“We do seem to be stuck with each other, Colonel,” she returns with her usual flirtatiousness.
As the pirates try to regroup, Thomas gets a better foothold on the surface, systematically clearing the hatch-breaking crews off our main bunkers, effectively driving a wedge between those that still cling to the west batteries and those that are pinned down and locked out of our landing bays. This gives Sergeant Horst room to advance across the compound toward Main Battery Two, but he still gets met with a discouraging amount of gunfire.
With more breathing room around our bigger entries, Sergeant Thomasen gets one of our old mobile gun platforms rolling out of the vehicle bay. It’s been sitting for fifty years, so it’s a little glitchy, but it gets up and gets crawling. Horst has his men fall in behind it to use it as a rolling shield, while Thomasen sights its guns on the now rapidly approaching Dutchman. He starts spinning 20mm penetrating rounds through the main gas-filled hull, but the ship appears designed to take the abuse. He shifts to start chewing at the sail masts and forward drive fans with the load he has left. This gets the pirates on the pads moving to try to hit him from behind, but that brings them into Thomas’ waiting guns. The best the pirates can do is cling to the concrete and steel decking to avoid ICW fire, which is when Thomas switches to grenades.
I can watch this happen directly now, the Command Tower ports giving an excellent view over the landing bays. If Thomasen had managed to restore all of our light bunker-mounted batteries, we’d be able to sweep the rest of the pirates from our roof easily, but most of those guns had been lost in the slide. I make a mental note to put replacing at least a few more key guns on his priority list. For now, all I can do is watch Thomas work.
Thomasen’s to-do list gets longer when Main Battery Three goes offline, damaged by the cannon fire. Whatever Sakina has managed seems to have cleared Main Battery Two enough that Horst’s team can foothold there. Through his Link feed, I see how the pirates have jammed the turret guns with their tools and even with parts of their comrades’ bodies. Horst’s troopers set to work clearing the barrel clusters.
The Dutchman sweeps over us, undaunted by the smaller rounds we can still throw at it. It sends a broadside to punch more holes in our beleaguered greenhouse, sending Rios’ troopers for cover as the pirates there run from their cover for open desert (where some of them are unfortunate enough to wander into the Nomads’ guns). Thomas has to do a similar duck-and-cover when her positions get peppered with grenades dropped as the big ship passes over, giving the pirates on the bunker roof and on Main Battery One time to pull out. Our troopers fire up at the airship’s underbelly, but it’s well hardened against small arms fire (an expected feature given the pirates’ experience against ground forces).
The Dutchman drops dozens of lines, making the airship resemble a jellyfish. The lines skim the ground and the bunker rooftops, and the remaining pirates dash for them, grabbing on to be hauled efficiently upward. Our guns pick a few of them off as they rise, but the extraction is overall very effective. The Dutchman calculates a lazy turn, still tossing the occasional covering grenade, and points its bow westward to recover those that retreated from the greenhouse attack.
It’s close enough to get spotlights on, so we can get a bright, clear visual. The gas hull is holed in dozens of places, but seems to have some kind of self-patching feature. One of its four main fans is gone and one no longer spins, but the other two seem to provide adequate compensation. There is severe damage to the gun deck, but it still bristles with what appear to be functional cannon. And zooming in, I can see a familiar blonde mane standing at the bow railing: It’s Captain Thompson Bly, glaring down at the Command Tower—at me—with a defiant grin.
“Medical, I need Corpsmen and trauma pods,” I hear Horst call.
“Casualties?” I ask.
“I’ve got four in bad shape, six that can walk,” Horst tells me the cost of his compound crossing. “But I’ve also got your girl down…”
His helmet feed shows me the familiar red cloak. Sakina’s crouched down on the rocks that pad the outer perimeter wall, wedged for cover between the reinforcing ribs of the centrifuge that forms the corner “tower” of the defensive wall. She’s coiled almost fetal, one of her stout knives tight in each fist. Even over the feed, I can see pain under the rage in her eyes, and her mask is dripping fresh bright blood, leaking. She tries to get up when Horst gets close, but can’t.
“She’s taken a bad one, Colonel.”
I’m already in Medical when they all start coming in.
Five of my troopers are DOA. Seven needed to be brought down in trauma pods just to keep them stable for the short trip. Twelve have stable gunshot wounds, and two more have crush injuries from the Dutchman’s cannons.
Tru carried two of her own people down personally. Both should pull through, but will have long recoveries. Her minor wounded are tending themselves to take the pressure off the limited Medical facility and staff, and she offers volunteers for everything from first aid to surgical assist. Our Nomad residents report no casualties (but don’t sound terribly proud of that).
Rios and Thomas coordinated a sweep to check the enemy dead and gather up their wounded as prisoners. I don’t tell either of them to give the Zodangans any priority for Medical, and they don’t ask me. Their initial counts are thirty-six dead pirates and another dozen with bullet and shrapnel wounds. Thomasen’s crew welds the blown Airlock Two shut, and the blast-ravaged chamber becomes a makeshift brig for our prisoners while they await triage.
Sakina was stubborn. She made Horst take his own wounded in first. I had to use his Link to order her to let them put her in a pod. She dropped into shock as soon as she was hooked up.
Her armor is weak at the waist to give her flexibility. She took a round below her breast plate that pierced colon and kidney, narrowly missing her spine and her big iliac blood vessels. The round fragmented and started bleeds in her liver as well. I’m absolutely numb as I watch the medical scanners image the damage. The trauma pod’s surgical arms automatically begin digging into her to extract any remaining fragments and stop the major bleeds, anesthetizing as they go, refilling her with synthetic plasma. Her vitals are coming back by the time Horst himself gets the pod to Ryder, but she’s got five other wounded triaged ahead.
I sit right by her pod for the next four hours, so I can be there when they open it. Matthew brings me down a cup of now-scarce actual coffee. Tru comes in just long enough to put a hand on my shoulder, kiss me on the head, and thank me again for giving her people the chance to fight for us. I barely notice she’s got drying blood all over her.
Rios stops by, stays for an hour without saying anything, then goes back out to lead another patrol looking for any bodies or stragglers out beyond the perimeter.
It’s 09:00 when Ryder’s surgical team starts on her. Sakina’s eyes are closed when the pod opens. Her mask has been pulled aside in favor of the pod’s own nasal oxygen feed, and it looks like she’s vomited a lot of blood—there’s still a suction tube in her mouth. The trauma pod has packed her abdominal wound, but her plate and mail are crusted with her blood. Her skin is pale and cold when I touch her face, and for a moment I’m sure the read-outs are wrong and she really is dead, but then her eyes flutter open and she tries to smile at me. And I’ve been running all the things I really want to say to her through my mind for the last four hours but I can’t manage to say a single thing.
“We’ve got her, Colonel,” Ryder assures. “It’s nothing I can’t fix.”
And they take her in to surgery.
Paul and Simon are waiting for me in the officer’s mess. Their modified AAV has been sitting prominently visible on our Pad Three since they arrived, several frustrating minutes after the Dutchman had retreated beyond our guns. I expect they brought at least a “team” of blue-suited Guardians with them, but only the brothers have left their ship to speak with us.
At least they’ve taken their helmets off so I can see their faces.
/>
“I’m so sorry, Colonel,” Paul offers with his usual soothing calm as soon as I walk in. Simon looks coiled, hard.
“They misdirected us with a second ship,” Simon gets to the point, though simply rehashing the conversation I had with his father in the moment. “They either had it hidden or managed to cobble it together in the last few months—we had no idea.”
“They used it to cover their move on your base, then to delay us getting here,” Paul also reviews the obvious, like repeating the excuse is absolutely essential to any sense of competence they still have. “We came under fire as we launched, then they turned their guns on our Station, trying to get us to turn around. But as soon as we approach, they reverse…”
“They’ve learned our effective ranges,” Simon elaborates bitterly, now sounding like he’s looking for wisdom or at least professional sympathy from me. “And they exploit our idealism. They know we won’t go chasing after them if they are not actively threatening, so they run at us, attack and then turn tail. And just like the Shinkyo, they learn something each time.”
“You monitored the last transmission from General Richards,” I shift the subject somewhat, sinking down into a chair and gesturing for them to join me. They sit like they’re uncomfortable being here, like they were when they first came to us, despite all the months they both spent living here, helping us. “You know I’ve been authorized to work with you again, at least to consult.”
“Only because we are the lesser of evils, Colonel,” Simon returns, barely keeping his anger in check. His gloved fists ball on the table in front of him. “It’s not just that we terrify them; we offend them. They think we are playing god with the planet, with the survivor factions…”
“The survivor factions might agree if asked,” I counter, keeping my voice level. “It’s not like you’ve been actively trying to dispel that image.”
Paul looks at me like I’ve called him something obscene, then he looks like he might try to sink down and disappear into his chair. Simon chuckles sadly, unclenching his fists and spreading his fingers on the table.
“Scary science combined with arrogance, is that it?” Simon distills, shaking his head. “The classic makings of an apocalypse?” His choice of descriptive is pointed: it was the fear of arrogant science that brought down the last Apocalypse, not the science itself. It was that same fear that apparently kept Earth away for lifetimes, and let this situation evolve as it has.
“We also read the report sent to Doctor Halley,” Paul admits quietly, deciding it’s time to change the subject almost entirely. “I am sorry, Colonel. I have come to consider you a friend in the short time that I have known you, and you have always treated us with respect and consideration, despite all of our secrecy and condescension. I can assume what Colonel Burke must mean to you given what I know of your long history together, and I myself have come to respect him. Yet you have not asked us for the thing that would save his life, and heal the other members of your team.”
“You’ve made it clear that you wouldn’t give it, not to anyone,” I remind him, not accusing. “I understand your reasons.”
“This is too important,” Paul pushes. “You aren’t just another survivor’s descendant scraping to find their own way on this world. Nor do you seek our technology to exploit for power or profit. You have become a key part of what we are today, you woke us up to our true duty and taught us how to perform it, and you are the only real bridge we have between our world and Earth. And it was us that extended your hibernation so long that it caused your current conditions.”
“Does that change things with your Council?” I ask the obvious. Neither brother answers. I look at Paul. “Would you break your own laws to heal us?”
Paul chews his lip. Simon’s face hardens, his jaw clenching.
“And would we break our own laws by accepting your help?” I shift when they still don’t answer. “If any of us were to accept your nanotech into our bodies, Earthside would make us pariah.”
“What would they do to you?” Paul wants to know specifically.
“If I were to agree to putting your nanotech into anyone under my command, they would probably arrest me and quarantine the base indefinitely,” I tell them flatly. “And Matthew would live out his days in an isolation chamber.”
“Would you flee instead?” Paul asks. “You could come to us…”
“Completely defeating what you need me to do as your so-called ‘bridge,’” I remind him, “assuming Matthew would even agree.”
“Would you accept hybridization if your life depended on it?” Simon confronts me.
I hesitate like I’ve been struck. I find I don’t have an easy answer for him. I try:
“It would depend on what was at stake,” I manage. “For myself, I really don’t know. But then I’ve been known to do some reckless things, especially if others hang in the balance.”
It’s the most honest thing I can come up with to say, and it only makes sense after I’ve actually said it. And it shocks me: Would I really choose to make myself immortal, into something very much like a god, just because I believed that I was that indispensable to saving the world?
“I don’t know…”
I feel weak, shaky, and not just because I’ve missed another night’s sleep. I feel how much my aging joints ache and how deeply tired I am and I do want to be what I was when I was young. I remember how hard it was for me to just stand in Ops and bark orders when I so badly wanted to be in that fight against the pirates myself, like I would have when I was Mike Ram the hero of the Terror War. I see Sakina, huddled in a ball with a bullet through her guts that she got trying to take on those pirates alone. And I know I would have gone and done the same thing, and not all that many of my own years ago, but I doubt my body would cooperate even if the politics would let me.
Paul gives me an empathetic smile, gets up, walks around the table and puts his gloved hand on my shoulder.
“Ask Colonel Burke. If he wants to be healed, I promise I will make it happen. And neither of you will be confined by ignorant, fearful men.”
Simon’s silence is his own agreement. They don’t wait for mine. They go back to their ship and fly off.
Chapter 5: The Road to Hell
15 June, 2116:
Sakina is being stubborn again.
Doc Ryder is threatening her with another surgery, since she’s already managed two epigastric hernias by pushing her healing abdominal muscles too far. I made things worse by joking that this time we should implant a bullet-resistant nanocarbon mesh between skin and muscle to ensure her abused guts stay put. Sakina got even quieter than usual after that, and she continues to push her obsessive “rehab” despite all cautions.
Being so badly injured has proved a greater aggravation for her than getting so badly injured. While I’m not sure she’s forgiven herself for getting shot, she’s made it clear that being down for so long and losing so much of her physicality in the bargain has been a daily trial. I’ve been shot up and blown up (and more recently sliced up) and I’ve been surly trying to recover, but I’m not nearly the physical perfectionist that Sakina is. Ryder had to keep her sedated for weeks while her surgeries healed, and threatened restraints on several occasions.
Even worse perhaps was being served by her “master,” while I cared for her through the worst of her immobility; feeding her, bathing her, and helping her move around our little room. Ryder did good work, leaving minimal incisions in the bargain, but Sakina lost a few feet of small bowel, and her right kidney and liver needed patching. And she absolutely needed to rest.
Instead, she was back at her training within two weeks, making herself move despite the pain and weakness (the latter likely being the most uncomfortably new sensation). And while she will defer to my direct orders when I am present, she’s been caught multiple times exceeding the Doctor’s strict limits when I’m off attending to actual work.
This morning I woke up at my usual time and found her already gone. Securit
y sentries tell me she’d left almost an hour before, and gone out for a “run” around the perimeter. “Running” for Sakina—between the terrain and the gravity and Sakina herself—consists more of gymnastics than actual feet alternating on ground. And with the speed she’s pushing, I expect that she’s trying to “correct” whatever mistake or weakness got her shot to begin with.
I mask up and go walking out to meet her. The regolith crunches still frozen under my boots, and I can see frost form on my coat by the time I get to the south perimeter wall.
She’s leaping and flipping and darting so fast I can barely track her, which is what she needs to be able to do to avoid anybody sighting in on her, but I think she’s actually faster now than she was before. I’m quite sure I couldn’t hit her, even with a computer-assisted ICW. She leaps down from the top of Main Battery Three when she sees me coming, and I see her convulse with pain and grip herself as she lands, but then she walks toward me like she isn’t hurt at all, her armored demon facemask hiding all but her eyes through her goggles.
“I’d have Rios get a team out to shoot at you, but I think you’d like it so much you’d want him to do it every morning,” I tell her. Then I get softer, more serious. “How does it feel?”
“Better,” she pants—and she rarely breathes hard. Her gloved hands prod the freshly repaired mail and scale over her abdomen (something Rios got both Rick and Thomasen to help him with while Sakina was still confined to bed). I’m sure she’s noticed Rick’s “upgrades,” but she hasn’t said anything other than to offer a polite but sincere thank-you. “Not good. Not acceptable. Not yet. But better.”
“Do I need to have Doctor Ryder check you out?”
“I… I don’t think so.”
“Better,” I smile. “If you’d just said ‘no,’ then you would be off to Medical.”
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 12