“Of course, Madam Chancellor.”
“Good. Don’t tell me how to do my job. Blast the station. I don’t want so much as one bolt connected to one strut when you’re done. And this time no one escapes. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Chancellor out.”
13
NO LONGER IN EXISTENCE
“Try again,” Jessamyn said to her brother.
Pavel, hovering behind Ethan, nodded in agreement. “One more time.”
“No,” said Ethan. “It would be illogical to try again until I have ascertained the origin of the connectivity issue.”
Jessamyn clenched her hands into tight fists. This was maddening. To have the means to comm MCC restored, only to discover “connectivity” issues? Well, no one was as good with that sort of thing as her brother. Except, maybe, the Ghost.
“Should we comm Yevgeny?” demanded Jess. “Maybe he might have some suggestions.”
“A worthy proposal, miss,” said Zussman, who was preparing a third pot of tea for the fugitives.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Ethan didn’t seem to hear her suggestion, however. He looked pretty focused. She would repeat her idea in a minute if it looked like Eth was still stuck.
Earlier today, she’d recorded the message meant to inform MCC she was the Marsian to officially break the No Contact Accords in the interest of stopping the Chancellor’s attack. Jessamyn had felt certain nothing in her life had been more difficult.
But she was wrong. Not being able to send the message after all was definitely worse. “Ugh!” she grunted, staring over her brother’s shoulder. “Comm the Ghost. Ask him for ideas.”
Her brother, speaking in his habitually uninflected tone, turned to her. “There is no need for me to comm Yevgeny.”
“You fixed it?” Jessamyn grinned. Her brother could fix anything.
“I did not.”
Her grin faded. Her brows drew together. “So comm the Ghost.”
“He cannot help us. The reason I cannot connect to the New Terra Space Station is that the station has been attacked. It is no longer in existence.”
“What?” demanded Pavel. “What do you mean ‘no longer in existence’?”
Jess uttered a single word. “Lucca.”
14
FANTASTICAL TALES READ BY HEADLAMPS
Mei Lo rubbed her eyes. That first meeting after the news of the coming attack felt like it had happened annums ago and not last week. The days had swept past, blurred and truncated. Standing as she did on this side of the dreadful news, it was hard to remember what life had been like before. When they’d only faced the arduous task of rebuilding a handful of critical facilities and not the additional task of preparing to defend themselves.
The Secretary sighed wearily. They faced so much more now. Surely that would make others agree with her that it was time to tell Earth of MCC’s existence. Time to ask of the people of Earth: tell your Chancellor to turn back her weapons of destruction.
The Secretary knew she’d be fighting an uphill battle on this one. In a way, it was a battle she’d been preparing for her entire tenure as Secretary General. Ever since she’d received in trust the secret of Mars’s collusion in the abuse of the Terran Rebody Program, her one goal had been to take that information to the people of Earth. And the only way to do so would be by first revealing the survival of Mars Colonial. So she’d been thinking about doing this for years.
The problem was, no one else had spent years thinking about revealing Marsian survival to Terrans.
Well, that was only one problem. The recent damage inflicted by Terran lasers wasn’t likely to be far from anyone’s thoughts. Ironically, the members of MCC who would probably stand strongest in opposition to her today were likely the ones who’d clenched their fists instead of blanching during that first meeting.
Grabbing a copy of Horton Hears a Who!, the Secretary took her place on a low dais set before the assembled members of Mars Colonial Command. She delivered her proposal to a packed room. But before she’d finished speaking, she could sense the discomfort in the room. No one liked her proposal. Not even one of her most staunch supporters, General Mendoza.
“With all due respect, Madam Secretary,” said the general, “a child’s story book is surely not the best basis to develop an interplanetary military response.”
“Doubtless you and I see this situation differently,” said Mei Lo. “My intent was to suggest a non-military response as a possible avenue. And as far as my choice of inspirational material, do any of you believe we’d be here on Mars today if not for stories? What led our ancestors to dream of a life on Mars? Was it not fantastical tales read by headlamps under the bedcovers?”
Mei Lo wasn’t sure what twenty-first century Terran children had used under their blankets; probably it wasn’t headlamps. But she pushed forward. “Have not many of our finest notions begun with just such a spark, such a ‘what if?’ I am simply asking that we consider using a different resource in addition to our severely limited military.”
After that, the conversation wandered away from an attack on Mei Lo’s use of Horton Hears a Who!, but the general consensus was not in her favor.
Most felt that making an appeal to the Terran government would be futile. Just look at what the leader of the Terran government had seen fit to do to them with the lasers, they argued. As for an appeal to Terrans themselves, how was it even likely the message would reach real Terrans? No, her opponents argued, the message would be stopped before it reached the people. A people, mind you, who might not care one way or the other what happened to Mars.
“Then we continue forward with a military solution,” she concluded at the end of the discussion. All told, it was one of the Secretary’s darker days.
15
AN UNIMPEDED VIEW
“At least the most important message got through before Lucca started blowing satellites up again,” said Pavel. “Mars knows my aunt launched the attack.”
Jessamyn said nothing. What Pavel pointed out was true: Mars had received the most important message. But it was maddening to be out of communication once again.
“How do you think MCC responded to the news?” Pavel asked.
It was a question she’d been asking herself for days. But without comms, how was she supposed to know? So Jess didn’t respond; she just kept walking ahead of Pavel along the narrow path. She could hear his labored breath; neither of them was close to adjusting to Earth’s gravity yet. Today’s walk on Tresco’s north side included an elevation gain which was taking an additional toll.
“Almost … to … the top,” Jess said, her words coming out between panting breaths. “Talk … then.”
Pavel grunted his approval.
They were back to the days of comming Mars once per twenty-eight days. Hopefully. Because it was always possible Lucca would blow up every dish with the ability to transmit a message to the red planet between now and the next comm window. This was Jessamyn’s latest fear.
Thus far, the Chancellor was ignorant of the fact Jess and her friends had received intel of the secret launch to attack Mars. But if Lucca found out? She’d destroy any possible means by which Mars could be warned. The problem was, Jess planned to release a vid telling everyone on Earth about Lucca’s strike, so Lucca was definitely finding out. What would the Chancellor do then? Destroy all the comm arrays?
Once a month comms weren’t much, but they were infinitely preferable over never-a-month comms.
Which placed Jess in a quandary. She wanted to reveal Lucca’s genocidal intentions as soon as possible, but she didn’t want to compromise the Raiders’ ability to comm MCC. It was a mess. A mess which had driven Jessamyn outside. Why spend her day pacing inside when she could, well, pace outside?
The path carved its way between purple heather in the exuberant bloom of summer’s last gasp. Jess felt her foot slip on a loose layer of graveled pebbles. She ought to be more careful. Falling here, where she we
ighed fifty kilos, would hurt a lot more than taking a tumble on the moon, where she’d weighed not even ten kilos. The soil was sandy, almost like that around New Houston. Jess couldn’t tell if the sandy soil was ocean-deposited or created from the worn granite boulders peering through the ground cover. She’d never paid much attention in geology. Or “areology” as one of her instructors had insisted on calling it.
“We made it,” gasped Pavel.
Having gained the summit, the two stood for a few minutes, breathing hard, enjoying the feel of wind as it evaporated their sweat.
“Drink,” said Jess, pulling out a wet ration for herself and Pavel.
Pavel guzzled his quickly. Jess took slow sips, enjoying the fresh taste of water that had not been recycled hundreds of times in a closed system.
“They’ll be scared,” said Jess at last.
“Well, yeah. Probably like Earth sixty-three years ago when they saw there was that asteroid coming with our name on it.”
Jessamyn let out a quick guffaw.
“What?” asked Pavel.
Jess smiled. “That asteroid was seen by a lot of Marsians as come-uppance. There were plenty of people in my granddad’s generation who were rooting for the asteroid.”
“Guess that’s fair enough,” said Pavel. “But you’ll forgive me if I’m glad it missed us.”
Jessamyn shrugged.
“I want a better view,” she said, walking forward again along the path.
Ahead of them lay a broad moor, heather blooming on all sides. It looked like they were on a flatland, but Jess remembered that if they took the path another few hundred meters, they would be able to see the coast on the far side. She felt the need for an unimpeded view. Lobster would have called it a metaphor for what she really wanted. And Jess supposed it was: she kept trying to see a bigger picture so that the threat to Mars would somehow appear smaller, more containable.
“That’s more like it,” she said as the ocean came into view to the east.
“Your government must be planning a military response, at least, right?” asked Pavel.
“We train a minimal military force, but no one’s seen any real action. Apart from us Raiders, that is. Simulations only take you so far.”
“They took you pretty far,” said Pavel.
Jess sighed. “Most of what I did last week would’ve gotten me a fail on any sims they run back home.”
The two gazed out at the prospect before them. The tide was high, but it was still possible to make out dozens of isles and rocky stacks, like so many teeth in the mouth of an angry giant, eager to swallow up inattentive sailors. The remains of an ancient lighthouse stood on one of the nearer isles; a bastion that had guided ships to safety in centuries past.
Who would guide Mars to safety?
Pavel spoke. “Are you second-guessing the vid we put up, about you being from Mars?”
Jessamyn shook her head. “No. It was the right thing to do. Cassondra Kipling gave her life so that we could tell Earth the truth. MCC can jail me for it if they want, but I stand by what we did.”
“I wonder if MCC would have authorized the revelation. If you’d been able to ask.”
Jess asked herself this same question every day. “It’s pointless guessing,” she said. “What’s done is done.”
“They’ll tell you what they think next month,” said Pavel.
Jess nodded.
“You worried?”
“About their response? Like I said, what’s done is done. What I’m worried about most right now is your aunt’s response when I make the announcement about her attacking Mars. What if she decides to destroy all communication between the worlds to keep us from warning MCC?”
“Huh,” said Pavel. “I hadn’t thought about that. But you’re right; she won’t want Mars to know what’s coming.”
“Exactly.” Jessamyn felt her insides deflate at the thought of returning to a life without even the once-a-month comms.
“Oh, hold on,” said Pavel. “When we put out the vid demanding Lucca call back the missiles, we announce that Mars already knows about the attack.”
“So that she knows they know?” Jessamyn frowned. “She might still blow things up, out of, I don’t know, spite, maybe?”
Pavel nodded. “She might. But it’s less likely she’d go on a deep space dish rampage if, from her perspective, the damage was already done.”
“So you don’t think there’s any point holding off the ‘don’t blast Mars’ vid until after next month’s comm window has come and gone?”
Frowning, Pavel grabbed the back of his neck, rubbing at a knot.
“Let me,” said Jessamyn. His neck looked so exposed now that he had his “Pavel, nephew of the Chancellor” short haircut back again. Jess felt a smile forming as she rubbed out the knot. Terrans were so … muscular. They had to be in gravity like this. Jessamyn’s eyes drifted to Pavel’s biceps, the ripple of muscle just under the skin. “You’re very beautiful, you know.”
“Hey,” said Pavel, “I’m manly, not beautiful.”
Jessamyn laughed.
Pavel turned suddenly and gripped Jessamyn’s face in his hands, kissing her hard. “I’m manly,” he said.
The two caught their breath.
“Got it?” demanded Pavel.
Jessamyn laughed again.
“Listen, about my aunt?” Pavel’s face had grown serious again. “I guessed wrong about her that other time—when I said I didn’t think she’d go to the expense of sending ships to destroy Mars. I want to say she wouldn’t go after all the comm arrays if Mars already has the news she’s coming, but my track record of second-guessing my aunt isn’t perfect.”
“We should talk this over with Zussman and Ethan. And maybe Cameron, too. I wish we knew how to comm Harpreet.”
“Let’s head back, then,” said Pavel, rising. “We can comm Yevgeny. He’ll have some insight on how Lucca might respond.”
Jessamyn frowned. “I worry about us comming him. What if our comms to Yevgeny bring his sister’s wrath down on his head?”
“We’re careful,” replied Pavel. “Your brother’s very, very careful.”
Jess shivered as a blast of autumn wind ran along the moor. Could anyone be careful enough when it came to Lucca?
16
EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES
At the time, Mei Lo had no way of knowing the anonymously sent Terran broadcasts had come to a permanent end. Had she known the New Terra station broadcasts were finished, however, she would have agreed the final comm ended things with a bang.
Before a special session of MCC called for the purpose, Mei Lo played the salient parts of that final broadcast: Captain Cassondra Kipling’s last message to the Secretary General:
I have recommended, as per the “extraordinary measures” clause, that former pilot Jessamyn Jaarda speak to the people of Earth on behalf of the people of Mars. I’m convinced of two things. Firstly, that this is the only means by which Mars is likely to be saved from the coming attack. Secondly, that Jaarda’s the right person for the job. If anyone can argue a stranded miner out of his last CO2 absorption filter, that person is Jess.
When the message finished, the leaders of Mars Colonial sat in eerie silence.
Mei Lo wasn’t sure what response she’d been hoping for. She hadn’t consulted Mendoza ahead of time on this one. Had she been hoping for applause, maybe? No, of course not. Applause wasn’t appropriate, considering the message was Kipper’s last, recorded just prior to her death.
“Madam Secretary General,” said General Mendoza, “are we persuaded this is, indeed, firm evidence of Captain Kipling’s demise?”
The Secretary nodded grimly. “The message was to be delivered only upon confirmation of her death. We are uncertain as to the means by which the message was sent. But Cameron Wallace found a way to deliver Kipper’s last words, along with a regrettably brief message regarding the Raiders.”
Mei Lo’s lips pulled into a tight, thin line before she spoke a
gain. “The story Cameron pieced together suggests the Raiders were forced to flee their lunar base under attack by the Chancellor and survived the encounter because of Kipper’s sacrifice. At least, Cameron believes they survived. She has provided no hard evidence, and the Raiders have not attempted to contact her, nor do they have a way to contact us. Their survival is … conjectural at best.”
“Couldn’t the message have been faked?” asked a woman whose badge identified her as a member of the press.
Mei Lo shook her head. “The message is genuinely from Kipper. She said things to me, personal things that only Cassondra Kipling would have known about. There was a transmission for her mother as well, and Ms. Kipling acknowledges only her daughter could have sent that message.”
Mendoza stood again. “In the communication you played for us, Captain Kipling says she ‘recommended’ former pilot Jaarda should speak on MCC’s behalf. Do you have any indication as to whether this recommendation was issued as an order? Or issued at all, for that matter? Would the captain have had the chance to issue such orders?”
“We don’t know, General,” replied the Secretary. “We don’t know if the recommendation reached Jessamyn Jaarda. I have no further indication it was issued in the form of an order.”
“Not that Jaarda’s known for following orders,” called a voice from the back of the room.
Mei Lo couldn’t identify the speaker, but his statement was taken up around the room, creating a noisy buzz of agreement and opposition.
“Please,” called Mei Lo, her voice amplified, “We are here to consider our next actions, given this new information. We are not here to discuss the appropriateness of Kipper’s request or how likely it is Jaarda would comply.”
“With all due respect, Madam Secretary,” said one of Mendoza’s staff, “I think we do need to make it a high priority to find out if the orders were acted on or not.”
“My last request to send an inquiry to Earth was met with a decided lack of enthusiasm,” said the Secretary, drily.
Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6) Page 4