He thought the people of Mars might like a nice variety of programs, a few sent every hour for an entire day, just to make sure the comm system was working. He sent the vids Harpreet and Ethan had worked on in the campaign against Sister. In addition, the Ghost included a few of Earth’s finer productions of William Shakespeare’s plays. He sent some Strindberg plays as well. Strindberg was bleak, and the Ghost imagined Mars must be a rather bleak place to live.
~ ~ ~
Mei Lo pushed her chair back from her desk in frustration. Who was sending the anonymous broadcasts from Earth? MCC was missing something. She was missing something. She could feel it. But for three more days—three long days until the Raiders came inside comm range again—it would be impossible to find out what the something was. And who was to say the Raiders would know anything about the origin of these puzzling broadcasts?
For that matter, who was to say the Raiders would be able to keep their comm appointment? A lot could happen in a month. She thought of one of Crusty’s aphorisms: Ain’t no sense borrowing tomorrow’s troubles early. Crusty was right. One crisis at a time.
Not that this current broadcast situation was a crisis. More of a mystery. On Mars, it wasn’t illegal to listen for broadcasts from Earth. But since the No Contact Accords, how many signals had MCC received? A dozen? Fewer? Earth was a long ways away and Mars was a very small and highly mobile target. Not much of anything got out this far by accident. And it was illegal on Earth to send anything on purpose. “No contact” meant what it sounded like. Hades, even on raids, MCC wouldn’t risk sending comms to its ships for the bulk of the journey in either direction.
Mei Lo crumpled her empty water ration container in one hand. What was she missing? Why would someone send a vid of Harpreet denouncing the Terran Chancellor to Mars? And why would the (presumably) same individual or organization follow that up with Much Ado About Nothing?
The Secretary shoved her empty container into the recycle mech, pushing too hard and causing the mech to refuse the item.
“Oh, for the love of mittens!” fumed Mei Lo. She took a deep breath and fed the container at the proper rate.
A knock sounded at her door.
“Now what?” she demanded, crossing to open the door.
But instead of the efficient Veronica, Mei Lo was met by the smiling face of Geoffrey Jaarda, PhD.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice,” said Geoffrey.
Mei Lo looked past Geoffrey, locking eyes with Veronica in silent query.
“You want to see him, Madam Secretary,” said Veronica.
Mei Lo’s eyes narrowed. She turned from her new assistant to her old friend.
“Of course, Geoff, of course,” said Mei Lo, ushering him inside.
“You … didn’t know I was coming?” asked Geoffrey.
“I’m not in charge of my life any more,” the Secretary whispered as the door slid shut.
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry for the interruption.”
“Not at all. What brings you here?”
“The broadcasts—the mysterious ones with no known sender—they’re coming from a satellite or station in orbit around Earth,” said Geoffrey, his face suffused with excitement.
“Okay,” said Mei Lo. “Slow down. I gather I agreed to see you because you’ve figured out who is sending these vids to Mars?”
Geoffrey frowned. “You want to watch out for Veronica. She’ll take over your life. I saw it happen with—”
Mei Lo held up a hand. “Talk to me about the comms. Is it the Raiders?”
“I think it has to be. They were on a space station before it was attacked. Then they were on the Moon, but they couldn’t comm us except for part of one day per lunar cycle. They must have found another space station!”
“And you know the comms are coming from a station because, why, exactly?”
Geoffrey ran his hands through his hair, nodding. “Sorry, sorry. The comms are coming in intervals consistent with a satellite body in orbit around Earth. Twenty-six minutes of comms followed by seventy minutes of silence. Repeatedly.” Geoffrey grinned.
“I see,” said Mei Lo. “The silence would be caused by the satellites no longer having an orientation toward us, I presume?”
Geoffrey nodded. “Although, now it’s been—” he broke off to consult his sleeve chronometer. “Well, it’s been ninety-eight minutes since the last one.” He frowned. “Maybe they ran out of things to say.”
“I don’t see how this could be the Raiders,” said Mei Lo.
“Who else could it be?” asked Geoffrey.
“If it were the Raiders, what is the first thing they would send? An explanation. ‘Hello, we’re on a new space station now, so we’ll be in touch a bit more. Here are some vids we think you’ll enjoy.’”
“Oh,” said Geoffrey. He frowned and began fidgeting with a shirt button. “Yes. I suppose so. I was imagining Ethan as the message sender. A lack of greeting would be consistent with his communication style. He’d assume we would figure out where he was on our own, given the spacing of the messages.”
“But surely Jessamyn or one of the others would have ensured a more … conventional greeting was part of the package.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, scratching his head. “Yes, I suppose they would.” He looked up. “So you don’t think it’s them?”
Mei Lo threw her arms wide. “I have no idea who we’re dealing with.”
“One of the vids is of Harpreet, though.”
“Which makes it all the more troubling, Geoff.” Mei Lo paced behind her desk. “Who is this person or organization who has somehow made a connection between Harpreet and her planet of origin?”
“Harpreet didn’t say anything about being Marsian in her vid.”
“No, thank Ares!” Mei Lo shuddered, imagining the task of delivering that kind of news to MCC. “But someone made the connection regardless.”
“Oh. Oh, I see. Oh, dear.”
“So who, exactly, are we dealing with here?” demanded the Secretary.
~ ~ ~
Jessamyn was having a bad dream.
“Wake up,” said a voice.
A nice voice.
Her eyes peeled open. Pavel was in her room.
“It sounded like you were having a nightmare,” he said. He took her hand in his, stroked it gently.
“My hand’s asleep,” Jessamyn said. She gave it a quick shake. “No, actually my entire arm’s asleep. Proof my circulatory system doesn’t like Terran gravity.”
“Sit up and roll your head from side to side,” said Pavel. He stopped her from shaking her arm.
“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Jess.
“Okay, now give it a couple more shakes.”
“Yes, Dr. Pavel,” said Jessamyn, glaring at him. Feeling returned, burning and tingling. “Huh,” she said. “It’s better.”
Pavel grinned. “It’s the head-roll.”
“Does it work when your feet fall asleep?”
“Nope.”
“Hmmph,” grunted Jess. “Some doctor you are.”
Pavel shrugged. “So you had a bad dream?”
“Yeah,” said Jess. “I was watching while Lucca bombed the heck out of Mars. And I couldn’t do anything because she’d revoked my pilot’s license.”
“Let me guess: for not cleaning your room?”
“Gah. I don’t know how you can go to sleep at night, as many Lucca nightmares as you must have.”
A small smile flickered across Pavel’s face. “It’s not so bad. Considering what I have to wake up to these days.”
What he had to wake up to … Jessamyn’s eyes narrowed. It was morning. Her eyes flew to her door.
“How’s the vid doing?” she asked, her heart suddenly racing. “Budapest is, what, two hours ahead of us? Eth posted it this morning, right?”
“He did,” said Pavel.
“And?” demanded Jess. “How is it doing?” She grabbed for a sweater to pull over her tee.
Pavel grinned. “Remember the reception my first recording got?”
Jess nodded as she shoved her feet inside wool-lined boots.
“Let’s just say yours is doing … better.”
“Better?” Jessamyn’s eyes widened. Better meant more people were interested in what she had to say: interested in the news that Mars Colonial had survived, contrary to what people on Earth had been told by Lucca’s government.
“You have two fan clubs already,” said Pavel as the two left the room.
Jessamyn rolled her eyes to the ceiling and then rolled them back where they belonged. She needed her eyes to make it down the steep staircase to Ethan’s Comm Central, as Pavel had dubbed it.
Pavel, behind her, chuckled as he consulted his wafer. “Oh, I take that back. There are five unofficial Jessamyn of Mars fan clubs. Will you be offering dinner dates and interviews?”
“Very funny,” Jessamyn said.
“Miss Jessamyn,” said Mr. Zussman, pouring a cup of steaming tea for her. “You are looking refreshed this morning.”
Jessamyn doubted she looked anything remotely related to fresh. She ignored the comment but not the hot beverage. “Thanks for the tea,” she said. Truly, it was wonderful to be back on a world with a seemingly limitless supply of the amber liquid. She blew on the hot tea, flashing back to its appearance at the last Festival of Singing Ice she’d attended. Her heart squeezed at the memory, at how she’d had no idea it would be her last Ice Fest.
“Your brother and I have been in consultation with Master Pavel,” continued Zussman. “And we have several ideas as to the direction of your future recordings, based upon the initial enthusiasm for the first one.”
Jessamyn’s stomach felt as though it was lined with rocks. Very heavy rocks.
“Well?” she asked. “What do I do next?”
8
WE GOT PEBBLES
The once-in-twenty-eight-days window for the Raiders to comm home had come and gone. Mei Lo had received one, and only one, message from the Raiders. Pre-recorded, the information it reported was bad.
Very bad.
The worst.
The Chancellor was attacking again. Mei Lo pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
Silence on the part of the Raiders was bad, too. It must mean they were no longer on the Moon, as the pre-recording by Ethan Jaarda had indicated. Mei Lo rose and paced. If she’d been outside, she would have kicked rocks. Ethan’s voice replayed in her mind: If you receive this transmission, it is because we are no longer able to freely send and receive messages. However, you will wish to be apprised—
No, she hadn’t wished to be apprised that the Chancellor had sent attack ships to wipe out life on Mars. Again.
The Secretary rubbed her eyes, massaged her temples. Her head was already killing her. It was going to be a long night.
Opening a drawer, Mei Lo stared at a picture she kept hidden inside: Jessamyn, grinning in her chauffeur uniform, a crimson sky blazing behind her. Were Mendoza’s conclusions right? Was Jessamyn Jaarda … dead?
A few hours ago, the Secretary had called General Mendoza into her office to discuss breaking the news to the rest of the world, something she would have to do in the morning.
“You’re in no doubt as to the authenticity of the Raiders’ message?” Mendoza had asked.
“No doubt whatsoever.”
“Well, this gives us one very ugly mess to present to MCC,” said Mendoza.
“At least, now we know what led Pavel and Harpreet to engage in a smear campaign against Lucca Brezhnaya,” Mei Lo said. “They must have been hoping to discredit her prior to revealing her attack.”
“We don’t know that they planned to reveal her attack,” said Mendoza.
“No,” said the Secretary. “And with two of the Raiders missing in action, we may never know what they planned.”
“Unless our anonymous entity unravels the mystery for us,” said Mendoza. “Any more comms from that source?”
The Secretary frowned. “The anonymous broadcaster has gone silent as well. No mention as to what led the Raiders to abandon their lunar station.”
“The entity sending the broadcasts may not have been aware of the Raiders. Or their presence on Luna.”
“True enough,” agreed Mei Lo. “I just wish we knew if Ethan and Jessamyn made it somewhere safe. Or where Harpreet is.”
“It’s highly doubtful those on the Terran moon survived whatever caused them to abandon their only means of communication with us,” said Mendoza. “They were almost certainly fleeing for their lives.”
“Aren’t you a source of infinite cheer?”
“I’m trained to be a realist in these matters,” replied Mendoza. “As are you, Madam Secretary General. It’s time we put together a plan of action for tomorrow’s briefing.”
“Right. We’re not dead yet. Let’s keep it that way.” Mei Lo nodded grimly. “Whatever it takes.”
The Secretary closed the drawer containing the smiling visage of the red-haired pilot. She wasn’t giving up on Jess yet. Or on Mars.
“Whatever it takes,” she repeated to her empty office.
And then she sat down to compose her address, informing Mars Colonial of the Terran Chancellor’s latest attack.
After a sleepless night, Mei Lo faced a room of her generals and regional governors. Most had flown in rather than attend the meeting holographically. That was encouraging. It meant they took the threat seriously. It meant they would be prepared to encourage the citizens in their respective regions to do the same.
After playing Ethan’s comm for the gathered group, she opened the meeting.
“Whatever it takes, my friends. That is what we must do to ensure our survival. The Terran Chancellor was evidently unsatisfied with her last attempt to wipe out life on Mars. An attack force is on its way as we speak. We have less than five months to come up with a plan for our survival.
“At this point in time, I am open to entertaining all suggestions, no matter how outrageous or seemingly impossible. Mars Colonial has survived thus far by taking risks and desperate gambles. We will begin with an assessment by Brigadier General O’Malley of the threat posed to our survival.”
O’Malley, who had come out of retirement for the emergency briefing, kept his remarks short, noting that the force deployed by the Terran government was substantial and that the armaments likely to be carried by such a pair of ships could more than do the job of blasting Mars’s settlements out of existence.
Around the room, Mei Lo noted where faces paled, where fists clenched. She wanted the fist-clenchers on her side, once she developed a plan of action. She jotted down a few names.
O’Malley ceded the floor to his chief of weapons development, Ching.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” said Ching. “Our current fleet is no match for what’s coming. We will be outgunned. We can do about as much damage to a pair of M-class vessels as an ordinary pebble can do to a class five sandstorm.”
“Your metaphor’s a bad one,” said a gruff voice.
The assembly turned to stare at Crusty.
“Ain’t no way a pebble can harm a sandstorm. That ain’t the nature of either pebbles or storms, to be inflictin’ harm on one another.” He placed his fists on his hips and gazed at the impressive array of the planet’s most influential individuals. “But a pebble can do one helluva number on a piece of fine machinery. That’s the way to think of solvin’ this problem. They got machines; we got pebbles. Let’s figure out where we can do the most damage using what we got.”
A quiet buzz hummed through the room. Mei Lo’s eyes narrowed. This might just be the opportunity she’d been hoping for to introduce Harpreet’s unconventional means of fighting the Terran Chancellor. She stood, drawing all eyes from around the room to her. Her stomach tightened with nerves. But really, Crusty had given her the perfect introduction. She might as well speak now.
“We have assets on Earth who are addressing this problem from a non-combat
ive angle,” said Mei Lo. “You might say they’re tossing pebbles.” She smiled grimly at Crusty and then gave her wafer a verbal command to play Harpreet’s vid calling for the Chancellor to reform.
The vid played to its conclusion, Harpreet’s familiar voice filling the room with the haunting words: The Chancellor would do well to examine herself and turn from the path upon which she now travels. No lasting good can come of such a life, of such choices. Examine yourself, daughter.
A handful of people clapped at the conclusion of the vid, but not everyone was impressed.
Brigadier General O’Malley drew himself to his feet. “With all due respect to Raider Mombasu,” he said, “I don’t see a sermon to the Terran Chancellor as an adequate military response.”
Mei Lo glanced over to Mendoza; he looked to be in agreement with O’Malley.
Of course he would be. The missiles were coming. Harpreet was good, but was anyone that good?
“As I said,” Mei Lo said, drawing herself tall, “I will be entertaining all possible responses. We will recess for two hours. At that point, I want to hear from the rest of you.”
9
A BIT OF MARS-FEVER
So, the red-haired pilot had survived after all.
Lucca Brezhnaya’s initial shock at seeing the girl on a minor broadcast feed had worn off. Lucca had been home at the palace when she first heard the news. She’d made quite a mess, between striking persons and objects. There had been injuries. Lucca’s new butler reported clean-up was nearly concluded following what he termed her “response” to the vid.
Let them take as long as they liked with tidying and purging stains. No, the Chancellor needed to be in her office right now. She needed to make certain there was no further way for the Martian infiltrators, now at large once more, to broadcast anything else. Or to contact sympathizers on Earth. Or to contact their home world.
Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6) Page 2