The station had just moved across Jezero Crater and was now tracking slowly over the vast Utopia Planitia as it headed for yet another pass over the North Pole. This would be the final pass before the thermonuclear detonation for the terraforming experiment finally occurred. But the event had been canceled and Kane Butros was not happy. Not because of any loss of scientific data but because the carefully laid plans of those that had put their faith in him to deliver, were now falling apart. It didn’t help that Blake Derringer had gone offline, and could not be raised on comms for an update on his mission.
But Kane did not need a mystic to know that he was probably dead, since the powers that be in Jezero City now knew that a bioweapon had been hidden in their citadel, timed to detonate in tandem with the terraforming event. Worse, Evon Dent, the highest-ranking MASS director, was currently down on the planet starting up a thorough investigation.
All this was a major concern for Kane Butros. Nevertheless, he was not the type of person to lie down at the first hurdle. The situation, as he saw it, was compromised—this much was true. But he did have a plan B, and now was the time to set it in motion. He fished out his slate from a pocket, entered an eight digit alphanumeric code, and hit the INITIATE icon. Then he sat back and waited, it wouldn’t take long.
And it didn’t. Less than four minutes later three armed associates entered the control room of the MASS space station, to the astonishment of the assembled technicians.
“What the hell?” One foolhardy tech jumped up and objected to the carrying of weapons inside the control room. He was blasted. Fortunately non-lethal, merely stunned. But it did serve to underscore their intent. The rest of the techs turned to Kane, who rose from his seat.
“My apologies, but we are taking over this space station. You will now be escorted to a safe place, while we continue with our… eh, operation.”
“Have you gone mad?” Another of the techs was beginning to sound like he might also be trouble, he too was blasted. Kane turned to his armed crew. “Try not to damage any of the control systems with those PEP weapons.”
A crewmember nodded in reply. Several others entered and took up the positions vacated by the techs, and proceeded to reinitiate the terraforming event. After a moment or two the countdown on the main screen reset itself.
“The experiment has been reinstated, sir,” a tech announced. The timer counted down—one hour and forty-six minutes to detonation.
“Excellent, replied Kane. He sat back down in the command chair and afforded himself a brief smile. It’s always good to have a plan B, he thought.
Dr. Jann Malbec paced up and down the operations room in Jezero City. On the main screen a feed was being relayed from a viewpoint overlooking the Avenue. The area was thronged with citizens as well as many of the contractors working for both the colony and the asteroid mining company, AsterX.
“Dr. Malbec, stop worrying.” Evon Dent, the MASS chief operations officer tried to soothe Jann’s growing unease. “The event has been canceled. And we will find this… device, wherever they’ve managed to hide it. It will be found.”
Jann stopped pacing and looked down the Avenue to the stage and the screen behind it. It displayed an orbital view of Mars, a direct feed from the MASS space station. The countdown timer had been frozen. Initially there had been a general groan of disappointment from the crowd when the news broke that the terraforming event would not be taking place for the grand finale due to technical difficulties. But as more of the citizens’ spirits were lubricated by the enormous quantities of beer and cider being dispatched from the Red Rock, the mood had grown steadily merrier.
On stage, Xenon Hybrid was recounting tales of his travels, and the rotating backdrop of the planet’s surface married well with his dialogue. He had the full attention of the crowd by virtue of his oration and because this was the first time that many of the assembled had laid eyes on their enigmatic president.
But none of the throng knew the true situation, bar those with Jann in the operations room, and the crew that Nills had put together to sweep the facility to try and find the device. Evon Dent and his assistant had chosen to remain in Jezero City for the duration of the celebrations, rather than return to the space station as previously planned. But while this was a genuine gesture of solidarity it did little to allay fears over the plot to detonate a nuclear device in the city.
Jann’s slate vibrated in her pocket, she fished it out. It was Mia. She tapped an icon to bring it up on the main screen so the others could see and hear. Mia looked bruised and battered. “It’s not a nuke, it’s a bioweapon. I don’t know where, but its detonation is synchronized with the terraforming event.”
“We’ve canceled the event,” Evon said, as if he was letting Mia in on a big secret. Jann wasn’t sure if Mia even heard him as she was rubbing her forehead and pushing back her hair.
“Where are you?” said Jann.
Mia looked around. “In the maintenance yard. The place is deserted, no one here. Just me and Gizmo. We’re checking if any of the rovers here are working and then try to make it to Jezero City.”
“What about that guy chasing you?” said Jann.
“Dead. That’s all the information I could get out of him before Gizmo barbecued him.”
“Okay, stay safe.” Jann signed off.
“That robot is a danger to the colony, I cannot believe you let it loose armed with a plasma weapon.” Yuto Yamashita was beginning to really piss Jann off.
“So you would prefer that Jezero City was annihilated?” Jann was pacing again.
“That’s not the point. The threat, if there ever was one, is now under control. But a weaponized robot is still at large. I would say that’s a problem,” Yuto said with outrage.
“This is a totally irrelevant and pointless argument, Yuto. You’re not helping. In fact, you’re becoming a hindrance. So, can you please either shut up or get out,” Nills snapped back.
But Yuto was not backing down, he was ready to fight when Evon raised a hand to get everyone’s attention. He was looking at his slate, with a very concerned look on his face. “I think you all need to see this.” He tapped the slate to bring the message up on the main monitor.
It was clearly a view from inside the orbiting space station. A MASS crewmember was taking a clandestine video from the control room. The image was blurred and shaky, but they could clearly see technicians being herded out by armed men. One was being dragged along the floor by the scruff of the neck, unconscious, maybe even dead. The camera swung around to show Kane Butros sitting in the command chair. Then the image shook wildly and the camera went dead.
Silence gripped the operations room in Jezero City for a moment as the implications of what they had just witnessed started to sink in. But before anyone spoke, they heard a loud cheer from the crowd down along the Avenue. Nobody was sure what it was for until Jann realized the countdown clock for the terraforming event had been reset, and was running again.
“The timer, look.” Jann pointed.
“Oh God,” was the best that Evon could manage.
“Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Yuto was clearly slower than the rest of them to fully realize what had just happened.
“Kane Butros has taken over the station, and restarted the event. We’ve got a little over an hour before….” Evon’s sentence trailed off.
“Before what?” said Yuto.
“Before we’re all dead,” said Jann.
Nills was up on his feet. “We have to find it, whatever the hell it is. We have to find it and destroy it.” He started contacting his search team. He had set up three separate teams equipped with Geiger counters, which were useless, now that the threat was no longer a nuclear weapon.
“The problem is we don’t know what the hell we’re looking for, what size it is, is it more than one device—this is impossible.”
Jann knew things were serious when Nills started to use words like impossible.
“We have to ev
acuate.” Yuto was also up on his feet. “Get everybody out now, before it’s too late.”
It was Jann’s turn to use the ‘I’ word. “That’s impossible, we don’t have enough transport or EVA suits. It would be bedlam, people could start to panic, it would be chaos.”
“This is all your fault.” Yuto was jabbing an accusatory finger at Jann.
Jann was resisting a very strong urge to eject the councilor from the nearest airlock when the operations room was plunged into darkness for a fraction of a second before the power came back on. There was another enormous cheer from down along the Avenue.
“What the hell was that?” said councilor Hoburg.
“Main power’s gone down, we’re on standby. “ Nills spun around and started checking the control desks in the operations room. “Well that rules out evacuation. Now that we’re on standby, all airlocks are sealed.” He turned back to the group. “We’ll have to cut our way out.”
“Oh God, we’re all gonna die,” said Yuto.
Throughout all of this Evon had stared at the main screen and the hundreds of colonists gathered for the celebrations.
“Evon.” Jann nudged him back to the here and now. “How are they doing this?”
He slowly turned to face her, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
“Can you contact the station, talk to Kane Butros, find out what he wants?”
“I’ve tried, but comms are either dead or they’re not responding.”
“Goddammit, there must be a way to stop this,” said Jann.
“There isn’t. It’s all automatically controlled from the station. The only way to stop it now would be to go up there and literally take back the station, it’s just not possible. Unless…” he stopped and scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“What? Unless what?” shouted Jann.
“The antennae array. The devices are detonated by a transmission from the station. That needs the antennae to send the signal to surface. If that antennae were to be disabled then…”
“Well that’s just crazy,” said Robb. “And how the hell are we supposed to do that? Teleport up there?”
Evon was silent.
“Wait a minute, there might be a way.” Jann turned back to Evon. “Your transport ship, the one you were going to use to return to the station before the event, it’s still there, isn’t it?”
Evon’s eyes widened. “Yes, fully prepped, ready to launch.”
“Then we can take it, get up there and knock out that antennae.”
“Theoretically.”
“We don’t have time, Jann.” Nills was shaking his head. “It will take a good twenty minutes to cut our way out, the same to get to the craft and then another forty between prepping and journey time. It’s just not possible.”
“And it can only hold four people, not enough to launch an armed takeover,” Evon added.
“I’ll go,” said Yuto.
“Yeah, sure. Just so you can save your own ass,” said Hoburg.
“There is a way,” said Jann.
“How? Tell us,” said Nills.
“Mia.”
20
You Want Me To Do What?
“You want me to do what?” Mia sat in the AsterX maintenance yard, listening with increasing incredulity, as Dr. Jann Malbec and Nills Langthorp explained to her, via a scratchy comms link, what they wanted her to do. Gizmo had gone off to survey the vehicles parked there to try and find one that worked, at least well enough to get them back to Jezero City. But now it looked like the plan was about to change.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“You’re the only one that can do it. Believe me, Mia, if there was any other way, we would try it, but we just don’t have the time. The detonation is in less than an hour. We would barely get to the launch pad in that time.” Jann’s voice was pleading.
Mia shook her head. “But I have absolutely no idea how to pilot a transport ship. I mean… seriously, this is crazy.”
“You don’t have to actually fly it.” Nills added his voice to the conversation. “It flies itself autonomously. It will also rendezvous and dock on autopilot. You don’t have to do anything.”
“Oh really? What about the bit where I EVA and disable the antennae array?”
“Look, Mia.” Jann took over again. “I know it’s nuts. It’s a totally insane plan. No one in their right mind would even contemplate such a high risk operation. But we have no other choice. I hate to lay this on you, Mia, but if you don’t try this then we’re all going to die—the entire population of Jezero City.”
Mia stayed silent, arms folded, shaking her head.
“Mia.” Jann’s voice was softer now. “Will you do it?”
Mia lifted her head and looked back at the monitor. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” She stood up and shouted down into the maintenance area. “Gizmo, get your metal ass up here quick. You’re really gonna love what they’ve planned for us this time.”
According to Nills, the plan was simple. According to Mia, it was insane, but that didn’t matter anymore. She had put her mind to it, so it was either going to work or, as Jann so eloquently put it, they were all going to die. Already Gizmo had jacked into one of the terminals in the maintenance yard control room and was downloading launch codes from Nills over in Jezero. Once inside the MASS transport craft Gizmo would initiate the launch. From then on it would be automatic. All Mia had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.
They had estimated it would take less than fifteen minutes to rendezvous with the orbiting space station, but Mia wouldn’t be staying for the entire ride, and that was where the plan got interesting. She would EVA from the transport just before it docked. And with the help of a thruster jetpack, she would make her way down the central truss to the antennae array, where she would locate the main cable junction, and somehow disable it. And she had to accomplish all this within the next fifty-five minutes.
Gizmo jacked out of the terminal and spun around to Mia. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Come on, let’s go.”
Fortunately Mia’s body had recovered somewhat. Gone was the numbness inflicted by the PEP blast. But her ribs hurt like hell, particularly when she breathed. And since she needed to do this to stay alive, there wasn’t a lot she could do about the pain other than grin and bear it. She ran past the dismantled machines to the airlock where Gizmo had located a serviceable rover. It would take them to the MASS transport ship out at the spaceport, the very same place that Mia had touched down after her long trip from Earth. Only six months ago, she thought. Now look at me.
They clambered aboard and Gizmo wasted no time in getting it started and prepped. They had begun to move toward the airlock when Gizmo stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Comms from Jezero City, putting it on the main screen now.” Nills’ face materialized on the dash monitor.
“Are you still in the maintenance yard?”
“Yeah, just leaving now.” said Mia.
“Well, hold off for a moment. I have something that might be of use. There’s a strong room a short distance from the entrance. I’ll send Gizmo a schematic with the exact location. Inside there should be a load of explosives that are used in the mines, along with remote detonators. Grab some and take them with you. They could be useful for disabling the array.”
Mia checked the time. “This is cutting it tight.”
“I know, it’s your call, just thought I’d mention it.”
Gizmo’s head tilted around to Mia. “I calculate that acquiring the explosive devices will consume an additional three minutes and forty-seven seconds. It would be approximately eighty-three seconds less if I were to acquire them myself.”
“Are you trying to put me out of a job, Gizmo?” Mia frowned at the droid. “Okay, go, go. I’ll just wait here.”
Gizmo charged off and left Mia to contemplate the enormity of the crime that was taking place. Who could even conceive of such a heinous act? To exte
rminate the entire colonist population on Mars. What demented reasoning could arrive at such a plan? Was it simply the madness of one individual? Mia doubted it. It had to be more than one psychopath let loose. There had to be more people involved. Even if everyone who had a hand in it didn’t know the full extent of this madness, this genocide. And that’s what it was, the extermination of an entire population of people. When she thought about it in those terms, she realized it was not so unique. How many times in human history was the fate of one group determined by the hate of another? Why? For what reason? But these questions were beyond Mia’s reasoning.
Gizmo returned, carrying a box clearly labeled explosives - danger. It dropped it on the floor of the rover with such seeming carelessness it startled Mia.
“Should you not be more careful with those, Gizmo?”
“They are completely inert until primed. Perfectly safe.” Gizmo moved into its position in the cockpit and started up the vehicle.
The rover bounced and rocked along the well worn road that wound its way to the spaceport at the very center of the crater. It seemed that all roads led here, this being the gateway to the trade and commerce of the colony. It had several landing and takeoff areas, depending on the size and type of craft. The largest pad was used for the big colony ships coming from Earth. These ships could accommodate a hundred people at a time. Huge, the size of a skyscraper, one of them was dominating the skyline as Mia and Gizmo made their approach. It had landed less than a week ago, carrying mainly tourists and officials that had arrived to partake in the decennial celebrations.
Colony Mars Ultimate Edition Page 65