Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  Obviously, they were having trouble in that regard now that they’d had to flee both 92-AE and Tranquility Base. Lucca had placed a call to Yevgeny to ascertain whether or not 92-AE was currently capable of broadcasting anything to or receiving anything from Mars. Her brother had confirmed the station’s deep space dish was badly damaged. He’d offered to fix it, citing the need for vigilance against invading armies.

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you, dear brother?” the Chancellor had asked. “It seems I was mistaken about life on the desert planet. There is no more life on Mars.”

  It pained her to speak to her brother. Not to lie to him; no that wasn’t the painful part. What made it so difficult to speak with Yevgeny was the memories that inevitably came back to haunt her. And if the memories were bad, the dreams were much worse. That part of her life, the simple part where it had been just the pair of them, siblings, was long over. She wished she could let go of him entirely. It was a fault in her to keep him alive. It was sentimental. But she couldn’t bear to consider a world without her twin brother. Not now. Not yet. Some other day, perhaps. Best to put him from her mind for now.

  The Chancellor turned her gaze from her desk to the lovely day outside. Budapest was a paradise in early fall. The lawns were full of picnickers. Upon closer inspection, however, Lucca noted that many of the “picnickers” were displaying protest signs.

  It was that blasted Mars-fever. Created by that blasted girl. She turned from the window and looked around for something to throw. Then she took a slow breath and restrained her passion.

  This, too, shall pass.

  And in a way, it wasn’t all bad. A bit of Mars-fever would come in handy next year when Lucca announced the formation of the Brezhnaya Foundation for Space Exploration. Her new world would need colonists, after all.

  10

  ORCHID OR BRUISE

  Mei Lo, elbows resting on her desk, collapsed her head into her hands and uttered a prolonged low growl. It had been a long day. A very long day. Before her, in several piles, lay a variety of suggested defenses, ranging from brilliant to laughable.

  She’d sorted to one side the ideas that MCC had determined to be the most actionable. The Secretary had been hoping to put several plans into play, but that had been overly optimistic, it appeared. All the most promising suggestions would use overlapping resources. And Mars was at an all-time low when it came to the availability of resources.

  Several of the proposals came with absolutely mad price tags when measured in raw materials. Half of the proposals, the head of Central Manufacturing had rejected out of hand as impossible given ten annums, much less the quarter annum they had. He’d actually laughed as he read through some of the proposals.

  “They’re completely out of touch with reality, those generals you’ve got advising you,” he said, shaking his head. “This is the only proposal we might—might—be able to pull off.” He sobered up to add, “And that’s assuming you’re willing to sign legislation allowing us to hire underage workers.”

  “How short-handed would you be?” Mei Lo had asked.

  “Give me one hundred twenty additional personnel, and we can maybe do it.”

  But hiring that many would mean bringing in kids as young as seven or eight annums.

  Mei Lo groaned again, elbows grinding uncomfortably into her desk.

  Looking up, she commed her secretary. “Get me Daschle Crustegard,” she said.

  She wished she’d brought Rover in with her today, but the poor planetary dog had spent the past week coming to work with Mei Lo. He’d whined beside his hamster ball this morning, desperate for some time to run outdoors.

  “That’s what I need,” she muttered to herself.

  She commed Veronica again.

  “Would you ask Raider Crustegard to please fly a planet-hopper over?” asked Mei Lo. “And clear my schedule for the next two hours.”

  When Crusty arrived, Mei Lo asked if he would mind flying her to Gale Crater.

  “Not a bit,” replied the gruff mechanic.

  The Secretary suited up and the two exited the building.

  “I’ll go crazy if I have to spend any more time in that office,” said Mei Lo.

  Crusty grunted in what Mei Lo assumed was an affirmative manner.

  “You come up with anything yet?” Crusty asked once they were airborne.

  “No,” she said gloomily, staring at the plain below. Then she revised her response. “Maybe.”

  Crusty didn’t ask for her to elaborate. That was one of the things Mei Lo liked so much about Crusty: he was willing to let you take as long as you needed to say something.

  The lip of Gale Crater loomed before them and Crusty took the ship up a few hundred meters and then dropped her down to skim the crater wall. The sun floated just above the far horizon.

  “Mmm,” sighed Mei Lo. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Crusty grunted in appreciation.

  It was going to be a brilliant violet sunset, thought the Secretary. She’d missed too many sunrises and sunsets to count, lately. She shook her head. You did what you had to.

  Whatever it takes.

  “One of the ideas could work,” said Mei Lo. “The suggestion to retrofit planet dashers with missiles. Even with the dashers, we’d need all your friends at Ursa Station to sign on as pilots.”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem. Soon as they hear about this, they’ll be linin’ up at your doorstep.”

  “The scenarios we’ve run suggest there’s a sixty percent chance of success in eliminating both Terran vessels prior to their arrival.”

  “How ‘bout that M-class under construction?”

  “We can’t count on the new M-class being ready in time.”

  “Hmmph.”

  Hmmph, indeed, thought the Secretary. “If I place you in charge, and if we can supply you with the raw materials, can you get it done?”

  “There’d be a labor issue,” said Crusty. “We’d have to run folks in three shifts, day in, day out.”

  This was what Central Manufacturing had said. It wasn’t the same as a “no,” at least.

  “The head of CM wants me to bring kids in,” said Mei Lo.

  Crusty shook his head. “Ain’t no need for that on my end. Too dangerous, anyway. I’m not jeopardizing the health and safety of my crew by throwin’ a bunch of inexperienced heel-nippers in the ring.”

  “But you could do it?” asked Mei Lo.

  Crusty nodded, once.

  “Beautiful sunset,” he said.

  Mei Lo’s heart squeezed within her. “We have to succeed.” She gestured to the view outside: deep bronzes, the hint of vermillion—a sky on fire. “We can’t lose this.” She broke off, too choked up to speak.

  “I know, Ma’am.” Crusty rose from his seat and knelt beside the Secretary. He placed an arm around her shoulders and didn’t let go when she began to shake, sobbing soundlessly. “Somethin’ll turn up. Somethin’ we ain’t even set our minds to, yet. You wait ‘n’ see.”

  The Secretary let all the emotion run out of her, even let a few tears fall. The sky was a dark, purplish color when at last she looked up.

  Like a bruise, she thought.

  “Ain’t that pretty,” said Crusty. “Color just like one o’ my flowers.”

  She looked at the sky. It did look like his exotic orchids. Or a bruise. It all depended on how you chose to look at it.

  “Just like an orchid,” she said, having decided which vision she preferred.

  They watched as the sky darkened and stars began to pop out.

  “Know what I miss?” asked Crusty after an extended silence.

  Mei Lo turned to him, her eyebrows raised in invitation.

  “Miss them durned satellites,” said Crusty.

  The Secretary stared, laughed, and covered her mouth. “You did not just say that.”

  “They was pretty,” he said, shrugging. “Time to be gettin’ you back, now, ain’t it?”

  Mei Lo sighed, nodding.

  A
s they pulled up to MCC’s headquarters, Crusty asked a question. “You got plans for evenin’ rations?”

  “I’m not skipping them, if that’s what you mean.” Mei Lo flushed, recalling how she’d given her wet rations to Rover on a couple of occasions recently. Had one of her assistants been talking?

  “I just figured you might have a meetin’ or some such,” said Crusty.

  The Secretary was on the verge of saying, It’s been awhile since someone asked me on a date, but then she worried Crusty might not see the humor in the remark, so she kept her thought to herself.

  “I will be dining alone, unless you’re offering to join me,” she said.

  Back in the office of the Secretary General, Crusty and Mei Lo peeled their ration wrappers while Crusty told of his stay at Brian Wallace’s, recounting his wonder upon entering one of the hothouses where Brian forced orchids in all weather.

  “The smell was somethin’ else, I can tell you,” said Crusty. “I know we got folks here that devote their lives to making them scents you put in air filtration, but one whiff of all that green and growin’ stuff, and I knew I’d never be able to enjoy a Mars-made fragrance again.”

  Mei Lo laughed. Her own office was currently scented with something called “Sea-Foam,” which she very much doubted smelled like the Terran ocean. And then she grew melancholy. “Oh, Crusty, we’ve only got four months. It’s not enough time.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop the sun rising and settin’ betwixt now and then,” agreed Crusty. “We just gotta do as much as we can to be prepared for what comes.”

  “You’ve been to Earth,” said Mei Lo. “Do you think there’s any chance the Terran population will oust their Chancellor?”

  “She were pretty popular when I was there. But with them vids Harpreet and Pavel and the Jaarda boy’s been workin’ on?” Crusty shook his head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “We can’t plan on anything changing,” said Mei Lo.

  “That we cain’t,” said Crusty.

  “Thank you, Crusty.”

  “For what?” He looked puzzled.

  “For being here.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Hours after she ought to have gone to bed, Mei Lo sat at home in her favorite chair, gazing out at the stars, at the moons chasing and fleeing one another.

  Rover had given up an hour ago, stretching his legs and loping over to the pillow with his name on it. He slumbered now, occasional whines as he dreamed of whatever it was planetary dogs dreamed of at night. Story time at the library, maybe?

  The Secretary thought back to the last time she’d been at the library. Before she’d known of the events transpiring on Earth. Before she’d known of the missiles on their way to Mars. She thought of the children, how eagerly they had greeted Rover. How they’d enjoyed the stories.

  Perhaps she could read herself to sleep. She considered rising to grab the two children’s books in her bag, but that sounded like too much effort, so she sat in the chair and remembered as much as she could of each story. And as she made her imaginary way through Horton’s tale, she found herself suddenly wide awake.

  “Oh,” she said aloud, her eyes widening with a sudden thought. “Now, there’s an idea.”

  Just like Crusty had said: Somethin’ll turn up. Somethin’ we ain’t even set our minds to, yet ….

  Rover woke, stretched his back legs, stretched his front legs, and came trotting over to see Mei Lo again, tail wagging furiously as if it had been simply days and days since he’d last seen his best friend.

  “Do you want to hear a story?” she asked Rover.

  He barked once.

  And Mei Lo rose and retrieved her ancient copy of Horton Hears a Who!.

  11

  MESSAGE FROM KIPPER

  Seven days after the Ghost first attempted to contact his good friend Jamal Boslough, Jumble finally commed back. As it turned out, Jumble had not yet noticed the message from the Ghost.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” murmured the Ghost, his voice plaintive. “I wasn’t expecting you to return my call or anything.”

  Jumble, accustomed to Yevgeny’s manner, moved on to the matter at hand. “Lady Cameron Wallace contacted me,” he said. “She has a message from Kipper—”

  “The friend of Jessamyn and Pavel. Deceased.”

  “Uh, yeah,” agreed Jumble. “Anyway, she sent a sort of final message to Lady Wallace, hoping her ladyship could pass it on to Mars. Which she can’t, as her satellite’s have all been destroyed—”

  “By Sister,” said Yevgeny.

  “Well, yes. That being the case, any chance you could help out? Get that message delivered?”

  “I can do that for Jessamyn’s friend,” said the Ghost. “Any friend of Jessamyn’s, you know….”

  “I’m sending it to you right now,” said Jumble. “You see it yet?”

  “Yes,” replied Yevgeny. “There. I have forwarded it on to Mars.”

  “Wonderful,” said Jumble.

  “I miss your friends,” said Yevgeny. “They became my friends. They had to leave because Sister found them.”

  “Yes,” said Jumble. “Yes, I heard.”

  “We kept you out of it,” said the Ghost.

  “I heard that, too. And I appreciate it.”

  “Jumble? Can you do something in return? For me? I want to talk with my absent friends. I have news for them, but I don’t know where to comm them.”

  Jumble laughed. “You’ve asked the right person.”

  Before the Terran day had closed on the small island of Tresco, Pavel, Jessamyn, Zussman, and Ethan commed the Ghost.

  “What are you doing back at Tranquility Base?” demanded Pavel. “I thought we agreed it wasn’t safe.”

  “It’s safe now that you are gone,” replied the Ghost.

  “Oh,” said Pavel. “I guess that’s true enough.”

  The Ghost then relayed his news. “I thought of another means by which communication could be opened with Mars Colonial. Well, I did more than think about it. I did it. I sent comms. Vids, actually. And I forwarded a last message from your friend Captain Kipling to your friend Mei Lo. If you wish, you can contact them now.”

  “How?” asked Jess. “The Moon is in the wrong place for the next three weeks.”

  “I went through New Terra,” said the Ghost.

  “While we were on the Moon,” said Ethan, “I attempted to contact New Terra’s communications array on multiple occasions without success.”

  “Ah,” said the Ghost, his voice tinged with melancholy. “You should have asked for my help. I didn’t think of it until you were gone.” He paused briefly and then added, “It is lonely without you.”

  “It’s lonely without you, too, Yevgeny,” said Jessamyn.

  The Ghost smiled sadly. “I am in doubt that you are lonely at present. I see you have dozens of fan clubs. Millions of new friends.”

  Jessamyn’s lips pursed in a straight line and she rolled her eyes.

  Yevgeny, seeing this, wheezed with his odd, childish laugh.

  “But you’re saying we can comm Mars now?” asked Pavel. “Anytime?”

  “Several times per day,” corrected Ethan. “When the station is oriented in the correct direction only.”

  “So, compared to what we used to be able to do: anytime,” said Jess.

  “Yes,” said Yevgeny. “Your automated message to MCC arrived—”

  “Two days ago,” said Jess, cutting him off. “They must be going crazy….”

  “I could not bring myself to share the unhappy news with them,” said the Ghost. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, no,” said Jess. “They would have assumed we were dead if you’d delivered the news. Maybe they think that anyway. We should contact them immediately.”

  “Indeed,” replied her brother. “It will be most interesting to find out how MCC will view our use of the authority with which they entrusted us.”

  The Ghost thought Jessamyn looked as if she might
be about to get sick.

  “Right,” she said. “Tell my brother how to make contact, Yevgeny.”

  12

  CALL IT A DECOMMISSIONING

  A comm came through on Lucca Brezhnaya’s priority channel. She crossed to her desk.

  “Yes? This is the Chancellor.”

  “Madam Chancellor, this is DDO Schloss from RSF headquarters.”

  “Who?” demanded the Chancellor.

  “Er, Vladim Wu’s replacement, ma’am. At Red Squadron—”

  “Yes, yes,” snapped the Chancellor. At the reminder of Wu’s death, Lucca felt a familiar sensation of anger. What a waste that had been.

  “We are seeing evidence that someone has accessed the comm system on the New Terra Space Station.”

  The Chancellor gasped. New Terra? “Someone is on the station?” she asked, her pulse quickening.

  She had them!

  “We’re uncertain whether anyone is physically on the station,” replied Schloss. “The only thing we know right now is that the system has been powered up after decades of inoperation.”

  “If it’s been powered up, there must have been someone doing the powering up. Congratulations, Schloss. You’ve found my missing fugitives.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Madam Chancellor,” said Schloss.

  Lucca’s lip curled. Wu would have known better than to speak to her like that.

  “We lost their trail prior to their reentry of atmosphere,” continued Schloss, oblivious to her danger, “but their trajectory at the time suggested they were planning to enter the atmo, not return to orbit.”

  “That’s what they wanted you to think, fool,” snapped the Chancellor. “It’s them on New Terra. I can feel it. Launch an attack. I want two dozen ships. I want no survivors. Call it a decommissioning, or whatever you like. Just blast that station out of existence.”

  “With all due respect, Madam Chancellor, the station is a valuable asset—”

  “Do you like your new position, Schloss?” Lucca’s voice dripped honey. It was her most dangerous voice. Schloss was too new to know this, of course.