Striking Mars (The Saving Mars Series-5)

by Cidney Swanson

  “She insisted she could do the most good for our cause if her appearance was not altered,” said Ethan. “As you will see, this vid provides an exposé of the Chancellor’s private jail, the New Timbuktu Gold Processing and Re-educational Center for the Retirement of Criminals. Harpreet is uniquely fitted to speak about the conditions within the facility. She is also uniquely suited to send a message to former residents who remember her with fondness. Many are now reinstated to freedom.”

  “If you call working for my aunt ‘freedom,’” said Pavel in an undertone.

  Jessamyn grunted in solidarity.

  “I’m not saying I approve,” she added, scowling.

  Her brother reengaged the playback of the vid, and Harpreet’s gentle voice filled the room once more.

  “New Timbuktu is not,” said Harpreet, “as many erroneously assume, myself among them at first, a government-run facility. No, the prison is a sort of private project for the Chancellor. The guards are under her special employ, and the only prisoners eligible for, ah, ‘re-education’ in this facility are those who have either worked for the Chancellor or crossed her in some exceptional manner.

  “When I was a resident of New Timbuktu, I found myself engaged in the most extraordinary conversations,” said Harpreet. “And I learned things you certainly wouldn’t learn from following the planet’s most popular newsfeeds.” Here she laughed softly and looked to the side for a few long seconds.

  Harpreet’s pensive gaze made Jess suddenly homesick. How many times had Jessamyn seen the old Raider looking out a window at the New Houston Fountain in just that way?

  When she resumed, Harpreet offered a scathing assessment of the New Timbuktu facility and its sole proprietor, Lucca Brezhnaya, concluding with an eerie warning. “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,” urged Harpreet, the distress on her face evident and honest.

  The vid ended there.

  “Well, that was different,” said Pavel.

  “It has, during the time we spent watching, doubled its original impact,” said Ethan, consulting his chair wafer.

  “This one’s going crazy,” said Pavel, looking over the numbers of views. Looking up, he spoke to Eth. “You should let Harpreet know.”

  “Unfortunately, at this time, I do not know how to reach her. She felt it would be best, following such a volatile piece, if we were to go without contact for some time. In fact, as Harpreet’s sojourn off-grid may be of some duration, she has reinstated Cassondra Kipling as commander of our crew.”

  “She re-commissioned Kipper?” asked Jessamyn.

  Her brother nodded.

  “And Kip accepted?” asked Jess.

  “Cassondra’s recovery is complete, according to her physician,” replied Ethan. “And more importantly, perhaps, according to Harpreet. We will report for the foreseeable future to Captain Kipling.”

  “You better tell Kipper the good news, then,” said Pavel. “Pretty soon, the planetary broadcast feeds will have no choice but to give this some attention. Lucca’s about to have a huge mess to deal with.” He folded his arms over his chest and grinned.

  “The views on this vid have doubled again,” said Ethan.

  “This is crazy,” murmured Jessamyn.

  “Few on Earth will be in favor of their Chancellor running a private jail, no matter how it is funded,” observed Mr. Zussman. “Congratulations are in order. And perhaps a small celebration. I believe this is our finest work to date.”

  “Finest, and most dangerous,” said Jessamyn, her stomach squeezing uncomfortably. Harpreet had placed herself in the line of fire once more, and Jess didn’t feel like celebrating.

  31

  Budapest, Earth

  “I want the Martian Harpreet Mombasu, Captain Wu,” said Lucca Brezhnaya.

  “Yes, Madam Chancellor.”

  Wu’s gaze remained fixed straight ahead, no matter where Lucca wandered in her spacious steel and glass office. He was more afraid of her than he had been before. That was good.

  She had considered leaving him to rot in New Timbuktu, in solitary confinement. Or in a crowded cell, which he would have found more distasteful. But she needed him. There was simply no one else she trusted to do certain jobs.

  She’d always known the prison was a potential source of bad publicity. It had been a calculated risk on her part; the prisoners she kept alive were kept alive because they were, like Wu, the right individual for a particular critical task. She ought to have eliminated Harpreet Mombasu instead of imprisoning her. Lucca had been sloppy in that instance. She would not be sloppy in the future.

  “I don’t want Mombasu returned to New Timbuktu,” added Lucca. “She comes straight to the palace this time. I want to personally … question her.”

  Wu nodded his response.

  “She’s Martian,” said Lucca, tapping her forefinger against her chin, “which means she is likely to go to ground somewhere most Terrans would consider uninhabitable. A desert, perhaps, or an ice floe, a garbage dump….” Lucca fluttered her fingers casually. “Use your imagination.”

  “Yes, Madam Chancellor.”

  “And what is the progress on shutting down her preposterous vid?”

  Wu’s mouth twitched once, twice. It had been doing that since Lucca had punished him following his previous failures.

  “As you have doubtless been informed by my superior,” replied Wu, “it will most likely prove impossible to eradicate all versions of the vid-cast. Are you familiar with the game called ‘whack-a-mole’?”

  Lucca stared blankly at Wu.

  “The more we strike at those who air the vids, the more new feeds they seem to find. It is the nature of a virus, Madam Chancellor, and we must let it run its course.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Lucca. Her outward calm betrayed none of the anger churning in her belly. “So I have been told. I thought you might have something better for me. You have that clever nephew who’s good with communication.”

  “My nephew, unfortunately, did not survive the re-body you ordered after his, ah … recent failure.”

  “Oh,” said Lucca, raising her brows. She’d forgotten about Benjamin Wu’s unfortunate “accident.”

  “I assure you, Madam Chancellor, the very best minds are at work on the issue, and they all agree—”

  “Yes, of course,” said the Chancellor, waving one hand airily. “I am only too aware of what they say. They repeat themselves more than intelligent persons ought to do.”

  “Is there anything further, Madam Chancellor?”

  “Find Harpreet. That is all.”

  Lucca turned to gaze upon the warm summer’s day out her window.

  “You are dismissed, Captain Wu.” She made a point of addressing him by his demoted status as often as possible, knowing very well the pain it caused him. She heard Wu’s rapid steps as he departed.

  Harpreet’s large, dark eyes haunted Lucca: accusing, challenging.

  Examine yourself, daughter.

  Lucca gripped the wafer in her hand so hard it cracked, the exposed edge cutting her thumb. A drop of blood fell to the polished floor, and Lucca threw the device hard at the window.

  The Martian would pay for this humiliation. In a few short months, all Martians would pay.

  32

  New Houston, Mars

  Lillian Jaarda’s eyes narrowed when Geoffrey casually mentioned he was going off to look at an odd hot spot near the planet’s southern pole. She turned to face him, pressing both fists on the desk in the room that served as her office and their hab.

  “Why do they want you?” she demanded.

  Geoffrey shrugged.

  “Do they think it’s dangerous, whatever’s making the heat signature?”

  He fiddled with one of the buttons at his collar. It was a nervous habit Lillian knew well.

  “It’s probably nothing,” he said. “Some malfunctio
ning bit of equipment left over from the destruction of the satellites.”

  “Some radioactive bit of equipment, you mean.”

  “That possibility crossed my mind.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” said Lillian, crossing her arms. “Why do they want you?”

  “Well, it’s not like I’ve got a full plate at the moment.”

  “It’s your interest in old weaponry, isn’t it?” demanded Lillian.

  Geoffrey rose to examine an algae pot on the other side of the room.

  “I knew it!” snapped Lillian. “It’s not enough Mei Lo’s taken Ethan and Jessamyn. Now she wants you, too.”

  Geoffrey exhaled slowly and walked over to his wife’s side. “Lil, it’s not like that. If they really thought there was danger, they’d send a probe first.”

  “They haven’t sent one already?”

  “No, no … I’m sure they have.” Geoffrey fiddled with his button again.

  Lillian’s eyes narrowed.

  “Probably,” added Geoff.

  “Flaming Moons of Zeus!”

  Lillian felt her husband place a gentle hand on her shoulder, felt him massage the knot that never really left that side of her neck where it joined her shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said. “Listen to me. It’s nothing like that. I’ll go have a look and be back before you even miss me.”

  “Just a quick trip?” She felt herself relaxing as he worked the stubborn knot.

  “I promise.”

  “And nothing dangerous?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Lillian’s mouth curved upward. She had him now. “Good. Then you won’t mind if I come along.”

  Geoffrey’s hand stopped working out the knot in her shoulder and he sighed. “You know I can’t authorize that.”

  Lillian’s eyes flashed fire. “Then it’s a darned good thing the Secretary owes me big time, isn’t it?”

  ~ ~ ~

  A journey to the South Pole took less than two hours. Getting permission from the Secretary and the Council of Generals for Lillian to accompany her husband ended up taking four.

  “Bunch of fussy old maids,” muttered Lillian as she spun up the ship’s drive.

  “You are an extremely valuable asset to Mars Colonial,” replied her husband.

  Lillian guffawed. “Yes, well, the Secretary’s goal of putting Planetary Agriculture on the map does seem to be succeeding. After all these years, I’m finally someone important. Ridiculous.”

  She pulled the ship up steeply and then made a wide circle to point the nose south. “You’re still convinced this is safe?”

  Geoffrey exhaled noisily. “I may have exaggerated my convictions on that point.”

  “Ha! I knew it.”

  “And you still want to go?” he asked.

  “You bet your best pair of walk-out boots I do.”

  “Easy to see where our daughter gets her adrenaline-junkie streak.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m accompanying you to make sure you don’t do something stupid, like try to disassemble a ticking bomb.”

  “I’m pretty sure there weren’t any ticking bombs one hundred Earth years ago.”

  “Hmmph.”

  But when they arrived at their destination, they saw things more shocking than ticking bombs.

  “Will you look at that?” whispered Lillian as she brought the craft to land on a rocky outcropping.

  “Holy Ares,” murmured Geoffrey. “Is that what it looks like?”

  “Can radiation do that?”

  Her husband didn’t respond. He was unharnessed and halfway to the hatch before Lillian grabbed him by the arm. “Oh no you don’t, mister. Answer my question first. Could a form of radioactivity cause that melt-off?”

  Geoffrey stared at the trickling streams criss-crossing the plain before them. “I have no idea what could do this. No idea.”

  33

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  “You ever run across anything in those medical journals about lower gravity causing your body to require less sleep?” asked Jessamyn. She lay in the darkened bunk room, awake two hours after she’d climbed in bed.

  “No.” The immediacy of Pavel’s response told her he was suffering insomnia as well. “I suppose anything’s possible though. Our caloric intake requirements are somewhat lessened, I suppose. In theory. Really, we ought to be spending more time in the gym to keep our muscles in shape.”

  “I can’t sleep,” Jess said, turning for the twentieth or thirtieth time that night. She’d lost track. “All I can think of is Harpreet, throwing herself in front of a category five dust storm like that.”

  Pavel stretched his hand out and grasped at Jessamyn’s. “She’ll be fine. She’s made of tough stuff.”

  “Hmmph,” grunted Jess.

  “Just like you.”

  “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

  “Who said anything about bleeding?”

  “That was Shakespeare. The Ghost and I watched a Merchant of Venice set on — wait for it — Mars. ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’ is a famous line.”

  “Did the Ghost do that thing—”

  “Where he mutters every line before the actors have a chance to speak them?” asked Jess. “Yes. Yes, he totally did.”

  Pavel laughed. “I thought your brother was as weird as they get, but the Ghost takes the cake.”

  “Cake?”

  “To take the cake: it’s something Talia said a lot. It means to win.”

  “I never tried cake,” said Jessamyn. “All those chances at Cameron’s, and I stuck with fruit or ice cream.”

  “Hard call, between ice cream or cake,” said Pavel. “You’d have to be Marsian to pick fruit over either of those, I guess.”

  “Guess so,” said Jess. “Is it awful for you eating nothing but rations day in and day out?”

  “I don’t know. There are compensations.” Saying this, he dropped from his bunk and attempted to join Jess in hers.

  “Oh, honestly,” said Jess. “There’s no room here and you know it. Let’s get up and do something useful.”

  The two made their way to the Ghost’s hangar, where they had moved the Star Shark so as to be able to work on the heat shield indoors.

  Jessamyn stared gloomily at the panel that had, so far, refused to be removed from the ship. Pavel said he suspected it had been fused to the underlayment during the damage the ship sustained. The two worked side by side, fiddling and thumping and pleading with the stubborn panel.

  “I give up,” Jess said after an hour, sinking to the ground beside the ship. “It’s not like it matters right now anyway. We need two more panels, which we don’t have.”

  Pavel spent a few more minutes tinkering and then set down his tools as well. “That is one stuck panel,” he said.

  “Fitting,” said Jess.

  Pavel looked at her, sleepy but curious.

  “We’re stuck, it’s stuck.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding. “Yes. Fitting.”

  “I wonder where Harpreet is,” said Jess, setting her hand atop Pavel’s.

  He wrapped his fingers up and over hers. “She’s fine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know your brother wouldn’t have agreed to let her do that vid without some pretty solid assurance she was going to survive the broadcast.”

  “I hate that she’s not in contact,” said Jess, sinking lower against the wall.

  “Me, too,” said Pavel. Then he rose, pulling Jess up, too. “Come on. No sitting on the ground. That’s moon rock. Cold as ice.”

  Jess laughed as she stood and stretched. “I’ve met some ice that’s much, much colder.”

  “Yeah, well, that couch is calling pretty loud right now and it’s not cold.” Pavel grinned.

  “Mmm,” sighed Jess. “Good idea. Why is there a leather couch on the moon, anyway?” They walked hand in hand down a tunnel just wide enough for two.

  Pave
l didn’t answer right away. “The Ghost never told you the story?”

  Jess shook her head, swinging their connected hands back and forth.

  “I guess it’s not a big secret,” said Pavel. But he frowned as he said it.

  “You guess the couch isn’t a big secret? What, is it actually a weapon? Does it turn into a spacecraft?”

  “No, nothing like that. It belonged to his sweetheart. A bazillion years ago. When Lucca had Isobel killed, the Ghost asked if he could have the couch to remember her by.”

  “I do remember him saying something about Lucca sending the couch to show him how powerful she was.” She stared at the couch for a moment before taking a seat. “It’s so … tragic.”

  “It’s romantic that he kept it,” said Pavel, sitting beside her. “That’s what Harpreet said.”

  “The Ghost told Harpreet and not me?”

  “I told her. I told her as proof the Ghost had a heart. Along with his other attributes. And his rescuing thing.”

  “Huh,” said Jess. “I wonder why he never told me. He’s never talked to me about a sweetheart at all, actually.”

  “She had flaming red hair and was hated by his sister and was eventually killed by her.”

  “Hades and Aphrodite,” said Jess, touching her hair.

  “Yeah,” said Pavel. He twisted a length of Jessamyn’s hair in his fingers and then let it fall free.

  “The Ghost’s Isobel wanted people to live on the moon. She fought for funding in Parliament, even. This was before the three hundred kilometer ban, obviously.”

  Jess’s eyebrows rose. “Little brother has all kinds of reasons to hate his bossy big sister, huh?”

  “They’re twins, actually. But the bossy part is accurate.”

  The two were quiet for a couple of minutes and Jess felt sleep creeping up on her. “I think I could fall asleep now,” she said, swallowing a large yawn. She leaned into Pavel’s muscled chest and sighed in content.

  “No sleeping yet,” said Pavel. “There’s something I wanted to ask you. It’s about Harpreet’s vid.”