that had it not been for his greatest personality flaw, Lipton could easily have been President of the United States or Secretary General of the United Nations. But he was as trustworthy as a shark and a master manipulator. These flaws, despite his best efforts, he could not hide. His own political party felt the best place for him was on Mars. With Lipton safely millions of kilometers away, they all slept much better.

  "First let me say how personally gratified I am that all of you are alive and unhurt," he began in his best pretentiousness, his voice lilting and calm; a voice that was all too familiar to all of them, and one which particularly grated on Peter. "I don't think the program could stand another tragedy, especially identical to the one before, when we lost two of your brothers."

  Peter seethed with anger. Each word was uniquely Lipton, singularly arrogant and pompous. His clear reference to "your brothers" was meant to set the colonists apart, and yet it was Lipton who otherwise verbalized the solidarity of the community. It was one of Lipton's greatest assets, the ability to politici
ze one precept while actively driving the colony toward another. It was the intellect of a careful politician at work. Words were the essence of his vocation, while the manipulation of human behavior was exclusive of the evident truth.

  "We have a grave situation here, and one that we need to clarify forthrightly,” Lipton continued. "But, I'll skip the superfluous and get right to the point. There is a serious matter of either overt disregard for orders on all of your accounts or, at the very least, a blatant disregard for procedure. It has cost us an irreplaceable asset today and, frankly, all of you are lucky to be alive."

  "Here comes the thrashing," Peter whispered quietly to himself.

  Lipton moved behind his desk and sat down, looking up at them over his glasses. "I have listened to the recordings of all communications channels and it is useless for you to deny conspiracy to disobey a direct order, Dr. Traynor. The same applies to you, Dr. Linde. I won't bother to ask you for your defense, because that will come out in the ensuing investigations."

  "Woah... wait a minute," Francis interrupted. "You may not ask for our side of the story, but I'm going to give it to you anyway."

  "Francis, let me handle this," Peter began, holding out his hand to Francis.

  "That is absolutely unnecessary, gentlemen," Lipton said, instantly taking advantage of the disparity between Peter and Francis. "To abbreviate these proceedings, let it rest; I already know the full story."

  "You prejudged a meteorological condition which directly endangered these people's lives," Francis said angrily. "The Science department made the decision to go out and get them using the only device that could have saved their lives; your vehicle on which you hid the only HRT on the planet."

  If Francis thought he had landed a significant blow on Lipton, he was mistaken. Lipton forced himself to suppress a flashing smile. These scientists were obviously amateurs when it came to judicious forethought, a term Lipton liked to use frequently.

  "You have constructed your defense based on a number of faulty arguments," Lipton began, sitting far back in his chair, raising his hands to his chin, palms together.

  "Point one: the high resolution terrain radar was installed by my technician to test the device in this environment. It had not been tested; in fact, it had not even been taken out of the hangar before today. I did not hide it, as you accuse; rather I was following flight hardware procedure which requires a whole battery of tests be successfully accomplished before equipment can be certified for use under normal conditions, much less an emergency where peoples’ lives are at stake. Once certified and passed through normal process, more units would have been requested.

  “These are procedures of which you must be intimately familiar. To use the term 'hiding' is somewhat fearful, and I am curious at what stresses may be responsible for that kind of erratic thought process in my senior meteorologist. The paperwork for the acquisition and installation is validated and available for your inspection, if you so chose."

  Lipton sat silent for a moment to let the full impact of his statement set in. He had carefully crafted this defense long before HRT had even arrived in Mars orbit.

  The only spontaneity in his personality was in linking his carefully crafted arguments; it was his greatest personal asset. Reality, even life, was a series of well constructed, carefully linked controlled events. Like an unfolding game of chess, Lipton's image of a successful man was of an individual who played the game as many steps ahead as it was possible to manipulate; it was, after all, judicious forethought personified.

  "Point two, the meteorological event you say I had prejudged was an event whose probabilities of dispersion were predicted to be very high, and you, Dr. Linde, wrote the program. I'm not quite sure what that says for your professional confidence or your abilities as a meteorologist or both."

  Francis' face turned scarlet as he sat forward in his seat. He looked for all the world like he was about to stuff Lipton in the nearest filing cabinet. But before he could respond, Lipton continued.

  "Point three, the scientific community does not make life and death decisions here, I do. That, as you must know, is well documented in the compendium of procedures you took an oath to follow."

  "That redwind program was written using earth based algorithms," Francis exploded angrily. "We were evaluating them here on the local conditions, and they had no statistical significance. That is something you should know and understand! And why didn't you volunteer your MAT and personal radar to help these people?"

  Peter thought Francis was losing it. He had obviously fallen back on simple emotion to carry his argument, and it wasn't working.

  "Are you relying on faulty meteorological instruments, Dr. Linde?" Lipton persisted. "Are you passing advice to the administrative chain of command based on these readings? And, again, for reasons that you well understand and are documented, you and I are strictly prohibited from using uncertified hardware in the environment."

  "Those instruments were all we had," Peter spoke up, coldly.

  "And Dr. Linde's prediction was incredibly accurate, was it not, given the presumed statistical unreliability of the product?" Lipton pressed, tossing his final ace on the table.

  Francis sat back and sighed. Peter knew it was over. The only defense left was to cross the desk and choke the life out of Lipton. The advisability of that was not quite clear at this moment.

  "I have carefully considered all the administrative options here, and have consulted my deputies on this issue," Lipton persisted, looking down at his desk and opening the personnel file with a slow, dramatic sweep of his hand.

  Peter could almost feel his blood pressure rise, and felt Ashley stiffen beside him.

  "Dr. Traynor, you seem to be the central antagonist in this unfortunate drama," Lipton began. "My staff and I feel that we have no choice but to deport you back to earth on the next flight, which, if I’m not mistaken, departs BC1 tomorrow morning. As for you, Doctors Alcyone and Linde, I cannot do without your services here, so you will be required to remain, but will be subject to a disciplinary hearing."

  "No way, Lipton!" Francis said standing and pointing his finger at the man.

  The Marine quickly interposed himself between Francis and Lipton.

  "Your behavior is unprofessional, Dr. Linde. The matter has been decided."

  "You haven't heard the end of this, Lipton. We will not allow you to ruin these people's lives."

  "You and whomever else you are referring to have nothing to say in this matter. It’s over and the decision has already been rendered," Lipton said calmly, still seated, looking up at the embittered Francis.

  "Francis, let me...," Peter said, rising and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Say whatever you like now, Lipton. But I intend to see that a full blown investigation is launched into your behavior here at BC1 the minute I set foot back on earth. I have as many contacts on the Hill as you do. And if you think a redwind can stir up some trouble, wait till you see the cloud I send over your horizon!"

  "Considering our lives were in imminent danger," Ashley said angrily, rising to her feet along with Peter and Francis, "and you didn't even have the guts to offer your vehicle and its radar to help us, even on a volunteer basis, well, I think your punishment is hardly fair..."

  "Not fair, Dr. Alcyone?" Lipton interrupted. "Nothing in your actions of today speaks of fairness or equality or of thought for others or the equipment on which all our lives depend. Mr. Hammond was driving the vehicle which nearly struck my deputy..."

  "I was driving, Lipton! And I regret I missed," Francis screamed.

  "Don't bother with more deception; I have the videos," Lipton said, rising slowly, his voice painted with feigned fatigue. Then he looked at the Marine. "Corporal Tyler, ensure that Dr. Traynor and his belongings are on the lander in time for departure tomorrow morning."

  "Just a minute, Lipton," Francis continued. "Send me back. If you're going to send someone, send me. No? Coward! If you send me back you know I'll be waiting for you when you get back
to earth."

  "And I'm leaving, too," Ashley added, "After all, he is my husband."

  “Oh, I see; secretly married, are you? In violation of your contract? Not merely shacking up?” Lipton replied viscerally, a brief smile flickering across his face. Then he regained his control and backed away, having inflicted exactly the right injury at the point he intended.

  "As you are aware, Dr. Alcyone, I alone determine seating assignments in the shuttle, and you will have to wait untill the next flight out to join your husband, some 24 or perhaps 48 months hence," Lipton said with a fully developed sneer, eyes flashing and boring into hers as he reveled in his display of power.

  “You have one extra seat, and I intend to be in it,” Ashley swore, her voice choking back emotion.

  “If you make that threat once more, I’ll have you incarcerated from now until the after the ship departs,” Lipton said with some pleasure. “And that would mean no final, tearful goodbyes, now wouldn’t it? Any additional comments from you, Dr. Alcyone?”

  Peter took a step toward Lipton, fists clenched. The Marine moved again to check the threat.

  "Let me promise you this, jerk," Francis screamed at Lipton as the Director folded his file and began to walk toward the door, "you will pay for this one way or another."

  Lipton opened the door and walked out as Francis shouted, "Get out of my sight, Lipton!" Then he grabbed a glass sculpture off the table in front of him and sent it crashing against a wall.

  The Marine, a full six inches shorter than Francis stepped up to them and warned, "I think all of you had better be leaving – now!"